Author: tahmidchowdhury

The tale of the misplaced wallet

Grand philosophical ideas around peace and harmony are great. But they are only useful if they can hold up when coming into contact with our real, messy and unpredictable lives.

This week I had the fortune (or misfortune) to be tested on my worldviews.

On Wednesday, when looking to leave the house I simply could not find my wallet. After a rather long search I came to the conclusion that I must have dropped it when coming off the bus the day before.

Here I had a choice of how I reacted to the situation.

Finding an outlet to express our internalised emotions

This week started more anxiety driven for me than most. I found I woke up with a lot of existential dread without really being able to pin point why.

This week ended up being about finding ways to express the emotions outwardly, without necessarily trying to analyse them. Spending too much time trying to think about ‘why’ usually ends up worse rather than better.

Opening up to a deeper vulnerability

I had a moment this week where I felt deep fear.

There was nothing to be scared of externally, and I knew that. But I felt fear all the same.

I am someone who has generally always kept my composure in situations. I rarely lose control. Even in moments of intense emotion, these are often calculated, deliberate actions.

But here I was in a situation where I opened up more deeply than I am used to.

The art of learning nothing

Every day may be an opportunity to learn something new. But we can afford ourselves a break sometimes.

I’ve been tuning out my brain from needing to learn or do too much. Earlier in the month I spent a lot of time reading about Autism, ADHD and the like. Right now, I’m doing very little.

Sometimes our brains need time to properly digest the information we take in.

Finding peace in the space of solitude

It’s taken a few months, but I’m finally getting used to not having any plans for the day.

At the beginning of the week, it felt quite empty. I had a few social activities but also a lot of space. Honestly, it was pretty intimidating to comprehend what to do with all that time.

I’m a planner at heart, so to not have anything set in stone is disorienting. When I saw a completely empty agenda, I felt the lurch of panic at the uneasiness of nothing to do.
This week has been about learning to be at ease without having a plan.

The art of managing our energy levels

It’s been a humbling experience to see how little energy I’ve had recently. Basic tasks which I would usually do without thinking have taken a large amount of effort.
I’ve needed to learn to be very discerning with how I spend my energy. Whereas before I could seemingly conjure life force out of thing air, in my current period of fatigue it’s been pretty tricky.

The positive about this is that by being more energy-conscious, I’m seeing how much I would previously use inefficiently

Connecting with our intuition on feeling safe

I never thought of myself as a particularly anxious person. Mainly because the idea of anxiety was something very visible and pronounced. It turns out that I just have become very good at managing my anxiety, rather than it not existing.
But in recent weeks I’ve been noticing how much unattended anxiety I’ve actually had. I don’t think this is something I’ve always had, but it’s certainly built up in the last few months. These haven’t been particularly noticeable (both to other people and myself) because my way of demonstrating anxiety is far less visible. Rather than having a visible panic attack, I tend to retreat inwards and disassociate from my body.

One of the benefits of actually listening to the anxiety rather than trying to manage it is that I’ve become a lot more cognisant of my intuition around social interactions.

On the search for a quietened mind

My recent weeks have been plagued with fatigue. It got to the point where popping out to the supermarket a few minutes down the road would leave me struggling, and I found myself frequently needing naps during the day.

I’m in the midst of understanding what being neurodivergent means in practice. It’s a lot to navigate – there’s certainly many things that make a lot more sense now, but I’m also cautious to jump to conclusions too quickly.

I went to my doctor this week who recommended I tried antidepressants. In an ideal world, I would have had a bit more time than a short consultation to think about it. In the end I decided to give them a try.

Learning about Neurodiversity and Autism as an Adult

This week is Neurodiversity Celebration week.

When I reflect on it, it was the heightened amount of messaging on social media that made me start researching around my own neurodivergency. This has culminated in me believing I’m Autistic.

So if you wanted an example of why these diversity weeks can be important, here’s a living, breathing example for you.