Neurodivergence, trauma, masking and protection mechanisms
I think something I find most confusing about being a hyper sensitive neurodivergent dreamer, is that throughout life these traits of vulnerability have consistently seen me be attacked.
So as a result I had to develop extremely hard and insensitive defensive mechanisms.
But I guess that is a fairly normal trauma response.
It just causes such cognitive dissonance.
Do I need to preemptively project a super cold, hard and independent energy to warn off potential attackers, who without fail always materialise?
Or do I project how I feel inside which is soft and vulnerable?
Or then I swap through moods like colours in the spectrum, should I hide that or be real with it?
Or then I react to and amplify the energy I pick up from different people. How should I best manage that?
Life in some ways was much easier when I used to constantly wear masks and manage my public image.
It feels much more free inside now to be honest and real.
But it also just feels like authenticity is just feeding ammunition to people who will attack me in future.
Then there is the fact that I have been given opportunity to work through massive amounts of trauma and so I feel a need to try and speak out and advocate for others who are not yet as far along on their journies.
But that then makes me a target for the status quo who want every thing to remain in neat boxes and polished masks, and ways of being that strangle the life out of all humanity but especially out of the creative and sensitive people.
I feel like a mess.
It feels like it would be much safer to have a carefully curated public image.
It would feel safer not to show all the weird and shadowy parts of my personality.
But on a deeper level I feel safer and more authentic when I am not hiding behind carefully curated public personas.
But this authenticity is anxiety inducing because I feel that by showing my weak sides, my non-socially desirable sides that I will be rejected, ridiculed and discriminated against.
Part of me doesn't care that I will be attacked for being real and authentic and flawed but then I know that I will have to go into a defensive mode when I am attacked and that will make me hard and insensitive when I would rather stay soft and sensitive.
The greater my ability to get cold and defend myself, the more I feel safe to be warm to people.
But then I worry that I won't come across as safe or approachable to other people because I have this ability to be cold and defend myself and the vulnerable from attack.
Social anxiety is so much harder to manage when you are not masking and carefully curating your public image.
Vulnerability about how you feel is also made harder when you have experienced a lot of really dark and crazy things that normal people have not ever experienced. Especially when you are highly sensitive and empath like, like I am.
I pick up and can reembody the energy and emotion of each person I have ever formed an emotional bond with.
That means I have all of these really intense emotional experiences that come flooding out of me at different times.
The emotions of the 13 year old meth addict I worked with for a long time.
The emotions of people who have suffered terrible horrific abuse.
The emotions of refugees who have escaped warzones and the death of family members.
The emotions of a person who was made into a heroin addict when they were 9.
The emotions of refugees who physically sewed their mouths shut with needle and thread in hunger strike because of the crazy conditions they suffered.
These are just a few windows into the intense emotions that I have soaked up over the years.
Emotions that sometimes come flooding out when I am not carefully curating my public image.
I don't know if that is also a neurodivergent thing, but I find that my self censorship mode is either hard on or hard off, its very difficult to find a middle ground.
If I am censoring my public image then I cant do creative thinking because my self censorship circuits are active and if I am creative then it is almost impossible to self censor because everything just pours out.
Life is full of dillemas.
But there are very few places in machine society where neurodivergent people can turn off the self censorship circuits and hence allow creativity to flow.