Some thoughts to share tonight, some progress has been made towards being able to move on and finally put the old hurt to bed.
It comes with being able to look myself in the mirror and say this is who I am and this isn’t where I want to be. But beginning to understand that I was looking for someone to fill the void and, the slightly creepy expression, “complete me”.
Yet I was always just following my heart and I always did what I thought was the right thing to do. And I shouldn’t have compromised who I was to fit in.
I was immature in terms of how I approached trying to get what I wanted and I couldn’t see the long term implications. How the relationship I was seeking was just the cheap and lazy solution to all of my problems.
I understand now that I was deluding myself into something to avoid dealing with all my deep issues. I’ve come to understand that we were too different and we saw the world differently and we dreamed of different worlds.
I was the one who was dependent and so I was the one who abandoned my own needs and put myself last to the point of martyrdom. I was the one who had to hide my true self like a chameleon to make our friendship work.
I’m no longer ashamed of anything I did with the exception of the things I did in desperation where I had totally lost track of who I was.
I get told regularly by people who see the world differently that it’s wrong for me to try to change people. I never forced anyone to change, everything about me is that I see so much potential for growth.
That is the story of lives that our lives are constantly changing and we grow as we experience more of what life has to offer.
What I always dreamed of was to inspire people to be better. To push people around me to question who they are and what they do.
I don’t feel like there’s anything I’ve ever done that has actually inspired anyone else. Really the story of my life has been as a lowly springboard, for someone to jump on so they could leap higher.
It inevitably hurts when others go through a growth period, that it’s never with me, more like in spite of me.
To turn to what I really need to talk about, and it’s the important issue of how I see autism in myself and others. More pertinently how I interpret the meaning of it.
I should be honest and say that it will always be a disability to me and it will always be a harm that should be a sore point. It represents so much loss of potential. That I could have been so much more.
I consider my autism to be something that damages my competency as a human being. While this is a very touchy subject, I can be very touchy about being criticised for being incompetent. It’s not something anyone wants to hear.
It’s not the criticism that hurts, it’s the lack of understanding that hurts.
I had a talk with an old friend from the hub and she shares the view that we should never look at autism as a negative judgement. We’re not bad, were just different.
We’re not disabled, we live in a world that doesn’t play to our strengths but our weaknesses.
The truth is that I find it very invalidating to be told there’s nothing wrong with me. I’ve always sensed the black hole that exists in my conscious and my recent experiences have really felt like actual brain damage.
I’ve looked at the way others behave and I think to myself that the part of my brain that would have given me the ability to behave the same way must have been ripped away in a catastrophic event.
For others, the path towards being mentally healthy means accepting and loving who you are. But I see so much further within myself to see who I could be if only I didn’t have this autism.
I don’t wish to hurt anyone by saying this and I still want this blog to be helpful to anyone who is autistic. For me though, I’m here to support those who are disabled. If you’re not disabled then you sure as hell don’t need my help.
This is the thing about being naturally introverted. We really on ourselves to make decisions so we need to be independent. It’s a matter of pride in saying I don’t need help.
Also we can avoid situations where we may be expected to reciprocate helping others when they don’t see or respect our own hidden disabilities.
No one is perfect as the saying goes. It’s a useful defense to trot out when facing judgement. I judge myself and others to a higher standard and that is part of who I am.
What has helped me come to terms with things is that I can recognise better that people shouldn’t be judged by their weaknesses but I’m no longer invested in people who aren’t willing to improve themselves.
Self-acceptance is good but it shouldn’t be taken as license to say that I shouldn’t be challenged on anything. That I can’t be so much more than who I am now. That I can’t learn ways of compensating to overcome weakness.
There’s a cultural divide between those who don’t want personal change and those who do. Some who see outside agents of change as hostile malevolent manipulators. Some of us see the necessity of outside agents in learning about the world.
I think for the first time in my life, I can appreciate how people see the world differently and that I’m not to blame for every personal conflict. People just have their own way of dealing with things and the truth is that few people will ever be on the same page.
I always had a vision of a better world and what truly broke me was how everyone around me took the world in the opposite direction. They can do whatever they feel is best but I’m not going to follow them. What actually saved me was the fact that I didn’t follow them.
I lost hope because I had sacrificed so much only to be discarded. Now do I see how important it is to believe in myself and I understand how important it is to not care about how others judge me.
I never really listened to anyone who said I was a good person, no, reality is the ultimate arbiter and the reality was that I couldn’t live up to my true values and judgements.
This is my gift, what I have best to offer the world. A vision of the world where we live up to our potential and we give of ourselves to improve someone else’s lot in life.
We seek connections to each other because we have so much to offer each other. We understand the world can be godawful to face alone but we can find strength in numbers.
The more I look at how the world treats autism, the more I see a selfish predator, seeking to keep us in our bubbles to make sure we don’t stand up for ourselves. People see our naive, vulnerable nature and seek to ensure we don’t grow into healthy adults.
Because I see the future in which we merely accept everything and question nothing. When we are encouraged to look only at who we are now and persuaded that we must be happy with our implicit identity.
There is a reason why we psychologically develop demons within us, they are the force that says no. They are what we unleash when someone has wronged us. That includes when we have wronged ourselves.
The thing I need people to understand is that I need learn how to help myself before I help others. I’m being selfish now because I need to reconnect with myself and reengage my heart and soul.
I need to meet my own demands before I even think about meeting the demands of others. But that is what is expected of me. To keep churning out that nice guy image.
When I needed to care about myself, that is when I stopped caring about others. I’ll care about you again, when I actually start to care about myself and not look into the abyss of martyrdom.
I know how everyone seems to be struggling at the moment and everyone seems to be retreating into selfishness. I can see but I just can’t care.
Not until I’ve regained my ego and relearned to trust myself. There is a purpose to everything I do and I want to feel the deep euphoria of actually hitting that sweet bullseye of overcoming some deep adversity.
You know what it feels like to achieve something you never thought possible? This is the deep unlocking of your truest potential.
This is the Godlike feeling that exists within every flawed human being. What can I say except that it feels good beyond words.
Why wouldn’t anyone want to feel like this? There’s a natural anxiety about it but this is why it’s so good to face anxiety head on and fuck it off.
This is how I think I can ultimately inspire anyone who shares this painful anxiety. You don’t have to live in a predefined box that limits your potential and admits defeat.
But I can’t really inspire anyone until I’ve actually lived it and done it for myself. Oh how I wish to break free.
Thanks for reading. If you’re going to fight, fight to win. Kindest Regards.
Jamie xx
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