If you follow me on socials you will know that things have changed a wee bit for me in the last few weeks.
I now have a very quiet and clean house, well😂, am supporting my children from afar and am having to figure out who I am again.
Autonomy, or our who, what, where and when, is an ever evolving educational process. And when we have a neurodiverse brain that educational process can be fractured, fraught with trauma (both little t and big T) and ohhhh so educational.
But it’s really important not only to understand it but also to lean into it.
Autonomy comes from the early 17th century from Greek autonomia, ‘having it’s own laws’. Well, yes, ok. But how the hell do you figure that out in the practical world, and how do you explain THAT to your teenager!!
Autonomy when we are trying to understand how our brain works or we are trying to connect with our children better is one of those things that I definitely can’t tell you exactly what to do but I can definitely give you tips on what has helped me.
The characteristics of autonomy, especially when we are talking about the neurodiverse journey are control, self determination, self awareness, and understanding of one's own value system.
As I’m sure you are aware, this can be fraught with challenges right there. Lets break this down.
Control - Having control over this journey is just not that simple. We don’t have control over it!! We don’t have control over the waitlists, and the fact that the meds run out, and that our brain forgets things, and that the system is screwed. So part of autonomy/control is figuring out what we DO have control over. And then maybe what part of our brain fights that control. If you’ve got a brain like mine, an AuDHD brain, the control part fights the non-control part.
And I get that it’s easy to say that there ARE things that you do have control over, but this is important. Focusing on the things you can control makes a HUGE difference in your overall sense of self. There’s a resource on my resources page for you to print out to get you started, or come have a chat about how I can help.
Self awareness - learning about yourself is the next big one. I know that learning about ADHD or ASD all over social media is overwhelming and not really getting a definitive answer anywhere can be frustrating as hell. The journey that I have been on with my son and myself has been a lot about self discovery rather than top layer stuff.
Understanding the how’s and why’s have made so much more sense than the what’s.
Having the language to explain even to myself why I do the things that I do
Setting up my ladder rungs to get myself out of my rabbit holes
Understanding that my boy needs to experience the world as it is rather than a bubble wrapped version that I have set up for him.
Giving myself permission to restore, lean into the feelings, define before reacting.
Starting the process of being more in control and becoming self aware not only is empowering but also leads to being able to feel more able to ask for support - another part of autonomy.
A supportive environment makes choices, communication and exploring self a much safer experience, and in this current climate that is super important. This is probably my biggest takeaway from everything I have been through in the past few years. Creating a safe space not only for our children but also for ourselves to explore what it means to be ourselves as we all go through this process.
Support, structure (damn my brain hates that word), and understanding has helped my brain start to form an autonomous orientation back to things that I enjoy which has therefore led me to increased executive functioning, and this close to 50 I didn’t think that was possible.
This is why I love helping other people struggling with the same things that I struggle with, lean into the things that they love to find their orientation back to their normal.