Was Joan Didion Autistic?
creative ways to make meaning, ways to discover...
Last week (in this post) I announced that I have no idea what I'm writing as I write it, that I don't have ideas, that I follow the writing the way Cage composed, or perhaps how Pollock painted, from random impulses I don't necessarily understand or even recognize as my own. And I've suggested that you do the same. So I thought I'd take a deeper look at this. And at myself, and why this works for me. So: why?
Why typically implies judgment. If you have to explain why, then someone is standing there (metaphorically or actually) with their hands on their hips. I don't want this to be a response to an ableist idea that my creative approach needs explaining, and yet I also want to understand myself for myself. I also hope this might have some benefit for you, dear reader (I do appreciate you more than you know). I know you’re not demanding an explanation, yet I believe you deserve one.
Who counsels, "Go make something without any idea about what you want to make?" Who says, "Write and the words will rise up!" Like the glass floor in that Indiana Jones movie, “jump and the path will arise” has been the way of my life. I'm a leaper, rarely a looker. Not leaping alone, I share this with Natalie Goldberg, Elizabeth Gilbert, and Shaun McNiff, all of whom have helped me hone (or justify) my "blind" technique, so that I'm now comfortable to wander into the maze that forms my existence discovering the walls (and words) by touch.
But with or without Nat, Liz or Shaun, I believe I use this "method" because I’m Autistic. Audhd. Whether or not I've been aware of it, and I had no idea I was Autistic until my diagnosis at almost 56, this is what works and has worked for me.
(I know it's awkward to say almost 56, but my Autism won't allow me to lie and be less specific; I was diagnosed at 55 and 11 months, so I have to say that.)
We all have the wrong idea about Autism. And if you have a therapist, double down on that wrong idea, the misconception that you can't be autistic. Autistic people are still - to this day - diagnosed based on biased research about 3 year old boys who line up their trains. While that is one way autism shows up, female-identified people, nonbinary and trans people present very differently. This is why so many people said to me, "but you don't seem autistic!" Oh, dear reader, I so effing am!
They say it less now, because I am showing up more and more autistic. I'm shedding my masking behaviors I wasn't even aware of having. I'm glad to embrace my unmasked self! And so many of you have welcomed me, thank you!
One way my autism shows up is via executive function. I reinvent my life every day. I have issues with planning. I obsess over my schedule. I'm always trying to create this thing I call “my life” which slips away from me easily. I don't see myself or my path well. Where I am, how to proceed, what to prioritize - these ideas are difficult for me. Time-blind, I don't have a great sense of how much of it I have, or what I might do with it. I struggle to anchor myself to my goals, projects, and my people.
Allowing myself to be comfortable being lost is a coping mechanism I developed from living lost. Learning how to make being lost a strength has been the work of my life.
Seeing my executive function as a strength is a gift I give myself. Honestly, it's the literal difference between being thought of as gifted and being thought of as disordered or dysfunctional. Autistic people are still working on getting the DSM to stop calling Autism a disorder (the way they used to call homosexuality a disorder) and start calling it a difference.
Thinking about myself as neurodivergent has been a great gift, once I grieved for all the decades I couldn't name or articulate my struggles in a neurotypical world.
Many of us live this way without awareness or diagnosis. Hundreds of thousands of us are currently starting to realize we are different. We've been autistic all along!
The beauty of this moment is that we’re not alone. There is support. I was just accepted into a coaching program to work with late-diagnosed autistic people. So many people trying to fit ourselves squarely into round holes. Never knowing there is a whole world of people who share these experiences. Feeling it’s just us when the truth is we’re just running a different operating system. We see things differently.
I often feel as if I'm living lost in a labyrinth. Writing became vital for me as a kind of map-making, a way to understand not only myself, but life itself and other people.
Joan Didion said she didn't know what she thought until she wrote it down. She also said, "I'm only myself in front of my typewriter." I don't know if she was autistic. No female of her generation would have been diagnosed. But I used to feel exactly the same way. I grew up writing to find out who I am and to be myself.
Whether or not you want to label yourself, whether or not you’re neurodivergent, writing to make discoveries is a freeing way to write.
My Joan Didion WRITING PROMPT:
Joan Didion said, "I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means."
So give that a try. Literally. Start with what you're thinking. Or if it's easier, start with what you're looking at. Don't limit yourself to your desktop. You can look in your mind's eye at Anything!
