Talking to spiders

…and talking about why I do it

If you’re not a spider-person, I understand. I won’t put any pictures here to scare you. But today has already been a weirdly overwhelming day and it’s only 10am and I think writing this out will calm my nervous system.

But if you’d rather not read about spiders, and my deep love of them, and why I chat with them, it’s ok. Know I appreciate you. Know that I understand. I’ll start my rumination under the 💖💖💖

(A picture to remind me that I was also at the beach building rock dominoes, just on Saturday, laughing, listening to the waves and enjoying being together. That was only three days ago)

💖💖💖

Maybe I shouldn’t start with spiders. Maybe I should start with I’m feeling stressed, so I can be honest with myself and then walk myself up and out of this valley of overwhelm and anxiety.

That sounds like a good place.

Before I knew I was autistic I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, with OCD, and told I was co-dependent.

Labels are weird. I sometimes cling to them like life rafts in an ocean.

But for a long time, I thought I had an enzyme disorder that made me this way. Because of this enzyme disorder that my mother discovered when I was 11 years old, that she also diagnosed herself with, I wasn’t supposed to have tyramine. Turns out tyramine is in soooo many things.

•chocolate

•coffee

•leftover food

•ripe fruit (especially bananas)

•poppy seeds

•crack cocaine (when my mother was reading the list to me, for the thousandth time when I was 19 she said this cavalierly, like I was going to actually go and find crack and do it, she told me it would likely kill me when I laughed because I wasn’t going to do crack…and so I took it seriously. No crack cocaine, mom. I promise. And I have kept that promise.)

•Adrenaline (even my own)

💖💖💖

For most of my life, up until my 30s, when I began to notice definite signs of my own autism by looking at my life through an alternate lens, I tried to avoid these things.

…and if I had a meltdown, or shutdown, or a bad bout of RSD (Rejection sensitive dysphoria) which would lead me into near mental break downs my mom would say, “well what have you eaten? Have you done anything really exciting or surprising to spike your own adrenaline?”

💖💖💖

I explained to my friends that my enzyme disorder made me weirdly oppositional, advice-adverse.

I remember meeting a lot of people with all the same things I was experiencing saying…oh! Maybe I have this enzyme-disorder too.

It’s possible that they were all neurodivergent like me. All of us were looking for answers then. WHY WERE WE LIKE THIS. Why can I handle things some days, and some days not? Why am I so much calmer surrounded by nature. Why am I hyper-vigilante around people and constantly misunderstanding their intentions.

The enzyme disorder did not explain why I was unable to talk about much other than dinosaurs from age 6-12 years old. It didn’t explain a lot of things.

(I think I might be doing the thing where I go back too far when what I really want to be doing is talking about spiders)

Restarting.

Today I am overwhelmed because:

•capitalism

•my friends are having a hard time and I love them

•my youngest child is in the city, at school, just having been diagnosed with celiac’s disease and it feels like part of my heart is wandering in the wild, and I can’t protect it. (This is something I am working on, and taking responsibility for, and not letting it leak down to my wondrous child who is doing a brilliant job of being independent, managing his emotions, and reaching out if he wants to process)

•my eldest is dealing with a bout of hyper-vigilant anxiety around rabies (and we’ve talked about it, co-regulated, eaten good food together, and his Dad and he have found him a new therapist. Yay!)

•My partner is managing the stresses of working and being in debt for the first time in their life. Having a mortgage and a family when they used to only have to worry about themself. It’s a lot, and I really empathize. I love them and am grateful for our ability to talk about things gently and calmly. It’s pretty amazing, actually.

•The world, the election across the border, the hearing the thoughts of thousands of people as I’ve tried to go back on social media in advance of my return…it all triggers my co-dependent need to help EVERYONE. My therapist once told me my co-dependency was so bad because it wasn’t related to one person, but the entire world, and that it was hilariously unmanageable to think I could make that big a difference. He reminded me, and I can hear his voice, saying choose one thing, a few things, and try to make your corner of the world better. Start small. Know you are not a renewable resource without renewing yourself.

Oh wow. Such good advice.

This year. It was supposed to be about renewing myself. About taking a fallow season after five years of running a creative community space, after Covid, after my stroke. About taking time away from social media, writing letters, connecting in small c ways that were manageable and didn’t trigger massive overwhelm and shut down.

For the most part I did that.

But as much as I want to run away and live in a cave sometimes, I do not do well in social isolation.

So I found my people here. I really have. In this new home away from my heart-home.

I have sunk in. I have found two beautiful jobs that fill my heart, even if they don’t pad my wallet. (They pay me well, I just can’t work full time because of my diminished capacity and need to recharge)

I have made friends. I have stayed connected with people I love, through writing letters, voice messages, virtual tea chats, phone calls, this newsletter.

