Overload... shutdown... reconnect
I’ve had a rough few weeks. Personal stuff. Interpersonal stuff. Surprise re-emergence of childhood trauma I thought I’d dealt with. Three separate ethnic cleansings/genocides happening around the world at the same time (in Xinjiang, Congo, and Gaza).
I’ve been dealing with it all mostly by not dealing with it — I’ve been doing only what is absolutely necessary, leaning into the supports I have, and, most of all, distracting myself.
I knit an entire cardigan in a week.
I played lots and lots of casual games on my phone.
I baked chocolate chip and pumpkin bread, brownies, and made lots of pancakes.
I watched the entire six season run of Elementary in three weeks, as well as who knows how many YouTube videos of sewing, knitting and wood turning.
And I’ve been reading and watching a lot of stories, amongst them, a reread of all of Martha Wells’ The Murderbot Diaries, the latest instalment of which was published last week.
The Murderbot Diaries series follows the adventures of a corporate owned construct, a merging of human flesh and brain with robotic parts and computer intelligence, through its missions and adventures in a galaxy split between the control of mega-corporations which own planets (and, de facto or through direct contract, the people who live on them), and independent planetary polities of those humans who have managed to free themselves of corporate control.
When we meet it, the construct, a Security Unit, is hired out by a corporation to protect a group of scientists from one such independent colony, who are carrying out a planetary survey. It has already managed to free itself of its corporate owners’ very literal mind control, giving itself the (very private) name of ‘Murderbot’ in the process.
Throughout its adventures across the galaxy, Murderbot encounters the risks, responsibilities, joys and challenges of personhood, and the effects of how its autonomy and agency is or is not recognised by the humans it works for, with, and among.
The series is written in the first person, so we get an up close and intimate look at Murderbot’s thought processes as it comes to terms with this state of affairs, and does its best to protect ‘its’ humans from corporate attempts at sabotage and murder. While it has the ability to take in massive amounts of data from multiple sources at once, one thing it does not deal with easily is emotions, especially its own. One of its coping strategies is to hide from the humans in its storage container, and watch media — soap operas, procedurals, hospital dramas, and the like — on its internal feed.
I relate, Murderbot. I so relate.
When things get too much for this coping strategy to work any longer, or when its human parts are catastrophically damaged (don’t worry, it has control over its own pain receptors), it may go into overload and shut down — literally.
This reminds me uncomfortably of the times I’ve taken sudden, unplanned naps, when my body-brain just… turns off for a bit without my conscious control. Thankfully, I haven’t been so overwhelmed recently that that’s been happening to me, but again, I know what that’s like.
When Murderbot comes online again, sometimes it has been mended by a friendly AI’s medical suite, sometimes it’s even able to take a rest, but mostly, it comes back to exactly as dire a situation as it shutdown on.
Yeah. That. *points up*
While Martha Wells is on the surface writing about a human-AI construct in a human-robot body, about galaxy-spanning corporations and interplanetary action adventure, it’s obvious that what she’s really writing about is us, humans — especially those of us who are neurodivergent, i.e. we who live with autism, ADHD, PTSD, CPTSD and more, who relate to sensory stimulus, emotions, social situations, and trauma differently than we’re 'meant' to, according to mainstream psychology.
I used to feel bad about distracting myself from sensory, emotional or social overwhelm. Now I accept and embrace my knitting, gaming, baking, watching and reading as ways of coping that work for me: they provide me with dopamine (which I sorely lack), with a feeling of accomplishment, with emotional and nervous system soothing, occasional gentle catharsis, and a respite from overload.
Might it be ‘healthier’ to meditate every day? To do yoga morning and evening? To go for a walk outdoors? To journal about it? Possibly. But those options aren’t always available to me, for many reasons.
Plus this isn’t either/or. When I can do those things, I do do those things. When I need to distract myself, I distract myself. Sometimes I do both within the same few hours.
Like Murderbot, which emerges from its media viewing and/or shutdown with its power packs recharged and its human parts in a calmer and less damaged state, I use knitting, gaming, baking, watching, reading or whatever else is at hand to give my mind, my heart, and my nervous system a rest and recharge.
This distraction isn’t truly disconnection, but part of connecting to myself and responding to my needs. And when I’m ready, I reconnect with the world around and beyond me, less activated and better resourced than before.