Tag: identity

Hiraeth, Deverry and autism

I can’t read some fantasy books. Why? Because they are single books, or only a trilogy. I need complexity and sweeping narratives, over, say, 12 books. Like Katherine Kerr’s Deverry novels.

As a pagan, her books get me right in the heart. As an autistic person, the complexity of the SOULS of people, interacting across reincarnations, multiple lives… that complexity is just magnificent.  I have discovered that appreciation for rich, detailed, complex immersive narratives is an autistic thing. 

I dived deep into her books, jumping backwards and forwards in time, the origin story of the books; the story of Jill, Rhodri and Nevyn, souls entwined in soul contracts that must be resolved, and the extra soul contracts, the “Wyrd” of each soul that each reincarnation comes into contact with.

It’s just superb. It appeals to what I now know to be aspects and traits of my autism – the sense of justice, hyperempathy, a love of words with hyperlexia, and intense focus.

Discovering my autism at the age 51, and discovering that being autistic is why I like some things… I love my autistic brain that gave me so much when I didn’t even know its true identity; my true identity.

It’s from Katherine Kerr’s books that I learned, in the pan-Celtic language she created for the series, of “hiraedd”, of Rhodri’s desperate longing for his home, the dun of his family, and that hiraedd, embedded in his soul across lifetimes. “Hiraedd” in fictional Deverry, “hiraeth” in Welsh; the word that has no translation in English, according to the BBC.  According to this BBC article, hiraeth is:

A blend of homesickness, nostalgia and longing, “hiraeth” is a pull on the heart that conveys a distinct feeling of missing something irretrievably lost.

All through my spiritual life, in good and bad, through my late husband’s decline with Huntington’s Disease, there has been this hiraeth, a homesickness. Hiraeth, a word then a definition that made so much sense to me. Hiraeth, missing that place where I felt like I belonged.

Yet I always felt guilty of language appropriation because I’m not Welsh. Little did I know.

Hiraeth, autism and a search

I’ve written elsewhere about being autistic and where it came from, genetically. And I’ve written elsewhere about being adopted.

So, not belonging anywhere, really. Hiraeth, missing that place where I felt like I belonged.

My autistic literal thinking interpreted being adopted and not belonging anywhere as onlyness. Yes,  I have adoptive aunts and uncles and cousins, and I have biological aunts and uncles and cousins, but I don’t belong in either camp. There’s that acceptance that, yes, there are those people who have those labels, but I don’t associate those labels with me. That’s the best way I can explain it. Onlyness. My autistic brain’s desire for order led me to investigate, to find a place where I belonged.

Genetic heritage and DNA

Building my family tree in Ancestry.com was always more about where I came from, not the people along the way. So when I did the Ancestry DNA, I was super-chuffed with the results.

My DNA is similar to DNA that’s Irish, English, French, (by way of Brittany and the Channel Isles),  Welsh, and a little Scottish! (The German 4% in my DNA is, as that family will tell you,  Prussian, not German – I have mixed emotions about that… but no mixed emotions about Black Forest Gateau.)

But to know that my DNA is firmly rooted in that part of the world… my Welsh DNA says that I am not culturally or linguistically appropriating the word “hiraeth”, nor in the tenets of my eclectic spirituality and faith. Yeehah!

All of that is a really roundabout way of saying that Katherine Kerr’s Deverry books are great, and gave me insights that I then explored, and found ideas and concepts that resonated with me, and, despite feeling like I didn’t belong anywhere, my autism and my DNA tells me where I come from.

And the hiraeth that has haunted me, has abated.

Isn’t self awareness a grand thing?

Developing a positive self-identity

Late diagnosis of autism, or late discovery of autism as a life explainer

Discovering my autism, more than halfway through my life*, has been, shall we say, interesting. I’ve been diving deep into research, social media and a better understanding of female autism in the 21st century. One of the things that I keep coming across is identity, and here’s where I have a problem with the narrative. Maybe this comes from the life I’ve already lived. But what is “identity”?

You see, to me, this concept of duality, and then singularity, is problematic. None of us, not one of us, is just one thing or another. For example, the way that we have masculine and feminine energy within us, working in balance, rising and falling in concert throughout our lives.  The way that we can have a range of emotions, creating the symphony of our lives, from joy to depression, love to indifference, rage to indifference, every emotion and its counter-balancing, and complementary emotions.

In that same manner, we are more than this or that. We can be, we are, many things.

So, autistic identity. I’ve been autistic my whole life, even if I didn’t know it. Even in the word ‘identity’, it has multiple faces, multiple meanings – personal identity, social identity, legal identify, ethnic identity, cultural identity, national identity, professional identity, gender identity, sexual identity.

Others posit that our identity is formed through our habits. This brings to mind Lao Tzu’s words:

“Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny.”

Moreover, this concept of identity from our habits, leads to the question of moral identity, and how that forms our intentions and actions.

Even the research into identity shows it to be a multi-faceted construct.

Thus, we come to the concept of integrated self, with a “high degree of connectedness within and between cognitive, affective, motivational, and behavioral (sic) systems” (Verplanken and Sui, 2019). To me, that means being in harmony with oneself, being true to oneself.

But identity? If it was a fixed thing, then I’ve changed identities so many times in the last twenty years. From wife, to wife of Huntington’s Disease, to wife, provider and administrator, to widow, to mature-age student, to failed student, to autistic (which is why I was a failed student). Yet, its all just me. Cash poor, spiritually rich, living the best life I can, sometimes brilliant, sometimes anxious, sometimes sad, sometimes happy, always autistic, and always me.

What prompted this introspection and research? A webinar I attended, from Attwood Garnett Events, “Developing a positive self-identity”.

My identity is and remains that of Lee-Anne, one of 7 billion people on this planet, all rich in their lives and identity, whichever identity they choose, whichever facet they choose.

Once again, for me, it comes back to the message of accepting and celebrating diversity, knowing that I am secure in knowing who and what I am, changing the world one conversation at a time.

* Halfway through my life? Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows that life expectancy for a woman in Australia is an average of 85.3 years.