(I’ve done it again. SPIDERS! You wanted to talk about spiders.)

I’m going to go into the specifics of today. The why I’m overwhelmed right now.

💙🌊💙 (meditative moment and pause)

*breathe*

*my feet are touching the ground as I write this*

*the Amelie soundtrack is playing*

*I am here. I am safe.*

💙🌊💙

Spiders in a moment.

I couldn’t sleep last night. Again. I stayed up scrolling. I added a thousand worries to my plate.

This morning my phone rang. In July my car was damaged in a hit and run. It has taken until today for it to be fixed.

The call was from the car place.

My car is fixed. They are open until 5pm.

I asked them if I could get it Thursday, seeing as how I am the only employee working for the next two days.

The employee says, you’ll have to talk with the insurance company, they usually like it picked up ASAP.

As soon as possible is Thursday, I say.

Talk with your insurance people, she says.

So my morning begins with a stressful interaction. I try not to go into shutdown. I have to work. I love my job.

I snuggle my dog. I sort my feelings with my partner. I find out my menstrual bleeding has begun, which is such a relief (even if a stressor) because the week before it starts I am less able to emotionally regulate. Which explains the big feelings of anxiety and overwhelm, if though I track it and know these symptoms intimately the stress still feels…real. It’s hard to convince myself it’s not when things are actually hard.

I feed my dog. I kiss my partner goodbye.

I go outside. Where my spider, Charlotte, is still missing. I’ve been watching her grow up since she was small. She’s been in a web just adjacent to my porch for months. Her and I have a deal, she doesn’t block my path and I turn on the light at night so she can catch a few meals. In the beginning I kept having to move her to the side. Every morning I’d nearly walk through her web. And I’d move her gently with some kind reminding that her web would be safer if I didn’t have to destroy it every morning.

Soon she learned to build her web just adjacent to the path I walk out my door. And every morning I’d greet her. Sometimes she would run away. In the beginning.

But then slowly, she recognized me. I’d stop, say hello, ask her how her night was.

I chose one spider to love.

I love her siblings to the trees next to the house because I couldn’t worry about them all, always. They are living their best lives and I say a gentle hello to them as well.

But Charlotte and I. We have a thing.

The other day my partner came out and she ran away, and I realized that it was real. She felt safe with me.

I walked up the steps last week and she started to run up her line and I said “don’t worry, it’s just me.” And she stopped and she came back to her web.

And I was shocked.

I sent a voice message to my best friend.

“My spider trusts me.”

I cried.

It was a little thing. A small part of the world where I felt valued and like I was making a difference.

Then on Sunday night, we came home to find that a mayoral candidate had left a pamphlet.

I didn’t notice until Monday morning that Charlotte was missing.

I thought about all the things that could have happened. Had he scared her? Or worse…

I talked it out with my partner knowing that I couldn’t control this part of the world. That she is a wild spider.

But I still felt…grief. She was a constant in my life. Charlotte listened to my morning worries, my joy, and didn’t mind when I was overwhelmed, or overly-happy. She just listened.

Last night she wasn’t there.

This morning. She wasn’t there.

Then I realized that I knew what she looked like. She was the roundest and most well fed spider. The rest of her sibling were lean web making machines. But Charlotte lead a rather domestic life. Fed by the night light she was globular. A wondrous orb.

So. Instead of giving up. I searched. I looked in the shrubbery next to the house where all the other spiders were.

And there I found her, in her new web, a well placed web.

And when I walked up, she ran…but I said.

“It’s me. I’m so glad you’re still here. I love you.”

…and she stopped and turned around.

And all of a sudden, my corner, my tiny corner of the world was alright. For this moment. Things became manageable again.

I breathed.

I didn’t realize that part of me was holding my breath wondering what had happened to her.

…and I know that spiders, they don’t last forever. They have their season. I think Charlotte needed to move so she’d feel safer.

…and there probably some things I need to do so I feel safer. So I’m going to think on that. But for right now I’m just going to actually be present in my work, my day to day minutes, and enjoy the human contact provided by the glorious bookstore I work in.

I appreciate you,

Wake (they/them)

P.S. I come from a long line of wondrous humans who love spiders so I come by it naturally. Maybe I’ll talk about my grandma and her tarantulas some day.

P.P.S. If you read all that. Thank you for taking the time to watch as I processed in writing. If you are only reading this, I completely understand. I appreciate you too.

(Me, a self-portrait of the pinkness that brings me joy, and the room that I’m going to turn into a complete art filled space now that we’ve decided we are staying in this home)