Last night, I came across a clip on Instagram by Morgan Foley talking about how she feels like she will always be stuck in a teenager state. You can view the clip here.
As I was watching, I felt myself wanting to shout out ‘YES!’
She starts by saying she has low support needs, that doesn’t mean no support needs. I felt that with my whole being. My whole adult life I’ve struggled and needed support, but nothing was there for me.
I thought that being married would mean I would have someone to share the load of being an adult, but it didn’t work out that way. So I struggled.
I had people trying to help me with meal planning, budgeting, managing the house, and so on, but that wasn’t what I really needed.
As Morgan says in the video, she feels like she’s stuck in a teenager state, where she has independence, but still has the support of her parents. I feel like this is the sort of thing I needed.
Even now, at 46, I have a company that manages the paying of bills for me.
I have a cleaner that comes to do housework, although I could do with more support here.
I have a gardener.
There is more support I need, but don’t have right now, support to take off some of the load on my shoulders, so I can manage life better than I am. So I can find my sparkle and shine instead of struggling to get things that most people would say adults can do.
It was this pushing through and being capable that contributed to me being completely burned out!
After seeing that video, I thought about when I was a teenager. I was struggling with school, and who I was, and trying to get through, but I didn’t have to worry about cooking dinner every night, budgeting, paying bills, housework, and so on. My parents managed all of that. So many of those executive functioning things I wasn’t expected to do. I did know that I couldn’t do school and have an after school job… so I didn’t. I didn’t have any money coming in other than the occasional babysitting job, and some data entry from time to time, but I didn’t need to in order to have somewhere to live, food on the table, and so on.
Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I had still had that sort of support when I was studying at university. Would I have got my degree? Would my life have taken a different path? We’ll never know.
For now, I’m realising that yes, I have low support needs, but low support doesn’t mean no support. I’ll continue to search out those supports so that I can find my sparkle and let it shine.
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