Turtling is a Verb

the sticking my neck out edition

Hello and welcome to another edition of Writing My Mind. I’ve been debating whether I should pack this Substack adventure up and go home. Sometimes I’m unable to see the point of things—like war, inflatable holiday decorations for suburban lawns, and plug-in air fresheners. So sometimes I am not sure what the point of this newsletter is. My original idea was to share what it’s like to be coming to terms with a late-in-life diagnosis of being neurodivergent but most people tell me that they figure just about everyone they know is on the spectrum somewhere … or just weird. So is this new ground? Enlightening? Somewhat entertaining? Heck if I know. With that wonderfully inspiring intro, LET’S GO

A few weeks ago, I went to a massage therapist. I’d been given his name by my doctor, and when I say “doctor,” I mean “the nice D.O. I’ve known for many years but I can’t go see at his practice because he only does geriatric medicine now and thank goodness I don’t qualify, but I can still go see him at his part-time functional medicine practice where he uses NAET to treat for things like allergies and grief and stress.”

I had told said doctor that my thoracic outlet syndrome has gotten worse and recently I’d been tweaking my neck on the regular, and basically I can’t turn my head anymore. Which is kind of a nuisance when doing things like driving or looking out a window. Or teaching chair yoga. Dr. O said, “go see this guy.”

I went to see the guy.

When I first laid eyes on the guy, I was skeptical. My first impression was what he was one pocket protector short of being an engineer (and I was pretty close – his day job is data analyst in the insurance industry). He’s probably in his late 50s or early 60s (I used to think anyone under 30 now looks 12 years old to me, but now I realize I just can’t tell how old anyone is anymore) and practices a technique called Muscle Release Therapy®.

If you try to look that up, you won’t find much about it. Mostly things about “myofascial release therapy” come up instead. But the original, real-deal MRTh® was developed by a former pipe-fitter turned massage therapist in Ohio. Yeah.

Well, this guy said he learned directly from said pipe-fitter and said he doesn’t understand everything about how this process works, but it works. And I was like, okay…

But an hour and a half later, I was convinced that it’s the real deal.

The experience was sort of like light massage or myofascial work, through the clothes, and painless. By the time I drove home, I could turn my head in both directions and my neck felt longer, since it was no longer being squished up under my collar bones. I also felt a little loopy and it was an interesting drive home at 9:00 at night.

The next day I felt like I’d been beat up, but each day after that my neck and shoulders felt better and better. I almost can’t believe it. When I get out of bed in the morning, I no longer feel like I have to unfold myself. I can also lie on the floor with my arms over my head and they don’t go to sleep after ten seconds. I can twist more deeply (my favorite “yoga practice” is to lie on the floor, do a bunch of twists, then get up and proclaim it a good workout).

My neck and shoulders aren’t quite 100%, and other things still hurt, like my low back, hips, and knees, but after this success with my shoulders, I reckon the guy will be able to unfold the rest of me at my next visit this week. I hope!

I feel taller, and my whole body feels different when I stand still in mountain pose. My feet feel different on the earth.

Sometimes it feels like I’m a turtle, sticking my head out of my shell for the first time.

What do I see?

But the bigger question, the Life Question that has been nagging at me over the last week, is What do people see when they see me?

It’s like quantum physics. The answer to one question affects the answer to the other. Or even the existence of one question has an effect on the existence of the other. Or something like that. I don’t know, it sounded good in my head.

And I don’t know the answer to either question.

Is what I’m seeing somehow distorted due to being on the spectrum? Does it matter? What’s objectivity, anyway? And does that have any bearing on how I live my life? I do know that I get caught up in the shoulds too much. My therapist told me if there was one thing she could impart to me, it would be to not always make myself wrong about things, which is intricately connected to the word should.

As for how people see me—I’ve no idea. I don’t know what I “look like.” What do I see? It’s like there’s a grey blob in the mirror. Is this a neurological inability to be able to define myself, or is this simply a lack of practice? Or both? Or neither…

And then another quantum quandary emerges. If I can’t see myself, why would I expect anyone else to see me? Maybe I am invisible. It sure feels like it. Sometimes I’m okay with it and other times I’m happy about it. But ultimately, I’m not sure I want to go through my whole life as invisible.

This has huge implications.

And I’ve got no answers or solutions or insights!

Yet.

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