Mycelial Machine
Spoilers for the Scavengers Reign series.
In the first episode of the scifi show Scavengers Reign we meet Levi, a helper robot assigned to Azi, a member of a cargo ship that just crashed on an alien planet. Azi is a helpful, Siri-esque robot. Azi and Levi attempt to find their ship and one day in a battle, Levi is destroyed. Azi tried to put her back together, but the robot has been smashed beyond repair. Azi must move on alone.
A few episodes later, Levi comes back. The human-sized helper robot has been covered in vegetation, from vines to fungi. Almost none of her metallic shell is visible. Some sort of unidentifiable yellow fungi has completely melded with her hardware, rendering her a different being than she was before. And she seems happy. Curious, philosophical. Engaged in gardening and nurturing animals. Radiating contentment and peace.
I have never been a peaceful person. When I was a child I was full of energy and totally lacking in emotional regulation skills. I would bite and hit myself if I got too angry, and I had strange fears and thoughts that caused me to repeat actions in little rituals I kept fiercely hidden.
As I grew, the peace did not come. With puberty came gender dysphoria which paired perfectly with anorexia like some steak and a nice red wine.
Through all of this (the early days, as it were), I’m only mildly surprised no one caught on to the autism (or Aspergers, as I would have been diagnosed with as a child in the early 2000s).
The real reason I think none of my mental illnesses or autism were clocked so young is that all of my irregularities could be traced back to the fact that my mother was dying, had been dying since I was a baby, and I was well aware she was dying somewhere in the near future. What child isn’t a little fucked up by that? (And don’t worry, I definitely was.)
But the real meat of this story comes later on, when my mother had been dead for some time. In middle and high school I began displaying poster child levels of BPD symptoms. Emotional instability and mood swings, self harm and chronic suicidality, huge fear of abandonment, etc etc. This only got worse until a therapist at eating disorder treatment finally recommended I try DBT, the gold standard therapy for BPD.
I was immediately diagnosed with BPD when I started DBT. I can only imagine how obvious it was. I started the long, long road of therapy.
After the initial adjustment to a new, serious diagnosis I began to self actualize what my identity was as a person with BPD. How do I fit this in to who I am as a person? Who am I? What does this personality disorder mean and say about me? I spent a lot of time self reflecting. And still, some piece was missing.
Two and a half years later, the world was in lockdown, and I was living in a piece of shit bungalow in a village of 245 people in upstate New York. I had been doing a lot of reading and I finally broached the topic of autism to my therapist. She took some time, did some thinking, and agreed with me. She couldn’t give me an official diagnosis because that wasn’t her specialty, but I was happy. Someone believed me.
I began the work of integrating autism into the way I thought about myself. It was so similar to when I was eighteen and diagnosed with BPD—everything seemed to make sense. Some piece of the puzzle had been placed in its correct spot.
Why did I feel so awkward and anxious in social situations? Why did I fixate so much on my interests to the point of obsession? Why did I unconsciously shake my head, tap my fingers, and flap my hands when I felt strong emotions? The things that began to make sense piled up until I felt, finally, a little more peaceful about myself.
About eight months ago I finally received a formal diagnosis of autism. I felt like a ticked off an important box on the personal checklist and finally I could look back on myself and take it all in. This is my thesis.
My brain and being, in its rawest, most autistic state, is like that of a fragile robot. Interacting with humans in most situations is not intuitive. Classical empathy is difficult. My delicate hardware is too sensitive to loud noises, bright lights, and overpowering smells. When my battery begins to overheat and the fans are going and too many parts are engaged, I shut down. Maintaining relationships like this is very difficult.
And then there’s the organic. The raw fungi from the earth of human pathos: BPD. Full of exposed nerves and overwhelmingly loud emotions. Directly in opposition, in my case, to my autism. To speak in DBT terms, autism is my logical mind and BPD is my emotional mind. And to be clear, BPD sucks. It sucks hard and I would never wish it on my worst enemy. It nearly led me to ending my life multiple times, But I survived and I survived with insights.
It sure sucks, but now, in my mid twenties, after dealing with this for over a decade and my symptoms beginning to calm down into semi-remission, I can say BPD has given me insight into humans autism never could. I can sympathize well with people feeling large emotions because for most of my adolescent and adult life all my emotions were tsunamis of feeling. I can relate to anger explosions, I’ve certainly had those. I’ve sabotaged relationships. I’ve self harmed and attempted suicide and screamed into my pillow more times than I can count. I’ve done all the illogical, uniquely human behaviors that my autism doesn’t understand.
The BPD acts as the mycelium of the fungi wrapping around and merging with my autism hardware to create an entirely new Levi, an entirely new type of me that can exist on a higher plane than I could without one of them. The robot and fungi twining together made the wise mind and they make me.