I Must Have Been Dropped On My Head As A Baby

a practical hypothesis

Welcome back to The Thing About That Thing! Just want to start out by saying thanks for subscribing to and reading these emails. The internet is a really crowded place and we all get bombarded by online crap all day long. So thanks for reading this particular online crap.

Today’s post is a two-parter, LET’S GO

What, exactly, is in a name?

I am just wondering, is it okay to give yourself a nickname? Because if not, I’m screwed. Actually, it would have little bearing on my life. I don’t have that many friends, so nicknames don’t come up all that often. Marcus just calls me, uh, shoot, he doesn’t call me anything other than my name, but at least he pronounces it right. (It’s Un-DRAY-uh, in case you were wondering. Americanized German pronunciation.)

But if you were to ask me if I have a nickname, I’d say sure, it’s Ace. As in, AC(e) Neil. As in way to go, Ace! Which can mean something really good has happened, or more often, it’s used as a sarcastic criticism. I find myself using it the second way a lot more often.

Why did I give myself a nickname? Because the closest I ever got to someone else giving me a nickname was during my last year in college, when I had two awesome roommates and was more social in that one year than I have been in all the time since then. My pal, we’ll call him Chuck, asked if I had a nickname and I said no. And he said, “How about Banjo Woman? Yeah, that’s it! Banjo Woman.”

WTF? I don’t play banjo.

Of course he was probably high at the time, and maybe we’d just done mushrooms or whatever, and/or eaten an entire Chef Boyardee pizza (the kind where everything comes in the box? Those were DELISH but again, see notes on being high). So I said, “Yeah, I don’t think so, you can call me Ace.”

It never stuck, but in my mind, that’s my nickname.

What do you think – legit or not? Leave a comment and tell me what you think. Not that it matters what you think, I’m still Aces in my book. Do you have a nickname? What is it and how did you get it?

I Was Probably Dropped On My Head As A Baby

At least that’s what an acupuncturist told me about ten years ago. Not exactly the most professional opinion I’ve received about my health.

This acupuncturist was frustrated with me. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t help me relax, or at least counterbalance some of the effects of stress. She tried acupuncture. Heat. Electrical pulses. Massage. Nothing worked, to her satisfaction or mine.

She was also kind of flaky. Or maybe she just sucked, there’s no way of knowing for sure at this point. But one day she just lost her composure and declared me broken. She threw up her hands, and said in a thick Chinese accent, “I don’t know. You must have been dropped on your head when you were a baby.” Like that was the only logical explanation left.

So that was that. Needless to say I never went back. For a while I considered getting a second opinion but why bother? I know I have a jacked-up nervous system.

My current therapist has confirmed this official diagnosis of Jacked-up Nervous System (JuNS™) and I trust her waaaay more than that acupuncturist. And my therapist is a little nicer about it and so far hasn’t lost her cool on me, hasn’t fired me, and never once suggested I was dropped on my head as a baby.

I don’t believe I was dropped on my head as a baby. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t. However, I do believe in things like generational trauma and am pretty sure we carry around stress that didn’t even start out as ours. I also understand a lot more about how some people’s neural makeup can kick everything into overdrive, both mentally and physically, and that can result in overwhelm. Things that other people handle just fine become annoying, intolerable, fear-inducing, anxiety-producing, etc (and that’s just for me—being on the spectrum can present a million different ways to produce a million different reactions.)

My dad’s illness over the last two years and then his death didn’t help my cause. I got shingles, a long-lasting case of hives, and had major problems sleeping. It was like jacking up my jacked-uppedness™. All of it resulted in me finally agreeing to take a tiny dose of anti-anxiety meds late last year. I don’t like to take stuff. I’m a yoga teacher! Deep breathing should take care of it, right? Okay fine it doesn’t fix everything, but deep breathing and meditation do help. A lot.

I try to not be bothered by stuff, I really do. But often “trying” equates with “masking” and both of those equal exhausting. I’ve had people ask me, “Why don’t you just lighten up and not let these things bother you anymore?” For example, why not just stop caring that someone is incessantly whistling, or why not just lighten up and not care that SOMEONE never puts the kitchen towels back where they’re supposed to be and so when I need one it’s not in the right place and it throws me for a loop EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Well to this suggestion, dear reader, I just say NOPE.

Ernie after Bert tells him he moved the kitchen towels

I have been trying to “let it go” my whole life and you know what? It doesn’t work. It’s exhausting. More exhausting than not finding a kitchen towel in the right place. And part of my whole journey these days is to stop trying to let things go, at least temporarily , and to decide, actually decide and know, what works for me and what doesn’t.

So when people ask me why I don’t just “let it go” or “relax,” I politely tell them to buzz off. I tell them that their suggestion, brilliant as it is, helps waaaaay less than they think it does, and I’m not going to let it go. So if you come over, you damn well better put the kitchen towel back in the right spot.

This isn’t to say that I’m not trying to relax more. Of course I’m not totally inflexible (kitchen towels aside), of course I want to have less of a reaction to things, of course I want to “be a better person.” I’m even almost off the anti-anxiety medication.

But I also want to be honest with myself. It’s about time, is all I’m saying.

So yeah, no one dropped me on my head when I was a baby. I was just put together this way.

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