The Little Prince and the Fox

When I was hanging out with one of my good non-binary/trans-masculine friends here on Saturday, they made a very insightful comment about one of the important aspects in the relationships among us in our gender-expansive group and particularly between those of us who feel similarly a little more trans-masculine — namely, that we can safely and comfortably “practice being dudes”. 

I think my friend is right. I have been instinctively appreciating this aspect of our friendship without fully seeing it explicitly. And after yesterday’s outing with one of my closest (cis-male) climbing buddies here, I see why this lovely aspect of “practicing being a dude” has been mostly implicit for me: because, to a certain extent, I have had the fortune to practice it for most of my life thanks to the people I’ve encountered. 

I definitely had many — too many — people who were close and important to me treat me like a girl, and then eventually like a woman, and try to force me into those “roles” in a very harmful way: my whole family of origin (not only my nuclear family, but also most of my enlarged family on both sides); the (cis-male) partner with whom I was together for a while at the end of grad school and for many years afterwards; several professional environments.

These experiences and environments have been very harmful and toxic for me, but I have also had the fortune to encounter many people and environments who didn’t (mis)gender me at all. For most of my life I have had the tendency to hang out with boys as friends and despite some crushes here and there I’ve often been able to have very good friendships with them, being seen and treated just as myself, as a person, as a buddy, and I’ve thus felt like “just one of them” very often. Many of my hobbies and interests have also been conducive to being around boys/men and most of the time I’ve had the fortune to not be treated any differently, to not feel any different from them. I’ve had boyfriends and romantic/sexual partners who didn’t (mis)gender me — I tend to instinctively go for guys who will see and treat me like a “boy” in the ways that feel good & appropriate to me. In grad school, despite being definitely in the minority as an AFAB person, I felt and was treated as “gender-neutral” in a good sense, in the sense that we were all just physicists, colleagues, buddies. 

I think the worst experiences of being (mis)gendered were while I was growing up and thus dependent on my family and then, as an adult, with that one partner and in several professional environments. I remember the shock of leaving grad school and “entering the real world”: I felt so uncomfortable, missing so many aspects of grad school, but I couldn’t really place or explain a lot of it… Now I see that one aspect I was missing so intensely was the comfortable, safe “gender-neutral” feeling from grad school vs. the constant (mis)gendering that came afterwards (and had come before). I find it quite ironic that one of the professional environments where I felt the most (mis)gendering and where I got most of the unwanted attention was in the open-minded, liberal, “we-accept-everyone-just-as-they-are” academic world in California…  

But as my friend said on Saturday, now we have comfortable, safe environments where we can “practice being dudes”, and fortunately I’m able to do so, once again, with many persons and in several settings here, including my climbing buddies, which feels really nice. It’s something I’ve experienced before, but hadn’t had in a long time, so it’s particularly refreshing, albeit also weird, to be able to experience it again. It feels a bit like a finding a treasured object that one had lost and almost given up — when one finds it again, one is even more afraid of losing it a second time… 

“It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.” [Lou Holtz]

This quote came up a few months ago in one of the guided meditations I often do in the morning and it has been coming back to my mind frequently in these days — it has been feeling particularly appropriate for my current emotions or situation.

A little over a month ago, I began to look for a new counselor to  start doing psychotherapy again. One of the main, and very intentional, reasons was the emotional overload I had been experiencing in the past months and the need of support in that emotional overwhelm — in other words, the need for professional help in “carrying my load” (or, at least, part of it). 

I think I’ve found a good therapist for me now. We’ve done only three sessions, two of which this week: I explicitly asked them for an extra session this week because I knew I was carrying a particularly heavy, or tricky, load for which I was feeling the need for extra help. 

Both sessions this week were a lot of work, and the one on Tuesday was particularly intense. It was my work, my load. I wasn’t asking or expecting my therapist to carry it for me but, rather, to carry it together with me for those two hours, and to help me find an easier or less painful way of carrying it by myself afterwards. In fact that’s what they did, and that’s what felt so good, albeit intense and hard work, about the sessions. And that’s why I feel they’re a really good counselor or, at least, a good fit for me now. 

