I've just gotten home from my week and a half trip out to Connecticut to help my parents move. Now both in their 60s, they're politely and thoughtfully moving themselves into an independent living facility/retirement home. The place is such that if they should become unable to maintain independent living, the management will provide helping staff for them. If that becomes too little help, they may be moved into an assisted living unit, and eventually, if necessary, into an intensive care area. Basically, they've made it so that I, their closest child, will not need to worry about their living accommodations and care, right up until they die.
To facilitate this, though, they had to embark on a major stuff-downsizing campaign. So my mother spent almost the entire summer pruning the various things she'd collecting in her years of life. Old art projects from my childhood, scads of paperwork, sheet music, odds and ends, etc. This was difficult for her, because her natural impulse is to keep everything for the memories and nostalgia and the "in case we need this" impulse. However, she's been working on reversing this tendency for at least a decade now, and she's gotten much better at letting things go. By the time I showed up, there were less than 30 boxes left to go through, at least ten of which were partially or entirely mine.
So I spent a lot of time in the basement this trip, with my head full of half-remembered memories as I sifted through years of my life stored in battered cardboard boxes. I threw out or donated most of what I found, but as I did, I must have absorbed some of my high school mindset. The various notebooks I went through contained some of my high school dilemmas, rants, and miseries. And of course I was staying in my old room, with its peculiar odor, in the old house, with all the same noises and quirks. I soon even reached a familiar state of sleep deprivation, which plagued me through late high school.
In short, it's sort of like I was transported partially back to my high school years, sans that I knew I was autistic and that sudden sharp noises and anxious people hurt and wore on me.
So maybe it's not surprising that when I finally got home to my apartment, I only half-recognized the wood flooring. And my computer's mouse and keyboard felt unfamiliar, despite that I do most of my work on it. And most upsettingly to me, that I only half-recognized my spouse's face, even as I did recognize his voice and demeanor.
It's not that I hadn't seen him during the trip. We'd used a video phone system to chat for a half hour or longer every evening I was gone. I was pretty worn out every night, though, especially towards the end. Maybe I wasn't looking as much as I could have been? Either way, when I arrived back and was summarily confused by my lack of complete recognition, I don't think he noticed or cared. He was happy to see me and helped me carry my luggage back, which was why I was able to contemplate the flooring in the foyer, and my keyboard and mouse later.
I guess what floors me about this whole experience is that it was only a week and a half. I really wasn't gone long. But now my normal life feels strange. A book I read recently suggested that autistic brains are much more plastic (changeable) than neurotypical brains, so perhaps my brain was already shifting to accommodate the stressful circumstances I put it in?
I've had this kind of dissociation in small portions before, where I'd left off playing a computer game for almost a year. When I came back to it, the game interface and mechanics were simultaneously familiar and unfamiliar. But I don't think I've ever had the dissociation on such a grand scale. My fingers are unerringly typing out this post on my computer's keyboard, and it no longer feels so unfamiliar now. So the confusion will pass, I'm sure.
Hopefully soon. I have adulting to do: bills to pay, car registration to finalize, passport to renew, blog to keep up with... And soon, I'll need to incorporate my various personal items from my parents' house into this apartment, too. I think the process may take longer than it would otherwise. Normally I have more structure to my life than I do right now... because of the extreme amounts of stress, I stopped playing my usual computer game (and won't be returning to it; it eats too much time) and quit one of my volunteer jobs. I'm going to have to find some other things to do. In the meantime, I guess things will feel strange for awhile.
To facilitate this, though, they had to embark on a major stuff-downsizing campaign. So my mother spent almost the entire summer pruning the various things she'd collecting in her years of life. Old art projects from my childhood, scads of paperwork, sheet music, odds and ends, etc. This was difficult for her, because her natural impulse is to keep everything for the memories and nostalgia and the "in case we need this" impulse. However, she's been working on reversing this tendency for at least a decade now, and she's gotten much better at letting things go. By the time I showed up, there were less than 30 boxes left to go through, at least ten of which were partially or entirely mine.
So I spent a lot of time in the basement this trip, with my head full of half-remembered memories as I sifted through years of my life stored in battered cardboard boxes. I threw out or donated most of what I found, but as I did, I must have absorbed some of my high school mindset. The various notebooks I went through contained some of my high school dilemmas, rants, and miseries. And of course I was staying in my old room, with its peculiar odor, in the old house, with all the same noises and quirks. I soon even reached a familiar state of sleep deprivation, which plagued me through late high school.
In short, it's sort of like I was transported partially back to my high school years, sans that I knew I was autistic and that sudden sharp noises and anxious people hurt and wore on me.
So maybe it's not surprising that when I finally got home to my apartment, I only half-recognized the wood flooring. And my computer's mouse and keyboard felt unfamiliar, despite that I do most of my work on it. And most upsettingly to me, that I only half-recognized my spouse's face, even as I did recognize his voice and demeanor.
It's not that I hadn't seen him during the trip. We'd used a video phone system to chat for a half hour or longer every evening I was gone. I was pretty worn out every night, though, especially towards the end. Maybe I wasn't looking as much as I could have been? Either way, when I arrived back and was summarily confused by my lack of complete recognition, I don't think he noticed or cared. He was happy to see me and helped me carry my luggage back, which was why I was able to contemplate the flooring in the foyer, and my keyboard and mouse later.
I guess what floors me about this whole experience is that it was only a week and a half. I really wasn't gone long. But now my normal life feels strange. A book I read recently suggested that autistic brains are much more plastic (changeable) than neurotypical brains, so perhaps my brain was already shifting to accommodate the stressful circumstances I put it in?
I've had this kind of dissociation in small portions before, where I'd left off playing a computer game for almost a year. When I came back to it, the game interface and mechanics were simultaneously familiar and unfamiliar. But I don't think I've ever had the dissociation on such a grand scale. My fingers are unerringly typing out this post on my computer's keyboard, and it no longer feels so unfamiliar now. So the confusion will pass, I'm sure.
Hopefully soon. I have adulting to do: bills to pay, car registration to finalize, passport to renew, blog to keep up with... And soon, I'll need to incorporate my various personal items from my parents' house into this apartment, too. I think the process may take longer than it would otherwise. Normally I have more structure to my life than I do right now... because of the extreme amounts of stress, I stopped playing my usual computer game (and won't be returning to it; it eats too much time) and quit one of my volunteer jobs. I'm going to have to find some other things to do. In the meantime, I guess things will feel strange for awhile.
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