2015 has been one of the most important and most significant years of my life. It has been a year of revisiting past experiences and of re-evaluating them. What I know now has cast a completely new light on what has come before.
It has often been levelled at me that I live in the past. I believed that I did, but now I know that I don't. what actually happened was that I'd keep on ruminating over past events, and trying to make sense of them. What I now know is that my autistic brain will keep thoughts and experiences 'live' until it has properly resolved them and processed them.
My diagnosis has also helped me to counter all the negative ways in which I saw myself. But those negative views were born of the negative ways in which people saw me. I didn't conform (and still don't) with the things that 'ordinary' people think I should be. I therefore saw myself as a total failure. What I didn't know was that there was a significant number of other people whose brains behaved exactly like my own, and who struggled with exactly the same sorts of things as I did. It's funny really, that 'ordinary' people seem to have a remarkable knack of marginalising those who don't fit the mould.
The diagnosis has helped me to be a bit kinder to myself, and to be more up-front about the things I find difficult. What it has also done is to allow me to take ownership of my considerable abilities and talents. Now I can be myself, without worrying what people might think.
2015 has been a very difficult year but, on balance, I think it has been a good one.
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