I was out for a driving lesson, and my instructor commented that I should relax and slow down. I usually handle his suggestions with good grace, because I agree that slowing down gives more time to make things happen. But the r-word? The r-word is triggering. When he repeated it later, I commented that he’d not tell a cancer patient to stop having cancer, I’d hope. I wasn’t mean, but… that’s sort of where it is for me. Between my brain and its woes and my body and its ailments, relaxation isn’t something I’m good at. Slowing down definitely isn’t either, because the brain has usually gone so yappy as to shut down.

I’m not mad at him, mind — I know he means well and is trying to help me do well so that my licence test will be a dawdle. But that’s always the worst — people mean well when they tell you to relax and slow down with no regard for how hard it is for those of us who aren’t neuro-typical. There is only so much grinning and bearing one can do, and I think that most of my friends would agree that we do a lot of it. And why wouldn’t we? I know for me, I get a lot of ‘hookay… backing away now’ if I’m honest about how my quirky little pile of brainmeats ‘work’. I still try to be honest because I feel that the best service I can do for myself and others with bipolar and other mental conditions is to be politely frank about what’s going on with me.

And I know, I know, it’s so easy to miss with me, or just to assume I’m cranky because I (like to think) do such a thorough job of applying positivity and optimism to my life. That isn’t a service to society — that is a service to myself. I know it can work against me and has in the past because people assume that I’m around to take all their licks… and then get very surprised when I cut them out of my life. That isn’t to say I don’t give people chances, because I do… but because I have to take care of me, I have a lot less room for keeping bullshit and bullshit’s owners in my lives, even if doing so would be ‘being nice’ (a phrase I find repugnant). If I can’t relax, why am I going to waste spoons letting children continue to misbehave by ‘being nice’? Yeah…

Anyways, there’s no angry behind this. Nobody is about to get the chop. Just… a little vent. Those are good for keeping the sanity peace, yanno? 🙂

<3