Reframing the Past

Relationships, Self-Perception, and Healing Through Others

The Wrong Mirror

It’s embarrassing to admit the life I lived wasn’t mine. To realise in midlife that I’m neurodivergent is one thing. But to finally understand why my past followed such jagged, repeating patterns, why it all felt so mismatched at the time, is something else entirely.

My particular brand of psychology always fancied itself the benchmark of logic and reason. This meant that every relationship felt, at some level, awash with madness. I was drawn to quirky, chaotic, enigmatic people, often the polar opposite of my quiet, emotionally reserved and blunt self. Often, they had ADHD.

Was I subconsciously looking for someone to compensate for my lack of charisma? Was I treating them like a project in need of analytical support? Why was it always so difficult to maintain connection? And why did I see them as so fundamentally different from me?

I often saw my friends as troubled, people in need of wise words, of someone to anchor them and lead by example. But beneath that quiet sense of superiority was my own unsettled discomfort. Why did I feel unnerved by how different their lives were from mine, yet compelled to be near them?

For years, I put it down to introversion versus extraversion, thinking versus feeling, boring versus fun, quiet versus loud. The classic magnetic equation. I bring structure, they bring spontaneity. Together, we find balance.

But then came the more frustrating pairings. Intentional versus sporadic. Tidy versus chaotic. Thoughtful versus reactive. Sensible versus reckless. These were not just differences. They clashed. And somehow, the weight of those clashes always seemed to fall on me.

They say be careful who you spend time with. Internally, I always felt like a good kid. Sensible, principled, a little serious. But my family remembers things differently. I always assumed their impossible standards were to blame. Now I wonder, was I simply comparing myself to a low bar?

Unmasked

The more forensic I’ve become about my own life, the more I realise I have always been surrounded by other neurodivergent people. Not by coincidence, but through a kind of unconscious gravitation. People who, like me, did not fit the mould and naturally coalesced around differential thinking.

Beyond the obvious kinship in our difference from neurotypicals, we were often drawn together through opposing dysfunctions. The kind that click in unexpected ways. The tidy finds the tornado. The planner meets the improviser. The calm shadows the storm.

And when two people in midlife finally let the mask slip, something deeper emerges. The shared fatigue. The sensory mismatch. The exhausted attempts at communication. All of it, in hindsight, part of discovering who we really were beneath the coping strategies and years of not knowing.

I used to tease my partner about their exhausting ADHD. They would tease me about my robotic, nagging and brutally honest character.

It was a revelation to us both, after my breakdown, that my whole way of being could be explained through autism. Everything clicked into place. Of course, they claim they always knew.

A New Kind of Domesticity

So I began to recalibrate. Not by trying to cope with the life I felt I should want, but by slowly building one that would actually suit me. And in doing so, I started to let go of society’s expectations.

I did not look for a new job. I did whatever I felt would support my mental health, on my terms.

One unexpected shift was domestic. I like to cook. I like to clean. My partner does not. We had been trying to share chores, because that is what people do. But when I took full charge of running the house, things improved.

I found pleasure in creating healthy, delicious meals. My partner scores them out of ten. It seems brutal, I know, but they are usually tens. I enjoy a spotless kitchen. No more greasy cutlery handles or sauce-splattered walls from dyspraxic fingers. We do not have a dishwasher, just me.

They feel treated, lucky and loved. I feel purposeful and in control of the healthy menu. Everyone wins.

Reconnection and Realisation

Outside the home, I reconnected with a couple of old colleagues. At first, I was suspicious. Still coming out of that negative headspace, I couldn’t be sure they simply wanted my company. Perhaps they were looking for answers, or maybe keeping their enemies close.

But as time went on, and our catchups became regular, I realised I was there to support them as much as they were supporting me. A mutual lifting of each other’s hidden woes. Shared understanding and moments of emotional depth that would have been impossible without the rewiring that comes after collapse. One even suggested it had been the highlight of their year.

It is often said the best thing you can do for yourself is to help someone else. In reaching out to another soul adrift in the vast sea of humanity, I found perspective. I realised just how isolated my own mind had become.

Realising that people genuinely wanted me around, after I had convinced myself the world might be better off without me, or that I might be better off without it, cannot be overstated.

Relationships exist to help us grow, whether they endure or not. I have had to accept that my suffering was, for the most part, self-generated, and that any movement toward clarity has often come through the presence of others, despite the draw towards solitude.

That said, a lot of relationships have also suffered, sometimes from my withdrawal and a mismatch in lifestyle, sometimes from my autistic righteous values getting the better of me and souring what was once good. I need to make more of an effort, but I also appreciate that those with busy jobs and full families have little time for walk and talks.

It is a quiet and obvious irony that someone so determined to solve everything alone needed to heal through connection.

As frustrating as it is to stumble through the past blindfolded, perhaps that’s the nature of growth. We gain wisdom about our former selves only once it’s too late.

I can only hope the future me flourishes because of it.