There are a few interrelated loads that I am carrying at the moment, but for one in particular I need(ed) help to find a better way of carrying it, as if readjusting a load in my knapsack or on the back of my motorcycle, readjusting it so it sits better, so that it’s less cumbersome, less tiring, less painful. 

For this particular load, the key way for me to carry it in a way does not “break me down” or doesn’t burden me or hurt me has been by embracing it more wholly; and, especially, by embracing more fully the fact that it is taking longer than expected to lighten this load. And that it might even be part of the many things that I will carry with me forever, most of which have become joyful memories rather than painful burdens that I carry around in that backpack that is my life, that is me. 

This load has been there, in shifting degrees, for over three years now. Fortunately, it hasn’t encumbered me or blocked me from doing my own things or stopped me from moving on, but it has been painful sometimes. On the other hand, though, it has brought me exceptional growth — and this growth has also come from repeatedly choosing to embrace this load rather than ditch it. 

Three years ago, a person I met in a professional context invited me to go climbing at the gym together. Not only because of the professional connection but also because of the clear yet unspoken mutual attraction between us, I was very undecided whether to accept the invitation or not, so I asked some of my closest friends for advice. They all agreed that going climbing together at the gym would be totally appropriate, so that wouldn’t be the issue, but that the question was more how I felt about doing it. One friend’s response, in particular, I will never forget. He is one of my best friends from California, a very dear and special friend to me, as well as a very intelligent and insightful person and someone who knows me very well. He said to me, “If you decide to accept this person’s invitation to go climbing together, you will be putting yourself in a situation and trying a type of relationship that are totally new to you, and for how I know you, I think this will broaden your horizons and bring you extra growth. It will be tricky, but I know you can handle it well no matter what happens. And it might be painful, but you are resilient”. 

That friend was right. 

I eventually did accept the invitation and go climbing at the gym with that (other) person. The situation did, indeed, get very tricky. In fact, it led to a relationships that has been in many ways confusing, hard to handle, even painful or frustrating for over three years now. But it has also given me moments of intense joy and feelings of liveliness like few others. And it has brought me, and is still bringing me, immense growth. 

A lot of this growth I have really felt and seen particularly in the past few weeks. And this growth has been possible for me precisely because I have made the choice, over and over, to not ditch this load but to work with it and try to find better ways of carrying it. This reiterated decision hasn’t been easy, partly because of external influences — some of them coming from social/cultural conditioning, some of them come from well-meaning friends — of the “need to forget about this situation” or “just get over this person”. But while moving on with my life, and maybe precisely because of moving on with my life, my gut has been drawing me back to this situation with this person, to gradual attempts at adjusting the situation — adjusting the load to carry it in a better way. 

I have learned so much, and I am still learning so much, from finding better ways to carry this load, from shifting and readjusting it, that in many senses I am grateful for it. That tricky, difficult, sometimes frustrating or painful, but also wonderfully joyful and enlivening situation with that person has taught me so much about myself, about my boundaries, about tracing my boundaries clearly and getting them respected, about stating my needs, about interacting respectfully & empathetically with other people. But maybe most of all it has taught me about the beautiful experiences and advantages that can come from embracing the challenge, the adventure, the risk of “putting yourself in a situation and trying a type of relationship that are totally new to you” — as that dear friend of mine said to me three years ago. As that good friend foresaw, it has indeed broadened my horizons and brought me extra growth, and for that I am grateful and happy. 

This gratitude and happiness, though, are possible also — or maybe only — thanks to finding ways of carrying the ensuing load so that instead of breaking me it will strengthen and enrich me.

[Trigger warning: boundary violation; victim shaming/blaming; unwanted attention.]

It feels paradoxical, like an oxymoron, yet it is real: this morning I feel a muddle of emotions, yet extreme clarity as well. Maybe it’s just too soon to express this clarity — but I need to jot down some of these emotions, so I will. 

For a while now, on and off for months, I know I have been getting close — closer & closer — to some real “biggies” for me, mostly concerning unwanted attention, boundary violation, and victim shaming/blaming. 

I’m still getting plenty of unwanted attention. Each of those instances maybe are not too bad, per se. But they are, de facto, a form of violating boundaries and they trigger old trauma for me. 

