Quest for Identity

Well, that's the name of the Spiritual Voyager card I pulled yesterday morning as my card for the day – Quest for Identity. (Spiritual Voyager cards are part of the Soul Quintessence system created by my friend and colleague Raeline Brady. Her website's under reconstruction at present, but Google her name and/or Soul Quintessence and you'll find all sorts of fascinating material.) Among other things, this card's about new understanding, and a reassessment of certain characteristics we commonly accept as being part of us.

Right on cue I received a loving email from a friend whom I know sees deeply into people – but what she saw in me surprised me.

"I want to tell you right now," she said, "what is the number 1 thing I love most about you.

"Rosemary: you are not innately feeling...you have developed that...its not a gift...its something you have accomplished, I have that gift so in a way it means less...than someone who has accomplished it...thats what I admire and love most about you."

"What's she talking about?" I thought at first. "I'm a Scorpio. I feel deeply; I feel intensely."

But then I remembered. When I was in group therapy in my twenties, my psychiatrist once expressed the – admittedly tentative – opinion:

"I think you might have been a missed autistic child."

"You couldn't possibly have been!" said a woman I repeated this to, who had had experience of a child with extreme autism. But nowadays we know a little more about degrees of autism, in conditions such as Asperger's Syndrome and High-Functioning Autism.

As a child, I was awkward and physically clumsy. I was inappropriately friendly and trusting when I was very little. As I grew older, I became painfully shy and had trouble meeting people's eyes. My vocabulary was always above average, and I shone academically in the subjects I loved, but I was known as dreamy and introverted. I had trouble even noticing, let alone interpreting people's non-verbal cues, or knowing how to conduct myself in social situations. I've never been any good at small talk, and I've always needed frequent periods of solitude. All of these qualities are apparently typical of people with HFA.

And I remembered something else. I wanted to be loved. I dreamed of it, yearned for it.

Don't we all? But I experienced myself as "different", unpopular, strange – an outsider. I had no idea how to fit in and be normal. I also thought I was ugly. I fervently wanted friends, and I wanted passionately to grow up to experience romantic love.

I don't remember where I heard or read that, in order to be loved, you have to love. But I came across the idea somewhere when I was still very young, and it made a huge impact. I received it as the unquestionable truth.

The conclusion was obvious. This was what I must do. I would become a loving person. Yet even at that age I knew it would only work if I did it for real. You can't pretend love and expect that to work.

How did I do it? I can't altogether explain. I wasn't a dumb kid; I could see who had genuine warmth and kindness. I sort of checked out their energy and generated in myself energy that felt the same. I wouldn't have put it in those terms at the time; I couldn't have. I just somehow knew instinctively how to do this. And so I learned empathy. My responses to other people became more appropriate and more spontaneous.

It didn't happen overnight by any means, but I gradually became less awkward, less introverted. It took decades. It took having to support myself and hold down a job, and it took having and raising my kids. I couldn't remain in some kind of ivory tower and also perform those obligations properly. I had to look outwards and become more practical.

And it took a friend noticing about 13 years ago that I wasn't fully in my body, and telling me how to get myself there. She suggested exercises such as walking on the earth very consciously, feeling my whole foot treading on the ground. There's a definite corollary between being grounded and being fully aware of others and the feelings of others.

Now I'm officially a senior citizen, with a wealth of life experience. And I can tell you that I have been – and am – well and truly loved. No-one is more blessed in their friends! And as for romantic love ... ah, that's where the depth and intensity come in. ;)