word-wrench and finger-fear

27 May, 2018

Yesterday, I submitted a pretty average (easy and reasonably short) assessment task which was a month overdue, my first in over a year. Still, each word I wrote needed to be plied from my convoluted bundle of synapses. Every sentence I painstakingly assembled, I would then pick apart, reform and often delete, and just begin again. While my brain raved and wrenched at itself in this repetitive cycle, a few hours would pass without me noticing, and then I would stop to realise that I barely had written a sentence. It made me feel more divorced from my physical body and it created an unsettling disconnection from what I find value in, what makes the most sense and grounds me. 

However, it shouldn’t have been surprising, because this is just how I write, how I have always written, as it is how I process things and in many ways, it is also how I constantly curate my verbal expression. I am used to this game of tug-of-war with language, and with my brain, but it isn’t how I speak, not in my head and hopefully not to people who know me. My ideas and voice are so clear, articulate and strong and they are unquestionably my own. They usually get jumbled and distorted as I communicate anything though. This is just how I communicate, I couldn't imagine it being any other way and It’s both fun and frustrating, but it definitely means my voice isn’t readily apparent. 

Since my funding came through, I can pay a friend to come to uni and assist me in tutorials which means I can sign, instead of typing on my Lightwriter, and it’s really great. I sit there and listen to people go on and on about a half-baked idea, while I am contemplating all these other points, I get tongue-tied (so to speak. Finger-fear…? ). Often all I can get out a single word, which my friends try to extrapolate from, which is fine. 

Although society is partly formed in words , the ability to write stuff, communicate ideas and talk to people. That sometimes destabilises me because, although I truly feel that I am and that what I have to offer is as valuable as the next person, it sometimes feels so shit that that will never be obvious in society. Not shit shit, but more tiring. It is exhausting, always having to stretch my body, my brain and my patience in order to function, be valued and communicate in the wider world. 

(If only people knew, that in my peak assessment stress, I [wo]manhandled the stovetop and cleaned all the baked on grease and old food out from a specific crevice, my determination, diligence and absurdity would be widely and legitimately appreciated.)