One of my most self annoying habits, is feeling that I have to justify my existence. In part, it is the autistic style adoption of the capitalistic work ethic to ridiculously rigid levels. Damn my black and white thinking. But mostly, it comes from a lifetime of knowing that I was different, but for the largest part of it not knowing why. It meant that I never saw my life, or the way I needed to live it, reflected anywhere else and so never had the chance to learn to see it as normal. So naturally, of course, I believed that the onus was on me to somehow have to justify it, because how else could I even begin to feel good about that?
This led me to pushing myself far more than I ever needed to. To feeling that time spent on myself, especially the wasted time of just enjoying a comfort show, or re-reading a comfort book, and especially doing as little as possible in order to rest, was always wasted time. That it wasn't justified and that therefore it was worthy only of guilt and remorse and that, as I'm obviously not doing anything better, that it was time better spent beating myself up about it.
The more spoons become an issue, as I get older and iller, the more annoying this habit becomes. But, it is a hard one for me to beat, as it's been a false way of judging myself for far too long. It's hard to just be myself and do what I need to do, especially if it means doing very little. But that is what is so often required when the spoons have been used up, or are low, and feeling guilty about that is what is actually not justified. The simple fact of it all, is that we live lives by a different rhythm. Ignoring that is what does the damage, not embracing it. And feeling that we have to somehow justify our needs, is the real negativity and wrongness.
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Goiterzan/Amygdalai Lama
in reply to Kevin Davy • • •.
I suppose I escaped the work ethic thing, but for me it's the never do anything wrong, like I always knew they don't mind some bullshit from one another but I always felt like they wouldn't take ANY from me, never do anything wrong, never take anything for yourself, like a Christian ascetic's prison
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Kevin Davy
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levampyre
in reply to Goiterzan/Amygdalai Lama • • •@punishmenthurts
I have both of these ethics & constantly push myself to be "perfect". I don't allow myself breaks (b/c housework will not get done, kids will not be tended to, etc.). It's exhausting. I am also afraid to take breaks, b/c I might very well loose myself in my inner places and loose track of time. It will disrupt our daily routines as a familyβ¦
I so desperately want to lose myself in me. It felt so good in the days when I had less responsibilites. π
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levampyre
in reply to levampyre • • •@punishmenthurts
Ever since my diagnosis last year, I struggle with the idea that I might actually be disabled. I feel like I have been overcompensating a disability (or a lack of ability to navigate society as it currently is) for decades and I feel so very exhausted.
My brain knows that I don't have to be "perfect" to be loved. That I am loved, even if I take a break. But my heart somehow is not there yet. I need time in myself to renegotiate this dissonance.
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levampyre
in reply to levampyre • • •@punishmenthurts
I have tried so very hard and still failed. π How will I be able to cope in the future, when I know that all my hard work on myself and my responsibilities doesn't do any good despite draining my batteries to the point of breaking!? π€·
I feel so very tired. I need change. It can't go on like this. I just need a better understanding of what to change into and how to integrate that with the realities of life in this society. Have to figure that out.
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Kevin Davy
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VerΔandi K Soldusty
in reply to Goiterzan/Amygdalai Lama • • •Oh, yup. Got this drummed into me as well but I still always F-ed up.
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Goiterzan/Amygdalai Lama
in reply to Goiterzan/Amygdalai Lama • • •I mean, I was raised in the Olden Days, but we had Women's Liberation and that spawned some effort at Men's Liberation, and a good old American style Work Ethic was backward and embarrassing to my folks. π
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Kevin Davy
in reply to Goiterzan/Amygdalai Lama • • •ActuallyAutistic group reshared this.
GaiaCrisisPhil
in reply to Kevin Davy • • •Thank you for putting that into words
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Kevin Davy
in reply to GaiaCrisisPhil • • •Thank you. I can't help thinking that this is a bloody awful habit that many of us have gotten into. A consequence of being ourselves, rather than ever a necessity.
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Evan Light
in reply to Kevin Davy • • •ActuallyAutistic group reshared this.
Kevin Davy
in reply to Evan Light • • •So long playing life on hard mode without ever realising there was any other way.
