2021, a personal review

2020 was one of the best years of my life. This year has been one of the worst (along with 1996, 2006, 2012!). I’ve been in places that I’ve never been in before, and the triggers that caused them were impossible to remove so it’s been almost impossible to recover, in fact I’m still working on it.

What happened?

Firstly, I was back to being alone. The thing that made 2020 so special was having a best friend to share in activities with, but by the spring I’d realised that, despite me prompting, it always seemed to be me planning things and putting the thought in, and when I tried to talk about my concerns and when I had tough times where I needed my friend to do be there for me, there was silence. So I returned to my state of aloneness, which was tough after a glimpse of something wonderful that I’d been without for about 12 years.

I had other local friends but I wasn’t hearing from them so I wasn’t getting what I needed from the friendship. I am looking for friendships not just activity buddies, so I am looking for more than for them to be open to me inviting myself to spend time with them, I need them to act first sometimes. I tried to tell them, but they got upset with me so those friendships died a death too. I’m not very good at keeping a dialogue going to maintain a traditional friendship (because it’s something I have to ‘work out’ rather than something that comes naturally, and also because I am in a permanent mindset of ‘moving on’ until I find my life partner which is hard to override), so I contribute in the way I know (organising things and being constantly alert to where I can be helpful if my skills and means allow), but I need it to be two sided and I need to know that I am useful to someone and cared for by them. Sometimes it’s easier just to go back to my solo endeavours. I still have many other friends I could call up and chat with should I desire, and I do value their friendship, so why did I still feel alone? I’m not quite sure, but this year the impacts of loneliness really hit me. There was nobody to laugh off my woes with, which can go a long way in fostering happiness.

This aloneness was exacerbated by working from home, alone, for a large portion of the year. As wonderful and supportive as my company is, they will never be able to make working from home work for me, I need people to bounce off. I take my inspiration and motivation from others. I do spend some time in the office, but it’s like sticking a plaster on to a gaping wound, it doesn’t really work without other people being there and without the main focus of the company being at the office, it felt empty (not constantly, but largely). I’m also still playing catch-up with my technical knowledge so have little opportunity to feel useful in work, much like in my social life. Thankfully at work there is help and support, but at times when things were difficult I needed to fall back on a social life outside work, and without that I fell down holes that I was trying to build ladders out of but the rungs were flimsy and would break so I'd fall hard and I'd need to rest before starting again.

Another factor contributing to my struggles was autism. I have suspected I’m autistic for some time, but never publicised it because autism is still quite misunderstood and I'm not ready yet to be the person that batters down the prejudices (I'm getting there). I don’t want people to use autism to absolve themselves of responsibility in any communication issues with me. I mentioned it to one person before and the paraphrased response was ‘so that’s why you’re weird, it’s you not us’, or ‘she’s just autistic, don’t worry about it’. Females with autism are very likely to mask, which means we are constantly adapting ourselves to fit in, which is exhausting, but people don't like it when I unmask, so I long for greater understanding (of us being 'different' not 'weird') and for non-autistic people to have empathy for me rather than me being expected to adapt to the 'norm', so that I can be a bit more 'me'. I attended an excellent course at work where I felt a strong sense of belonging as it was describing me 100%. The reason the course was excellent, is that the aim was to promote acceptance or neurodiversities (and it mentioned several celebrities with autism, ADHD, dyslexia and dispraxia), and it highlighted the strengths of people with neurodiversities as well as the weaknesses (saying that everybody who has changed the world is likely to have had a neurodiversity), because often (especially when it comes to diagnosis) only the negative aspects of autism are focussed on. The course talked about us having a ‘spiky skills profile’ with peaks and troughs, as opposed to a relatively flat skills profile that a neurotypical person has. I remembered that as a child I was very confident in my strengths, and that I have lost that over the years, lost faith in myself. Time and again I have been met by negativity and a lack of acceptance, been thrown out of groups, and I have become wary and defensive - I now second guess that negativity coming so I can protect myself. It upset me greatly to realise this, to realise how much I have changed without meaning to or noticing. I want to reclaim my strengths, and I want to not get upset when I am misunderstood (being misunderstood which is something that currently affects me greatly), but I don’t know how. I haven’t managed to find the right help, you can’t get professional help for autism without a diagnosis, and in Devon the waiting list for assessment is 3 ½ years, and I’m only half way through. A private company was recommended to me but the cost was prohibitive. I tried to explain my situation to various friends myself with mixed reactions. At least at work they encourage you to self-identify (which I have) and provide useful support.

