A large part of my unknowingly-neurodivergent life has been about avoiding rejection, or trying to earn acceptance.
A Newly Identified Neurodivergent, Forging Ahead in New Directions
For the past couple of months I have been trying to get to grips with social media marketing, because I would so dearly like to get some folks to come over to my print-on-demand shop, Nomad’s Muse. I have been slowly building that up with a load of fun things that I have designed, and I think are quite good.
500 Hurtful Rejections, and More.
After applying to over 500 entry-level programmer jobs and where companies actually replied, facing only rejection, I’ve been trying out all kinds of strategies for earning money. Certainly, that is a lot of rejection, but one some level, I was kind of expecting it. Being self-taught came with a lot of imposter syndrome. Moreover, being neurodivergent came with a lot of pre-loaded, feeling-rejected software. Well, I hope it’s software and hasn’t become hard-wired.
It Comes with the Neurodivergent Territory, being a Mac in a Windows World
If you read a lot of the new-spiritual literature, you’ll know that whatever energy you are personifying and putting out, is what you are going to get back. Neurodivergent people, perhaps even more so, those who are late identified or diagnosed, often experience intense feelings of rejection. Ellie Middleton described it nicely, in her book, as being an Apple Mac computer your whole life, trying to understand why the software, and things generally, are not working properly for you, and trying to read the manuals, but they don’t make sense, only to find out later that most people are running windows and the manuals are all written for windows.
The Pertinence for Neurodivergent People of The Ugly Duckling
As a kid, I used to love Danny Kaye’s song about the “Ugly Duckling,” where the poor duckling feels rejected until it finds the swans, flourishes, and fills with joy. Used to make me cry a lot as a kid, that song.
Without Your Consent
So, I got to thinking, that maybe all along, having started from a default state of “feeling rejected” I have been, spiritually, socially or otherwise, just generating more rejection for myself. There does seem to have been an inordinate amount of it. Eleanor Roosevelt said something along the lines of: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”. Maybe resolving being rejected in the outside world might be an inside job?
A Sore Point
I could well believe that, as with most people, most of my life I have wanted to avoid feeling anything like being rejected. Being a neurodivergent kid in a neurotypical world, at a time when widespread knowledge of such conditions was eons away in the future, and when it was only tolerated to behave neurotypically, has packed me full with feeling rejected. It’s stayed there, the whole time, over decades; a sore point in the middle, that I didn’t want to touch or go near to.
Just Feel It
I’m pretty certain that things won’t improve on the outside, if I don’t go inside there and heal it. Otherwise, subconsciously it will continue to define a lot of my life, life choices, and actions. From experience of healing other unwanted, uncomfortable feelings in the past, I know if I just go there and feel it, be with it, and give it permission to be there, and dare I say, love it, then that will probably start a healing process. It should open a floodgate.
Digital Bad Parent Neurodivergent Therapy Tool
So, where might social media be a help in all this? Well, I read a couple of days ago, a remark from a comedian, that every life update on social media is a wish to be noticed; to be told that we matter. Some social media apps have the potential to be an unwitting, distant, distracted, overly-busy, disinterested or just plain, bad parent for some people.
Look At Me!
You’re like a kid, who’s doing some cool trick they have been practicing forever, saying “Mom, Dad look at me!” We upload our best effort, be it vulnerable, personal things, or a video we think will draw people to our sales funnels. Then we wait, but we can’t find in ourselves to wait for long. This is going to be the big one, for sure!
A Watched Pot…
We’re glancing over to our parents, checking the analytics for the post. 0 views. Wait a bit. 0 views. Wait a bit. 0 views. But I worked for hours on that 15 second video! Wait! 1 view. Yay! 1 view. 1 view. 1 like! Oh my goodness! One like. I knew it. Here goes!
My son comes into the room. “Dad! I saw your new video, and I liked it.”
My Favourite People in the World
Right there, is the crack in the rock that is letting the warm light into the cold cave of rejection. My kids do nothing but accept me, all of the time. Even when I am rejecting myself, constantly, in order to protect myself from being rejected. They never give up on me. Bless their hearts. My favourite people in the world think I’m great. How can that coexist with me feeling I’m no good at all?
The 15 Second Itch That I Can’t Scratch
I was awake early this morning, and I couldn’t get my meditation to work as wonderfully as it did yesterday. Something was bothering me, compelling me to stay in the outside world, so that I might fix it.
It was last night’s video upload. I had worked on it a long time and thought it was really good. Then I had posted it at what I thought was a well-studied, optimal time. After going to the bathroom, and a quick peek at the analytics, I saw it. 1 view. Oh! Please! Dear meditation, work!
Let It In
I could feel the bad feeling, hovering at the edges of my mediation efforts. Oh! Just let it in!
And I did. And I cried. And I felt better afterwards.
Maybe getting the views and likes, is not the way I should be using these tools. Rather better to use its cold disinterest to help me view myself better, and learn to like myself better.