My family has decided, for no good reason, that I’ve had enough time of “silence” with them since asking them to suspend communication last spring, and have violated my boundaries twice in less than two weeks, the latest just yesterday. Which has been extremely upsetting for me for plenty of reasons. 

But on top of these instances of violating boundaries and/or unwanted attention, there is also shaming/blaming of the victim. When I was verbally and emotionally harassed by those two violent men this past spring, here was still someone who claimed I instigated it because of how I am (although I had never initiated any communication with either of those men). There are still people who insinuate or straight out say that it was my spontaneous friendliness and/or natural attractiveness that led the (cis male) students to hit on me at university (although I have always been extremely professional, sometimes even to the limit of rigidity). I’m sure there would still be plenty of persons saying that it’s my fault that I get unwanted attention because of my cool motorcycle or the way I look/dress at the gym. And plenty of people who blame me for being cruel (selfish, self-centered, immature — you name it) for not communicating with my family of origin. 

All of that blaming and shaming hurts. It’s harmful, toxic, inappropriate and even dangerous. 

But today I’m not only hurt by all these comments and attitudes or implications: today I’m also pissed off. 

Boundaries are boundaries, and they are sacred. They must be respected. 

And victims of boundary violation and/or unwanted attention (of any form) must be protected, supported, offered a safe space: not blamed or shamed. 

Regardless of how I am dressed, when I walk into a gym or a classroom or down the street, I deserve respect as a human being — as anyone else does, too. 

Regardless of the reasons why I need to suspend communication with my family and/or the time it might take me to be ready to communicate with them again, my boundaries are legitimate and must be respected. Period.

[Trigger warning (depending on how one interprets the lyrics of the song): body image/shape; unwanted attention; objectification; … ]

The song “Troublemaker doppelgänger” by Lucy Dacus is one of those that really gives me a visceral sense of the expression “to pull at the strings of one heart”. This song pulls at the strings of my heart, touches something deep in my soul, in my gut, even physically. 

I discovered this song two or three years ago as it was on one of the pre-given playlists on Spotify. I liked it immediately from the musical standpoint, for its melody, its rhythm, and the singer’s beautiful voice. But then the lyrics also started to catch my attention and touch something deep inside me, already back then. 

A few evenings ago, this song came back into my mind, for no apparent reason… And yesterday evening, as I put on my Spotify playlist to exercise at the gym, the first song up was “Troublemaker doppelgänger” by Lucy Dacus… 

When I got home last night, I played it on my computer for better audio, and paid more attention to the lyrics, which I share below.

For me now, these lyrics, these words, these images, are beautiful yet piercingly and almost unbearably close and meaningful — for my own self as well as one or two persons I know and care about deeply… 

“Is that a hearse or a limousine?

It’s like I’ve seen it on the TV screen, oh-oh

She had the body of a beauty queen

Put on a pedestal for good hygiene, oh-oh

I saw a girl that looked like you

And I wanted to tell everyone to run away from her

Run away, run away!

It couldn’t have been you but she had your eyes

Made for faking smiles and turning tides

Hands full of young men wrapped around her finger

They made you a throne out of magazines

They made you a crown out of peonies, oh-oh

She grew up as the pretty young thing

Let them look up her skirt on the backyard swing

Oh no…

Daddy told you to stay indoors

And I can understand how a girl gets bored

Too old to play and too young to mess around

She was a victim of the same disease

That’s roaming the streets and bites when it please

And makes us wanna live forever or die in infamy

I wanna live in a world where I can keep my eye doors wide open

But who knows what’d get in and what’d get out

One of these nights, I’ll sleep with the windows down

But not until that creature’s in the pound

No child is born knowing there’s an ugly or evil thing

When did my folks stop covering my eyes?

Was it my brother who taught me about jealousy?

Was it my sister who taught me about vanity?

Was it that girl, that beautiful girl

Thirsty for love and eager for attention

Was it that girl who taught me about destruction?

I wanna live in a world where I can keep my eye doors wide open

But who knows what’d get in and what’d get out?”

[Trigger warning: body image/shape; sex.]

[Spoiler alert: although the ending of the movie is not discussed, some details of the film are given.]

