And we interpret "push past your limits" as push yourself until you literally collapse from exhaustion rather than push past the minor discomfort that we push past every day just to survive. And we assume most of our lives that other people are doing the same and so we feel inferior since it's so much more difficult for us. But
Key example, I found myself hired at a fancy steakhouse in December 2019, less than a month after moving halfway across the country, mere months before the "official" outbreak of the pandemic in the US (we now know it started much closer to....exactly then).
Having newly moved, plus my own background of various other traumas including queer fleeing a conservative state and poverty upbringing, I was terrified on top of all this of underperforming and losing a job. Also apparently a common ND trauma/response. For the next year and a half, I found myself being one moment, given almost. "I'm scared of you, and equally impressed" ""praise"" by everyone, telling me they had no idea a dishwasher "could be that good" as I made myself comparable to a full 3-5 dish crew, solo.
But at the same time I was constantly being berated to keep up that pace as the long shifts went on! It's like hitting the nitro out the gate and HOLDING it...
@irotsoma @actuallyautistic I went through an entire similar length stint at various food factories before realizing any of this. That's the most unfortunate thing is, we get idolized as "superman" when we're crushed into excelling beyond what anyone thinks one person is capable of. But if we don't understand what we're being subjected to, and we don't have ND peers who can recognize and intervene. Nobody realizes the cost, and instead we end up normalizing that "boost" state until it can literally take us out. Then get punished for when that juice runs out later on, or hasn't "been refilled" by the next time we're asked to use it.
Explains why I never understood the "second gear!" metaphor there, because I was already on 3rd the whole time, then dropping down to 1st towards the end just to survive.
Jul
Andrea, Automancer, Sapphimancer ⚧️♾️