It Has A Name

Let me try and explain the title of this blog post as clearly as I can. As a person who feels as if they are (in all likelihood) on the autism spectrum, I had a lightbulb moment last night. I watch a selection of YouTube videos by certain autistic content creators. I’m pretty sure that in the most recent vlog I mentioned Orion Kelly? I also watch videos from another Australian guy whose channel is ‘Autism from the Inside’. Along with his channel and Orion Kelly’s, I tend to watch a lady’s channel ‘I’m Autistic, Now What?’ So, as I am watching Meg’s latest video titled ‘The Neurotypicals are SO NOT OKAY’, she briefly mentioned Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria in relation to not wanting to commit to certain social situations to avoid rejection. A little symptom card flashed on the screen and I had to go back 10 seconds and pause the video.

THIS THING WAS A LIGHTBULB MOMENT!

Well, actually…let’s say I found the light switch last night and what turned on was a side lamp. But this morning…having had this ‘trait’ (rather than ‘symptom’), this diagnostic run through my head over the past 12 hours – THE BIG LIGHT was turned on! If you know, you know. I will leave a link here to this more comprehensive explanation of what RSD is: New Insights Into Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria

It has explained to me a WHOLE LOT of what’s been happening over the past 18 months especially. Beyond that, it has explained the ups and downs of the past (very near) 10 years of my Simple Minds fandom and the ‘relationship’ (the commas are relevant) with/to Jim. Further to that, it has explained aspects of my whole life!

I’ll try to explain the things that spoke to me about this RSD as best as I can.

Firstly, the feelings of rejection. For ssoooo long, I had put this all down to being abandoned by my biological father. I don’t think there is any better term for it than ‘abandonment.’ That manifested as MASSIVE rejection. That, my own father didn’t want anything to do with me even before I was born. Right…that has been a HUGE chasm in my life…all my life. I would feel immense guilt that I longed to have that love from him and that I wanted to seek him out. At times, I wanted to find him but I could see how upset it made my Mum. She’d try her best to hide it, but I sensed this rejection within her. That somehow I was saying to her (by wanting to find him) that she wasn’t good enough. All that she’d done for me just ‘wasn’t enough’ whenever I would bring up my father and the desire to look for him. Sometimes that would be thrown back at me…like ‘If he cared, he’d be here right now – he wouldn’t have gone away – he wouldn’t have left you before you were born.’ And then it would be more acerbic than that – ‘Why do you even want to know him anyway? He turned his back on you, so why do you want to find him? It’s his loss.’ All that kind of stuff.

My Mum grew up without a father as well, but for very different reasons – he passed away shortly after she was born.

Moving on from that, I found it very hard to make friends when I was younger. My siblings were older, I missed a lot of school – that then progressed into bullying exacerbated by my time away from school – leading to this endless loop. Thinking about it this morning – I wonder how much of it really was bullying? How much of it was experienced through this RSD that manifested itself loooong before I knew what it was that I was experiencing or even being able to give it a name.

School was painful. Truly painful – from day one. From my first day there – I just didn’t want to be there. It made me sick. I would spend break times on school days alone. I would walk around the playground by myself and just…sit down in a corner and play with a toy or just walk around. Sometimes one or two kids would come over to me and talk or I’d try and pluck up the courage to go and see if I could join in on a game but most of these things would be encouraged by the teachers on playground duty. A lot of the time I would wander around the schoolyard with those teachers. If there were teachers I liked on duty, I’d just follow them around – scared to be on my own, in case the bullies would start.

Every single day I wanted the ground to swallow me up. When I got home – I’d play up. I knew what I was doing, but I didn’t know why I was doing it. It all makes sense after all this time in my adult head. It was my coping mechanism. It was my way of releasing from a day of anxiety – of masking – of trying to fit in – of being ‘the weird kid’ that never comes to school. Soon into adulthood, I felt immeasurable guilt for putting my Mum through those misbehaviours. I wish she would have known why I was behaving and responding in the way that I was.

Never good enough, never smart enough, never pretty enough, never interesting enough.

So, post-school, I managed to bumble along somehow. Found a close friend…but he was a guy and that caused its own problems. Not on my part – it was always, ALWAYS platonic, but on his side, he wished for more. The relationship became destructive. A couple of years later, I met my partner, I moved to the UK and life was …. Waking up, breathing, eating, then sleeping. Nothing much happening. Nothing going anywhere. Just existing. Getting by day to day. Hey, it meant there was little drama!

I would have very long periods of existential questioning as to why I was even here. Why carry on this charade of just ‘existing?’ What was the point?

