The question was asked – What challenges drive you?

Most people, I think, when faced with that question will automatically turn to something in their lives that they are working towards: a goal, an achievement, a mountain to climb.  Me?  I no longer have those things.  I just want to know that I Am, that I exist and that my life and its struggles, its fears, its joys and laughter, is real and that it has been worthwhile.

At times that is a major challenge – even now when I understand so much more about how my neurodivergent brain could have mis-interpreted my mother’s words:  sit in the corner, read your book, do not talk, you do not exist.  She too was just as damaged as I.

So much of my life has been spent at one extreme or the other.  I don’t exist.  I am an alien inhabiting a human body.  If I keep quiet and blend into the wall, no-one will know I am here.  But then I would step out onto the stage: dancing, acting, teaching.  Being up-front, being seen, being in charge.  But this strong and confident aspect of me… is she real? 

When you doubt that you exist, you look at those around you.  Do they see you?  Are you important to them?  Can you be of benefit to them – and they to you?  The lesson you were taught as a young child sprouts wings and grows out of all proportion.  From that doubt and confusion you somehow manage to work out that it is a different person within you that can climb the steps to the stage and be a strong leader, and you even give that other aspect of yourself a name: The Actress on the Stage.

It was the Actress that brought the successes.  It was the Actress who was up-front-and-forward when times were tough.  It was the Actress that held things together when family and the world conspired to confirm that I was no longer wanted in their lives. 

And there we have it.  I have a challenge in this lifetime, a mountain to climb; a mountain formed from being born in a time when the ways in which my brain works were unknown, and in this sphere of ignorance, so many errors and misunderstandings were bound to be made.   Right now I feel I am standing on tiptoe on the highest pinnacle of that mountain.  There is every chance that I will fall off, time and time again and when that happens, I know that time and time again I will climb back up that mountain.  Sometimes it will be the Actress that climbs back up, sometimes it will be the child who doubts she exists.  One day, the Child and the Actress will grasp hands and blend into the one person we really are, and when that happens, I suspect we wouldn’t stand on tiptoe, there would be a solid, balanced platform from which to look out at this beautiful world.