I Learned to Sit Still, And Somewhere Along the Way, I Lost Myself

We’re taught to sit still, stay quiet, and behave. But what happens to the part of us that was meant to move freely?

One of my rats, tiny Zinny, is in a mischievous mood lately. She goes rummaging in my trash bin, and when I pick her up and put her away, she just runs to it again. Maybe she thinks it’s just a funny game, and she is participating enthusiastically. 

Yesterday, I had had enough. When I fished her out of the bin for the umpteenth time, I put her back in the cage. I decided that if she doesn’t get to free roam, maybe she will get the message. 

And then I paused. 

I remembered that time my parents took me to the circus. Just to be clear, I don’t support circuses that have animals because they don’t live in good conditions, but as a kid, I loved them. 

But when we watched the performance, I was so caught up with it that I wanted to participate. I jumped out of my seat and was dancing, dancing joyfully, moving my body around. I needed to participate not just with my eyes, but with my whole body.

But my parents were having none of it. To them, I was disrupting the performance, and they repeated to me that I need to sit down, not to make a spectacle. But I didn’t hear them. I was so enraptured in the goings on, and I just wanted to be part of it. 

In the end, they dragged me out of the circus. I was devastated. I pleaded with them that now I get it, I will be a good girl, I will sit still, that now I understand. But they were firm. We were going home. 

This became a core memory. Sit still, watch quietly. Don’t move your body. Don’t express joy too much because people will find it disruptive. 

Don’t be yourself. 

When I was a kid, I loved to climb the trees, climb the walls, climb the fences, hang from the branches upside down, be wild all over the playground, jump on the table, take every opportunity to move around. 

Now that I’m an adult, I watch the kids on the playground having fun, and I miss it. I miss it so much. Somewhere on the way to becoming an adult, I have lost the societal approval to do such things. And, in time, suppressed by disapproval and weird stares, I lost the drive to do such things at all. 

But I desperately miss it all the time. I just don’t know how to find it in myself anymore to run, to jump, to be wild and free, to be alive with my whole body. 

I became assimilated. 

Our society frowns on moving our bodies in unexpected ways. We are expected to be still, to be quiet, to be obedient. You can move in prescribed ways, approved patterns, in the gym, in a sports lesson, but not freely. And you need to pay for the privilege of moving your body in a way that society deems acceptable.

A lot of people with ADHD struggle with hyperactivity. They need to move their bodies, they can’t sit still and listen. This is not my case, but when I see people move, I need to move. Here is where my hyperempathy comes to play, when my mirror neurons fire on overdrive. I can’t watch a show without desperately wishing I were a part of it. Without needing to be part of it. 

I wish our society were more accepting of movement. It would make the world a bit more neurodivergent friendly. We are the people who didn’t lose their childhood selves, who are not confined by rules that don’t make sense, who strive to be free, or at least, when suppressed by the need to fit in, who yearn with all their souls to be like that again. 

I don’t know how to start moving freely when I don’t even have the wish to do it anymore. My free spirit has been beaten and subdued. But my soul whispers to me that this is what I really am. That losing it would be devastating. That I need to find it deep in myself again. 

I’m trying. I walk on the curbs, trying to keep my balance. I make it a point to sometimes just lift my arms while breathing deeply. But it’s forced. It comes from my mind, from my brain, not from my emotions and my body. I think that my child self would do that, and I go through the motions, but I don’t feel it. 

I don’t know how to become whole again. 

But I remembered the circus, and I took Zinny out of the cage again and let her roam freely. Let her run free and have fun. I decided not to take from her something that she dearly loves and deeply enjoys. I didn’t want her to feel like I was feeling, being dragged away from the circus in the rain, devastated. 

I let her run. 

And I ordered a trash can with a lid. It should arrive soon. 

I think this is something to take away from this. Be it rats or other animals, or be it children, the tender beings we have in our care, we are tasked with the sacred duty to do good by them. We need to find ways that work without killing their spirit. We need to find and create ample situations where they can move their bodies freely. Until society catches up and stops frowning on movement so much. 

We need to give them what was denied to us. 

And maybe, just maybe, one day, we too will be free. 

Want to see more posts like this?

Sign up for my newsletter and get a free copy of the mini-ebook AuDHD Survival Guide: 5 Steps After Your (Self)Diagnosis!