Being the hungry caterpillar…

Safety behind the plant.

Whether it is my natural whimsical nature or the operating system of my autistic brain that finds comfort in childlike things, I have never lost my infatuation and love of the Hungry Caterpillar. It should come as no surprise to me that its one-time innocence of its simple journey through just becoming what it was always meant to be; that the hungry caterpillar is me. No, I do not mean I actually believe the book is about me (if only!). Instead that what has resonated with the part of me buried deep within, has been a lifelong journey of wondering when the actual fuck I would start to feel like I wasn’t an accident, or broken. That I spent 52 years gorging myself in any way I had access to, so I could finally weave my cocoon and feel safe enough to emerge on the other side. It didn’t matter if it was food, alcohol, sex, shopping, too many books to list or simply not slowing down to take a breath. Anything to push down the fires in my belly wanting out. So much I want to say. Things I want to create. Textures with rough edges I wanted to caress. Messes to be made and rejoiced in. Things I knew my parents would not allow, accept or support. So, I mistakenly chose the path of numbing out. How foolish to think there would ever be enough to achieve that end.

It is fascinating to me that for all we humans have learned, despite the unoriginality of these behaviors, they continue to dominate so many of our lives. I suppose one could blame living in a capitalist society that literally preys on insecurities, especially for women from every direction possible. But for myself I also think that is not the initiator of the poor choices, but more the platform that keeps them alive. For myself, and of course this upon reflection many years later as I can assure you my plan at 14 wasn’t “to get fat, numb myself and try and make myself invisible.” It’s simpler than that. At 14, one of the very few things I had access to, or any sense of power over, was food. I had started working at 10 to make money wherever I could because my folks were determined not to spoil me and money was power. Not at the levels of dominating the universe or even noteworthy by any else’s standards. It gave me the power to make a choice. No junk food in the house? Fine! I shall walk down to Cala market and show you who is boss! Even better…I will hide it. Not so much like Gollum from Lord of the Rings (that was my playgirl magazine under my doll bed mattress), but more just a secret. As an adult it is easy to forget the power a secret carries when one is young. I can certainly remember how clever I felt sneaking in chips or candy bars and knowing my mother was none the wiser.

Therin lies the biggest part of bad behaviors that makes them so hard to tackle and make lasting changes against. First of all, prior to the digital age we are currently living in where more information is available, I don’t recall seeing a lot of posters or advertisements aimed at my age group warning of the dangers of eating our feelings or that other than potential cavities, there just might be lifelong health risks taking root. I will also not say that junk food is a gateway drug to … well, anything. However, understanding now that I have both an addictive personality both inherited from both sides of my family with the added bonus of not knowing I was autistic and that I was predisposed to a desire to numb myself out from feeling so “other than” any of my peers and desperately wanting to feel less, does not make it easier to dig through the rubble of my existence and pinpoint when actions I chose to feel some semblance of control solidified. The irony is not lost on me.

It is obvious of course then that sex and shopping would rear their heads, and they tend to become the next sources of freedom many women are exposed to. Even though I was gaining more and more weight, not only did this not deter my eating junk food (also a side note here that I was a CRAZY picky eater at this age – as autism was an unknown my parents just thought I was being stubborn, but the joke was I ate about 8 or 9 different things and that was it), but oh sex and shopping were a welcome diversion! Sex an obvious one most parents do not want their teenage daughters considering, but shopping was also a tabu as my parents would tell me they were on a tight budget but would not talk about money with me in any healthy way. My father was a British accountant, and money was his domain and any time I asked why they said what little they did, I was quickly admonished with the classic “do as I say, not as I do” and that is “private.”

I feel the need to point out here that although I am not exaggerating and if my folks were still alive they would confirm what I am saying, but I need to also point out that for this subject I am obviously focusing on only the negatives that I experienced with my parents as they were what I heard the loudest. I know to my core that my parents loved me deeply and never meant one ounce of ill intent on anything that happened during my life with them. Like all of us, they were doing their best with what they were armed with at the time. Which as two people who removed themselves from their home countries and families and who were brought up to be intensely private – I harbor no delusions that for them asking advice was not an option, even if they had wanted to. As angry as it made me when I was younger, I harbor none of the resentments today (at least none that keep me up at night). But after years of blaming myself for everything that happened in the world that I couldn’t understand, I have learned to acknowledge that others played a role as well, intentional or not. I also would like to say that getting older, especially past 50, can in fact be the greatest equalizer of emotional perspective.

Back to sex and shopping…

So, sex and shopping share a myriad of enjoyable emotions. The feeling of control over one’s own body; how we use it, adorn it, is intensely powerful, especially to someone emotionally immature and not ready for either. I know for me they both felt powerful. Like “look at me, I don’t care what anyone thinks, I made this choice for myself.” Not to pop anyone’s bubble who hasn’t figured it out yet, but both are dangerous illusions. Both come with risks and consequences which are felt under control, until they are not. Luckily my obsession with birth control saved me on both the STD & pregnancy front. As far as money goes, I still suck at it. However, after years of struggles and bankruptcy many moons ago, I have in fact learned how to be responsible enough to get all bills paid on time, keep debt low and be grateful I have many years ahead where I am still able to work.

