Writing to self-regulate

…crying, and community care

Yesterday I saw a double rainbow. I cried a lot. I managed an internal family conflict. I cried. We sorted things and it was beautiful. I watched a brilliant movie in the darkness of the cinema with my partner. It was the perfect movie for me in that exact moment. I cried some more.

Today I was excited to get back to my routine. Monday at the magical place I work.

Right now I feel refreshed, supported and cared for. I’ve had gentle chats, been snuggled by a tiny trusting kitten I call potato so he’ll know my voice and his nickname, that when he’s potato he’s in my arms.

I think that’s why I changed my name. The people who call me Wake. Who don’t question my pronouns, or my autistic nature, or my queerness…those are the people in whose presence I feel safe, and comfortable. Hearing my name said by these kinds of people it grows the softness I want in my life. I don’t always want to be on guard for the people who might feel the need to take their trauma out on me.

Today I tried, three times to find a package. I didn’t know what name would be on it. Or what it was. I sent the lovely gentleman away with instructions to come back tomorrow when the full time staff was in. I love this man. He is elderly and kind, and as far as I knew had a hearing impairment so getting my message across to him is sometimes difficult. But I do so with care and respect.

The fourth time he came back with his daughter and she came ready for a fight.

I explained to her that I’d tried to find the package and didn’t have much to go on, and the line at the cash continued to get longer and longer.

She kept saying names at me. I should have asked her to write them down. She told me I was making her dad crazy. I mirrored her language. I said that the fact that the little card that was put in their mailbox was making me crazy too. I was trying to be gentle. To identify.

That was her trigger.

She yelled at me that her father has Alzheimer’s. Which I did not know. So by giving him the card and instructions he didn’t understand he kept re-enacting the same getting mail procedures over and over.

She told me not to put the note back in her mailbox. (I hadn’t. I’m not the mail person, only the person who hands out the mail, which is normally itemized by number)

She left.

But it was intense.

I was already holding my countenance together with metaphorical glitter glue and sunshine.

The woman right after that saw how distressed I was and she said, “SMILE” in a sort of jovial way.

That was my trigger.

I tried, through tears, to tell her I couldn’t. That I wanted to but being told to smile in an instance like this one created the opposite effect. I told her I was autistic. The woman behind her says, “no you’re a person with autism” which is another trigger for me. I identify as an Autist. I am AUTISTIC. It is not a disease to be treated or a disorder I have. It just explains why I interact differently in the world, because it wasn’t made for people like me.

Thankfully I was able to express all of this as gently as possible and tell them that I just needed a few breaths.

I texted my bosses. One of them came down to ask if I needed a hug (a co-regulation technique I can employ if I feel safe with the people). I accepted the hug. My text have given my bosses the necessary understanding of the situation so I didn’t have to verbally express through tears what had happened.

My box found the mail. He offered to walk it over and chat with the people. I was so grateful.

Then my other boss came down with her new little kitten, that little darling Potato, and I snuggled him until I felt regulated. He calmed my entire nervous system so quickly. I was healed by a cat. bAd by the care of my bosses. And by the gentleness of the humans in the space.

The hardest part is that I didn’t want to hurt anyone, or disappoint anyone, and I felt awful not knowing that my elderly gentleman customer whom I see every week, that he had Alzheimer’s. My Memere had Alzheimer’s. I would have managed the interaction differently had I had access to that information.

Not knowing, I did my best to do what I could.

My boss brought out a sign.

…

I’ve been on both sides of this dynamic. Triggered by angry customer service people (I was not angry in my job today, just distressed at not being able to help) and triggered by people I’m serving.

I use the word triggered very specifically to mean that my nervous system goes into fight, flight, fawn or any of the many other reactions that happen on a nervous system level. A side effect of the trauma I’ve experienced in the past.

But I am writing from a place of calm. Of having done the grounding work to keep on working for the day. I can feel that tonight I will be exhausted. But right now I’m just absurdly grateful for my friends who own this shop (my bosses), for the tiny potato kitten who gently leant me his calm, the customers who saw that my intentions were kind, and that I will not be fired for having an overwhelmed moment.

It is nearly time to drive home. This week I am starting a spell of intention by sending out 27 books to people whom I trust, the original printed, unedited manuscript of All The Happy Endings, my tiny novelette, so that it can exist in the world imperfectly, and beyond the confines of my phone.

27 people have agreed to hold on to the copies (they are allowed to read it, but don’t have to) in order to help me move forward on this project. Publishing my first novelette. I believe in it so much. I love my characters. I know in my heart that this little book is strange and not for everyone, and in that, I’m ok too. I don’t want everyone to read it. I want it to find a home in the bags of people who are craving joy in times of grief, but also understanding. Under the pillows of queer people who need to be reminded that our existence is not only an act of resistance, but also an act of hope. On the bookshelves of folks who want their sweet queer supernatural books to have the gentle oddity of book-friendship.

I am now focusing on the thing I’m going to do this week, and letting go of today’s hard thing.

I hope your today has more rainbows than tears, but if it’s more tears than rainbows, know that I get it. I’m here. I am grateful that you’re out in the world doing what you can.

Heart,

Wake

(A picture my mom sent me today, that my brother took, of the Aurora Borealis (the northern lights) this morning on his way to work, up north, in Manitoba)