I hate how it took me 3 — almost 4 — years to finally start realizing in full the things people had issues with, in terms of me and my behavior. The issue with this is.. after a while, my honest mistakes, my genuine confusion, my genuine lack of understanding or "getting it".. a pattern of that — no matter how genuine — stops looking innocent and/or unintentional to those on the outside of my own thought processes. My behavior gets boy-who-cried-wolfified, my intentions become misconstrued, and once I finally start again with trying to get better — at least with the things that I've been told to get better on — one mistake, one relapse back to old behavior, one instance of shitty behavior, gets taken as intentional. Because they're fed up.
Because, here's the hard truth. You intentions can be pure, you can make genuine mistakes, you can genuinely just be oblivious to your own behavior or how your behavior is affecting others. You can THINK you're improving, not realizing you're tunnel visioning on only fixing ONE thing. You can genuinely be trying, not necessarily having the tools that you don't realize you need to get passed the walls you're getting stopped by (created by yourself, might I add). You can genuinely be trying to fix things, thinking you are, but instead making things worse by "fixing things" the wrong way.
But the problem with intention, is that it's internal. You may have positive intentions, but you, yourself may have negative and/or toxic behaviors that you have yet to fully check/take care of. You may have a lack of knowledge on how to enact your positive intention. You may be dealing with some unchecked impulsivity. You may have some denial issues. You may be insecure and THAT'S unchecked. There may be many internal factors — both known, and unknown — that barre you from creating a positive outcome from your positive intention. Add on some unchecked neurodivergency, and you've got a concoction for a negative outcome. My examples — in terms of parts of my neurodivergency being unchecked, and thus a cause for issues within conversation — are: I take most concepts literally AND I have some fairly black and white thinking; if things aren't categorized, I get stressed or confused. Neurodivergency (ND) itself isn't the problem, it's my lack of and/or inability to find a workaround and/or working balance for these traits in my everyday life. They go from being a normal trait of being ND, to being major personality flaws that I struggle to find solutions for. And that's what they become understood as, after repeated instances of this. The thing is, a personality flaw can COME FROM how I've learned to cope with my traits being misconstrued as intentional over the years. For instance, I've had my intentions misconstrued, my words read into or paraphrased incorrectly, and my thoughts and character assumed my entire life. The way my brain works is: Go for the most efficient (in my current understanding) solution. First priority. Go for the path of least conflict. Second priority. So because of this, my solution for making sure I am almost NEVER misunderstood was to over explain. In turn this comes into play when I don't fully understand something, either, and the other party is starting to think that I'm being intentionally obtuse. My current bandaid for this is having us (the people in the conversation) come up with metaphors, similarities, or parallels between the concept I'm TRYING to understand, and a very well known concept (one that we all understand and know) to HELP me understand it, or to help me and/or the other party figure out/get closer to WHY I'm not understanding. The problem with this, is that this method creates long, drawn out conversations that can end up causing the other party/parties within the conversation to become fatigued with information or just burnt out with the conversation altogether.
But I digress, going back to this — "But the problem with intention, is that it's internal." — meaning that YOU are the only person who TRULY knows WHY you are doing or saying something. Others on the outside can only INFER on your intentions based on how well they know you AND your past and present patterns. And even then, sometimes the people whom are the CLOSEST to you will still be completely wrong about your intentions for enacting an action or for saying something. Does that make them a bad person? Hell no. It makes them a person who's tired, who's exasperated with your actions.
No matter how positive your intentions may be, your actions can still cause hurt and stress. That is a hard pill to swallow. Another hard pill to swallow is knowing that, some positive intentions require getting over/crossing an irrational insecurity/fear in order for you to be able to create a positive outcome. Leaving those fears and insecurities unchecked will have you succumbing to those fears and creating negative outcomes. Part of growing is being uncomfortable (growing pains).
An example of this would be, let's say I have a huge fear of going shopping. Why? The grocery store causes me massive sensory issues. Okay sure, that's valid.
My brain's efficient solution: Never go shopping and have someone else do it.
Now, while this could work in some cases if everyone in the household agrees to it, but in some households, shirking this responsibility onto someone else as my solution for my problem is unfair and quite selfish, not to mention, inconsiderate.
Sure, I could come up with every other excuse on why this is my only option (shitty and stubborn), I could, instead, come up with a workaround for my sensory issue. Having sensory issues, having autism is valid, but I HAVE to find a balance between my disability and my adult responsibilities instead of just immediately succumbing to my issues and refusing to find workarounds to a pretty solvable problem.
A better decision would be, if it's too noisy or too bright for me in the grocery store, I can wear headphones and light sunglasses to nix the initial issue.
I didn't actually do this, but I HAVE behaved pretty much exactly like the above scenario before in my IRL life. I used to think I was right in my stubbornness. Then I realized I wasn't, very soon, but then came the issue of not fully knowing WHY I felt the need to be so stubborn. The issue this was, I knew that my stubbornness wasn't justified, but in my brain and body, it FELT like I was right to be stubborn. Like a gut feeling. And bc I was still trying to figure out WHY I felt the need to be stubborn, and it still felt like I was in the right, I'd continue with the behavior until I figured out WHERE the feeling came from. I was essentially using myself as my own lab rat. Eventually, I figured out WHY I was being so stubborn. It came from the autistic trait of routine and by proxy, our struggle to accept or be comfortable with a change in said routine. In the above situation, I'd already found a "solution" to my problem. To my brain, my problem was solved. So, someone else trying to come and change HOW my problem had been solved, would make me uncomfortable. Along with that, it messes with the logic within my brain in the same way Captchas fuck with robots (I've failed Captchas before, that is how algorithmic and robotic my brain is). Essentially, the question for me becomes "If I've found a solution to my problem, the most efficient solution, why do I need ANOTHER solution?" But that question, for the longest, never passed in my brain AS A QUESTION, it always parsed, instead, as a feeling of being uncomfortable. Side tangent, that's where the struggle of finding words for feelings comes from. My nervous system and part of my brain knows WHY I'm uncomfortable, that's immediate. But it takes longer for me to parse those feelings into words, or rather, the question that my brain and body is having.
