Forgive Yourself

Do you ever insult yourself for doing something good? Criticize yourself for helping someone out? Degrade yourself for trying to be happy or make someone else happy?

This is my daily reality. A constant barrage of self hate and degradation with the occasional word of encouragement that maybe this once I really did do something good.

I’m desperately trying to learn how to be kind to myself. It is difficult to change the way you see and talk to yourself after so many years of pain and hate, inflicting what I thought was justice on myself because I was unworthy of mercy.

Every time I think of it, I just want to hug myself and say, “It’s okay. You’re a good person. It’s not your fault they didn’t understand. It’s not your fault they yelled at you for trying to help. It’s not your fault. You did your best.

“Chewie… Please forgive yourself… They didn’t know how much it would hurt you or how guilty it would make you feel. They didn’t know that you would torture yourself for your mistakes. They didn’t know that by telling you not to do something, you understood that you were a bad person.

“Please forgive yourself. You do a lot of good. Forgive yourself for the times when you were trying to do good and were yelled at or told you were wrong or made to feel like you were a bad person. Forgive yourself for being good and then maybe you can forgive yourself for the times you are not so good.”

I wasn’t planning on posting especially about this kind of thing so close to the holidays, but tonight I just needed to feel like I’m not so alone. I don’t know if anyone else understands, but maybe this will at least give you a glimpse of why it is so hard for me to see the good in myself.

Disconnect

My mind goes a lot faster than the rest of me. It takes me a long time to translate what my mind is thinking into words. I know what I want to say, I just don’t know how to say it. I first have to focus enough on forming the words in my head, then on keeping the words while I focus on finding the opportunity to say them.

When I am sitting in class, I often have many thoughts that come to me. Sometimes I can form those thoughts into words before the teacher moves on, and I have the opportunity to contribute. Usually though, the teacher moves on before I can form my thought and I have to wait for another opportunity where my thought might fit. Or I move on from that thought and start over again.

It can be frustrating sometimes- this disconnect between my thoughts and my ability to communicate or act on those thoughts. I sometimes wish it was easier. It would be less embarrassing. I would be able to contribute more often. I wouldn’t have to work so hard to pay attention and still focus on my thoughts.

But on the other hand, if it wasn’t so hard, I might say things before they should be said. I might offend more people. I might not give meaningful input because I would be more focused on the output. It’s hard to think so much and try so hard when it seems that other people put no work into their thoughts and fill the time with little long-term value.

But I am grateful that it’s so hard because it means that everything I say has been carefully contemplated. Everything I do has a specific purpose and meaning. It gets me in trouble sometimes and can make me look incapable or unintelligent, but I would rather look incompetent than say something that could hurt someone else. In the end, it is worth being slower because it gives my insights that much more thought and meaning.

Disability, Not Disabling

This past week I did a training presentation on autism. I had been debating for a long time on whether or not I wanted to reveal that I have autism during that training. My manager was supportive either way, but said that he felt it would be helpful for people to know I have autism in order for them to gain a different perspective on the disorder.

Anyway, long story short, I decided to go ahead and say that I have autism in order to present some pertinent examples during my presentation. And the presentation went really well. I didn’t want it to be about me, but I wanted my story to add to the overall message. And I feel like it did exactly that.

A lot of the managers and supervisors also made comments and told stories about their experiences with family members or employees and that really added to the overall message as well. In the end, the message I wanted everyone to understand was that autism isn’t a problem in and of itself.

We all have problems and things that we deal with, but it’s when we allow those problems to disable us that they become disabling. Autism is considered a disability, but it is only really a disability when the person feels disabled. Feeling disabled means that you’ve lost the hope to try because you don’t feel there is a point when your disability will always cause you to fail. We all live with problems and can overcome those problems to live productive lives, but if we see ourselves as disabled we become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Back to Normal

Well, things are pretty much back to normal. My friend has been able to get some help so she’s hopefully not going to be homeless anymore, which has definitely helped calm my nerves a lot. And life has more or less returned to the way it was.

In thinking about returning to normal, it occurred to me how abnormal that can seem for most people. I think sometimes people think that having a disorder or being different means that your normal isn’t the same as other people’s normal- that life is an innately different experience because we see the world differently.

The truth is that my normal is probably about the same as your normal (assuming of course that you’re a bachelorette in your 20s). Our differences don’t really make us as different as we sometimes believe. The stage of our lives can lead to more differences than a disorder sometimes. However, the more time I spend with older people, the more I realize how much we have in common. The biggest differences between ourselves and others are the ones that we create by our own perception.

Now I’m not saying that we’re exactly the same or that people with autism are just like everyone else. What I am saying is that no one is like everyone else. We’re all different- autistic or not. We all have our own personalities and likes and dislikes. We all have things that get on our nerves and things that we could do over and over. We’re all just people and normal for me may not be the same as normal for you, but it is normal nonetheless.

And if you’re curious as to what my normal is, it is basically the best life ever. I go to work, spend time with my nieces and nephew, watch movies, hang out with friends, go to church, go shopping, pay bills, exercise sometimes, and pretty much just do whatever makes me happy. Life is an amazing journey and I only hope that your normal is as awesome as mine. 🙂