I’m looking at the outside of a tavern in London where one rainy night in 1978 I heimliched myself onto a car’s sideview mirror to stop myself from choking. I can see the dark sky contrasted against the bright street lamp and the lights over the tavern reflecting off the car hood. I can see the disgust on the faces of a passing couple as I choked out that murderous Brussels sprout onto the wet sidewalk.
What do you see?
Once it's described, what does it mean to you, specifically, and then what might it mean to the world?
I couldn’t tell anyone in the restaurant I was choking. I couldn’t ask for help. In full-on panic mode, I remained autistically unreadable. People die this way, and I would have been one of them if I hadn’t left the table and gone to the street. My mother, drinking Lillet on the rocks with a twist, was clueless (probably also Audhd).
After saving myself, I wiped tears from my eyes, not crying, just my body physically reacting. I went back to the table where she was joking and laughing. I never said a word about it.
Autism often shows up as a different way of communicating. I wish I’d known. It would have been amazing to have had some support. It would have been amazing to have supported her too, so she wouldn’t have died so young.
I think about that nursery song I used to sing to my son, “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” When will we have better ways to figure out what we are? (one resource)
This, your Joan Didion prompt, is a meaning-making process. You can write to describe what one of your characters is looking at in a scene. What captures their attention? What is it exactly? All the sensory details please… Where does it take them? To memory? To a realization? What does it mean to them? What action can they now take because of this?
Brave Space Schedule:
For the week of April 29th - May 4th Monday 12pm ET Tuesday 12pm ET w/wkshp & accountability Thursday 11am ET Friday 12pm ET Saturday 4pm ET Brave Coaching For the week of May 6th - May 11th Monday 12pm ET Tuesday 12pm ET w/wkshop & accountability Wednesday 3pm ET Advanced Brave Coaching Wednesday 7pm ET Brave Space for All Humans Thursday 11am ET Friday 3pm ET NB! I have an appointment and changed the regular time. Saturday 4pm ET Brave Coaching For the week of May 13th - May 18th Monday Memorial Service for Carrie Robbins at Brotherhood Synagogue in Gramercy Park Tuesday 12pm ET Wednesday 3pm ET Advanced Brave Coaching Thursday 11am ET Friday 12pm ET For the week of May 20th - May 24th Monday 12pm ET Tuesday 12pm ET Wednesday 3pm ET Advanced Brave Coaching Wednesday 7pm ET Brave Space for All Humans (will continue weekly at least thru June) Thursday 11am ET Friday 12pm ET
Announcements:
Gina Femia is offering a novel-writing workshop! I highly recommend this if you’re writing a novel and want some support. Affordable and brilliant! More Info Here
Submission Opportunity to write for Experiments in Opera! Deadline July 3rd. More Info Here
My colleague and friend, Ed Valentine of The Beekeepers Theater in Sheffield, Massachusetts along with his Beekeepers co-founders, Marnie Ann Joyce and Jennifer Laine Williams, are producing Pride Playreadings at 6 PM on Saturday, June 1, 2024! Please send them 5-10 minute plays on themes that speak to the LGBTQ+ community. Send to ed@edvalentine.com by May 3. The reading is free to the public at Sheffield's Bushnell-Sage Public Library, and will be performed by professional actors from the Berkshires and NYC. We offer each playwright a $50 honorarium for participation in our play readings.
My latest flash fiction, “Appetites,” has been published at Nunum Literary Journal. I think they are also publishing an interview on their blog, but it might not be up yet.
If you’re in NYC, go see FISH by Kia Corthron, directed by Adrienne Williams on Theatre Row tickets here
Also in NYC, go see Las Borinqueñas by Nelson Diaz-Mercado directed by Rebecca Aparicio at Ensemble Studio Theatre tickets here and Scott Sickles’ new play Marianas Trench directed by Janet Bentley runs 4/27 - 5/11. Tickets here!
If you’re in St. Louis, MO, my play “Neighbors by the Sea” will be seen alongside work by the very talented Joan Lipkin in Social Justice Shorts produced by Bread and Roses and A Call to Conscience, May 17-19th at the Greenfinch Theatre.
If you’re in Asheville, NC, my short piece, “Different.” will be performed in the Different Strokes Performing Arts Festival, June 20-23rd.
SAVE THE DATE: this coming JUNE 25th, a Tuesday at 7pm in NYC to see my newest full-length play, WINNERS, 1-night only at the TANK as part of PRIDEFEST. And if you’re a graphic designer, I need your help! Please reach out!