How To Be A Time Traveller ⚡️
and why you shouldn't be (it's not for any of the reasons in the movies, you know like messing with timelines, in fact it will actually ruin movies for you...)
Hello Dear Reader,
How are you? I hope you’re well and this day treats you well.
How am I? oh well, thanks for asking - I’m… stable (ish). I have ebbed and flowed a lot recently, this has been in part owing to the fact that, unfortunately, the miraculous period of sleeping like a ‘normal’ person came to an end (insert sad-trombone noise).
BUT although it royally sucks, thats an official term, I was able to recognise and learn WHY it had. Why Inspector Insomnia had waltzed back in and I was ‘suddenly’ back to 3,4,5 am, frustrating, bedtimes.
Turns out getting emotionally dysregulated was the catalyst and then the conductor of the latest cacophony of chaos, but I’d never really connected the dots before. This meant I also never had the starter I need to then reflect and get curious in order to understand. I didn’t have the data and I need the data to understand.
I’ve been connecting a lot of dots recently, which is equal parts wonderful and exhausting, because I’ve been playing this game for a long time and ‘the carousel never stops turning’. It speeds up, it slows down, some people might hop on and off but it’s perpetually turning and not only is there occasional motion sickness but IM JUST SO DONE WITH THIS RIDE.
I sometimes wonder, if everything that was firing and connecting, and being created or sorted or tangled and untangled in my mind was physical, visible and tangible whether you would simply think I'm mad.
I feel like I'd be met with pity more than awe.
Thus and forevermore, I'll keep it all hidden in its compartments and drawers.
After opening one of my recent therapy sessions with the carousel analogy that was filled with desperation, my therapist told me that she left the previous session we had just thinking how hard it all is and wanted to let me know she would hold the hope for me, knowing I couldn’t right now, and that rather than just thinking it wanted to say ‘you’re amazing, you really are - everything you have to grapple and battle with, and manage every day, is such a lot and it must just be exhausting!’
I think revealing that I can hear the fridge (and electricity in general) so it’s an input on top of all the other noises and light and other sensory things that crowd and overwhelm me each day, was the cherry on top of what she already knew in terms of how very busy my brain is.
That validation of the struggle and confirmation of hope ahead along with ‘I hear you and I’ve got you’ was exactly what I needed.
With the work my therapist and I are doing at the moment with mapping my profile out it got me thinking, of course, as to how I can make all of it tangible - give some form to ALL of the things i’m thinking every day that keeps my CPU running at 100% .
I grabbed my Pixel tablet and started with writing as many of the things I could (that would fit and be legible) which resulted in this:
There’s somewhat of a system there, it’s certainly not as tidy as I’d like my thought library to be but that’s also kinda the problem… when the ADHD part of my brain starts running about firing off god knows what it leaves the autistic and trauma informed parts scrabbling behind trying to pick up the pieces in order to try and find some semblance of order. Some sort of control.
It then, as best as I could portray it, leaves it all looking a bit like this:
How To Be A Time Traveller
You might be wondering by this point what all this has to do with being a time traveller…
Well, all of that noise, all of those things, every thing and every person and every possible future scenario or event (as well all those that came before) are constantly getting processed, written and re-written, reflected on, visualised (re-visualised) and I’m also constantly and relentlessly just trying.
Trying to be a good person, a better person, trying to do all the things I need to do, want to do, have to do and then trying to pre-plan and pre-empt everything that follows those things to make sure I’m doing the right thing, the best thing and that I can, more often than not, meet the needs of others.
I’m constantly predicting life. But this means i’m not living it.
I’m in the past, i’m in the future - occasionally i’ll manage a few present moments but to a frightening degree of accuracy I can know how an entire interaction will go, even when I’m right in the middle of one (stories, films and TV are more often than not ruined due to this too), because my brain is going so quickly, sourcing all relevant past references, all the preparation data from the pre-visualising and scripting, its as if I’ve done it, said it, felt it all before - and if i’m not careful, I can get spat out of the Speed Force with the gut wrenching reality that not everyone can keep up or deal with that.
Time is different for me.
I experience time differently, but it isn’t for everyone else. They need time - a second is a second, a minute is a minute - and there isn’t a portal I can offer them to invite them into this universe I live in.
Do you feel like you experience time differently?
Time Travel - Powered by Trying
So, the actual how to be a time traveller, well that’s up to you.
Mines powered by Trying. It’s got a hint of perfectionism, big ol’ dollop of ADHD and it’s all on top of a complex trauma base (i’m hungry, forgive the mixed metaphors).
But I can’t recommend it and can’t in all good conscience suggest you try and find what might power your abilities, what your origin story might be, because there’s so many layers to it all - and when I then return to trying to understand my origin story I’m left asking:
What is there, if there is not the constant hum of trying?
What determines what is finished, successful or indeed enough?
All I can do, is try.
If it is always try it is never fail - that buffer between loss and gain - a somewhat cowardly practice to avoid pain and yet, trying is painful in its own way; because it is relentless and it’s certainly not powering any movement towards hope of ever realising any dreams.
What I Needed To Hear
As usual, my therapist had just the right thing to say which was:
From where i’m standing, you don’t need to try super hard to be a good person cause you just are. You are thoughtful, you are considerate, you are a good person - it’s obvious. So I think you could, if i’m honest, tone down the trying.
You’ve nailed it already - just leave it there.
This made me burst out laughing - it seems entirely contradictory to what you might normally be told or hear with the “try harder” or “why not try”.
But she’s right, I could definitely do with toning down the trying. Who knows what that’ll create space and time for…
Before I go, here’s a little piece I made whilst playing around with my Pixel tablet (after finally buying a pen for it) and an app called Infinite Painter.
~ New Hyper Focus Unlocked ~
This is intensely relatable. Yes, I definitely think I experience time in a way that doesn't match what everyone else sees and feels. I suppose I assumed it was just a quirk of my brain, one I am not in control of. And it is exhausting.
This. The work is in reframing how our brains work as “neurodivergent” instead of “wrong.” Presence is going to look different in neurodivergent folks - hyperfocus or rapid shifting thoughts. That IS presence for us. Both of them. What if we didn’t try to conform to neurotypical standards and found our own ways of being? 🖤