Unraveling context

(in the middle of the night)

Last night I was up around 2:00 a.m. with a huge existential crisis hanging over my side of the bed. (When I did fall back asleep, I dreamt of giant dogs, and a little hand-held device that when you pressed the button on it, everyone’s sweaters unraveled, so perhaps take this post with a grain or two of salt.)

Right before my pre-bedtime phone-usage cutoff, I was on Instagram and saw a post by the author Matt Haig. I think he’s fairly well-known? I haven’t read any of his books yet, but he’s on my TBR list. He often posts about being autistic and what that’s meant in terms of re-navigating his life. One paragraph stuck with me, and I hope it’s okay to quote someone’s Insta post?

Things I’ve struggled with: fitting in within groups (I am good on a one to one), anxiety from unnatural and over stimulating environments, trusting untrustworthy people, literalism, yet also overwhelmed by imagination, lack of routine, when things don’t go to plan.

So much all of this.

But one word caught me: literalism.

At first, I thought of this as maybe not getting sarcasm, not recognizing when someone is lying or joking ... things like that. I am sort of okay with this stuff, I thought. But last night I realized I am not.

I do take people at their word. I want to believe them (why would they lie? Well, except for politicians, corporate executives and car salespeople). But I also assume they know better than me. So if someone says the world is a particular way, I think okay, the world is this way. If someone writes a terrible review of my book—okay, the world is this way.

However, I would change the word literalism to context.

The definition of literalism, according to Merriam-Webster, is “adherence to the explicit substance of an idea or expression.”

The definition of context is “the interrelated conditions in which something exists or occurs; environment, setting."

It’s like, if you can’t figure out the context, you may very well have a problem with literalism.

I struggle so much with context. If everyone has a different viewpoint, incidentally making “reality” a questionable term, what is my viewpoint?

Last night at 2:00 a.m. I couldn’t find my own perspective. I could not figure out how to give my existence or my thoughts or ideas any sort of context.

I don’t know who I am. And apparently, autistic people do struggle with being able to define themselves, and according to my therapist, “a confused sense of the embodied self” (gender dysphoria, anyone?)

How do you create your own context for your own identity?

I felt unanchored, unmoored, and for a neuro-atypical person, this is not a good place to be, especially in the middle of the night. There was nothing to hold on to and I thought maybe I’d permanently lose it.

The only thing that got me out of it was asking my dead mother for help. Yes, I still talk to her and for what it’s worth, she still talks to me. At least I never have to worry about waking her at odd hours.

She reminded me that I always, at the very least, have the context of family. That her life and mine intersected for 42 years for a purpose, and we had a tremendous impact on each other. I am her daughter, for better or worse. I am also my father’s daughter. My parents and ancestors give me context. I will always be connected to them.

So when there is nothing else, there is still that. A tenuous place to be in the early morning hours, but it was enough to get me back to sleep.

Perhaps now that dream about having the power to unravel other people’s sweaters makes a little more sense.

Context.

Also, as you may have noticed, my lack of being able to exist in any sort of context has affected this newsletter. It also has no context. It’s all over the place. I’ve recently lost some subscribers and I get it. I think every week about quitting, because I cannot find context.

I want to stay here, and to find my voice and create things that have meaning for myself and hopefully for others, but it has been difficult, and I have not yet found my footing. I don’t know if I will.

If you have thoughts or ideas, feel free to share. I know I don’t get many public comments on these posts (no social proof of my legitimacy, oh crisis of self!) but I do get some emails from readers, so that is very nice too.

Thank you for being here, and thank you for reading these words.

for better or worse, this is how i find context when there doesn’t seem to be anything else to hold onto…