avoiding what's next

when my brain thinks it knows best but is wrong

It took me three days to even approach the link from my production editor for the typeset pdf of my book’s manuscript (It’s Never Just ADHD. Finding the Child Behind the Label). Three days of hardcore avoidance with a dash of shame and apprehension mixed in for what I could only foresee as the disaster that would be revealed when I finally opened it. All I could think of was how much I would hate everything I’d written over the last two years and everything I needed to change.

At this point, I was envisioning the drive to do a whole other rewrite.

This belief only made the final instructions from my production editor that much more daunting. She’d already given me strict instructions (and on numerous occasions), that this pdf of the book would go to the printers and I was looking for essential edits - only. We were on a deadline now too, so there would be no more major changes. I had my chance last month to edit to my heart’s content.

But for now… This. Was. It.

Of course, I assumed that my OCD was creeping up at this point and rightly so. My flavour of OCD enjoys the belief that somehow, with enough time and effort, I’ll be able to find that just right calculation of perfection in what I do. If I can’t, I’ll be forever humiliated and completely abandoned, unable to convince anyone that I’m doing the best I can, that it was just a mistake… It doubts my ability to ever find this perfection - but it doesn’t want me to stop trying either. Only, since I won’t ever do it well enough to please my OCD, the logical solution and go-to compulsion for me tends to be avoidance.

So that’s what I did. I avoided it. I avoided it while restlessly doing other things. I guess I hoped that somehow they would help me miraculously discover the just right formula to transform my ability to engage with my manuscript for the last time.

in hiding from just right

The link still haunted me… but I was also doing a fairly good job of pretending it didn’t exist, even with the knowledge of limited time until the deadline. However, all that was about to change.

Friday mornings are my somatic-focusing time. It’s when I meet with my somatic-focusing partner to practice being with my body and tracking its sensations. I’ve been engaging in this practice for the last two years. It helps me get closer to understanding what’s happening in my body.

Without my focusing partner, being with my sensations quicly becomes daunting and scary. I need the coregulation support to track and explore what’s happening in my body. Since I have little capacity to go through some of the more intense feelings that might come to the surface on my own, their presence helps me access more safety in my body, giving me more capacity to be with what arises. By developing a stronger relationship with my body I can better decode its language (sensations) and give it what it needs. The more I can give my body what it needs, the stronger my self-trust gets and the more aligned I feel with the choices I make.

That Friday, something in me knew that I needed my somatic-focusing partner's support. But it didn’t make any sense, because I thought I knew what was going on. My brain made it very clear that it was just my OCD being a pain in the ass. All I really needed to do was just find a trusted friend and eventually, I’d open up the link and read the final manuscript. Yet here I was, suddenly sensing that something in my body said no. Something deep in my body whispered, ask your somatic-focusing partner to do this with you.

So I did.

I had no idea that I'd be close to tears within 30 seconds of sensing what was coming to my awareness about the link. Two minutes later I’d be sobbing as the sensations washed over me. By the end of my session (which was only 10 minutes and I’d cried for four of them), I knew I was ready to open the link and download the manuscript - especially with their presence over Zoom.

I genuinely thought that the apprehension and avoidance I felt was due to some part of my neurodivergence. The expectation I had was all about the fear that I’d experience being stuck editing my book, wanting to change all the things and struggling with the fact that I couldn’t. But the real reason I was avoiding it was a much deeper truth.

Grief.

what’s next?

This link represented the near end of what has been such a challenging yet fulfilling journey for me. Finishing this task would be the last time I’d see the book before it went to print. This was the last time I could say I was working on my book. This was the last time I could say I needed to meet with my editor. I wasn’t ready to hold all of that. This was it, and my brain never saw it coming.

But my body did.

I’m always amazed at what the body knows when we can find the space and bravery to listen.

How do you feel about endings? Are the emotions more about something ending, something beginning or the uncertainty of what could be next? I’d love to hear your experiences.