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Evan Light
in reply to Kevin Davy • • •@philcolbourn π―
Trouble is that now feels like playing on nightmare mode because now
- I know
- I know I'm maladapted
- my wife and I learned to negotiate the maladaptation
- unmasking demonstrate the need for different and likely permenant adaptations.
Yay.
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VulcanTourist
in reply to Evan Light • • •In a fit self- reveal, here I was wondering what game it is with a Nightmare Mode of play until I clicked into the thread and saw the context....
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Kevin Davy
in reply to Evan Light • • •It's definitely a process and not necessarily an easy one at times. But, sometimes it's also realising how much of the work we've already done. Whether we knew it or not, most of us spent a lot of effort working out how to get around things and into how to function, if not always as easily as we would have liked, certainly easier than it was.
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Robot Diver ππ¬οΈππΏπΈπ±π±π±
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Kevin Davy
in reply to Robot Diver ππ¬οΈππΏπΈπ±π±π± • • •Indeed. It's hard not to do this, when you are alone on the outside, looking in. Accomplishing what we could see was normality and being productive, was so often the only measure we had.
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Kevin Davy
Unknown parent • • •My own philosophy and world view dictates that existence is choice, that this is all that is required and that there is no such thing as the right, or wrong, choice. That being is simply choosing and that in existing we choose and therefore that nothing else is required. And yet, I still struggle with the whole, justifying crap.
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J. R. DePriest :EA DATA. SF:
in reply to Kevin Davy • • •ActuallyAutistic group reshared this.
Kevin Davy
in reply to J. R. DePriest :EA DATA. SF: • • •Thank you. I suspect that I am not the only one and just needed to put it out there. π
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π Cynni π
in reply to Kevin Davy • •π This could have been written by me... So relatable! π«
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Kevin Davy
in reply to π Cynni π • • •It does seem to be fairly common for us.
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Green Roc Thoughts
in reply to Kevin Davy • • •I feel so much better when I do not have to beat my rhythm to most everyone else. My rhythm goes with what I feel is right and good.
I began my self-care journey when someone said to me "That's not selfish, it's healthy" I forget what it was I was going on about, but that one message changed my life, for the betterment of my own life, and there were people who were not happy with the new me, I was no longer their subservient.
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Kevin Davy
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Evan Light
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lizzzzard
in reply to Kevin Davy • • •ActuallyAutistic group reshared this.
StarkRG
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Evan Light
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Kevin Davy
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Jan (DL1JPH)
in reply to Kevin Davy • • •@actuallyautistic
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ideogram
Unknown parent • • •I'm so sorry you have got to the point of disability before knowing yourself, I feel the same.
@pathfinder @actuallyautistic
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ideogram
in reply to Kevin Davy • • •@actuallyautistic
Random Weirdo
in reply to Kevin Davy • • •I feel this toot way too much.
This guilt is exacerbated by the fact that I *want* to do certain things, but just don't have the spoons. And also by the feeling of not being able to justify the lack in spoons. Like, "everybody works hard, other people also have a job and family etc - how dare you feel exhausted by just this little bit of stress?" So, I don't "allow" myself to feel drained for things others consider "normal every day life".
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Kevin Davy
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Random Weirdo
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Harmony Seeker
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Kevin Davy
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VerΔandi K Soldusty
in reply to Kevin Davy • • •So relatable & so familiar. Even on my own there's this anchor dragging me & reminding me of all the things I should or could have accomplished.
From fixing the house, or getting job, or plotting my life round writing. Like it should be so easy to do.
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Kevin Davy
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VerΔandi K Soldusty
in reply to Kevin Davy • • •or, 'how the hell? I'm just a big no hope, why am I even here when I'm accomplishing nothing but bitter disappointment to myself & people I know?'
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Kevin Davy
Unknown parent • • •ActuallyAutistic group reshared this.
Kevin Davy
Unknown parent • • •Unfortunately for many of us it seems.
Kevin Davy
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Kevin Davy
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Tim McTuffty
in reply to Kevin Davy • • •Evening Kevin ππ
I was like you for so long, thinking that having time just to chill out was an extravagance, always feeling that, even when not being driven to it by my ND mind, I should be doing something βusefulβ.