Alcohol is a different story, and I do have to laugh a bit here, not because it is funny, but because sometimes you must take humor where you can find it. One thing I learned in AA was that men tend to build addictions over time. Women dive in at 90 miles an hour. Of course, not true for every woman, but it certainly weas for me. One drink helped me relax enough to feel more comfortable around other humans. When I was young, if I went to a party, I was going to get drunk. I knew that 100% of the time and oh did I look forward to it. Because that night I got to pretend I wasn’t intensely uncomfortable with myself; I was more fun. During my 20’s & into early 30’s, which is often the phase that hits many of us, it probably would have been fine eventually and mellowed as I got older and grew into my life. That is not what happened. I left my first husband and the relationship I got involved in I learned to equate happiness with drinking, because that is what he and I did when we were together. Well drinking and sex. So, when he wasn’t around, which was a lot (ya know, because he was married), I started drinking, trying to recapture the feeling of joy I had when we were together. I did finally realize what was happening with me, but the path of least resistance was to keep drinking and hope for the best. Ya, there was not enough alcohol on earth to push down the internal realization that he was never going to be the man I needed in my life, and I think the utter shame that I had created this situation and had not come to terms with it faster, almost killed me.

There is not a busy enough work life or enough self-help books on the market to help you escape the cycle completely. Working too much I would make myself sick from utter exhaustion and self-help books absolutely have their place and I am grateful for them – but they only (at least for me) worked once I started to climb out of the pit of horror and shame that my life had become to do any good. The food I semi got under control, but that took having gastric bypass surgery 20 years ago this coming November because my 340lbs I was carrying around at 33 felt so beyond my control I knew if I didn’t do something drastic, I was lost. I still struggle with my weight, and I am processing that as well because right before covid I had gotten my weight to a happy place again and then the dark time came, and all my work went out the window. Two years with barely any contact with anyone outside of my husband and my mom who had I.P.F. and I was terrified of getting covid as it would have killed her. This was followed by a 2-year window of watching my mom actively start to die and quite frankly the numbing of my youth with food came back with open arms. I had also realized my mom had gotten jealous when I was nearing her svelte self and honestly, I couldn’t take the passive aggressive comments she would make, or the teasing me about getting skinnier than her, which made me feel like shit.

After my mom died last year the grieving I went through was beyond intense. Not just because my mom had passed, or because she was my last living relative, I knew. It was consuming because I started to look behind the curtain of myself and what made me who I am and I realized so much of what I had chosen, what I actively participated in was an elaborate survival project. I had received my autism diagnosis about 5 months before her passing and as I started to learn about late diagnosed autism in women, about masking as it is called and how it had in fact impacted my life. I am grateful every day, that the grieving portion of my diagnosis did not hit until after my mom had passed, because it would have destroyed her and it wasn’t her fault. But this hungry caterpillar (me) had somehow survived gorging on way too much of everything that was never meant to be done to excess, to quiet the voices inside my head telling me how fucked up I was. How I would never fit in or be accepted by “normal” people because I was too loud. Too colorful. Too childlike with my interests. Too silly. Too Pollyanna because I think life should be fair to everyone and I still believe that. Too blunt. Too unfiltered. Too sensitive. Too chatty with strangers. Too literal. Too different from what is perceived as normal.

 Too much.

I am in fact all those things and I will be until the day I die. However, as I continue to learn more about autism, my operating system is simply wired differently. As I begin to understand how my mind works and responds to things, I am also learning that I like that my brain is different. I don’t understand why neurotypical people do half of what they do, and other than being fascinating with it, I don’t want to fit in like that. I am not too much, I am simply different, and it wasn’t my choice. I came into this world wired this way and I will continue to learn all I can about the differences simply so I can navigate the world with a bit more ease. It was no one’s fault that I wasn’t diagnosed as a child because the discoveries are just now being made and researched and understood. And it’s funny because after spending most of my life feeling like a freak, now that I know I am wired differently it changes that. I can no more be neurotypical that I can wake up tomorrow being 7 feet tall; ain’t gonna happen. I also find which may be a fluke, but fuck I’m not questioning it; the more I learn about how my brain works, the less “hungry” I am. Compulsions are lessoning their hold on me. I am actually starting to believe that I not entering but have entered and am in my cocoon phase. That butterfly I have always strived to become is becoming and I can already hear her in my head. She has started speaking to me because she knows I don’t like surprises, and she wants me to be ready for her emergence. I was always so afraid that if I opened the floodgates, I wouldn’t be able to survive the scream that would be unleashed.

How wrong I was to expect a screaming roar when I finally opened my ears and started to listen to her speak to me, when in fact what has greeted me is a whisper saying “welcome home – it’s so nice to finally meet.”