Last night I felt the need to relax with some light-hearted movie that would be easy to watch without being dumb, so I decided to risk it with the film “Good luck, Leo Grande!” And was pleasantly surprised. 

First of all, it’s one of those movies, like “The great Kahuna”, that is basically nothing more than two people in a room and their conversations. And that’s probably the best feature of this film: the topics of conversation, and how and where they arise — from what is supposed to be a “merely sexual” relationship. 

The movie starts from clichés, is built on clichés: the retired female school-teacher who’s had almost no sexual experience beyond the limited and unsatisfying one with her husband, who’s never even experienced an orgasm, who has dedicated her life to family & work, “following all the rules”, and then freed from her responsibilities as mother, wife, and teacher, has finally decided to try and explore her sexuality; the young, beautiful male sex worker who acts confident and happy with his life and job but who cannot share his real identity even with the people closest to him because they cannot, or don’t want to, accept him as he is, and who actually was rejected by his own mother because of how he was/is. 

On the one hand, I think that one of the values of this film lies in taking these clichés, which are also examples of how we still hyper-sexualize some bodies (e.g. the young, fit ones) and de-sexualize others (e.g. the aging female), among others, and putting them right in our faces in a light-hearted way (indeed, the movie is classified as “comedy”) that can nonetheless give us food for thought. 

On the other, I find the topics that are covered in the characters’ conversations and interactions to be very meaningful and relevant, such as: “body positivity”; loving one’s own body as being different from vanity; the beauty and importance of physical pleasure, whether it’s solitary or shared, given or taken; the beauty and naturalness of sex but also it being totally okay to have or want no sex; power dynamics; the importance of healthy, safe boundaries; child-parent relationship; motherhood; the responsibilities of being an educator; the status of sex workers; the toxicity and harmfulness of many social and cultural constructs; the personal liberation that can come also from one’s own relationship with their body (and possibly sexuality)… 

“There’s some important, and vulnerable, personal information that I would like to share with you also because it might become evident in our professional/academic interactions and work. 

As you probably know already, I use “they” pronouns because I identify as non-binary. What I’d like to share here is that I have recently started gender-affirming HRT (= hormone replacement therapy), which means that I am in many ways going through male puberty and thus putting my body through something it wasn’t really expecting. This means that my body, including my brain, are literally readjusting and some changes affect my daily life, for example the irregular energy levels I’m experiencing, the shifting in my focus (moments when I am as sharp and focused as ever, and moments when I struggle to concentrate on even the simplest task), and seemingly becoming a “night owl” in my sleep patterns. All this to say that — and explain why — I might seem or behave a little erratically in the mornings, for a while. 

Having always been an “early bird”, morning-type of person and very regular and consistent in my schedule, this shift in patterns is a little unsettling for me, too, sometimes — maybe some of you might recall your own puberty and extend some patience/compassion towards me! 

I’m sure that having a regular schedule, including our Wednesday & Friday meetings, will help. Generally, just FYI, it seems that my most productive work hours are in the afternoon & evening, for now.” 

This is the email I sent just a few hours ago to my research group, which includes my boss, a couple of PhD students and half-a-dozen younger students (undergrads and/or Master’s), most of them cis-males. 

So far, I have received some lovely replies. And empathy all around, albeit in different ways.

A wonderfully sweet and supportive (even from the practical viewpoint) reply from my boss. 

Gratitude and empathy and even admiration from a grad student whom I haven’t met in person, yet, but who apparently is also queer. 

Cute, sweet responses from two of the younger students, who are almost still “boys” themselves. When I saw them for lunch today (after I had sent the email) and mentioned that eventually I’ll also start sounding and looking a little different, one of them said to me that his voice is still cracking sometimes and that he wouldn’t notice if I behaved in a weird or erratic way because I’m just fun and weird anyway; while the other said he’s still going through his own puberty himself, so he can fully empathize. 

I’m extremely grateful for these responses. I’ve been very stressed out lately because of my focus being so low or erratic and thus my work being so unproductive, especially compared to the past. I’ve also simply being feeling the need to be fully “out”, fully authentic with my group, with the people I’m around and work with. I just cannot hide, I don’t want to hide my authentic self and I don’t believe in the “fake it till you make it” mentality anymore. 

