Through the Rain

Letting Them Go   I thought this was going to only be about my dad until I wrote the title, and then I got goosebumps. Let’s start with my dad though. He raised my family as strict Pentecostal, evangelical, charismatic, kind of difficult to describe, but bouncing around church to church if he found teachings he didn’t agree with and the pastor wouldn’t budge with agreeing with them. And he always seemed to be friends with the pastor. In short, he was a strict, rule-following, but narcissistic father who worked hard to provide for his family. In doing so, for most of our formative years, he was almost never around. That, I can easily forgive. Later, when he was around, it was always about chores and doing things “the right way” which was his way, and doing them perfectly. I am trying to forgive him of all the ways he traumatized us as kids by explaining away his behaviors, but there are some things that I just don’t think can be explained away. I honestly haven’t worked as har...

Work Stress   Something I don’t know how to do is release work and just relax. It’s Friday night, the last night official night of training, and I’m already thinking of Monday and how that’s going to look different. All the cases I will see, all the steps I will take, my supervisor, my trainers, etc. This is what leads to burnout: not being able to shut your mind off from work and being able to switch to relaxing mode. It’s a skill I have yet to develop. I don’t even know where to begin. Already my mind has run through the day, the possibilities of the weekend (as short as my mind can come up with), and is back to Monday morning and onto the work week. I was hoping that writing it out while listening to some calming music would help bring me into the present moment, and somehow it has. My mind is tugging towards Monday, and I don’t know how to stop the pull. It reminds me of the pull I felt for so long towards friendship and the feel to be needed. I craved and needed attentio...

The Opposite of People Pleasing I’m brand new to this theory. I’ve barely dipped my toes into it, and I may just do that. But it may just change my life forever. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Mel Robbins and her “Let Them” theory, but it’s seriously as easy as it sounds. It’s taking the age-old philosophy of the only thing you can control is you and your responses to things, and putting it into two words: let them. Someone doesn’t want to do something you want to do? Let them. Someone wants to complain all day and not take your relationship seriously? Why have it? Someone wants to thank you and appreciate you? Let them wholeheartedly! Again, I’m no expert in this. What I just said kind of sounds like reacting to people’s actions, and maybe that’s the whole point. But it’s a way to get away from the mindset of always worrying about pleasing the other person. If they don’t like what I think, let them. And it’s not some passive-aggressive, grand-standing act of defiance. I think of it m...

Disabling Autism   Did you know that the phrase “give it 100%” doesn’t actually mean give it your all 100% of the time? It means give, like, 60-65% of the time with breaks and talking and stuff, still get work done, but don’t over-tire yourself out by giving your it your all at all times???? DID YOU KNOW THAT???? I didn’t. I just found that out. Now imagine yourself burning the candle at both ends because you’ve been told all your life “you’ve got to give it your all” “give it 110%” etc. Can you imagine how exhausted you must feel??? No wonder the burnout rate and the difference of burnout of autism is different than that of neurotypicals! I mean… mind blown! Sorry, I’m still trying to wrap my head around it and it has been a day or two. That’s not the main highlight of this blog post though. I went through Deaf Studies and American Sign Language classes in college, and it taught me that Deaf culture is a culture, but technically hearing loss can be “a disability” and...

Selfishness in Friendship (Edit at the End) I have been very selfish in my friendships lately. Nobody’s noticed because, well, I’ve had an autistic meltdown and nearly nobody has talked to me in days, weeks if you don’t count the dental pain and the literal not being able to talk. Around mid-March, I was diagnosed with high-functioning autism, and the way they phrased it was… not very nice. It was very clinical, and I made the mistake of reading some of it last night or the night before. The sleeps have me all confused. Basically I don’t communicate the way that other people do. No, that is putting it mildly. There is the way that everyone else communicates over here. And then waaaaaay over here in this distant corner is me, wishing I had friends, relationships, anyone to love the child who so desperately needed communication with someone that they would take anyone. But then my mother died and I pushed everyone away because everyone was going to let me down. Eventually I let in church...

Selfishness in Friendship   I have been very selfish in my friendships lately. Nobody’s noticed because, well, I’ve had an autistic meltdown and nearly nobody has talked to me in days, weeks if you don’t count the dental pain and the literal not being able to talk. Around mid-March, I was diagnosed with high-functioning autism, and the way they phrased it was… not very nice. It was very clinical, and I made the mistake of reading some of it last night or the night before. The sleeps have me all confused. Basically I don’t communicate the way that other people do. No, that is putting it mildly. There is the way that everyone else communicates over here. And then waaaaaay over here in this distant corner is me, wishing I had friends, relationships, anyone to love the child who so desperately needed communication with someone that they would take anyone. But then my mother died and I pushed everyone away because everyone was going to let me down. Eventually I let in church people ...

Sensitivity   My whole pain scale has been redefined, yet I don’t know how yet. How do you go from a “pain level 8” is not being able to get up off the bed because of chronic pain throughout your body because every muscle is tensing up to “the sensation of your lower jaw feeling like one giant exposed nerve with a hurricane over it every second of every day for over a week at a time to the point where you’re falling asleep even with that pain and drifting off and having that pain on and off and working and having conversations and functioning daily as if nothing is wrong and yet your body wants to scream and be asleep simultaneously?” How do you define that? A 9? I leave a 10 for being pregnant, something I will hopefully never feel. But it did feel like unimaginable hell. My jaw and cheek swelled up as well as the actual tooth. There were three teeth, but it was the lower left one that caused the most pain. I was even told during this that I was in too much pain. That I shou...