What a tv era did for my nervous system

The blessing of healing the tendency to compensate for being autistic :: ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED may 15th 2023

What I love most about the month of May is the way the breeze comes in and moves the curtains.

It has been, year after year, my favourite thing about May. That, and the farmer’s market returning. At the end of last October, when I went to the market for the last time of the season, and even wrote about it on this very newsletter, I said, “it’s okay, it’s only 6 months.” I meant it, and also it was only six months, and holy hell, it was 6 whole friggen months.

6 months in the winter climate I live in is borderline traumatic to be honest - and I say that because there is so little resourcing available to us during this time that we say stuff like, “holy shit, I didn’t know if I was going to survive,” when it’s over. It does wear out a nervous system to have some huge needs unmet due to environment, as it puts us into stress responses that we can’t resolve due to the fact that the resource is not available, period. It’s an actual thing.

Both nothing and everything has gone on in those 6 months. First of all, I watched so much TV that now the thought of TV beyond like a few episodes of my favourite shows here and there makes me want to throw up.

For example, dear reader, I watched all 52 episodes and the two movies of the show downton abbey during the dead of winter. Was there a specific urgency in which I felt I needed to watch 52+ hours of a show featuring british aristocrats who fall madly in love with their cousin? No, dear reader, there absolutely was not. However, I had wanted to watch this show since 2011 and I had been busy ever since, not one moment to waste in the fictional 1920s. Ever been busy for 12 years straight like this?

I wrote about some of the shows I watched since November in some blurbs here and there to your inbox, but here’s most of the list as I remember it - there was the morning show, the crown, white lotus, loot, the time traveller’s wife, heartbreak high, heartstopper, wednesday, uncoupled, somebody somewhere, severance (omg severance), bad sisters (omg bad sisters), shrinking, the wilds, feel good, fleabag (HAD NEVER WATCHED FLEABAG DUE TO BUSYNESS!), god’s favorite idiot, not dead yet, daisy jones and the six, unstable, the big door prize, I love that for you, the follow up of series I’ve loved before like firefly lane (just wondering if anyone is okay after the series finale of firefly lane btw?!), ted lasso, and there was also just my general obsession with period dramas; the gilded age, gentlemen jack, this downton abbey thing that happened to me.

Like this is a lot of tv. I have never watched this much tv in my life in one period of time, and I probably never will again.

It seems like not a big deal or why am I even writing about this - I can confidently say this is one of those things, like who cares? Don’t steal people’s attention for this. Yes yes, but I promise, I have a good reason.

I have never been able to tolerate in my nervous system watching this much tv which means I was never previously able to not be over-productive or over-achieve.

Over-achievers, we typically do this thing of being extremely productive not because we think we are better than anyone right? It’s usually because we think we are less than and we are trying to make up for a deficiency we notice, feel or perceive in ourselves.

I know for me, my productivity and my achievements became the way I compensated for feeling guilty for existing as a disabled autistic person.

It was a way for me to feel like I was worthy despite the extra needs I might have, or all the ways I was different. If my difference could be of service, then hell yes, I would achieve with it.

And it’s not to say I don’t still want to use my gifts - of course I do. But I want to collaborate with them now sustainably. I wasn’t capable of doing that before, and would over do it to compensate. I would say yes to everything. I would take care of absolutely everyone, before me, no matter if this was reciprocal or not, or if I was being paid enough, etc.

If I was not productive, or always being “on”, I became anxious and guilty - like I was a burden. Like I was not doing enough. Like my existence was not justified.

So, being able to have a TV era, and have a winter where I did so little in terms of goals was huge for someone like me. I could have started freaking out and been like omg if I don’t get ahead, then I will be broke and die in x amount of time. But my body was like, nah, I think we’ll be okay. I have never EVER felt that in my life before. It still feels so new that I am not certain the feeling will stick, but each time I get stressed out again, I am like, nah, I think we’ll be okay. We’ll figure it out. My system now has an experience in which I don’t have to compensate to be safe. I can slow down, I can be unproductive too. I can not make new art for 6 months and I will still be an artist. I can not do morning pages for months and I will still remember how to when I decide to pick them back up. Nothing really changed - but yet everything did. Who knows if that will last, my ability to be more chill - life changes - but at least there is a reference point on board for me now that to be valued and to be safe I can provide and share, and hell, even perform, without compensating. And at the very least, this is hard won as someone with complex developmental trauma and a developmental “disorder”; someone with a neurotype that is not the norm and has felt like she has to prove herself to be accepted due to her differences. And who knows, maybe it will last too, and I’ll get to be a model for it - that we can all get here on the other side of trauma. Slowly, but surely, one day, you too could waste about 60 hours of your life wondering if Lady Mary Crawley’s silk shirts would be cool to wear right now and feel totally safe.

But for now, one thing is for sure, it is spring, and the trees are blooming and the curtains are flowing with the breeze that comes in.