In 2006 that happened very deeply and darkly. In 2007 I went home to see Mum. By 2008, I was ‘better’ but not ‘better’. I was killing myself slowly – that’s how I see it upon reflection. Overeating, not exercising, not socialising, spending several hours a day watching television. Something HAD to change! I pulled myself up. I decided to become vegetarian. Made a concerted effort to cut my eating and start exercising. And by exercising I just mean going for a walk. Just a walk. And I tried to have this attitude with it. Exude this idea that I’d ‘fake it until you make it.’ Give myself platitudes. Wake up, go out, try and put nice clothes on and when I’d spot myself in a mirror or a shop window I’d tell myself that I looked good and I’d only get better – instead of what used to happen in my head of immediately hearing the word ‘UGLY.’ I was so tired of feeling like nothing and just wishing I could die. Wishing I’d end up with cancer so I’d have some good times and then I’d fade away and die. And no one would miss me and that would be fine because I’d be dead and who cares?

Then it was the summer of 2014 and after a year of ‘fake it til you make it’ and losing some weight and getting myself to some better physical and mental health – the whole Simple Minds thing happened. It coincided with the death of my second eldest brother – the nearest thing I had to a father. He was only 9 years older than me but he was more than just a brother to me. He was my hero. Everything I looked up to.

So let’s now jump to the present day – to last week and Manchester. The anxiety that was building up around it. Knowing I’d have to use my very bad social skills. Okay…outwardly I may seem REALLY good at this. And I can do things that go right against the norm, a la what happened at the Caezar gig and me approaching Paul Buchanan and escorting him around until we found Michelle for her to meet Paul. On the coach down to Manchester I was thinking about how I was going to deal with social interactions. Bumping into people I know hate me and of the people who seem to like me, well…they probably actually hate me too. And then there’s Jim. How will he be? Why do I care? Why does it matter? BECAUSE OF THIS! Because of this Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria! It has caused real and genuine hurt over the past 6 years especially.

I remember the ‘real fans’ incident in 2018. It was not hyperbole – it was not over exaggeration when I told Jim that ‘it stabbed me’ and going over all of that to post this is just so awful. Reading the comments that came with it and ultimately having been booted out of the SM page. I guess nothing was ever really the same after that.

Let’s now cut to 2022 and the release of Direction of the Heart. All these little ‘signals’ act as manifestations of RSD to me – now that I have a name for this thing that keeps happening. The album signing at the HMV in Glasgow. Sooo very different from the Walk Between Worlds experience. I tried SO HARD to be exuberant and upbeat and deflective of anything negative either projection outwardly from myself, or feeling like it was coming in at me. I remember when it was my turn standing there between Jim and Charlie and just trying to take a moment to compose myself. As I was doing this Jim said ‘Do you want the album signed or what?’ – words to that effect. It was a severance. A snap. It wasn’t said with a playful tone – not to my ears. It arrived in my ears as ‘Stop wasting my time. Stop being a sad, pathetic woman. Get your album out, let me sign it, and then fuck off.’ But I tried so hard not to let it fester like that in my head as I replayed the events over and over for days and weeks after. Then the Banquet Records signed CD came back and that wasn’t anything playful, either. It was going to be proof that it was all in my head. I had requested that Jim place a dedication on the CD of ‘To Larelle, you’re worth it LOVE Jim (many kisses!)’. When it arrived, it was nothing like that. It had ‘To Larelle’…and that was it. Then Jim and Charlie’s signatures. No ‘you’re worth it’, no kisses…not even a single kiss. Not anything else, either. Not a ‘nice try, girl’. Nothing.

So…these inactions or actions compound all the endless negative things I hear from myself. All it said to me was “WORTHLESS.” Like, Jim not playing along with what was essentially a joke (I truly don’t believe I’m worth ‘it’ – whatever it is) turned that ‘you’re worth it’ into, ‘No you’re not. You’re not worth anything. You’re worthless. In fact, you’re LESS than worthless. Just…give up. Don’t bother.’

It’s what this thing does. It compounds EVERY negative feeling you have about yourself. I have to fight. I have to fight every day! And I have to fight the negativity that I have against myself of telling myself it’s just a pity party and there are so many worse things going on and be thankful and … I’m down on myself ALL THE TIME. Constantly. It never stops! And the only time it did stop was when I first became a Simple Minds fan and started making the art and Jim responded to it.

So…right up to today. I’ve spent the past few days on a comedown from Manchester. I spent so much time in the past years – mostly from 2018-2022, writing to Jim. I thought about writing something before Manchester and trying to get it to him and changed my mind. The last time I wrote something was in October last year. And, it wasn’t FOR Jim, as such, but it was about him and about me. After a while I wanted to know what he would think of it. I wanted feedback. I don’t know why. I guess it just stems from me wanting to be a great writer and from me considering him a great writer – that if he liked it, it would be the ultimate affirmation that I was on the right track. It took so much resolve in me to get past that new and overwhelming rejection. I was suicidal at that point and I honestly don’t know what pulled me through it other than the kindness and support of a stranger reaching out to me. It took a lot of decloaking this man (Jim) – knocking him off a pedestal that I placed him on that was so high that I’m amazed he didn’t fall to his death.

So…Manchester was HUGE. Walking into the auditorium for the soundcheck I immediately wished that it was a meet and greet afterwards. I wanted to get to stand next to him, to look him in the eye and say thank you. In spite of it all. And pray, and pray, and pray he’d be kind!

