I have no idea what I am about to write about.  It’s been over two weeks since I last wrote pretty much anything except the very occassional entry in my Journal.  And that is very strange for me.  No blogs, no chapters in my book, barely any responses on social media.

I’ve mentioned a few times that I think best by writing, so the best reason I can come up with for being in the very unusual state of non-writing is that I have needed to rest my mind.  I need to start writing again and so this blog is just going to be the un-thought words and emotions that need to be released.  In other words (and be warned) I am about to waffle.

In the last month there has been the stress and worry of the phenomenal amount of water that has fallen from the sky and flooded a part of Queensland equal to the size of France.  People have lost their homes and all their belongings.  People have lost their lives.  But I have also seen the best of people.  I have watched the community become a community.  I have seen people reaching to what has always been within them but is often pushed aside – compassion.  I have seen the love of strangers – and it IS love for their fellow beings that drives someone to leave their own loved ones and get helicoptered into a strange, afflicted, town and do what they can to assist.  Humans are often at their best when other humans hurt.

I was lucky.  Only a small part of my home was flooded and I was assisted by heaps of people all aiming to help me get my life back on track.  And my gratitude knows no bounds.

Then I fell over.  I smashed my nose.  It took a week for the swelling to go down enough to get a CT scan to learn what the damage was.  And that week was needed in order for the floods to abate enough for me to be able to travel the 90 minute drive to where I could access a CT scan. 

Now that all the rainbow colours of facial bruising have gone, there is very little to see.  If you look closely you can see that the top of my nose has moved slightly to the right whilst the bottom is off centre to the left; and my nostrils are odd sizes.  All the damage is inside and I’ll need surgery so that I can breathe properly again.  But it’s not urgent.  I could have done much more damage.

This accident led me to another understanding of how my body works.  I was offered opiate painkillers because it was expected that the pain would be intense.  I didn’t feel much pain at all.  Some numbness, a weird sensation that my nose is not where it should be and some mild toothache.  I didn’t use any painkillers. 

That expectation of pain held by the medical staff got me looking at other times I have bashed up my body.  Many years ago (1980’s) I fell off a stage and severely sprained my ankle.  I taught three hours of high-impact aerobics on that ankle and then drove 20 miles home.  About ten years ago I was knocked down by a cyclist going at high speed on a walking path.  I snapped the medial ligament in my knee.  I carried on working as a cleaner carrying vacuums and piles of linen up and down 17 flights of stairs (the building didn’t have a lift).  Seven years ago I fell off a sea wall and totally smashed up my lower left leg and ankle.  My body went into shock and my last memory was of a paramedic announcing that I didn’t have a pulse.  Two surgeries later, throwing up all over the place after being given morphine, I came off all medication.  I did not experience pain.  There’s been a few other instances where there has been an expectation of pain, where I know there is pain, but my mind doesn’t accept it. 

I recently read of new research into aphantasia where it has been discovered that people with aphantasia do actually get brain activity associated with visualising, but the information kind of gets stuck and isn’t translated into actual mental pictures.  I’m wondering if a similar thing is happening with pain. 

Now, four weeks after all this drama and trauma started, I need to make myself start writing again.  In the place of writing I have been crocheting.  When I fell off that wall seven years ago and was confined to bed for nine weeks – I crocheted.  My mind is not engaged when I crochet other than to count stitches.  It’s restful.  My mind, much like a broken bone, has needed time out over these past few weeks, but now I recognise how it would be so very easy to just carry on, counting stitches, watching movies, and allowing both body and mind to atrophy.  It is by conscious choice that I now sit at my laptop and start the journey to re-inspiring my mind into action. 

Because without my mind, who am I?

And if you got this far, I thank you for reading this waffle which will, I hope lead me into getting back into ‘proper’ writing!

Thank you for reading

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Auri’An Lay

Life through a neuro-divergent mind