I’ve just made my first reel, and I am dazed!
In half a day, I have learned how to use Canva, made 5 images, uploaded them to InShot, added music and then posted them on the Insight2Excellence social media platforms.
And if you’re not following Insight2Excellence yet, I’d love you to join me there!
I’ve learned a lot, and I can see how content creation is a full-time job! Suffice to say, I’ve not earned a penny today. But I have created a reel that talks about my book, and I’m happy with it.
I have ME/CFS, and today has certainly been a day of high activity. I’m supposed to pace myself, and I’ve not been very good at that today, and that’s because I’ve spent the whole morning in hyperfocus. That’s another thing: I have an ADHD diagnosis.
Right now, I’m buzzing. I feel that climbing Kilimanjaro this minute would be perfectly achievable. I also know I will pay for today; I’ll be feeling it in my body and mind tomorrow.
And this dazed, buzzing feeling is familiar. We’re good friends now.
My reel is about the book I am writing, and this is another creative endeavour that has seen me in hyperfocus for many weeks. I am glued to my laptop, forgetting to eat, drink, and sometimes even acknowledge other people. I also leave going to the loo until the very last minute, which has seen more than one rather scary moment. My memoir and the reel both consumed my energy, focus, and creativity at the expense of everything else.
This has been the pattern of my life, a pattern that has only become clear to me in adult life.
I’m neurodivergent and creative. I have a head full of ideas, but I am not the best at executing them. However, no one else can write my memoir. It’s a creative project that only I can deliver.
People ask me the obvious question, “Has this been a cathartic experience?” And the answer to that is yes, but it’s also been emotionally exhausting. People often think that we neurodivergent folk are emotionally illiterate, aloof, detached, emotionally distant, and lack empathy. I can only speak from my own experience and tell you that in my case, that isn’t true. I feel too much. I go out of my way for others, not considering the personal cost, and there have been many times where that cost has been heavy. Revisiting many of these moments in my writing has been cathartic in the sense that I have been able to revisit myself at key moments and offer myself what I needed then but didn’t receive, but this has involved deep retrospection. I’ve not been reliving past experiences, but I’ve been observing them, watching them play out, and the pain of that has been real. It’s also been necessary.
I knew I was queer from an early age. I grew up in an evangelical family, where I was taught that who I was wasn’t acceptable. Through writing, I have been able to revisit how that robbed me of any self-worth and replaced it with self-loathing. Andy, who I am now, has been able to go back to Andrew, the conditioned and controlled child, and tell him that he’s okay in each moment.
I am not so full of self-loathing now; in fact, I’m falling in love with Andrew. Andrew wasn’t broken, wrong, or deviant. Andrew didn’t need saving or fixing.
For years, people have told me that I have a life story that needs to be told, not to blow my own trumpet, I have no trumpet to blow, but to throw a lifeline to other queer, neurodivergent kids who are struggling to find themselves.
Finding oneself is a challenge for most people. As an undiagnosed neurodivergent child, I was trying to make sense of a loud, confusing, chaotic world, whilst at the same time trying to manage a mind that screamed incoherent babble 24/7. Compounding this was continually hearing that my sexual orientation was a one-way ticket to hell. Factor in schoolground bullying from kids who detected my difference, and a bullying father, and you will understand how fear became a constant and familiar companion.
The pain from all this led to self-medicating.
I have come to see what a rollercoaster my life has been, not that I noticed it at the time. I’ve been living it at full speed, driven by a seemingly insatiable desire to understand myself, grapple with the meaning of life, fix others, and mend a broken world. What’s weird is that this never felt impossible. It felt imperative. My wiring provided no alternative. Ignoring the pull resulted in unbearable physical and mental pain.
So here I am, 100,000 words in, and I’ve only covered 1963 – 1993. In that time, I have lost the sight in my left eye, attended a charismatic Bible College that had cultic overtones, fallen in love with a guy at that Bible College, got engaged to a woman, met a guy on a beach, been outed which led to being kicked out of my home, the church and the town, finding myself in a new city with nothing to my name other than the clothes on my back.
My story is a story of survival. Of finally meeting myself at the intersection and being at peace with who I found there.
Enjoy the reel, and I hope you will enjoy the book.
If this article resonates with you, whether as someone queer, neurodivergent, or simply human, I’d love to hear your reflections. Stories connect us, and this is mine in progress.