Itβs only in the last couple of years that Iβm starting to understand that I need time to recover from days like today - which although on the surface was enjoyable was actually quite demanding - the swan seemingly gliding effortlessly thru the water while all the while my feet were paddling like mad underwater, maintains my masks & making sure I acted appropriately.
So tomorrow or Thursday when this catches up with me I will feel less guilty about needing a time out just to chill & recover.
Have a most excellent evening my friend ππ«Ά
π
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Kevin Davy
in reply to Tim McTuffty • • •I suspect our lives would have been a lot easier, if this had been a lesson taught to us somewhere very near the beginning. It would certainly have allowed us to control ourselves a lot better and lived according to our needs and rhythms, rather than attempting to mimic such an unnatural way.
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Tim McTuffty
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Kevin Davy
Unknown parent • • •Very much so. In part, this can be a form of the fawning trauma response. But, I think a lot of it was just that we had no basis upon which to assert ourselves and express our lives the way we should have done, without knowing that the ways we were different were valid.
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Aaron
Unknown parent • • •ActuallyAutistic group reshared this.
Kevin Davy
Unknown parent • • •Yes, low self-esteem is another part of it. Common as hell, because the parts of us that should have been supported and perhaps praised, never were. Having an over-abundance of patience, to be able to put up with things far longer than we should, certainly doesn't help either. People certainly come to expect it.
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Kevin Davy
in reply to Aaron • • •Definitely there's this as well.
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nellie-m
Unknown parent • • •@StarkRG @lizzard
I once heard a song, and its chorus line just sprang to mind for me:
βIβm working so hard
to make it look easyβ¦β
And while itβs particularly true for us on the spectrum, we donβt know what it takes another person to appear like itβs all effortless. They may not even realise the toll itβs taking.
Try not to let it make you feel bad. Weβre so hard on ourselves sometimes π
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Kevin Davy
in reply to nellie-m • • •So very true.
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nellie-m
in reply to nellie-m • • •@StarkRG @lizzard
One thing I realised just now is: I got up early, thinking βmid March! Time to plant the toms!β
Since then, I proofread a whole issue that was due today, sent it in for printing, made a sourdough bread, packed a parcel, did the dishes, phone callsβ¦ and all the time thereβs this background feeling of βI havenβt done anything yetβ because the toms still arenβt in the ground!
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josh susser
in reply to Kevin Davy • • •Kevin Davy
in reply to josh susser • • •Hard habit to break though.
lizzzzard
in reply to nellie-m • • •@nellie_m
Oh, I know *that* feeling. You're totally right, our perception of how "useful" we feel is usually totally skewed.
@StarkRG @pathfinder @actuallyautistic
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Evan Light
in reply to Kevin Davy • • •I'm so early on my journey yet I've recognized this internalized ableism in myself. It presents very much how you describe. The difference, for me, is I see how much my wife is carrying, now that I finally feel the weight of the disabilities resulting from being autistic, and this leads to guilt.
I'm trying to push the boundaries, to keep testing them, to see if I'm adapting to these newly recognized and long ignored and hidden aspects of myself. I want to have more spoons! Yet if the count is growing at all, it is growing slowly.
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Kevin Davy
in reply to Evan Light • • •It's very much about finding a way that suits us for a change.
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Evan Light
Unknown parent • • •@superball I'm trying to find this path for myself. I spent three decades working in Tech, getting ground down to a nub. What I know now is "I can't ever go back there."
I'm really not sure where I *can* go now. I just know it can't be "back". That way lies so very very much self-harm.
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nellie-m
in reply to lizzzzard • • •AND ITβS MID MAY OF COURSE π€£π€£π€£
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Kevin Davy
Unknown parent • • •No need to apologise, life goes on. Yes, I also feel that for the most part I did reasonably well. Just paying the price for now, in terms of pushing myself past limits far more than I ever should have done and all because I saw it as a way of justifying my existence. For our generation there seemed, all too often, no other way to get any measure of self-respect. Foolish looking back on it, but at the time I suppose understandable.
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VulcanTourist
Unknown parent • • •I stopped trying to work a decade earlier than that, after realizing that my only viable avenue was self-employment and then only after something(s) rather significant had changed. I'm still awaiting the changes. I wasn't married then, but someone much later married me in spite of it.
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