Page 23
Story: Melted by a Man
If the CEO and CFO were part of this, I was probably the one overreacting.
Again.
I froze, stuck between wanting to tell Leo to quiet down, while also still raw from feeling like three members of upper management implied that I was overworked and run down from my job within a week.
I was nervous, I didn’t want to make them think I was incapable or that I couldn’t do my job with distractions around me. Anyone would be able to work with coworkers laughing and playing music in their office, right? I was just sensitive.
You’re too sensitive.
You need therapy, Jackie.
Two things I already knew about myself, but my ex’s voice still rang loud and clear in my mind. I frowned, getting ready to turn on my heel and hide in my office the rest of the day when Mary’s voice echoed from the space.
I hesitated, curiosity getting the best of me, because she was singing.
In Leo’s office.
I turned back around to face the backs of Brandon and Nicole when I realized the song that Mary was singing along to wasBlink-182’s“Feeling This.”
Nicole noticed me behind her. She leaned over to whisper to me, “They’re testing out the product team’s newest feature. Mary is merging it now, so we’re waiting to see if it worked.”
I nodded as if that was the part I was curious about before peeking in between their bodies to see inside the room.
Mary and Leo were sitting in the two chairs in front of his desk, heads bobbing to the energetic music as Mary sang the first verse and plucked away on her laptop. Signe had her phone out, recording the two while Zaid sat on the leather couch of the office, grinning from ear to ear with a computer on his lap.
Leo was also singing, but he had the easier part of the song. His phone was in his hands and his eyes were glued to the small screen. He only seemed to chime in to say, “I’m feeling this!” while Mary sang the gist of it.
The cousins were smiling, and acting goofy, and everyone else in the room was encouraging it. Everyone was having a good time while Mary and Leo performed their own rendition of the song, nodding along with the tune.
While also…working?
Suddenly, Mary stopped typing and crossed both of her fingers.
Zaid crossed his fingers too.
Leo’s brow scrunched as he harmonized with his cousin.
Then the chorus hit, and my skin broke out into goosebumps.
This happened to me on occasion. I never spent the time to figure out why this phenomenon happened to me, or what triggered it. But for some inexplicable reason, hearing Mary and Leo harmonize while singing the chorus of, “Feeling This” something felt scratched in my ears. My brain too. Leo’s deeper voice took the lead for the chorus, while Mary’s alto filled in for the round.
I forgot all of my duties. I just stood there, pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed hearing Leo’s voice sing like this, even if he wasn’t particularly skilled.
A new auditory stim of mine was born that day, hearing Leo’s voice layer with the original vocals ofBlink-182.
Mariam was the one who informed me what stimming was. A repetitive action that my body relied on to regulate my nervous system. It was a behavior commonly found in neurodivergent individuals, and when I pointed out to her that I had not sought out any formal medical diagnosis saying I was, she reminded me that just because a doctor didn’t write anything down on a piece of paper, didn’t mean that I wasn’t neurodivergent.
It wasn’t like the symptoms of neurodivergent behaviors would wait to appear until a licensed professional permitted them to do so.
That being said, I still had no desire to seek out a medical diagnosis. Was I autistic? Was I ADHD? OCD? Or did I struggle with some type of generalized anxiety disorder? Did hypotheticals like this matter, when I had made it this far in my life without those formal labels?
That’s what I told myself most of the time, anyway.
All I knew was that I needed to rely on a specific set of coping mechanisms to make it through situations that neurotypical people wouldn’t necessarily struggle with as much.
Stimming was one of them.
It could look different. Sometimes it was tapping my foot, sometimes it was humming or swaying in my chair from side to side.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23 (Reading here)
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 140