Hi friends

Sugababes had a song called ‘Round, Round’ and honestly that’s me when I’m ruminating.

Round, round, baby, round round, what if, but what if this absolutely outlandish situation happened. It’s not out of the realms of possibility even though it’s about as likely as me going to the moon with Cilla Black. Round, round and now we’re back to the original worry, it’s a magical mystery tour of worries all connected and now I’m back to the start and here we go again and why can’t I focus on anything else at all? I can’t stop and I want to but also I don’t because if I don’t everyone in my life will die.

It feels weird to me when I’m not worried about something. It feels like my mind is without some sort of perverse comfort blanket. Ruminating is exhausting and depressing and frustrating, but it gives me this extremely odd feeling of control.

If I think about every single possible possibility, I will find a solution to every possible problem, nothing will be a surprise and everything will be ok.

If I don’t think of every possible possibility, I will be caught off guard and everything will go up in flames.

Funny thing is, ruminating is not control. It’s just distressing, irritating and a massive waste of time. But I can’t help myself. I zone out watching TV and find myself worrying about death, worrying about the future, worrying about my family.

Like a lot of things since I discovered that I am an absolute legend (aka autistic), recently I wondered ‘Is the ruminating an autie thing?’

A five minute google and guess what my dudes?

As Cilla herself would say, SURPRISE SURPRISE!

Good grief, can nothing in my life be ‘just because’ anymore?! Is it all linked to my AuDHD? Is my love of chips down to my neurodivergence?

Anyway that’s besides the point. So my compulsive worrying, my intrusive thoughts, spiralling, rumination, they apparently link back to autism, to that need for certainty any which way, even if you drive yourself up the wall.

Bizarrely, it does feel a bit better knowing why I am like this. I swear since 2021 when a man with some qualifications gave me a certificate for being autistic, I have discovered something most days about myself that link back to my neurodivergence. Every time it happens I become a bit more settled in myself. There’s this massive sense of relief.

Facing up to my worry addiction is step one. But how to break the habit of a lifetime? This isn’t like alcohol, where I simply pretend it doesn’t exist for the most part. Worrying is my natural tendency and doesn’t require me to justify a trip to the supermarket.

There’s some CBT-ish stuff I do that does help. I know CBT gets a bad rap, and sometimes it’s justified, particularly for neurodivergent folk. But this stuff does seem to work for me. I have a rule now that after 6pm my head is gone, it’s mush, it’s not in anyway logical or reasonable. I could convince myself after 6pm to watch Love is Blind. It has no taste, no sensibility. Why would I believe my post-6pm addled brain? So I don’t. If I catch myself worrying after 6pm I think to myself ‘I can’t believe this, it’s not true.’ Maybe it’ll stop helping, but for now, the make believe is serving its purpose.

Thinking realistically is something else that helps. Again, it only works in the cold light of day, not at night (bonus points if I’m around human beings in actual reality, rather than sequestering myself in my room all alone, losing touch with anything real). Being realistic about what situations I am likely to encounter in life (I’m a suburban, extremely Northern English person. I’m not very likely to encounter a wild lion whilst I’m in Lidl buying sprouts for example). As much as my brain goes ‘but what if?!?!?!’, I am building another voice that goes ‘Don’t be daft!!!’. The point is for that voice to grow louder than the rumination.

It’s slow going and it’ll be something I fight with all my life. I worry (lol) that I’m worrying my life away (here we go again with the loop!).

All of this is rooted in control and certainty. I just need to let go a bit. For now I’m in arm bands, in the little pool, in the shallow end, treading water with my goggles on. Maybe one day I’ll get to the big pool and take the arm bands off and just float.

I’d like to float, even for a little bit.

Thanks for reading. I’ve been a bit out of sorts with the newsletter recently. I would love to know - if you have any time - what do you think of the newsletter? What do you like? What would you like to see more or less of? Help me stem my little crisis of confidence please, fellow wavy people x

Before I let you go, here’s some bits and pieces:

Patreon

You can support me as a writer by signing up to a tier on my Patreon, which is www.patreon.com/cw/RenRiley.

There are two tiers where you can support me regularly to keep this newsletter going, and another tier where you can receive benefits like free PDFs of my zines.

The PDF of my latest zine is available for anyone to purchase here.

Etsy

My Etsy shop ‘Ren’s Wavy Store’ lives here: https://renswavystore.etsy.com

I sell silly poetry zines, my most recent being ‘Your Flowers’.

My new zine snail mail club ‘Wavy Mail’ still has 3 places left and will be mailed out at the end of May. The mailing includes a copy of ‘Your Flowers’ plus a new sticker and a new hand drawn A5 scribbly illustration (future mailings will be prints of scribbles).

You can also your own custom scribble . Give me your weird and wacky ideas and I will draw them.

That’s all folks. Have a good week.

Take it easy,

Ren