So due to these reasons, in 2021 I didn’t feel part of the world, and it’s hard to explain what I mean by that. I mean it feels like it’s not for me, as if people (organisers and rulers) aren’t meaning me when they make plans. Which is a strange thing to think and must be my own construction, but how do I smash it? I feel a bit like everybody else fits together, which also doesn’t make sense as there are people a lot more unusual than me (including those that were unusual-nasty rather than unusual-unobtrusive so they stand out more and become part of history), so it’s not as if weird isn’t part of life. So why do I feel so detached? I have to fit my weird into the world, but I don’t know how. I’ve actually always felt like like I'm not really part of things, but this feeling collided with the struggles of 2021 to drive me into an unhappy place. The tiny things that used to get me through each day were gone, but I couldn’t explain what they even were, just that their absence broke me. I was a bit like a robot, I was just going through the day to day motions. I didn’t feel depressed, just disconnected and broken. As you read this you may think I’m trying to say that life feel soulless, or emotionless, or pointless, but that’s not quite it. It’s more that those emotions didn't even exist and life felt like something for other people. I felt like I was spinning off into orbit; without other people to feed off and connect to I drift off in my own world but it's a world that I never get to spend long in so it's never been given an opportunity to make any sense. When you're in a place like this, it’s hard to describe what’s wrong, because if you can do that you’ve probably mostly solved it just by realising. But every day felt not right. I also felt confused, not just about technical stuff at work but about nearly everything, down to what to take to go for a swim. By the time it got to about October, every tiny issue would make me feel small and I'd go to pieces, I wasn’t handling it. I had also become wholly wary of all people, especially new people, expecting them to be negative or unpleasant, and I developed a disbelief in friendship. This really struck me when I went to Scotland in August, when I'd arrive at a car park the same time as some other walkers and for some reason I was expecting them to be unhappy with me, but at the same time memories stirred in me from former trips where both I and they would say a happy 'hello' without expecting otherwise, this Scotland trip really woke me up to the fact that something had really gone wrong for me.

I needed to somehow fix just one aspect of belonging or feeling needed but that usually comes from other people, not from yourself, and I was beyond helping myself anyway. My salvage came from a bunch of swimmers from Plymouth, and from a few running friends. In July I went to the Scilly Isles with the swimmers and had some of my best adventures ever (and there have been a few), doing swim/runs round the islands. The thing that made this stand out over previous adventures is that I was part of a like-minded group, and swim/running is just so wild and free but also hard to do alone, that to have such epic adventures but sharing it with other similarly adventurous souls was quite magical. There were other adventures throughout the summer and autumn with the same group – swimming round St. Michael's Mount, descending a giant slip-n-slide with a pile of 7 people on two inflatable flamingos, watching a fireworks competition from the sea of Tinside Bay at night swimming with glowsticks and a foating bar, snorkelling and seeing a starfish, and participating in a rude panto, to name a few. The gains from Scilly were gradual at first because friendships take a while to form, and my worst times were still after that, but progress did happen, it's the first time I've felt connected to people as friends rather than just activity partners since I stopped climbing in 2010. One day in mid-November, shortly after I'd moved house which also helped, I woke up and felt a warm glow of optimism and hope and belonging in my soul that had been missing for so long.

Even when I started to feel better in November, I still struggled with remembering what normality is, and eating / exercising at the correct times, and remembering to reply to messages, and finishing tasks, and general day-to-day function so I still have a way to go. But it’s something to build on.

To sum everything else up, some of it integral with the above:

Health-wise, I badly sprained my ankle at the end of January, 2 months before I completed my ‘run at least 100 miles every month for a year’ mission. I didn’t really mind that but it did throw me off my routine (loose as it was) so with that alongside the other challenges my mental health suffered, and my routine never recovered. I told myself that it’s okay to not be okay, but I’m not sure if this is the best approach as it doesn’t target the root of the problem, and 2 months later I burnt out. During the summer, my poor mental health started to affect my body and for a large part of the autumn I was in near-constant pain, with my back or my feet or my teeth. I had a lot of sick days. In December I had a cold, then covid, then a stomach bug in quick succession, followed by Christmas bloat which this year was more than just a bit of excess, I’m in discomfort simply sitting down.

Home-wise I still don’t really have a home life, I’m only at ease when I’m active. I am still renting and I’ve had to move twice this year. The first two places started okay but had their difficulties and I didn’t feel like they were home. Thankfully I have ended up in a place that does have the homely feeling that I am usually missing, and that is lovely.

Adventure-wise I still got stuff done,because that is my way of dealing with it all. I was active for 311 days and ran 1888 miles (over 100 miles up on 2020). I ran three ultra marathons – one was a 37 mile race with 7,812m ascent from Westward Ho! to Bude, the second was a solo challenge North to South across Dartmoor, and the third was a 50 mile race half way round the perimeter of Dartmoor. I also won the women's summer MapRun league that my orienteering club put on (this was notable since I usually come last in their events). I did some of my longest swims too – 7 km straight across Torbay in one go, and 11km round Torbay with 3 breaks. Although I am at my current limit with running and am training and pushing to achieve more, I haven’t reached my limit with swimming yet – my fear of living things under the surface is my biggest drawback and in physical terms so far everything has been relatively straightforward, so I'm looking forward to attempting some longer swims in 2022.

Love-life has been non existent, a total 2021 drought. I am desparate for (the right) partner and a family as the body clock is ticking, and a year ago I said I’d give myself 3 solid years of trying to make that happen by which time I’ll be 43, but the pandemic has wiped out half of that time.