actuallyautistic

The prospect of another painstaking year feels very heavy today.
The years have all kinda felt like a horrible nightmare stuck in a replay and I can't find the remote to change the damn channel (if that makes sense).
Another dreadful, lonely, slow, meaningless year... and if history repeats itself it's safe to assume any attempts to change things up will backfire miserably. Every morning will be a reminder of the promise I made...
A promise made for the sake of everyone but myself. That's so typical of me... Putting everyone in my life at a higher priority than myself.
No matter how heavy i feel I somehow always fight to make sure everyone i love floats with ease even when it pushes me down further beneath the surface.
"Taylor Ann" = "one who sews grace" ... My name says it best. My purpose in life has always been and will always be; to be the light for everyone else, a background character to help them complete the story arc, while I myself am left in the dark and drowning gasping for breath and praying to break though the surface just enough to see a light meant for me.
I won't show it though. I will love with all of my soul ,and I'll give all of myself to everyone one else, and I'll pretend I'm happy about it because that's what is expected of me.
If I am unhappy or I admit that I hate being this way I am either viewed as a burden or cease to exist in their story anymore... That is until it becomes more convenient for them, until they need me again.
I'll be there when of use to them and I'll allow myself to sit collecting dust tucked away in some dark corner when they feel I'm irrelevant to the current chapter.
I won't leave though, because that would hurt the ones that I love deeply and I can't allow myself to cause such pain, not after seeing my grandfather snuff out his own light a year ago today.
However the thought of another year being; unseen, unheard, unimportant, another year of being unappreciated and made to feel unlikable unless I am molding myself into whatever help, tool or, coping mechanism that that they want in the moment....just feels so suffocating.
I know the new year is supposed to be filled with hope and promise but part of me believes that maybe some people will never have that luxury, some people will never be able to exist as their own and do things for the benefit of self gain. I think some people, people like me, will never know what it's like to exist simply for themselves.
So no my New Year isn't filled with hope, or dreams, or aspirations of a better year to come....My New Year is filled with Dread, and longing, and loneliness.
My New Year is filled with a heaviness in my chest sometimes being the only reminder that I exist at all. The first day of the New Year will be a heavy one.
Then come tomorrow the second day of the new Year, I'll get up I'll wash my face and make sure my eyes aren't red rimmed or cheeks tear stained and I'll play pretend again. I'll tell myself that I'm happy, that I'm not alone, that everything's okay, and that things will get better eventually. I say that I'm okay, that I'm healing ,and I'm happy... but deep down I'll know that I'm not getting happier I'm just getting better at ignoring the weight in my chest that is pulling me deeper. Deeper into the rut, into the darkness, into the unyielding waves of a terribly stormy sea a heaviness making it so hard to breath.
If I'm being honest I think the truth is I'm simply getting better at remembering that others don't want to see the heaviness. They want to pretend like it doesn't exist and they expect me to do the same just as I always have. I'm getting better remembering I'm unworthy of admitting to such contempt with life, unworthy of feeling sorrow, unworthy of asking for help to carry the weight. Deep down i know the truth is it's my own damn fault the weight is there to begin with, I let myself pick it, and I held on to for so long that my body no longer remembers to put it down. As a matter of fact I even convinced myself that it's what it's means to love someone and that maybe one day someone will love my back enough to be willing to hold the same type of weight for me, i would never let them though.
Normally these types feelings come up around my birthday because that's what signifies another year of my life however this year it's hitting hard today because today marks the anniversary of me promising to not admit these feelings out loud, to not give in to these feelings, to not ask for help anymore, to not need help anymore, and to never ever admit that I feel like sinking, and absolutely never actually sink. I promised not to burden anyone with feeling even of fraction of the pain i bare.
This last year everyone else seemed so much happier, nobody got mad at me when they finally asked me to come around, nobody treated me like I'm in the way or like I was a bother. They hardly even had contact with me unless they needed me so I know that means they must like me a little bit more than before back when I tried to be noticed, back when I asked for the same type of love in return. I know that I must be doing a little bit better at being the perfect light in the dark.
The thing about guiding lights are that you only need them in the darkness and when things are bright and cherry you forget you ever needed extra light, you forget to keep up with where you tucked it away or it it's still got enough juice for the next time you need to use it.
When things are happy in lives I am forgotten about....
And that, that is fucking heavy.
Today is fucking heavy because today a small part of me wishes they would either want me around always or completely forget me altogether never to reach for me again.
Today is heavy, and my soul is tired, and I can't admit
I'm alone, I'm worn out, and everything just feels heavy.

