to be just right

my brain alongside its fear

I write almost daily. I love to write. Maybe put more accurately, I love the creative part of writing. After that, it kinda goes a little haywire.

What happens is, occasionally the words flow together effortlessly and I see myself reflected back through them. Those are the days when the writing comes easy. It’s such a beautiful feeling. I love writing on those days, only they rarely come often. You see, I’ve always struggled with believing that my writing was good enough to share. I have plenty of uncompleted short stories and written plans for more, countless lists, letters I’ve never sent, and thoughts packed away in the pages of countless journals spanning more than the last 25 years of my life. I’ve written a lot. But I never shared a word of it until only a couple of years ago when I started writing on my platforms. I’ve always avoided sharing what I wrote. I guess it proved to be much easier than facing what it would take for me to share my creations with others.

For this platform, I have hundreds of finished writing pieces, littered throughout various apps and notes on my iPhone and saved all over my desktop and Google Drive. I collect my words. I hoard them, waiting for that one day that I’ll finally figure out how to craft them just right, all while trying to outwit the fear that tells me they never will be. This fear tells me that if I can’t get it just right, if I can’t say it in a way that makes just the right amount of sense, I will be humiliated. When that happens, I’ll never be able to find the words to make myself understood and that means I’ll be unsafe to the whims of the people around me. I’ll never be able to protect myself from humiliation and all that comes with it.

If I can’t get it just right, I’ll do what I can to avoid it.

[ID: Sandra is a Black femme who spends hours at this seat by her computer keyboards (including the day of writing this ID. She’s not been at her best lately as she tries to figure out this part of her neurodivergence journey, but remains hopeful. They write daily, always careful to have hydration visible and earplugs handy. These are long days. End ID]

I edit my words, just in case I’m not clear. Maybe I’ll be misunderstood, but a misunderstanding is nothing in my mind compared to what’ll happen if I’m wrong. So I keep editing them. I edit my words over and over again. I edit them so much that they begin to sound like everyone else I grew up around and never like myself. I read them back until I think they sound clear enough and not quite from me. On days when stress and anxiety are particularly high in my life, this process becomes debilitating. It takes hours to complete one thing and it’s a relentless pursuit to find the exact wording to make everything sound just right. Many times, I’ll write until exhaustion, ignoring all else in my life because I know I’m only an edit away until it’s perfect. It’s not unlike me to spend five to six hours on a single IG post and two hours on a 25-minute podcast episode. This doesn’t include the additional hour or more of writing and rewriting their captions either.

I’ve spent my life checking myself over and over again. Driven by a state of anxiety and near panic. Fearful that if I’m not incredibly careful with my words, then I will never be safe again. I think I’ve learned this behaviour, but I can’t be sure. I’ve always been very sensitive, worrisome and incredibly cautious, which also has made me very irritable and anxious when I’m not sure about the outcomes of things too. So, I choose my words very carefully now, especially since everything I thought I knew about the world and the truths of all I never learned as a transracial adoptee left me in pieces. I’m still horrified about all the ways I never understood how much people disliked me when I just spoke. Or how little they actually thought of me because I was Black. I don’t know if I’ll ever truly heal from that. It’s left me with wounds like gaping holes that continue to become reinfected and fester any time I try to make myself post on my platforms. Platforms that continue to consume me whole while stealing what’s left of me for their own profit at the same time.

It’s never just words that are taken.

My words are not the only things crafted so carefully though. It’s many different things that connect to being seen or visible. So when it gets bad, my social anxiety shows up and that’s where these OCD flare-ups appear. They’re the ones that have me checking to make sure things are just right, so much so that it’s become best for me to avoid the task altogether. But when this spreads to other areas of my life, I end up doing nothing and everything around me falls apart. That’s when it can spiral into never having the just-right qualifications to prove that I know enough so I need to get more, never having the just-right amount of knowledge to say I’m very good at what I do, so I need to prove it by doing more. I can’t leave a counselling or coaching session until I feel it’s the just-right time and amount of transformation for the person I work with, so I stay late on the call. On a very bad day, nothing in my life manages to meet my fear’s just-right expectations and I’m just exhausted. Most of the time I’m exhausted. But the worst part about this?

I have no idea what just right will be.

It’s frustrating to logically know that all my fears are quite unfounded but at the same time, they feel so real inside this body. I know that all the things I fear about writing, about showing up as who I am and what it means to be myself are not true. In fact, I should be celebrating myself. I know I’m so incredibly good and knowledgeable at what I do. I know that I have a lens on neurodivergence, trauma and intersectionality that is different from most other advocates in this space too. I know that I’m a good person. Most of all, I know my words, when they feel like my own, can be incredibly moving and powerful. I’m writing a book. My book. The only one I’ve ever wanted to write. I know that I’m talented and have nothing to prove.

I just can’t convince myself of any of this, yet.

As I’ve started to better understand my neurodivergent brain, I leam more about what I need to function a lot better. I attempt to find things that ease the anxiety enough to step away from the checking so I’m not equal parts drained and defeated. I’m still looking for support for the anxiety because I’m finally accepting that it’s not only real, but it’s also debilitating me. I’m doing what I can on the days I feel like I can get it together enough to hit post. But this is the worst it’s ever been, while at the same time producing some of the best things I’ve ever written.

Most of which you’ll never read.

Because that fear still sits in the background waiting, and just when I think I’ve finally figured it out, it starts to spiral again. It always seems to find the just-right time to let me know that I still have so much more to learn and unlearn about being myself.

But I’m also a little braver than the last time too.

Tell me about how you’re learning to manage your (social) anxiety or what’s helped with any OCD you’ve had to work through. I’d love to hear what you’ve discovered.