Step 3: Implement

Tucker is coming up over Solstice. Mom is coming up in the beginning of July. I'm going to talk to Avi about coming up July/Aug, and likewise Nicholas. Also gonna try and get Tucker to come back up in there somewhere, ideally once a month or so? Josh will be here in Sept. The plan is to take Angus to the Salt Spring Apple Festival in Oct, if it happens. Kelsey will arrive in PG in Sept and be super busy but at least closer. I'm reaching out to talk to her more and it is, as always, wonderful.

Met one person in the next town over in the queer group online to go walking with, not a date or anything, just... someone maybe likeminded.

Starting to maybe gather people for the fall harvest festival here, I need to talk to them about the date.

I'm wearing my ring. It's a gold ring, on my wedding finger. Realized I'm not sure what to say when someone at work asks me about it: "oh yeah, I'm wedded to my land, agriculture, and the goddess Demeter" I guess. That'll go over well. I guess I spent the last couple years worrying about what would go over well and it didn't serve me; I'm grateful to my interactions with J for breaking me out of that cage. No sense in climbing back into it now.

Of course

Mind blown.

Talked to the PDA counselor today. She's reading a book called "unmasking autism" and in it there's a distinction between "camouflaging" which it describes as hiding oneself in order to be more socially acceptable and "compensating" which it describes as using a bunch of workarounds.

I am completely a compensator. I'm upfront about things and present them carefully to normalize them, so I get ahead of them. I use humour and commonalities to deflate tensions. I play up my strengths and minimize my weaknesses. I (deftly?) avoid situations which I won't do well in. And I do this because I don't expect anyone to ever give me true accommodations so I have to make them myself.

It means that I feel more at ease with myself in public situations that camouflagers? Because some parts of me are out and visible. But it also means that acceptance is always predicated on my doing so much work, explaining, setting tone, presenting, highlighting, soothing, connecting. I don't just get to sit down and be me and have someone else do the work of reaching out, meeting me halfway, exploring who I am and coming to their own acceptance.

Work is where this falls apart. I can do the interpersonal compensation, but the rigid union structure prevents me from bending my time and energy to fit into the work I'm given and I hit burnout hard. Is there a way to set up within this structure so I'll be ok? Hard to tell.