My Personal Delta
Photo by Olga Subach on Unsplash
If it isn’t obvious by now, I’m neurodivergent. I grew up in a home that didn’t respect that aspect of the mind until I was an adult, and even today we don’t talk about it much. It’s easy to just let everyone deal with their own stuff.
A common theme you’ll hear from me is self-awareness. Not that I’m an expert in the practice, but it seems pretty obvious that until you can recognize something when it occurs, you’re doomed to continue suffering through it. This has a myriad of comorbidities, such as the humility to admit when you’re wrong and the strength to persevere through it.
It’s hard. And that’s coming from someone who feels they have it on the easier end of the spectrum.
This is a memory about my first step into self-awareness.
March 2013
It was a foggy morning, thick with Texas summer. I drove with the windows down going sixty-five on northbound I-35. A dim sunrise attempted to pierce the veil of mist and sleep - it’s no Danny Ocean, but it was almost as handsome trying.
I was twenty-three, and things could’ve been better. Idle time was spent wondering which was worse in Austin, the rent or the traffic. Those kinds of thoughts helped to stave off panic attacks until I could down a couple whiskeys and a lungful of hash. Cheap and efficient, that was me.
Commercials drove me nuts. Couldn’t listen to the radio without a dozen deep sighs. I tried one of those FM tuners that broadcast your phone to your radio, but they absolutely sucked. That was why I bought a car with a cassette player, so I could use one of those aux-to-tape adapters. Like I said, cheap and efficient.
Music blared. Lyrics clashed with clawed thoughts. A sip of coffee brought a bit of fire into my veins. We all need our morning rituals.
HONK! HOOOONK!
That fire in my veins turned to a blaze. Clawed thoughts chased away by a thousand pins in my brain. The world shrank as the horn rose and declined in pitch when the eighteen-wheeler passed.
“I didn’t do anything!”
I tried to wrangle my mind, hog tie it into submission. Tears prickled my eyes. My breath quickened.
This is how it happened. Every time. No control. And for what? A honk?
What the fuck is wrong with me?
I was spiraling into myself, crushed under the weight of confused pain.
Then, a tiny pinprick of an idea. So simple, it seemed ridiculous. This feels similar to anger, so what if I try to solve it like anger?
It can be a real mind-fuck to force relaxation. Count to ten, breath deep and slow.
I did. And again.
A third time.
When I’d reached my exit, I wasn’t back to status quo, but I felt much better. More than that, I was relieved.
I’d done it. I’d actually saved myself from falling down the pit.
Pride washed over me as I rolled into the Chase bank parking lot, a feeling I’d almost forgotten. Then, a realization followed, and my mind boiled over with ideas.
I wanted to rush home right then, put my plans into action, but I was out of sick days. Maybe more important, this wasn’t something that would change overnight, anyway.
With one final, calming breath, I turned off the car.
∆
The day passed like molasses through a coffee stirrer. I arrived home with summer sweat staining my ill-fitting blue button-up, and walked through the door into a vaulted living room that was just a few degrees cooler than outside. On my left, the sliding doors, obscured by my TV, overlooked the greenway – a river lined with a disc golf course. The room was dominated by the sectional couch my mom had forced me to take when they wanted a new one. Between it and the square coffee table, there was barely room to walk.
I continued through, past the bathroom to my disheveled bedroom and disrobed. After I peeled my undershirt off, letting it slap to the floor, the fan was finally able to do its work in cooling me down. I basked in it, breathing heavily from the stair climb to my apartment. With a final deep breath and hard exhale, I got to work. Today wouldn’t be about blacking out until tomorrow. Well, not for the moment at least.
I had plans.
I didn’t know what to call it, but my brain did a lot of weird things. The obvious stuff, like depression, was easy to put a label on, but then there were subtler presentations, like my fascination with notebooks. I must have had a couple dozen, and those are just the ones I hadn’t lost.
I opened my closet and retrieved a box from the shelf above my head. The items inside shuffled with a dull rasp as I swung it around to lay it on the shirt still splayed on my bed. Inside was my collection – a rainbow of colors and a smattering of art styles in nearly every format on the U.S. market. My heart sang just looking at them.
Seeing notebooks in a store is one thing, but this was my curated collection. Each one, explicitly chosen for some reason I couldn’t access. Now that I had a specific reason, I was worried picking would be difficult.
It wasn’t.
A rounded corner, cardboard brown, caught my eye. Pulling it out revealed an illustration of a hand giving the peace sign and maroon elastic holding it closed. The inside pages were a crisp, blank, cream color. It was perfect.
I put on gym shorts, grabbed a pen from my work shirt pocket, and went back to the living room to sit down.
This couch may be annoying but it’s comfortable as shit.
I’d tried journaling before, plenty of times. It never worked. The idea of scheduled, mandatory writing conflicted with my brain in some way that I couldn’t mitigate. This would be different.
I flipped open the notebook revealing the inside cover, “This journal makes trees!” Followed by a mission statement with character. Probably one of the reasons I’d bought it. Cute.
I clicked the pen open and pressed blue ink to the first page.
I intend this journal to depict any given moment in my mind.
This journal was begun in March of 2013
William Torgerson
I may not understand how I work, but this morning showed me I could have an effect. I don’t have control over everything, I can’t stop pain from occurring, but I can deal with it with more grace.
“Time to start decoding my brain,” I promised myself.
