Checking in at the amazing Sarum College for a retreat this week. This has been a significant place for me for many years, firstly as a student when I trained for ministry, then as a member of the Trustee board. I helped to take what was STETS through a merger with Sarum College, allowing theological formation for ministry to continue on the fabulous setting. And then serving on the Trustee body of the merged college for a number of years. So much of my formation had taken place within the walls of this place.
The theme of this week’s structured retreat is about navigating life transitions. I’m finding myself in the lovely and unexpected transition to finding myself well.
I grew up ‘unwell’, with severe asthma & allergies, and about 50% attendance at school. I navigated a raft of health challenges in my 20’s and health gradually improved, but lots of mini wobbles / health issues. At 42, as many of you know I was diagnosed autistic, ADHD and bipolar, which was such a revelation. Suddenly I had a new understanding & language for who I have always been. (You know that already, because I continue to share stuff about neurodiversity to help us all learn,)
But then I faced significant discrimination and bullying at work due to ignorance regarding neurodiversity. Surviving through that season took a heavy toll on me. I’d been told I should try and be more like others, that I was larger than life, that the best way I should contribute was to be silent, and preferably to go away. I challenged this, including mediation with a bishop to help address the depth of this.
Unfortunately at the same time I was then admitted to hospital with covid pneumonia and then off work for several months recovering, and left with enduring challenges of long covid.
Along the way I moved to my current role at Pokesdown, and went on a course designed for neurodivergent leaders, which seemed like an absolute gift – but it turned out at the time they didn’t get neurodivergence, and it broke me. Mediation witb yet another bishop to address. Triggering all the stuff from previous several years of ignorance re neurodivergence and what it had cost me.
I fell over, after a lifetime of challenges, I finally ran out of capacity to keep going. I was in a safe enough space, seen & valued by my new Bishop, Philip Mounstephen, accepted as a neurodivergent leader here in my parish of St James, and I crashed. Doctors diagnosed it as depression, and because of my bipolar that included treatment with anti-psychotics, which completely wiped me out. I eventually worked out that, possibly alongside depression, I was also dealing with autistic burnout, and the massive increase in sensory processing challenges, auditory processing challenges and difficulties in processing speech that went with it. (The advice for depression is to keep trying to do stuff. The advice for autistic burnout is to stop, to engage in low energy monotropic interests – at that point crochet was too much for me, so I came off the medications (with support from community health team) and I played & replayed many many times a puzzle game on my computer, artisans of glimmith.)
And slowly energy has returned, my body has got more regulated, I can handle sound & light again, I can handle conversation again, I can modulate my speech and project my voice again, and I’m well enough to go to the gym, so my strength is returning, I can even tolerate the sensory overload of going to the hairdressers. My hair is pink and I look like myself when I look in the mirror again.
This transition to good health is a welcome blessing, but it is happening very quickly, I’m surprising myself every day. I’ve put in specialist neurodiversity coaching with the awesome Tanya Bright to help navigate and I’m hopefully on my way to learning how to live sustainably and thrive with the actual body and brain that I have.
I’m here to give space with God to process this transition, to sit in this becoming space, to be curious and to notice.
I’ve brought crochet with me, to help me sit in the uncomfortable space of transitions. The last time I trusted someone to hold space for me in a structured way, was the course mentioned above for neurodivergent leaders, which really didn’t end well. So it is with some trepidation that I enter an organised residential space again.
It was lovely to be greeted by the familiar sign at Sarum, an open doorway, the beautifully decorated Psalm 90 open in the St John’s bible that is here, and luxurious new soap in the ladies (maybe not new… but new since I was last here).
Looking forward with anticipation for all that this week might hold.
