New Journeys - On Creativity Coaching, Narative-izing, & Social Anxiety - Part I

 I'm currently taking courses in Creativity Coaching with Eric Maisel and I decided to start a blog. After a recent lesson that Eric sent out for his coaching students, I realized I am afraid of putting my thoughts and feelings out there into the public eye due to a) an old narrative I keep telling myself about not having anything worthwhile or helpful to contribute and b) self-censorship in reaction to this narrative. His recent lesson highlighted that creative blockages can often take the form of self-censorship:

"When a person is trying to write memoir, for instance, a central question for her becomes, “Do I actually want to reveal this to the world?”  Freud, who claimed not to have much insight into creators or creative blockage, nevertheless argued that creative blockage was the equivalent of “self-censorship.”  Not all of it is, of course; but some of it surely is; and it is especially in the territory of memoir that issues of self-censorship and a lack of willingness to “reveal much to the world” (and to the self) comes up." -Eric Maisel

In order to be a better coach and creative, I am challenging the notion of self-censorship with this blog.
The themes discussed will commemorate this new chapter in my life as I'm beginning two brand new journeys:

1) My brand new journey as a novice creativity coach

2) My brand new journey as an "out" woman on the spectrum in a creative industry.

I've found that while I'm thoroughly enjoying coaching, I do not currently have an outlet for my thoughts on my internal journey as a coach and as a creative on the spectrum. I'm also beginning work with a new therapist in order to process my new diagnosis as a woman with ASD or Autism Spectrum Disorder, and I would like a way to verbally process this journey. So that's what this blog is all about! 

When I was diagnosed for ASD, I took a cognitive evaluation as well (like ya do) and the findings of that evaluation may in fact offer some key insight as to why I actually experience so much social anxiety. I'm about to talk cognitive scores and IQ, and I don't want this to come off as if I am bragging, but to showcase a dissonance issue. I personally don't put too much stock in IQ, and I believe in multitudes of intelligences and in the power of different brains. So please skip over this part of discussions about IQ are triggering or just plain annoying to you.

I discovered from my cognitive evaluation that while my written and verbal IQ was above average, my working memory was hovering right at average. My diagnostician told me that this may be a reason for a myriad of frustrations I experience in social issues. While it is not "bad" to be average, it is very uncomfortable to be functioning at an above average level internally and not be able to communicate in an above average way externally, because working memory has a lot to do with how we interact socially.

For example, even though I had a very high GPA in school, I have been told by many people that I seem to process things slowly socially. I have been reacted to with surprise by people I don't know very well when I tell them I did well in school, and I have been told by friends I trust that some other colleagues do not consider me highly intelligent. 

To resolve this issue, I use a lot of apps that help hone working memory and find that I can improve word recall and lucidity by using these applications. However, reaction time will forever elude me. For example, there is a game on the app Lumosity that I will never beat - the Train Game, officially called Train of Thought.

To summarize, in the game, there are stations of different colors and the ability to change track direction to lead trains of different colors to their matching stations. As you progress with the game, the amount of trains being released and their rate of release increases, and you must both think ahead and react quickly to get all of the trains to their proper destinations. I have a friend, a Yale graduate, who has long since beaten all of the games in Lumosity. When I told him I could never get past certain games because of my slow reaction time, he looked at me in surprise. It was just something he couldn't relate to.

I process things slowly, especially new information. But I tend to go deeper in my investigation of that information, for a much longer time afterwards, than neurotypical people. I suspect my ASD has something to do with it, and I guess that being said, I'm glad to have a different brain. But it makes recalling even simple words or information impossible on the fly, never mind witty retorts in conversation. 

On the flip side, my verbal and written comprehension skills are where I soar, and my therapist has encouraged me to explore this in writing. So here I am, getting back on that old writing horse! I've usually honed it by writing fiction, but have run into the (what I'm now realizing is) ASD problem of creating characters who are unrelatable to the masses because I don't fully understand the motivations behind neurotypical people's actions. It's literally something I've been thinking about for years in my creative writing projects, and trying to hide because I was sure I was just a "freak" because I couldn't remember dialogue properly or understand human motivations. (It's probably why I failed at acting too, come to think of it!) 

But I am coming around to the idea that I do understand some neurodivergent motivations, and I might be able to write a book about THAT, now that I have a better awareness of myself. I'm personally really interested in writing about a woman with ASD, who is maybe a super hero or otherwise exhibiting superhuman abilities.  In fact, the plights of people who have outstanding abilities in one area but can't relate to most others in general society is endlessly fascinating to me, and also probably why I was heavily invested in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman growing up. 

Seriously. I'm a big Superman fan.

Superman is possibly a neurodivergent hero, and I'd like to dive deep into that and narrative-izing around social anxiety in Part II. Stay tuned!