I still feel the pressure of doing well at this job, but now this pressure is really only my own, due to how much I care about what feels to me like a “second opportunity” in my work life… So hopefully the relief from my coworkers’ responses will seep into the cracks of my own professional perfectionism or lack of confidence and allow me to relax, and probably thus work better, while being fully and authentically myself in this environment as well!

My weekend turned out much better than it had started on Saturday morning. 

First of all, after writing my blog post, I went to one of my neighbors here, who is wonderfully kind and always encouraging me to stop by and say Hi to him & his wife, and told him very simply that I was feeling lonely. So he hung out with me for a little while, giving me tips of places I could explore on my motorcycle, and then sending me home with a bag full of yummy vegetables from their own garden. 

As I was getting ready to go to the swimming-pool one of my most recent but also most regular climbing buddies replied to me confirming his availability to climb together on Sunday — which we did yesterday and had another great day climbing outdoors together, with interesting and very open conversations, strengthening our bond as climbing buddies and platonic friends. 

I struggled a bit through my swim on Saturday — and that might even have been just physical tiredness. But the workout in the fresh air & sunshine (it was my last swim outdoors before the pool got closed for this season) helped me, and I came home feeling relaxed and at peace, feeling a quiet, grounded joy. And well enough to reconnect to two close friends with whom conversations have not been too easy lately, for different reasons.  

They’re both friends from California and with both there has been physical intimacy on top of very deep emotional and intellectual connections. They are both persons I care for very much and miss and who, I know with no doubt, care for me and miss me. The details of why we haven’t been able to connect as much or as deeply in the past months are different with each of these two people, as they themselves are quite different from each other, but nonetheless they both mean a lot to me and I know their affection for me is deep and sincere. So being able to reconnect with them on Saturday was really lovely. I video-chatted with one of them for over two hours and then with the other for about an hour, thus effectively spending my Saturday afternoon with two of my dearest friends in California! I wouldn’t have been able to do that even just a week or two ago: the simple fact that I was emotionally ready to do so, to have such deep, open-hearted, even vulnerable conversations with them, especially with the non-binary climbing friend, was really wonderful. So healing — such a gift! 

After the two video-calls, I watered the garden and took care of the plants here before getting dinner, in order to calm all the reeling emotions in my heart. And by dinner-time all that was left was the glow, the joy, of those conversations, of those (re)connections. The profound, tangible feeling of those little “jewels” that the conversations with those two friends left me, planted in my heart. 

It also felt like reassembling pieces. Rebuilding these important relationships that, for different reasons, have suffered a bit over the past few months. And rebuilding them in a different way, almost on different foundations from previously, partly also because of my own discoveries in gender-identity and changes in how I’m approaching relationships. 

Analogously, climbing with my buddy yesterday also felt like building something in a way that is very new to me, that I haven’t experienced since I was around 16 years old, basically since I was “pre-sexual”. Most of my new relationships, especially here in Colorado, have this new (or newly found) feel or dynamics for me, which I like but which I’m also not used to anymore, that I haven’t really had for almost a quarter of a century and that I therefore have to relearn. 

As I’m getting to know myself, my authentic self, better and better, the way I relate to & interact with other people is also changing, the way I’m connecting and building relationships is changing — mostly for the better. It’s nice — wonderful, actually. I like it. But it’s also baffling because it’s so new to me or, rather, something familiar to me from a part of my life that is quite far in my past… I’m relearning. 

I feel that in almost every aspect of my life in this moment I am learning or relearning — building or rebuilding. 

In a way, I feel like I have a multitude of random pieces from a LEGO box strewn in front of me that I can arrange and rearrange almost as I wish now. It’s exciting and empowering and lovely (lovely in the original sense of the word, especially when it comes to relationships), but it’s also scary and so much work!

It’s beautiful but also a little daunting and it takes effort, at least if one wants to do it well, it takes intention and attention. Dedication. 

Loneliness and the lack of a regular pattern in human interactions or relationships are the biggest source, or trigger, of anxiety for me. And it’s been so my entire life — which is one of the reasons this blog is called “The Little Prince and the Fox”! 

