Something I’ve always known about myself, but am only recently understanding, is that I don’t handle not knowing very well. This isn’t new. I’ve always struggled with not knowing. And not just in the suspense kind of way. It genuinely unsettles me. I just didn’t realize how much it has shaped me or how directly it affects my nervous system.
When something doesn’t make sense, I try to understand it.
I ask questions. I look for missing pieces. I try to make it make sense. Sometimes I sit with it. Sometimes I look for reassurance from someone outside the situation. I’m trying to find the point where everything connects.
Sometimes that probably comes across as arguing or disagreeing. It isn’t. I’m trying to orient myself.
If the pieces still don’t line up, if the answers don’t come, and there is pressure to respond, I often begin to withdraw.
From the outside, that might look calm. Or dismissive. Inside, it’s anxiety.
My brain gets foggy. I feel suspended. I can’t move forward until something clicks into place. It feels like standing without ground under me.
This isn’t about avoiding emotion. I can sit with emotion. I can reassure someone who is scared. I don’t mind tears. What unsettles me most is being asked to respond before I understand what is actually happening.
When that happens, I feel pressure to engage, to respond correctly, to avoid making things worse.
And I know my limits.
If I speak too quickly, I might misinterpret the situation. I might escalate something unintentionally. I might get it wrong.
If I can’t get clarity, I withdraw.
That withdrawal has cost me.
It can look like distance. It can feel like indifference. Sometimes it probably feels like rejection to the other person. It isn’t. It’s containment.
Talking while I’m trying to understand makes it worse. It feels like someone moving the pieces while I’m still trying to see the whole picture. I need space to reconstruct it internally. Sometimes I text someone outside of the situation instead of talking directly, because I can take in information at my own pace. There’s less pressure. Less interference.
Eventually, when I understand what happened, something releases. The anxiety drops. But often anger follows.
Not outward anger. More like pent-up activation that has nowhere to go.
I still protect the person involved. I still protect the system. So the charge stays in me.
Over time, that becomes resentment. And fatigue.
This pattern shows up in small situations. It also shows up in the ones that matter most.
After Kayla died, I needed the timeline.
That still feels strange to admit. Most people reach for comfort first.
I needed to know exactly what happened. Not because it removed the grief. It didn’t. But without clarity, I felt suspended.
Knowing gave me ground.
Even now, I look up movie spoilers. I don’t like sitting inside a story I don’t understand. I relax more easily when I know where it’s going.
For a long time, I thought this pattern was just personality. Then I began to understand it through the lens of autism.
I suspect this overlaps with my autism.
Not in the stereotype people imagine. Not in the cold or disconnected sense. In the structural sense.
My nervous system regulates through orientation.
Connection comes after that.
Understanding this doesn’t excuse me from growth. It doesn’t eliminate the anxiety. It doesn’t erase the resentment that can build when I absorb too much.
But it does let me forgive myself for needing clarity in order to feel steady. And it helps me understand how I regulate.
Maybe I’m not withdrawing from people.
Maybe I’m withdrawing to stabilize.