For a short time I even experienced euphoria. The gig was amazing! Yes, I was harsh with my 9/10 – but no harsher than the Guardian review that people are falling over themselves to share – they only got a 4/5 for that! I’ve been reflecting on it these past few days and I was scared where I was going – worried about a relapse. After getting myself – FINALLY – into a better place in terms of trying to convince myself that my writing is good and I have it in me to do this, that the significance I have placed on Jim and my endless desire for reaffirmation from him would start again.

Lo and behold! I thought about the writing of a letter – again. I thought about trying to get a gold pass for the Glasgow shows – even though I can’t afford it and they’re not available. I thought about trying to stay behind at the stage doors and get to see him one last time. I thought about getting in contact with Elaine yesterday to ask her when she saw him to say hi from me. And then I had to remind myself (RSD brain talking to be at that point) that she hates me and all and so no, it’s not a good idea. Don’t do it. I didn’t do it. Most of the time I leave people alone because I believe they’ll want me to – friends, family, acquaintances, strangers…everyone. My social anxieties manifest in many strange and stupid ways.

He posted on Tuesday about it being Father’s Day in Italy and shared the photo taken by Lily Warring of himself and his Dad. I had been talking to someone recently about the significance of Vision Thing. I had seen that it was on the setlist at the Dublin gig and I decided to post my bit of artwork for it. It was a lovely thing at the time. One of the last lovely things that happened. I’d shared it, unsure if all the words were correct. Jim corrected me on a line I got wrong so I looked for that corrected copy I made and posted it saying ‘hence the playing of Vision Thing last night…’. He liked it. I kept my wee heart in check. But I hoped it meant more than him just acknowledging the art in relation to the song and the performance at the show and his Dad. I wanted it to say ‘I saw you there in Manchester. You looked like you were enjoying yourself. It was good to see you. I’m glad you came along.’

The following day, he offered a more broad ‘thank you’ post to everyone who’d attended the opening set of shows: Leeds, Manchester, Dublin and Belfast. I spilled my heart because over the days since Manchester…the love that had felt like it had been dying since November was returning. This is what I wrote:

“I didn’t expect to feel so excited about the shows to come in Glasgow. I thought…things were at an end, for me personally. There just felt like there was this ‘slow release’ happening. And that kind of came to a head last Oct/Nov when I was going through a very, very dark period. Instead of the music helping it kind of felt like it was exacerbating it. I looked for you, Jim…
Anyway, I pulled myself out of it, somehow. It just all slowly ebbed away. What was left, I wasn’t sure. And people were asking me why I was wanting to go to Manchester if I was feeling this way. Purely in the hope of what happened on Saturday night WOULD actually happen. My heart would be defibrillated back into life. My soul would be revived. I’d regain my love for this band, the music, you Jim….everything around it. It all means so much. I will try and keep it all in check from now on.
But just to say thank you for Saturday night and bring on Good Friday and Easter Saturday on hame turf!! Reach for that 10/10, Mr Kerr!” (Ended with a smiley and heart emojis.)

To this point it has had 25 reactions – a mix of likes, loves and cares – mostly cares. (If you know Facebook reaction emojis, you know what I mean.) But one is missing – one from Jim. When it really mattered most – it went to someone else, complete with the words, ‘Wonderful words!’

I’ve been trying so hard not to let that eat away at me. Take it as yet another hit of rejection. Be thankful that he liked the artwork posted the day before. Take that as meaning something positive. ANYTHING tangible! Not to feel rejected AGAIN because he responded to somebody else’s words the following day. Not let myself get convinced that I can’t even write to save my life. That I can’t string two sentences together. That…despite what I said in my comment – let it all get the better of me and for it to mean too much again.

And then I watched Meg’s latest ‘I’m Autistic, Now What?’ YT video and saw that bit about Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria and IT ALL MADE SENSE! This constant feeling of being rejected by Jim and how that just compounds the constant worthlessness I feel and how much I have to keep forcing myself to stop listening to the voices that tell me I’m a worthless piece of shit. The amount of self-loathing is incredible.

I don’t know if any of this has made sense or has come out in the way I wanted it to. I always have such plans. I can have so many great and wonderful things come to me when I am formulating something to say in my head…but it rarely transforms onto the page or on the video screen when I’m vlogging. I wish you could all just climb inside my head and see it and hear it as I do. But you can’t.

So right now, I’m worried that I’ll relapse. That the only thing that matters is Jim and whether he thinks I’m smart enough, talented enough, worthy enough…of being a writer, of having even a second of his time, of…breathing in the same air…sharing the same space and time on earth. I feel like I am back to 2006. Back to killing myself slowly by no longer exercising and overeating and being antisocial…wasting away. But I’m a writer now – so I have an excuse, right?

Next week is Good Friday. I really hope it lives up to its name!

Thanks for reading.

P.S. The photo from Manchester – how I’d pray for one of those smiles and waves would be for me.