Aspergers: Every Cloud

This original illustrative art series explores the neuro-divergent experiences of Anna Frances Hamilton, as someone that identifies as being on the Aspergic ‘spectrum’ or ‘continuum,’ in a mild way, and has had to work on her own limiting beliefs around connection, self-awareness, communication and self-expression, whilst also only experiencing these symptoms mildly, and only sometimes. Read on to find out more

For me personally, I never bothered to get the formal diagnosis, which in the UK, is quite difficult to do, with long waiting lists, and lots of different ways of doing it. As someone that is able to fully function in the work place, has got through the educational system with high grades, able to participate in extra curricular activities, participate in social groups etc, and would not consider myself needing any discretionary treatment to cater for my mental health in anyway, it wasn’t until I learned about the autistic spectrum in my 20s and 30s, that I ever realised that, like many people, I may be on it, but not in a very severe way.

I’m very empathetic, and sensitive, and often feel very upset if I’m around others who are also very upset, and very happy, if I’m around others who feel happy. I care about others a lot, and love being around people often.

That being said, the name ‘Every Cloud’ of this series is appropriate for me, as I have often felt this ‘cloud’ feeling, or lack awareness, come and go, like a cloud in the sky, where I’d have short periods of time where I just felt unable to connect in the way I normally would want to and feel safe to. This probably wasn’t that obvious to the people around me in some ways, but in certain situations I felt very unable to communicate my feelings, and this could results in me feeling withdrawn, confused, highly sensitive to noises, lights and colours, and generally feeling like I couldn’t cope, in situations where I normally found it very managable, simply because this ‘cloud’ sensation would just come and go, and I’d be left looking back at how I dealt with certain situations feeling a sense hopelessness in some way, as the empathetic part of me realised exactly what had happened: I just couldn’t cope. And that was very frustrating for a long time. Often after I felt like I couldn’t cope, this would be met with a feeling of self-doubt, self-hatred, self-loathing and self-criticism, because I felt like, in some way, if I thought about it hard enough, I’d be able to work out how to cope, even though I didn’t know why I was experiencing these short bursts of confusion and overwhelm, often without any warning.

This is why I think it’s been helpful for me to create this illustrative series, as I’ve been able to explore this ‘cloud’ feeling, and how little I’m able to connect with myself, which in turn has made it challenging to connect with others. For me personally I feel honoured to be able to do this series, because I am only mildly experiencing these ‘cloud-like’ feelings, and therefore am I able to see why it’s not always necessary for me to feel disconnected or confused. My healing journey started with counselling, and has continued with ThetaHealing, which works on the soul level, core level (or you at all ages), historic level and ancestral level, and this has two-pronged approach of talking therapy and energy healing sped up the healing considerably, as has the art work, which has served as a way to express myself, about things that I might otherwise find challenging or even impossible to explain without colour, shape and texture to demonstrate what it feels like for me to have a ‘cloud’ over my self-awareness and therefore my ability to cope in every day situations, albeit not all the time.

For me personally, I had a lot of limiting beliefs around feelings and feeling safe communicating them, and also feelings, and feeling safe experiencing them. For example, one of my limiting beliefs was: ‘feelings are dangerous.’ I had to do a lot of work, and it’s still in progress in a lot of ways, where I accept that my feelings are even there in the first place, and also that I accept that others accept them, without feeling afraid of not being able to cope. Underneath it all is a lot of pain, and suffering, and underneath that is a lot of ‘battle’ energy’ – battling to become closer to myself, the universe or God, which ever word feels most appropriate.

A lot of the art I’ve created has demonstrated how much of a huge thought process goes into, and has been going into, answering a simple question: how are you? I think often I’ve struggled with this in different ways, where I’ve found it hard to cope, and therefore found it very distressing, and therefore found it very annoying, and therefore found it very upsetting, and therefore found it very angering, because I want to communicate, but the cloud feeling has made it almost impossible to feel safe doing that, and as result, I’m left with a feeling of anger, which I’m socially conditioned not to be able to express, in most situations, and so I’ve trained my brain to decide to just say: ‘fine thanks,’ as a way to cope in the present, before withdrawing and trying to find a way to deal with some of the emotions I couldn’t at the time, because I was in a difficult head space and therefore needed the time.

The empath part of me, although in some ways not able to cope, still loves people, and so the art reflects this, I still genuinely care. I still genuinely want to know how people are, and their response matters to me a lot. This is why I would never suggest I’m in anyway a severe example of someone on the spectrum/continuum, because I’ve always been very caring, and able to be in groups often, with people who I felt I had enough in common with to have interesting and kind interactions with, with long lasting relationships often after meeting them.

Feeling ‘good’ can be a scarey thing to admit, and some of the art talks about what it means to share feeling joyful with others, without feeling afraid that it somehow won’t be accepted or appreciated, which is a reflection of how occasionally feel when I accept that joy is within.

