Please Forgive Me

Please Forgive Me

 

I realize that the entire way I relate to people has shifted over the years into an unhealthy state, and I apologize for the way it has come across and for what I have done. Once I started learning right from wrong, I think I kept wanting people to fall into the right category, to “help” them in their lives. But it’s not up to me to help them. Sure, I might be able to think “oh I would feel the same way if I might be in that type of situation,” but I can’t therapy them out of it.

I am not a therapist. And it’s time I stop treating myself like one.

I need to learn how to relate to people and just be. Heck, I need to learn to relate to people without their emotions affecting my own for hours at a time! I need to learn to relate. And I was never taught that. It would be easy to point fingers, especially at my parents, but the truth of the matter is that nobody knew I was autistic, and nobody got me tested. All the signs were there, but nobody knew how to read them.

So I grew up with challenges. I grew up different. I grew up with walls. Relating to people in my own unique way wasn’t necessarily bad. I made friends…or so I thought…until one bad thing happened and almost all of them turned their backs on me.

And then the worst thing happened.

I stopped reaching out to people. And if you stop reaching out, they stop responding. They have busy lives, and “out of sight, out of mind” to a lot of people. I can’t blame them. Have over a dozen friends and that happens to everybody! Heck, I have four friends I keep in contact now on a daily basis plus my husband, and my bad short-term memory makes it difficult to keep track of them all. It’s not that it’s bad. It’s just… different. I’ve had two or three friends reach out to me and refuse to let me go during this time even though I’ve barely had enough time for them, and I am so grateful to them, but I don’t have time for their drama, and friendship needs to be a two sided street. I just don’t have the energy for my side anymore after carrying the weight of 85% of my relationships for so long.

What changed after my diagnosis? The mask has fallen, and I am allowing myself to be the burned out version that I have been in the weeks leading up to the diagnosis. Yes, it started a little bit before the actual assessment part: the sensitivity to light and sound, the extra exhaustion. I thought I was depressed again. I thought it was the new job. I thought it was everything. It was everything. It was burnout, and I wasn’t even “doing much” yet. But it wasn’t noticed until after my diagnosis, so they said “why did your diagnosis make you a completely different person?” It didn’t. You just didn’t notice, and I didn’t have the energy or the words to tell you.

I always knew words were important, but they are becoming even more important now. My traumas are sealed vacuum tight in neat little stories I could probably recite in my sleep, but the rest of how I feel or what I want? First comes the hard part of figuring it out. Then comes the next hard part of saying it past the scared little boy who was always interrupted, never taken seriously, and was laughed at for having the “wrong choices.” But I am finding my voice… with encouragement. Words evade me, but I am catching more of them, and the more I catch, the more excited I am to catch them! It seems like a childish thing to say, but that’s how it makes me feel. Childish. Telling someone something they ask of you seems childish. Making a decision on what to eat seems childish. Making sure we went down the soda aisle at Target seems childish, but I was asked if I was alright after I did so, probably because somehow I “did it wrong.”

I still don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m learning. And that’s all I can do. I can only try, and it’s taken until I’m in my thirties to feel safe enough to try.

Speaking up for myself may not seem like a big deal, but what do you feel safe enough to try this week?