More Myself

I was listening to a podcast recently and the two (white, cis hetero, male) hosts were talking about the likelihood of humans having a capacity to change. And it was an interesting conversation because I’ve wondered the same thing many times. The hallmark of Mormonism is the idea of free will, and I could argue that’s just because Mormonism came out of the founding of America, which came out of Enlightenment followed by Romanticism. Which is all to say that Mormonism is a worship of human capacity, times a thousand. Repentance done Mormonism style means that you NEVER face that sin again. And I thought I was doing that, only to find that I was not.

Autism adds a little extra neurospicy layer to this for me, because I’ve been told many times by others that if I just “apply” myself and “work harder,” then I can eliminate all my autism symptoms and be a “normal person.” Which, what?!! Yes, this is ableism and a refusal to listen to a different experience of the world. But it’s also putting all the weight on me, someone who has been hard-core masking (completely unsuccessfully by many measures) for fifty years. I don’t want people to tell me to mask harder, thanks. I want the opposite of that, the safety of being told I don’t have to do that anymore.

I like the idea that we can change anything we want to change (saw this on a therapist’s wall once), but I just don’t think it’s true. The older I’ve gotten, the more pessimistic I’ve become about this idea. Or maybe that’s not the right way to put it. It’s not pessimism, really. It’s kind curiosity. Like, it’s so interesting watching people try to change in massive ways and then just prove in other important ways that they are who they are, down deep inside, and changes are plastered on top of that and are just for show.

My father had a heart attack in his sixties and made some massive changes to his life. He became a whole foods vegan, started exercising every day, and found a hobby (crossword puzzles). At the time, I was so impressed with these massive changes. In the following several decades, I started to see how his black and white thinking was always in the way of his ability to see himself and the world more clearly. He became a radical whole foods vegan because everything he did was radical and he couldn’t have any tolerance for something in the middle. He began to proselytize his veganness with the same vehemence he used for his religion. And underneath it all was still his childhood medical trauma (losing a finger) and his mistrust of doctors and any medication.

The hosts of this podcast suggested that people can change in important ways, and also that they are who they are in other important ways. And then one of them said, “I think what really happens as people get older is that they become themselves more. They feel able to let go of pretending and embrace their true selves.”

This was a lightbulb moment for me, not because I’d never thought of it before, but because I had, and this was a great way of putting it in a nutshell. I think I’ve become more myself as I’ve aged. I’ve become more comfortable with being who am I, and am slowly learning to be gentler and kinder to myself as I slowly undo decades of hardcore masking. Before I allow others to see myself, I have to let me see myself, and to accept myself. Work in progress here.