The first self-help book I ever bought was called The Birth Order Book by Dr. Kevin Leman. I was ten years old, searching the aisles for answers. The book's subtitle is what caught my attention: "Why You Are the Way You Are." I felt square and serious in my round and raucous childhood homes (we moved a lot), and I could not tolerate that discomfort, that dissonant feeling of being a part and still apart. Thirty-seven years later, I don't feel much closer to getting the answers I sought, now considering I may not ever.
If you're thinking to yourself, "My, age 10 seems pretty young to be hitting the Personal Improvement section at the bookstore," you would not be alone in your thinking. That purchase was probably one of the earliest peeks into my interior life, when I allow the outside world a look into one of the many subjects I keep on a constant loop in my head. As a not-yet-diagnosed hyperlexic neurodivergent kid, the written word was consistently my go-to source for information. No one who knew me then was surprised to see me carrying books that didn't have pictures, were hundreds of pages long, and documented my highlighted learnings in the margins. The subject, birth order, did surprise some though. I guess they never saw a little brown girl interested in emotional growth and validation before.
My particular blend of neurodivergence features hyperfixation. I love a deep dive, love a rabbit hole. Years of my life spent on a wild goose chase of research and references. The light of this intense focus could land on any number of subjects, and for most children, those subjects typically include dinosaurs, trains, horses or fandoms like Star Wars or My Little Pony. Ever unlike "most children," I did not become a collector in that sense, piles of cartoon character merchandise or buckets of every shiny rock that crossed my path. Books are the only artifacts of my fixations.
My home life was so chaotic that I wasn't as interested in the usual kid stuff as others might've been. I don't think my brain would allow me the indulgence of childhood silliness because the adult silliness around me was inescapable. I wasn't thrilled about having that preoccupation, not only because no one else seemed to have the stress of being the mature one in the house, but also because I felt like there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn't make my parents behave in a way I thought was more acceptable, and I was also not in a decision-making position to dictate how the household functioned. I was only ten years old, for crying out loud. I did know, however, that the only person I could control was myself so I set out to control the heck out of her.
Age 10 is also when I had my first panic attack, sharp chest pain that made it hard for me to breathe and earned me a trip to urgent care. That was another peek into my interior life, when folks on the outside could see a physical manifestation of my anxiety, but I didn't want anyone to see that part of me. I didn't want to give anyone the idea that I was one to worry about, one to keep an eye on. No more peeks into my mind where I was up to my eyebrows in masking and internalizing and intellectualizing because those were what was keeping me safe. Must regain control. Back to the books to self-diagnose and self-treat.
I read books about giftedness, managing school stress, creating routines and schedules, hormonal fluctuations due to menstrual cycles, being a role model, preparing for college. I read books about divorced parents, addiction in families, domestic violence, mental health disorders. I knew the word "codependent" at far too young an age. I still didn't know myself any better, and "anxious, overachieving eldest daughter" was the only identity I could point to in response to the question of why I was the way that I was. All the reading did was give me the roadmap and instructions for how to be a "good" anxious, overachieving eldest daughter, one that solves her own problems, doesn't have any needs, and helps those who are actually falling apart. Very neat, very tidy, exactly the controlled version I allowed them to see and the diametrical opposite of my messy home life.
Going into my 40s, I started to realize that no amount of reading, no amount of information-gathering, is ever going to paint a complete picture of why I am the way I am or why anyone else is the way they are. Maybe that's not even a question worth asking. A life isn't just an accumulation of data (I'm as bummed about that as you are). But an unexamined life is not worth living, according to Socrates. He had no idea a little brown girl armed with a library card and babysitting money would go to such lengths in her examination, 1,500 years later.
The study of my Self felt like running on a hamster wheel. The spinning wasn't getting me anywhere, only wearing me out. Giving up this level of self-control and putting down the books is something my therapist suggested earlier this year. I am so tired of the constant pursuit of self-improvement; how much examining must I do to have a worthy life? I am alive, but am I living, or too busy info-loading and labeling and analyzing? I have been so focused on studying the Why, questioning the How, that I fell behind on doing the What.
I can't continue to examine my life if I'm not living it.
So that's all I've got on my reading list now, free of the wheel: doing the What.