Once I was able to parse the question, I'd usually find myself answering it easily. The thing about certain traits of autism, and just emotions in general, is that they aren't always logical, even if they feel like it. It took me a LOT of time to figure out what my brain and body were trying to tell me before I finally figured out what illogical ass question they were asking me. Why should we have another solution if I've already solved it? Well bc I didn't actually solve it. Usually, once I've answered the question, the feelings of stubbornness start to ebb. Essentially, my brain and body process the situation faster than the logic part of me does sometimes, and that creates problems if left unchecked like I had been for so long. There are things that I've JUST now started to recognize that are issues with processing, things I've just now started to fully assess and absorb bc it took me so. fucking. long. to process the information in my brain fully. Not to mention all the things that I just now started LETTING myself process are gonna take time for me to fully absorb as well.
Does any of this mean that my actions that have caused hurt should be excused? No. It still caused hurt, they were still bad decisions, bad behavior, and sometimes, bad intentions that I thought were good out of ignorance or fear. I still have to take responsibility for those actions, even if I "didn't mean to". Mistakes and accidents happen, sure, but people STILL got hurt because of me. And while some of these behaviors were things I couldn't help or change in the moment (lack of understanding or lack of knowledge), some were definitely behaviors that I could've, and should've spent more time correcting and remedying (insecurities, fears, emotional regulation).
And fuck do I hate that it's taken me so. damn. long to even realize or reflect on ANY of this. Because over all these years, I was focused on wondering what I was doing wrong and wondering why my actions were seldom matching my intentions. I've been focused on panicking and focused on making sure that I didn't lose anybody, that I managed to stop focusing on working on my actual behavior. I became focused on people pleasing, making sure I made others smile, making sure I was doing things for people. I should've been focusing on genuinely getting my act together. I should've been focusing on self reflection, growth, learning, getting my life settled, instead of trying to make sure that I was in EVERYONE'S good graces. I was so focused on making sure everyone liked me, that everyone I interacted with saw me as decent. I was so SO focused on making sure that EVERYONE knew my intentions, that everyone knew that I never meant harm, that everyone knew that I was trying and that I wanted to make sure any mistakes I made were rectified, that I was never misunderstood. I was essentially trying to set up my social life so everyone KNEW who I was and knew that the negative issues on my side were never intentional so that way I could go fuck off and finally focus on improving myself without the possibility of someone, I guess, even perceiving me. I was so so fearful of going to work on myself, and then losing those I loved in the process, that I ended up hyperfocusing on on the wrong things about myself to try and surface please other people. In a way, I think I wanted validation that the things I was doing were actually good. I still struggle with thinking for myself when it comes to making the right decision with things. I'm so unsure of myself and I'm so unsure of what the RIGHT thing to do is in some situations, so I find myself asking what I should do, or winging it in fear of looking stupid for asking. The latter is not advised.
I'm writing this mainly to show my therapist on Thursday, but also bc I wanted to reflect on my feelings and behavior. I KNOW that my intentions for pretty much most of the people in my life are positive. I KNOW that I only want to treat people well. But, in these last 3-4 years, and in the last 2 months of me putting genuine effort into my growth, I still find myself believing that I truly am a bad person. That I'm pathetic and that, at 18 days away from being 25, I should be more responsible, that I should be more mature, that I should be more well rounded. There are people years younger than me that I feel like we should just swap ages because of how much BETTER they are than me.
Sure, I may be improving, I may be getting better, with some bumps along the way.
But for the people who it matters most to, they're tired of me. Exasperated. Need space from me. Hold resentment for me. And in a couple cases, hold opinions for me that aren't true. There are things about myself that folks are holding resentment for, and I'm not sure what those THINGS are.
But I did this to myself. I have issues, many issues, and there were many points that I could've made better decisions, asked more questions, or just simply asked for help. I became a burden and a nuisance onto the lives of the people I deem the closest. I KNOW I can improve, will improve, and am improving. I KNOW that things and myself will eventually get better and I will learn a lot of new skills, lessons, and coping mechanisms (all good) along the way.
But being in it.. being in the growing pains, knowing I've ruined myself for some and am on thin ice for others. Knowing that I ruined something so good and started getting better too late. Knowing that, I've unintentionally caused trauma. Knowing that, in the current stage of things, I ruined my life and left others scorned.. Knowing that there are opinions of me that I can never clear up....
I wish I'd BEEN better. I wish I wasn't so slow. So slow to get it. I wish I wasn't so slow to EVERYTHING. I wish I didn't keep creating victims out of my bad decisions. I wish that I had worried about myself. I wish I had self respect. I wish I hadn't caused and created so much pain, stress, and hurt. I wish I was smarter, tougher, less of a crybaby.
I wish I wasn't Apple. I wish I wasn't Leo.
I wrote this out bc I needed to put my emotions, thoughts, realizations, lamentations, and regrets into words somewhere. Barely anyone looks at or follows my Tumblr, there's like, NO word limit, so here's most of my thoughts that are somewhat coherent and somewhat mixed in with the abandonment issues that my BPD likes sprinkling in lol
theartofmadeline
origamiaround
kianamaiart
turnnoffyourmind
