I get tattoos to remind me that my body exists

The feeling of being a floating head

Welcome to ‘Neurowavy Thoughts’, my weekly newsletter about how I’m reframing my entire life following my discovering that I am AuDHD (autistic and ADHD). If you enjoy my writing, please consider subscribing for free, or becoming a paid subscriber. I’ll be creating extra content for paid subscribers in 2025! Thanks for reading.

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Earlier this week on Notes I wrote:

And it seems I’m not the only autistic person who feels this way, judging by the comments the note received, and the results of a quick Google search.

So when we say we feel like a floating head, what do we actually mean?

Here’s my experience.

All my life I’ve felt disconnected with my own body. Growing up I watched other people, particularly other girls and women I knew, struggle with their own sense of body image (everything from how much they weighed, to the condition of their fingernails). I couldn’t relate. I didn’t consciously know this at the time, but I had a complete absence of body image. It simply didn’t enter my mind as something I needed to consider.

It wasn't that I didn’t care about how I looked. I always made sure I was, as a bare minimum, presentable for going outside into the wide world, because I knew that was the expectation. I was told there were standards.

But I felt no ownership over my own body whatsoever. I didn’t relate to it being my own. It felt as much a part of me as the clothes I wore. It was an accessory to my brain. When I looked in the mirror, I didn’t see myself, I saw an image of a person that I saw every day. It was a familiar face, but I couldn’t ever marry that image of me in the mirror, with my own idea of me.

I am someone who is very much in their own head. I experience the ‘rich inner life’ that many autistic people talk about. The thoughts never stop. It’s almost as if I have so many thoughts that there isn’t enough room to even remember that I have a body sometimes.

I have a very unscientifically-researched hunch that my thoughts about my body could be linked with me being autistic. I struggle with interoception - the sense that recognises your own internal brain signals like pain, hunger and thirst. If I am hyper focusing on a book, I can go a full day without drinking anything, or realising that my head is throbbing from dehydration, until I manage to tear my eyes away from the pages.

I also find proprioception a challenge - knowing where my body is in relation to the space it is in. I find picking up small objects like coins a challenge, and my handwriting is near-illegible (making me suspect that I’m dyspraxic). I am covered in ‘mystery bruises’ and regularly walk into the corners of tables, clip door frames, stub my toes etc.

Around the time I discovered my neurodivergence a few years ago, the thought of being a floating brain crossed my mind once more. Only this time the penny dropped that not everyone feels this way. After yet again experiencing the frightening and frustrating realisation that I’ve gone through life behaving like an alien who fell to earth, I came to the conclusion that it would be a good idea to develop some sort of relationship with my own body.

It’s a bit awkward. It’s like introducing yourself to a neighbour you’ve lived next door to for 30 years but never even waved hello to in the street.

Well, what better way to get acquainted with a stranger than repeatedly stabbing them with a needle?

I started getting tattoos relatively late on in comparison to a lot of folks, but they have served a dual purpose. Not only are they brilliant pieces of artwork, but they also enabled me to state ownership over my own body, in a way. It’s like scrawling ‘Ren wuz ere’ into a table at school. Except the table is your arm. I made a decision to customise myself and turn slowly into the image I saw in my head.

There is something strangely mindful about being poked in the skin over and over again. The needle jabbing, “You are here. You are here. You are here.”

This relationship I am trying to cultivate is an ongoing process. Sometimes I force myself to simply sit still and wiggle my toes, or focus on the dull pain in my back that I hadn't realised was there. This grounding helps to remind me that my body is there. Sitting still is difficult and I won’t lie, mindfulness is near impossible when your busy brain is whirring away. But I do find it surprising whenever I can sit still and suddenly become aware that I have legs. Sometimes I look at my hands and think ‘what the hell are these?’ - because it’s weird isn’t it? That we’re in these meat suits that we didn’t get to choose.

Well, after 30-ish years, I’m finally getting acquainted with mine, and will continue drawing on it for a while longer until I truly feel at home.

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