This Year's Birthday "Reading" Will Be Different...

It won't come from a psychic or astrologer, but rather a neuropsychologist.

This is my childish drawing of a human brain being studied…in a fortune-teller’s crystal ball. 🔮 ©Sari Botton

For so many years, as my birthday approached, I’d splurge on a psychic reading of some kind. I’d book an appointment with some highly recommended practitioner of an esoteric art or two, and hope to glimpse a picture of what was coming up for me in the year ahead.

I’d show up eager for signs: Would things work out with who ever I was dating? Or would there be a new man? Was my big break as a writer on the horizon? What about babies? (Did I have to have babies? I didn’t really want them, but maybe I was supposed to have them, and these readers could tell me.) Were the people I loved going to be okay?

Rarely would I leave with any solid predictions, or even basic satisfaction. Yet I kept at it, figuring that eventually one of those practitioners who friends swore by would turn out to be the real deal and help guide me in the best possible direction, given whatever the stars had in store for me.

There was one psychic popular with publishing and media types who I visited ten years in a row, whose tarot readings I’d come to call my “annual checkups.” In our first reading, she nailed some detailed information about a work opportunity that would arrive three years later. But other than that, most of what she said seemed random and weird, and had pretty much nothing to do with the reality of my existence.

There were also spiritual mediums who advised me by channeling dead loved ones…who too often uttered words my dead loved ones never would have said. There were hypnotherapists specializing in helping you “rebirth” yourself, incorporating wisdom gleaned during the session by communing with your “essential” pre-human self…who would leave me utterly puzzled.

There were astrologers—so many astrologers—who’d always backpedal from their predictions by insisting I had free will, which could change everything they said, and whose interpretations of my natal chart would make absolutely no sense to me anyway, to the point that it was like listening to the teachers speak on The Peanuts.

Still, for years, hope sprang eternal. I suppose it’s because I’ve had my own share of psychic experiences, which leads me to believe that people with better developed instincts than mine might actually be able to harness them in useful ways. My hunch is it’s not magic, but brain science—that there are parts of our brains we haven’t fully developed yet, that are able to perceive things beyond our five senses, and perhaps communicate silently with other brains.

Maybe some of the practitioners I went to have had some really earth-shattering revelations, but can’t always do it on command. Who knows? Maybe capitalism applied to psychic phenomena taints it, just as it does everything else.

🔮🔮🔮

It’s been a few of years since I shelled out a couple hundred dollars to have someone badly paint a picture of my future. (I did get a free astrological reading this year from a retired Vietnam vet I’m friendly with, who dabbles. As usual, I didn’t understand a single thing he said.)

This year, as my 59th birthday approaches on Wednesday, I’m investing in a different kind of “reading,” namely a test to see whether I am on the autism spectrum. I mentioned in a prior post that I suspect I am:

Wearing My "Weirdness" On My Sleeve

The Sachs Center—through which I’ll be tested on Tuesday—issues a preliminary test to determine whether autism is a possibility. Scores of 26 or higher are considered indicative of autism spectrum disorder. I scored 33, and I was second-guessing and minimizing several of my answers.

I’m a little nervous, but more than that, I’m excited. In the same way that, long before any doctors told me, I intuitively knew there was something wrong with my reproductive system and that parts needed to come out, I have a strong sense that I am some flavor of neurodivergent. I suspect the results of this test are going to be eye-opening and validating.

As I said in my earlier post, I’m not sure I’d want to do anything about whatever the results show…? I don’t think I want to change how my brain works, or alter my behavior. Right now, my main goal is to understand myself and why I operate the way I do—which is so frequently different from how other people around me operate.

I’m as excited about it as I used to get about going to see the psychic du jour. Except this time, I’m seeking answers based on internal factors rather than external ones. Hopefully this experience will be more satisfying.