I have been consciously aware of this fact only for the past three years or so, and it was actually the super intense but also erratically irregular interactions with the boulderer that really brought it home to me. I’ve realized that most of my closest and deepest relationships and long-lasting friendships were built through an initial phase of meeting up regularly: a fixed evening dinner; a regular afternoon walk&talk, maybe with a snack or tea ritual added to it; a regular evening ice-cream walking & chatting; an almost-every weekend meeting to climb or hike or walk along the beach. Something I (and the other person as well) could count on. Loosely, with no stifling expectations and no drama if we had to skip sometimes, and often even the understanding of the regular pattern of our meetings was implicit, taken silently as a gentle certainty on both sides without the need to say it out loud. Maybe because it was a shared need or desire. 

I’ve been missing this recently (as I often missed it in California). 

For several months between last autumn and this spring, I had found a regular rhythm in my own life, a new rhythm compared to the one I had had for several years teaching in California, but a good, regular rhythm both for my own activities (working on my textbook, exercising, resting) and socializing with frequent and quite predictable patterns with several people consistently. And I thrived in those patterns. 

Since May or June those patterns have been disrupted, mostly because of my own changes in jobs and living situations, my move, temporary accommodations, and getting settled into a whole new routine (new job, new schedule, new place, new interactions). 

I have plenty of interactions. Some weeks are quite full of plans, meetings, and interactions, as are some weekends. Overall, I’m able to express and receive validation for the most important parts of my identity now as climber, scientist, and trans-masculine/non-binary person. I’m even getting plenty of compliments and/or attention without seeking it. But it’s all on-the-fly, almost superficial. It’s the recognition or attention or compliment from a stranger, here now, gone the next second, making me glow in the moment but leaving no really deep or lasting wellness. 

At the end of the day, I have no plans with any friends or buddies for this weekend nor for any of the weekends to come, and no plans with anyone for the long holiday weekend coming up. And I know some of my friends or acquaintances do have plans but I haven’t been asked or included. 

While I do feel the need to maintain independence and freedom to do my own things, and to do many different things, I also really feel the lack of consistent, steady, regular relationships or situations in which I can count on persons and plans a priori, without every time having to doubt or guess or plan at the last minute. I miss having a friend or two with whom I could meet up regularly for a hike and/or fun dinner out every weekend. I miss having a specific climbing buddy with whom to share fun climbing adventures on a regular basis, building trust and deep camaraderie. 

And not having these types of relationships — apart from being tiring because every time I have to reach out, ask, seek, make efforts to connect — also really undermines my sense of worth: am I not fun or interesting enough? Am I too “intense”? Am I not enough of a good climber? Am I just not likable enough? 

[Trigger warning: anxiety]

This morning I had to go get fasting blood work done so I got up, took a quick cold shower (a new habit I’ve started this week and that seems to be helping how I feel), and then rode my motorcycle to the medical center. And back. All on an empty stomach. 

I haven’t felt so well riding my motorcycle since pre-pandemic, for almost three years. It’s so wonderful to get this feeling back, this feeling of being one, my body-my mind-my motorcycle: we’re just one thing, my body-mind-bike.

Yesterday evening I managed to start listening to my friend’s podcast again and really enjoyed it (as I used to) — it gave me so much excellent food for thought while also relating to a lot of what was discussed — it also helped me feel more intellectually alive again.  

Yesterday afternoon I managed to get a full three hours of good, focused, and intentional scientific work done — more than I’ve done in a while. 

And yesterday morning I went for a long swim at the outdoor pool again, swimming over 2 miles, and overcoming a small anxiety attack during the first 300 meters. 

These small anxiety attacks aren’t new to me. Come to think of it, I’ve had them my entire life, at least since high-school. They’re often triggered by a sense of being overwhelmed by the task at hand and/or an intense, extremely deep feeling of loneliness. 

And one of my most powerful and effective coping skills has always been to break down the overall task and think only about the next tiny step. 

I remember feeling terribly overwhelmed in college if I considered all the coursework and exams I’d have to face over the course of one academic year, or even just one semester. But then I’d break it down, look at each individual course, each individual week of classes, each individual deadline and the intermediate goals or milestones to reach my final goal. In the end, I was able to make it successfully to the end of my PhD, one small (or big) step at a time. 

