🔥Cassandra🔥Jun 5, 2023

I'm just back from singing, and I'm a little rattled.

I figured I'd have a rough time re: musculature, since I haven't really been *speaking* much since the pandemic began. (Vaping weed, though. A LOT.)

And I knew it would be rough because I got punished for making noise, and that's actual trauma to overcome.

Plus I knew it would be rough because I gave up music for decades. It surfaces emotions and I needed to *suppress* them to Be Perfect (to survive). So, like, there are *feelings.*

Show thread🔥Cassandra🔥

(How much of alexithymia is a trauma response, a learned behaviour from having been punished for having "wrong" emotions and needs?

#ActuallyAutistic )

Jun 5, 2023 at 8:06pmWeb
Show thread🔥Cassandra🔥Jun 5, 2023

ANYWAY SO, all of that and then also I have to be *loudly wrong,* when my trauma says "be quietly perfect."

I am paying this woman to make mistakes loudly in her face.

It is uncomfortable.

(Growth is uncomfortable.)

She has advised we'll be doing "primal sound" exercises next class.

😭

#FindingMyVoice

Show threadMarc "ACAB" GodinJun 5, 2023
@Cassandra This is so scary but I hope you are able to feel proud of yourself for doing it. I hope you find your voice, and when you do it will be beautiful. :)
Show thread🔥Cassandra🔥Jun 5, 2023
@quietmarc Thank you! 💜 I am optimistic.
Show threadDark Sheep Arts Has MovedJun 5, 2023
@Cassandra That's a good question. I don't have an answer, but I can absolutely identify with having spent my life feeling that my emotions were bad, wrote, out of proportion or just 'too much.'
Show threadDark Sheep Arts Has MovedJun 5, 2023
@Cassandra (With the further info that I'm Alexithymic, since I forgot that not everyone knows what happens on the isnide of my head!)
Show thread🔥Cassandra🔥Jun 5, 2023
@DarkSheepArts (I had assumed it as necessary context for your comment.)
Show threadDark Sheep Arts Has MovedJun 5, 2023
@Cassandra Nice one!
Show threadSylvainJun 5, 2023

@Cassandra

The more I talk to people and read about autism, the more I believe EVERYTHING is a trauma response...

Show threadKevin DavyJun 5, 2023
@axnxcamr @Cassandra
And if not originally one, then certainly exaggerated by trauma.
Show thread🔥Cassandra🔥Jun 5, 2023

@Pathfinder @axnxcamr

Yeah, I think I had the same conclusion re ARFID recently. You start with sensory issues (tastes, textures), which probably aren't such a big deal if they're supported.

But if instead you add some punishment / trauma, you end up with a full-scale eating disorder.

Show threadKevin DavyJun 5, 2023
@Cassandra @axnxcamr
I'm sure you're right. Adding in low self esteem and an over active willingness to please for the merest hint of approval, plus an almost complete absense of role models and information and you have an almost perfect recipe for exaggerating and fostering trauma linked responces.