Before I start this blog post, I'd just like to say a few words of gratitude to my far-flung audience. I never intended for this to be anything other than a personal growth and exploration journal, but the thousands of page views from all corners of the planet indicates I'm tapping into something else. I'll admit I was inspired to do a deeper dive into the mental health ramifications of Autism by one reader telling me how greatly my words resonated with her, that a particular post found its way into her hands on the brink of a crisis and helped ground her. Others have shared praise for the quality of the writing and unfiltered truths, which I deeply appreciate.
As much as I am moved by the benefit sharing my experiences has to others, it is still, at its heart, my space for me, as stated in the very first entry nearly nine years ago. Thank you for reading, nonetheless.
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Female Scientist by Medic Kun
It would be irresponsible to perpetuate the impression that my perseveration is limited to botched romantic entanglements, as I likely have with the first three parts of this post. The more intimate a relationship however, the more deeply intertwined two minds, hearts, souls, the more opportunities there are for serious misunderstandings and subsequent hurt to occur. Involvement requires trust; trust is founded upon vulnerability; vulnerability makes me nervous; nerves short circuit my brain into panic; panic leads to flight; flight leaves questions unanswered, chords unresolved, words unspoken and years or decades down the track, endless loops of all the things I wish I could do and say differently playing through my mind.
When I think back on these myriad relationships and the consternation they continue to cause, I'm often struck by just how hard I actually did try to make amends in the past. How I've tried to explain the inexplicable, apologise for outright inexcusable behaviour, smooth ruffled feathers and even been pardoned, but the broken trust never heals. This is what gets me. I don't know if the other parties ever actually trust me again, but I do know that I don't trust them to trust me and so I slink away to avoid censure. This is what happened with The Scientist.
The Scientist was a stalwart woman, infinitely dedicated to her pursuits. In the many years I knew her, I watched wave after wave of tragedy, mishap, misogyny, and hardship smash her up against the rocks of life, but she never bowed. Looking back now, I can imagine she undoubtedly must have had her moments in private where she broke down and wept, wanted to throw in the towel and give up, but her public persona was so steadfast that any weakness was hidden. She was definitely one tough cookie and I seriously admired her.
In the wake of several of my own major life upheavals, I was foisted unexpectedly upon The Scientist. She didn't really want me in her charge for many good reasons, but neither of us had much of a choice in the matter. I always sincerely wanted to do right by her, as anyone would when working directly under one of their heroes, but my heart was never in the work she had me doing, and then my head couldn't stay in it either.
I've written briefly before about my
cycling accident in New Zealand but haven't yet had the opportunity to fully explore the damage it did physically, mentally and emotionally. I've been toying with a PTSD-focussed post to explore its different manifestations, but my writing energies keep pulling me in different directions. I mention it now because it played a significant role in the destruction of my working relationship with The Scientist.
Hitting the ground at 30 km/hr is never a good thing. Landing head first at that velocity is an especially bad thing. In conjunction with the multitude of serious injuries I sustained that day, I was also severely concussed. I can only estimate how long I was out cold by what I can remember of the distance between where I lay crumpled and the path where the first people on the scene would have been when I crashed, but however long it was sufficient to cause significant damage that continued to give me grief for many months afterward.
I had no idea how bad things were upstairs until several sleepless weeks went by. It's hard to say how much of my memory issues were directly related to the trauma and what was a secondary byproduct of the concussion-induced insomnia, either way, my brain was fucked. It's never nice to have your brain operating at less than full capacity, but I can tell you that having scrambled brains whilst completing intricate scientific research, taking the most complex graduate coursework
and trying to mop up the mess of your life truly fucking sucks. My normally brilliant mind was rendered useless. I couldn't remember a conversation from the day before let alone what a professor was talking about by the time I finished writing notes in class. My typically hyper-reactive emotions jumped into uncontrolled chaos. I was a walking time bomb.
When you can't keep anything straight in your mind and everthing feels like a race against the clock, it's only a matter of probability before one of the many mistakes you're making daily is going to genuinely cost you. The Scientist's lab was absolutely no place for a mis-wired brain like mine. There were so many protocols to follow, so many minute details to attend to every second, so much to learn and keep track of. I probably would have been OK if I hadn't been so over committed, if all my attention was focussed there, but it wasn't and I was floundering. Then one day up whipped the perfect storm.
I was stressed beyond belief and trying to juggle too many things. A dear friend, who was also under the The Scientist's wing, but didn't work in this lab, came in with me when I needed to check my experiments. There was no problem with her being in the lab, she often use the microscope therein, but she had zero training on the experimental equipment. We were talking, she wanted to be helpful, I was distracted and trying to get things done quickly. I asked her to do something deceptively simple before checking something else and realised too late that what she did affected someone else's experiments on the line. At the time, I honestly didn't think it was a big deal. The same tiny perturbation to my own experiments wouldn't have made any difference whatsoever. But the other experiments were a completely different beast. We destroyed them in a thoughtless instant. Weeks worth of someone else's work down the toilet.
My ridiculous mistake was so opaque to my mind that it never occurred to me to contact my mentor or the other student right away. I casually mentioned it in passing a few days later and the shit hit the fan. The other student was murderous; my mentor asked why she shouldn't ban me from ever using the lab again. Let me clarify here that not using that lab again would sign the death warrant on the PhD I'd been pursuing for the previous five years. It was not a happy option.
After wallowing in mortification for a few days, I wrote my supervisor a very long explanation and apology. I was seriously remorseful. It was the single biggest mistake of my professional life, one I knew had completely tarnished my reputation. The Scientist is a most magnanimous woman and she pardoned my sins, allowed me to resume working in the lab, and did her best to insure I successfully completed my PhD.
But I never felt right about things between us again. The strain on our already burdened relationship was enormous. Every interaction with her felt dangerous, never knowing if she was going to throw this or one of my myriad minor transgressions back at me.
The day I defended my thesis, The Scientist took me and my parents out for a celebratory lunch. We'd scarcely spoken outside of obligatory thesis and research group meetings since the lab debacle, so I was incredibly on edge about this small social outing. Much to my surprise, she positively glowed to my parents about what an amazing job I'd done, how much cutting edge research I'd successfully pursued, and what a fantastic student I was. I was absolutely floored. She never struck me as the type of person who would spout insincere flattery, but I can never stop wondering if she made an exception that day.
Thoughts of this woman whom I so admire, with whom I've travelled, dined, worked in the field, taken saunas, and partied, who's baby I've held and dear friends I've shared and lost, now only evoke shudders of shame and remorse. I've never been able to bring myself to connect with her via any social media or list her as a reference on my CV. Sadly, I never went through graduation ceremonies for my PhD, in part because I was too ashamed to ask her to hood me. I'm simply left to wonder if she considers me a black stain on her otherwise impeccable advisory record.
