15-B. The 6 Tips to Thrive When the Chaos Ends, Despite the Addiction - Chaos Addiction Mini-Series Part 2/4

Let's talk about six specific tips to get used to peace after a long time of living in chaos. Last week was an example of transitioning out of chaos and into peace, with the story of how winning in family court after seeing patterns of intimidation and what I interpreted as legal abuse for many years, completely rocked my world.

This is the Transcript for Episode 15B.

Here we get practical, but without too much detail, because episode 16 A and B is where I really go into the details of how to lower the levels of the neurochemicals in the brain that keep us addicted to chaos.

I want to share six things that worked for me. Mindset shifts, early seeds we can start planting before we learn about the science of it.

1. I stopped treating calm like a reward. It's not something you earn. It's a skill that you practice. You practice feeling that peace and being still in it. It's a muscle that you build. It took me a long time to understand that, so you're welcome.

   
   

2. I learned to name the discomfort when peace showed up. I interpreted peace like it was a problem. So I named that discomfort. I told my body, okay, this is calm. This is not danger. We're learning something new. Sounds silly, but it works.

   
   

3. I learned to not chase intensity, but to chase clarity. We want to think about that in the context of starting to date again (way later down the road, but let's plant some seeds here). We've clearly established in our personal history (me as you can tell from my story, and you if you're here reading this and finding that it resonates with you...) we've established that our brain wants something: our brain seeks people that will make us feel that intensity. Catch it! Catch yourself. When you meet someone and they make you feel amazing, and you've got those butterflies in your stomach... No, these are not butterflies. That's a trauma response. That's not the person you need to be spending time with. The person you're going to want to be with in the future is someone that your nervous system should consider boring. As you heal, as you go through your journey of healing, and the blood levels of the neurochemicals we're going to talk about start to normalize, my wish for you is that you go for people that your still-traumatized, still-healing nervous system will consider boring. Go for boring, please. And as you keep going on your healing journey and you come out of your chemical addiction to chaos, these people won't feel boring anymore. You'll start to see that they're just good, healthy people. So don't chase intensity, chase clarity, chase what feels boring at this point in the journey.

   
   

4. I let my child be a mirror. I noticed how my autistic child regulates through movement and stimming, namely. He's picking up on whatever emotions you're going through. You're going to use your child for two things:

   
   

   1. First of all, as a mirror of what you're going through. Your child is picking up on your emotions, which might help you identify the emotions. If you're autistic you are likely dealing with alexithymia (also known as emotional blindness, an inability to recognize emotions in real time), so even though that is not a conversation you're going to be having with your child, you're going to notice when he's noticing your emotion, and you can use that as a mirror. Let your child show you when you're feeling something.

      
      

   2. The second way children can help is by teaching us to stim again, as a way to regulate the nervous system as we struggle with that peace. If you grew up in the 80s, 90s, then as a woman, there's no way in hell you were diagnosed back then as autistic. So you've learned to stop stimming,, you found other ways of regulating. You're learned to repress your stims, sometimes even in private. So what I did was follow my child's lead and I learned to stim again. Indeed, in this day and age, sure, not all cultures in all countries are welcoming of autism, but if you're reading this that tells me you've educated yourself, you're learning and curious to learn about autism etc, and so autism is probably celebrated at home. Here it is anyway, in my home, his autism is celebrated. And so I'm going to follow his lead and I'm going to maybe learn to unmask and to stim again to regulate the nervous system. Again, these are tips to start choosing peace with an autistic brain and to embrace that calm. So if the calm is stressing you out and you need to regulate, then maybe learn to stim again.

      
      

5. I used my dog. Yes, seriously, if you have a dog or a pet, please know that especially for dogs, their behavior, the state that they're in is a direct reflection of the state that you're in. So observe the dog's behavior. If the dog is feeling anxious, frantic, trying to take over in the house, that might mean that you're still a little frazzled. As time goes by, and you see the dog starting to settle in and trust you more, that's a direct indication that you're becoming stronger and you're settling in with that peace. You can also use the dog to narrate calmness. Talk to your dog. Verbalize the things. When nobody's watching, you're home, you know, with your dog, narrate calmness to your dog. Model slowness. The dog is a non-judgmental party that I can speak to and say, "ooh, this is how I'm feeling right now", or "I'm starting to feel a little hot right now, maybe I need a break," or "God, I hate this peace. I hate how quiet my life has become. I'm so bored." Or "gee, you know what happened yesterday? I almost started this new project, which I really don't need to be doing right now because I'm still recovering". I'll tell all these things to my dog and verbalizing it is a way that we help that peace settle in and become more real.

   
   

6. I worked to redirect the craving for chaos into strategy. If your brain is coming out of years of functioning at very, very, very high intensity, emotionally and nervously, that brain is still functioning at high rev today. What do you do with this when there's nothing to feed it? You have to harness it and you have to redirect it into strategy. So you use that horsepower, that speed that it's been going at for all these years, that intensity, you redirect that right away into order, lists, cleaning, planning etc. No, we're not trying to overwork ourselves, exhaust ourselves and add pressure.That's not what we're doing. But rather, even if it's small things, we're giving your brain a predictable pattern, something to chew on. You don't want to let your brain run wild with nothing to chew on. That's a great recipe for diving head first into another problem and more chaos. So keep the brain busy with things that are structured.

   
   

The part that changed everything for me was the realization that peace was not the absence of chaos, it was the absence of threat. That was the shift for me.

My diagnosis isn't going away, my baby's diagnosis isn't going away, the co-parenting dynamics are not going to evolve, none of that's going to change ever. So there's always going to be that stress. I'm still going to get stimmed out twice a week, something I talk about in episode 7. I'm still going to have to think 10 times before I respond to certain texts. And I can still be at peace, because there's no longer a threat.

"Peace is not the absence of chaos, it's the absence of threat"

That was the shift for me. Once I realized that, I made a conscious decision to seek peace. It's a choice I made. The transition is the moment I said to myself, this shit isn't going anywhere. That's going to be my reality. Two diagnoses and a high conflict co-parenting relationship, that's not gonna change.

I refuse to let it rob me of my son's childhood

I refuse to miss out on all these years where he's still cute and he's not a teenager and he's not challenging me. I refuse to miss out on that. So how can we dance in the chaos? How can I find light in the battle? IN the battle. I'm not going to hold my breath and wait until it's over so I can finally be happy. That will never happen. None of that is ever gonna go away.

And so I took my power back

I was right there in front of me. I wasn't gonna keep seeing myself as a victim. I wasn't going to keep alienating everyone around me - because it's hard enough making friends when you're on the spectrum, but if you're autistic AND you're always complaining and sharing horrible stories that people will never believe, you will not be attracting positive, lovely people into your life, the types of people that will build that peace for you.

Tough love, babes. Get it together. Our lives are messy. A lot of it is shit and yet we can make the decision to throw ourselves into exploring peace, building that muscle, practicing it. We can catch those little moments of joy, those few seconds of connection with our autistic child, we can notice a beautiful day outside, we can have gratitude for a friend who showed up today... It's a conscious decision that needs to be made.

Next week we're talking about something more scientific: how to break that addiction to intensity with what's going on in the brain chemically, the stress hormones at play and how we manage those to bring them back to normal levels. Until then, please take this life one day at a time. Your only job is to make it until this evening. And then you'll do that again tomorrow and then the day after.

The contents of this blog are for general education and entertainment purposes only and do not constitute professional advice. I share things that worked for me, from a lived-experience perspective. For professional advice and training seek assistance from a qualified provider.