Throughout several posts, I've talked about wrestling with my compulsion to fantasize, struggling to have discipline and focus, knowing what to say or do in many kinds of social situations, understanding what is "normal" for adults, wanting to find a place/ job to "fit in", etc.
Recently, my daughter showed me what was wrong.
She's been flapping her arms and legs when excited. Mouth agape, she is the very picture of ecstatic happiness when I give her a banana, or when something happens in a movie she likes, or when we decide to go some place she likes. In other words, hardly triggers for ecstatic happiness. Based on my light research, it looks like she may have a neurological condition called Sensory Processing Disorder,(SPD) which causes her to redirect overloaded emotional and intellectual energy.
You can imagine my relief and resignation when I did a search for "sensory processing disorder" and "adults" and found the very condition I'd been ashamed to reveal to anyone for years - 41 of them actually. My fantasy life and the hours and hours spent "flapping" or "wiggling my fingers in front of my face" has set me back considerably on many, many levels. It explains the Borderline" diagnosis I have myself a couple of years ago. It explains why, as a 44 yr old I am living the life of a early thirty-something. It explains my anger and anti-social issues, loss of friends, etc etc etc.
You can imagine my alarm when I learned that SPD is hereditary. That my little girl has this condition because of me. And, in turn, I have it because of my mother.
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