It’s literally a choice

Recently I was questioned by a parent if, & the follow up why, I don’t make an effort with extended family & call just to ‘check-in’ with them.

When I say I was questioned recently, I mean when it was the Summer holidays where the only downtime I had was when the kids are in bed in the evenings & when I’m trying to relax my mind & body in the hopes of a night without insomnia. If I find myself on my own running errands during the day, I need to concentrate on what I’m doing so I don’t forget anything & being on the phone is a huge distraction. If I’m on the way to run errands & I’m alone in the car, this time is golden & I don’t want to be interrupted by the voices of others & need to concentrate on what’s being said. I can use this time to actually think my own thoughts without disruption or even turn up the audio volume & belt out a tune or four (because no one’s there telling me to turn it down or that they don’t like the song!)

But even if it weren’t the summer holidays, I still don’t just randomly think about picking up the phone & calling an aunt, uncle, or cousin during the day as I have a to-do list that needs to get done each day & calling relos isn’t on it.

Spoiler alert: I don’t make the effort, so let’s skip to the why.

My mum continued, ‘I had no help & I would pick up the phone when I had a young family to check in with my blah blah relative because that’s what was expected of us. It’s also how I raised you’.

Before grabbing my overnight bag to join my mum on her guilt-trip, I tried to explain why this comparison is unjustified. We’re living in very different times. When she needed downtime as a parent of young kids, she’d just leave the house phone off the receiver. There was only one method of communication; airmail & telegrams were not quite ‘instant’. Parents now have mobile phones & can be reached by either email, text, What’s App (etc etc) or the Apps downloaded specifically for direct communication with the kid’s schools i.e, Compass, Class Dojo. Not only are there multiple gateways to contacting us, but it’s also expected that we’re not just contactable at all times, but also available, no matter what we’re doing, what we’re managing at the time, or our physical or mental capacity at the time.

I didn’t get the opportunity to explain to my mum the constant demands & distractions of my high-masking Autistic & ADHD children, the ongoing task list relating to them & their needs & me being ADHD too & usually struggling with the management of it all because I knew that the response would be invalidating, minimising & unhelpful* & I knew would result in the usual, ‘everyone has something these days’. (* This is context & an explanation, NOT an excuse).I made a decision eight years ago to remove the word ‘should’ from my vocabulary as the word is filled with obligation & its good mate, guilt. I don’t do ‘should dos’, I do ‘need tos’. I’ve made this clear to everyone, especially my parents, that I don’t resonate nor undertake obligations induced by guilt, in order to make other people happy. The pride & honour my parents might get by me being a ‘good girl’ for doing something they’ve assigned meaning to & this perceived reflection on them as parents, is not a motivation for me. It’s not that I don’t respect them, want to undermine them, or determined not to adhere to the lessons, values & principles they instilled in me. I just know how it plays out & I don’t want to play anymore.

The game itself is multiplayer featuring in-game chat by way of self-talk & in-App purchases of guilt that can be purchased individually or in bundles. You enter a room of being told what to do & your adult character instantly becomes a child. You do quests & challenges to become an adult again & need to fight off the ‘badies’ & threats that still view you & want you to revert back to a child. The adult character has to constantly fight off threats & those that try to take away the loot in the adult’s chest that’s been collected over time. The game-play itself is really exciting with the added benefit of life-lessons learned, feelings of achievement & accomplishments of battling your own demons as well as opportunities to learn from your mistakes by being able to replay certain levels/tasks you set your mind to, however, the constant threats in the game & the opinions & instructions directed towards your character become tiresome & calls you to question if the game’s saved your progress because it feels overly repetitive & that your progress isn’t important enough to have been saved.

In real life, being constantly ‘reminded’, ‘urged’, ‘suggested’ etc to do something I don’t want to do, in the past, has resulted in me relenting to the pressure, which leaves me incredibly resentful, has me question how strong, resolute & sure of myself I really am, angry at myself for capitulating & then dreading the next cycle where the expectation has to be re-set & I prepare myself to stand ground. I won’t do things just to make other people happy as it ends up leaving me feeling as though I’ve traded my happiness in to appease others & also as though I’ve been taken advantage of when I’ve given in to pressure (even if this was just to stop being hounded).

I’m not done yet, because after the ‘I had no help & even I would pick up the phone when I had a young family to check in with my blah blah relative because that’s what was expected of us. It’s also how I raised you’ comes the ‘it’s just a phone call’.

It’s literally not JUST a phone call.

I don’t want to spend any time talking, messaging, video chatting with anyone that doesn’t understand me & my challenges, those that don’t understand my children & their challenges or those that don’t understand or make an effort to learn & accept my family & our life.

I don’t want to ‘effort’. The mere term indicates that this act requires energy & I’ve been sitting pretty low on those resources since 2017.

I don’t want to make a call & use my energy fighting off my ADHD distractibility & inattention & (appear) engaged & interested in what’s being said if what’s being said is banal, monotonous or inconsequential. If the person is sharing something with me it means it’s important or interesting to them so I respond & appease in kind, but this doesn’t mean what they’re saying is important or interesting to me. I watch my mental energy of remaining engaged & focused leave my body like a pool toy that’s had its valve released which leaves me annoyed & resentful that I’ve used up all my air & need to inflate again somehow to be able to manage all the other required demands.

I don’t want to add more ‘efforts’ to my days already filled with them, so the idea of making any more is counter-intuitive to creating any balance in my life.

I don’t want to hear how well they think we’re all doing as it appears as though we’re all cured or grown out of our neurological conditions just because we’re master maskers.

I don’t want to hear about the latest research around early detection (even in utero) of Autism or ADHD or any other coexisting condition because it’s not helpful & makes me wonder if they’re alluding to termination had we known what we know now.

I don’t want to be suggested to look at certain ‘settings’ for my children that show how little they understand them. They’ve met & spoken to my kids, know they have an average IQ based on these interactions, yet still suggest to look outside of mainstream schools for them to attend. I don’t want to hear about ALL the other grandchildren or neighbours dog’s fleas, uncle’s cousin that was ‘the same’ as my kids but are doing really well now because they went to a specialised educational setting that dealt with ‘these issues’, or that their ‘issues’ have disappeared after changing their diet & they’re now cured.

I don’t want to have to muzzle myself & listen to their crap as it feels stifling, feels as though I’m suffocating, has them assume I concur with said crap, makes me feel as though I’m selling out my kids by not educating & advocating & at the same time agreeing or worse, enabling their bullshit opinions & musings.

And after being told off, criticised, being spoken to disrespectfully, constantly corrected &/or been made to feel insignificant by my ungrateful kids (see my Dec 21 post), why on earth would I call someone only to be criticised about how little I call or keep in touch with them? The daily negative self-talk’s already mentally circulating & negatively impacting my emotional well-being & self-confidence, I don’t need to put myself in a position to another human to have it verified or reinforced. Isn’t that considered self-sabotage? Enabling?I’m ridding myself of toxic people.

I’m ridding myself of dismissive & selfish people as they are toxic by way of having me question myself.

I’m not disrespecting my elders. I’m respecting myself, my husband & children & my decisions.

It’s not how much time I (don’t) have to make these calls, it’s spending this time actioning & managing everything that supports my kids & their daily needs & not needing to support those that don’t understand them nor make any efforts to.

It’s not giving in to the weight of an obligation that I know I’ll resent.

I’ve chosen not to be forced or put myself into a position that triggers or emotionally stifles me.

I may have disappointed my parents & my ‘elders’ but I’ve not failed anyone.

It’s literally not a failure when it’s a choice.