Working at a pharmacy seems like it should be organized and neat on paper, but in real life, it hardly plays out that exact way.

Just before writing this post, I had to deal with a half hour start to my shift that included juggling multiple phone calls and desperately searching for a patient’s prescription that had not been entered into the system yet. To make things worse, someone was in the drive-thru and I could not respond to them, so they eventually drove away. In reaction, I moved myself and the call to another computer and began to feel anxious about all of that being for nothing.

That is only one example of how my brain sometimes works against me.

From what I know from my mother, I did not speak until I was 4 years old, meaning I had a lot of catching up to do. I was also fixated on doing my own thing, and I still am now. She told me that she took me to a psychologist, and the only reason I was not diagnosed with high-functioning autism was apparently because I was an active extrovert.

I thought learning about this would give me more control and more of a grasp on some of the things I do, but some cannot be explained by that anecdote alone. And it also clarified another reason why my mom acts the way she does. Trying to correct my bluntness, explaining the concept of “normal” as she does, and causing me no scarcity of grief because of the way I phrase some things are examples of how she tries to correct my behavior so I would be a more “productive and normal” member of society.

Nevertheless, I do indeed have a better grasp of some of the habits I have. Singing in the car, whistling and listening to songs on my AirPods at different times, and either drumming my fingers on the desk or some other action such as trying to play a game while doing something else are different attempts to self-stimulate or to ground myself. At least, that is how I understand them in an attempt to grasp my own habits without a formal diagnosis.

But even more than the habits and the fixations and my tendency to ramble, I feel more control in that I can better comprehend the ways in which I do not fit the mold of “normal”. And perhaps that is okay, because if I have to ask what normal is, then in what context is it truly meant to be understood?

Until then, I’m trying to understand myself more one day at a time and find a safe space where I can. be all of me and not fixate on what others think or on how I would define myself in any other context.