The little anxiety attacks now can be triggered by something as simple as facing a day on my own, and I usually feel them at the beginning of a long run or long swim, during the first 5-10 minutes, maybe before the chemicals from the workout kick in to quiet my brain. When that eventually happens, I get into a runner’s high, or even a swimmer’s high, and could run or swim for hours — my body is quite an endurance machine, it turns out! But in those first moments, keeping my mind quiet, keeping it from spinning, is quite an effort. And the way I keep it from spinning too wildly or dangerously, the way I rein it back in, is by thinking “Just take this small step, just swim this one lap, just run to that next tree, and you can stop any time you want or need to”. And in the end, taking one small step at a time, completely and wholeheartedly committing to small chunks while also allowing myself to stop after every completed chunk, I get through miles, and my mind (or brain?) eventually not only quiets down but also enjoys the process — and so do I as whole! 

Sometimes I wonder how far these coping skills can get me, how long they will hold up. If they have been working for two or three decades, does that mean they will keep working for me for ever? 

Anyway, for now, I can feel my mind quieting down overall, over the course of days, and feeling more and more grounded as the weeks go by since the reeling month of July. I can physically (chemically?) feel something settling and improving in my brain. There might still be relapses, especially as I continue to slowly wean myself off the antidepressant/anti-anxiety medication, but hopefully this positive trend toward a more clear and grounded mind will be a relatively steady course for a while… one (small or big) step at a time!

[Trigger warnings: mental health, neurodivergence, pandemic]

I’ve often read and heard about mental health issues, or mental illness, affecting relationships, disrupting them, straining them, sometimes even completely tearing them apart. 

It wasn’t until the pandemic and my own mental health issues, though, that I became fully aware of these impacts, also through my own personal experiences. 

I grew up in a society where stigma and/or ignorance around anything concerning the mind or brain was extremely pervasive: very little was known, or mentioned, about mental health; the word or concept of “neurodiversity” didn’t even exist; any form of “mental issue” was taboo. 

In hindsight, I realize that two or three very important relationships I have had were negatively affected, and eventually torn apart, by my own — and probably also the other persons’ and society’s — ignorance and incapacity to deal with mental health issues. In those cases, though, I was sort of “at the receiving end” of the situation. 

Lately, I’m realizing, it’s some very good friends of my own who have been “at the receiving end” of my mental issues. 

In a week I will, at last, get professionally evaluated for autism & ADHD and hopefully get confirmation of some neurodiversity which I’ve been experiencing and coping with my entire life. The real issues, though, came during a phase of anxiety/depression that I had during the first year and a half of the pandemic and whose effects are still dragging on now. My own parenthesis of anxiety/depression made me so often incapable of being there for some of my dearest and oldest friends, incapable of listening to them — even literally, incapable of listening to a wonderful podcast that one of my best friends from grad school has been doing, or incapable of reading interesting posts/articles that other friends have been sending me, or making it hard for some other dear, close friends to spontaneously share things with me. While I fully believe in the vital importance of healthy boundaries and the right to have them respected and to ask for trigger warnings, I also realize how estranged my own phase of anxiety/depression has made me from some of my dearest and oldest friends. And this is terribly sad for me.  

I’m an incurable optimist, though, so I will do what I often do (at least, when I’m at my own healthy baseline): now that I am aware of these facts and of how they have negatively affected some important relationships in the recent past, and now that I am doing so much better myself, I am going to use this newly found bandwidth, this newly found mental well-being & emotional energy to start being there, again and/or more, for my friends. 

On another positive note, I also want to mention how the courage and openness to share personal experiences about mental health and/or neurodiversity/neurodivergence have, on the other hand, brought me so much closer to so many wonderful people, old friends as well as new ones. Since moving to California in 2016 and even more since the pandemic and now living in Colorado, I have had the fortune to meet more and more people who are aware of, and open to talk about, mental health and/or neurodiversity and I have been sharing some important growth in these directions in parallel with some good old friends in Europe. Their courage to share with me as well as my own improved awareness have allowed to build stronger, deeper bonds, weathering the difficulties that naturally arise in human relationships, and giving rise to wonderful and often unexpected closeness in many old and new friendships.