I’ve had to do some belief work around accepting joy in particular, and I still find it hard to talk to people about experiencing joy without feeling a sense of shame or judgment, which is something I’m still personally working on in different ways, and painting about it has helped shift a lot of the stuck energy around shame in particular, just by expressing my self-doubt about it, and therefore self-loathing and therefore, sadness and anger that I felt compelled to share that I felt joyful with others. This again only happens sometimes, but it can be quite a heavy energy, and can affect my ability to self-congratulate myself, to appreciate myself and to feel in anyway proud or happy with myself, because of this heavy energy that joy is somehow not able to be expressed or acknowledged in a way that feels safe or without judgment in certain situations.
I’ve since found some people who I’ve found it very easy to express myself about joy, but this has taken a long time, and it’s through therapy and ThetaHealing that I’ve been able to find this connection with others after a period of feeling quite closed about this, I do feel safe to open up in time, and the more I practice connecting in this way, the easier it becomes, with people I trust and respect, and with people that feel the same way about me.

In extreme cases, where I feel unable to cope, unable to answer any questions at all, unable to respond at all, my brain feels like it just says ‘stop.’ So I stop, and wait to the question ‘goes away,’ and in reality, this can mean just shutting down emotionally, becoming very withdrawn, leaving the room for a while, or in some cases, my coping mechanism is just to laugh and say ‘I mean… good question.. god knows,’ and then hope that they forget to ask me again, because I am aware that the person is in the room, and expecting a response, and so my default it to just openly admit that I need the time. This, again, is something I’m getting better at doing with people I’ve never met before, as I often find it harder with people I don’t know to say ‘hey, I need the time’ than with people I do know, in most situations.

Often I feel very frustrated when I can’t quite work out why I haven’t immediately reached any kind of conclusion or solution to a situation, without spending any amount of time thinking about the answer, and I put a huge amount of pressure on myself in academia, in the work place, in everyday social situations, where I just feel helpless and socially unable to connect until I’ve finally managed to work out the answer that I feel I should have immediately calculated without any thought process. Doing the art made me realise quite how much energy it takes for me to even acknowledge that some thoughts are there, and that some thoughts are always going to be, and that it does take time to think about things sometimes, and that’s ok. I often find it hard to admit that I haven’t achieved the most or the best (whatever that means), and I get quite upset if people think I haven’t tried hard enough, because my brain feels very unsafe in that kind of energy.

I excelled at university and got the highest grade in my undergraduate degree, and getting a Merit rather than a Distinction in the first Masters I took was real eye opener to see how I felt about myself, having not had the feeling of ‘safety’ achieving the highest grade, but still proud of my achievement. On reflection, the feeling of safety is really fuelled by fear of ‘failure’, and it’s healthy for me to talk about this as a way to express myself about the pressure people put on themselves sometimes, without even realising it. Since graduating, what I thought would be the most valuable part of my degree (the grade) has only been a very small part of a bigger picture, and often I’ve found myself talking about things I’ve done well, but not ‘perfectly’ well, and realised it was still incredibly valuable, and a lot of how I feel about what I’ve achieved is quite subjective, anyway. It’s taken a while for me to feel confident in talking about ‘failure’ as a subjective topic, as well as ‘success.’ What does ‘success’ actually mean? What does ‘failure’ actually mean? Do you have to be the ‘best’ not to ‘fail’? These questions are still something I think about often, in different ways.

I still think it’s important to try your best, and do the best you can, but I think pushing yourself too hard to ‘succeed,’ however that’s defined, can affect your personal relationships with your friends and family, and so I’m trying to find that balance of self-acceptance, even when things seem to be going badly, or not perfectly. I’m trying to learn to let people love me anyway, which is an ongoing process, and I’ve had to let go of people who only love me conditionally if I’m ‘achieving’ something, and vice versa. It’s very possible to find loving people who accept me for me, and I’m grateful to have been able to do that throughout my life. Setting boundaries and only keeping kind and nurturing people around me has changed my life for the better.

I’ve ended this series with an image of me holding the cloud, and in time, I hope to paint myself without any cloud in the painting at all. I feel like there is still some heavy/stuck energy around accepting my own feelings, and the more I talk about this, the more it becomes easier to open my heart and mind to doing this. I often find it very easy now, to openly say how I feel to people I feel will accept it, but there is still some limiting beliefs that I need to work on, to accept kindness from people who I am very aware might ironically, be on the spectrum themselves, or reject how I’m feeling, because their beliefs are very different to mine. I struggle with the fear of rejection from people who refuse to see my perspective, even if it’s not their beliefs themselves, and this is something I’m working on. You can find out more about this in my new series, The Autistic Sparrow, here.

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