I do apologize for such a "heavy" rant, I simply needed to scream it in to the metaphorical "void" that is the Internet; where I can hide behind a screen, safe in my knowledge that no one even knows me and that some of you are me.

I hope with everything in my heart that you do not understand this feeling and if you do I sincerely hope that you will find the strength to put the weight down, to let go of being a light only for others and learn to be the light for yourself.

I will leave you with this last statement not out of habit or tradition, but out of shear hope that it'll become your new truth.
HAPPY NEW YEARS!
May your year bring you the happiness you deserve. #MentalHealth #BorderlinePersonalityDisorder #actuallyautistic

Why might it be that society doesn’t seem to understand enough about autism and how can we change that?

So many groups of people who think, or feel, or behave differently, are readily accepted, understood, and even protected, but often this doesn’t seem to be the same for people who are given the labels attached to brains that divert from the majority neurotype.

There are so many myths and misconceptions leading to a myriad of misunderstandings, that the truth about what autism really is, and really isn’t, is often hidden behind the stereotypes and stigma. The same is true for ADHD, ADD, OCD and all of the different neurological ways of processing.

In the recent documentary about autistic minds, Dr Chris Packham created a digital image of the way that his brain sees and seeks out knowledge. I was excited because it was how I see things, but then he didn’t explain. Dr Camilla Pang, in her book Explaining Humans describes a similar thing, but refers to what she calls tree thinking: the way that her brain and her thoughts flow and grow.

My Sherlock Holmes thing.

I call this my Sherlock Holmes thing - but without the ability to solve crimes. I see and hear and feel and process everything all at once which often causes physical and mental meltdowns.

I know this now, but I have spent over fifty years thinking that I am just awkward or ungrateful or too fussy. There have been occasions where I have presumed that I felt uncomfortable, or unable to cope, because the people didn’t like me, or because of something that I had said or done. And whilst that might have been true, I would often cause an argument or become hysterical so that I could find a reason to leave.

If I had been able to identify what was really happening to me, and if I had been able to explain, then maybe I could have navigated life in a way that wouldn’t have left me feeling confused, rejected, and feeling unable to fit in.

If we all talk more about how we feel and hear and see the world, then my hope is that the world will become a place that is more autism friendly than we often feel it is right now.

My hope is that we start to talk about our autism, or neurodivergent ways of feeling and seeing the world, in ways that others can recognise and understand.

As part of my Post Graduate Course in Autism Studies, I have created material for autism recognition and identification without lists of deficits or impairments. Whilst the language is only negative, and focused on disorder and disability, it is not surprising that autism is misunderstood.

#feelingtheworlddifferently #womenandautism #actuallyautistic #neurodifferentminds

Hi, my name is tracyclements68. I'm here because at age 50 I found out that I feel, and see, and hear the world differently. I want to change and challenge some of the myths, the misconceptions and the misunderstanding. I am worried that autism is still not understood for what it really is and for what it really isn't. I'd like autism to be discussed without lists of deficits and impairments, and without the stereotypes that cause the stigma, meaning many of us don't dare to disclose, or even to self identify.

#MightyTogether #AutismSpectrumDisorder #feelingtheworlddifferently #actuallyautistic #womenandautism