Published on 12, July, 2020
One year ago, I thought that "self improvement" was going to be a natural by-product of finally knowing how and why I "see" and "do" and "think" differently to most other people. Autism.
The relief of finding the explanation for my crafted life and inner thoughts - was overwhelmingly wonderful - especially in the early weeks. It still makes me smile to think of that feeling now.
I thought that, knowing the reason WHY I can be so dysfunctional, suboptimal and darn right frigging useless......would allow me to "hack myself" to improvement.
I thought that, knowing the reason WHY I can be unusually competent and impressive in some respects ... would allow me to "hack myself" to the zenith of my capabilities.
I rationalise and utilise knowledge and information every day to good effect.......so I presumed my self-knowledge would be profoundly powerful....allow me to 'get' or 'engineer' the right help.
I couple of important aspects of my life are much better now......but the majority of my nonsense.....remains nonsense.
I consider myself a lucky survivor, who has earned a magic key of understanding…I'm worried that I'm not using that key to best effect at the moment.
Often on these pages, people say "don't be too hard on yourself, give yourself time, relax, its not your fault etc"........but should we all also be saying, just as often, "keep striving to be better, improve yourself and the lives of those around you, keep challenging yourself etc" ?
I'm feeling some frustration - with myself - I want the next 12 months of my journey to be AT LEAST as constructive as the 12 months since that blinding flash of realisation.
Thoughts anyone?
I believe that the best we can do is to accept ourselves, and our 'limitations' and cherish what is positive in ourselves.
'Improvement' is a relative and loaded word.
I think that from reading here for a year, a lot of people are beating themselves up about how they are.
'grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.'
Depends how old you are / were when you were diagnosed. As we get older we get set in our ways and it becomes harder to change our behaviour / what we do. I wasn’t diagnosed myself until I was 50 but I would like to think young children being diagnosed today can be taught information / techniques which may make their life easier (or maybe we, as a community, aren’t even there yet?) Once you get older although it shouldn’t be impossible it will be more difficult to learn new information / techniques and put them into practice.
I think for me, I'm fully willing to put the effort in to improve myself and my situation, I just have absolutely zero idea as to what to do to improve myself.
Sorry if i offered useless Support advice.We are all different and meet specific needs.Sorry if some advice here was annoying to you.It was meant to be Positive.
I know what it's like to feel frustrated with yourself. When you are used to problem solving, it becomes about solving yourself. 12 months is no time at all and you can't have everything come all at once and you cant put a time limit on things. It comes when it's ready. Autistic people have perfectionist tendencies whether we like to admit it or not and high expectations of ouselves which is good but sometimes we cant meet them. "Calm and steady.....don't be too critical of yourself".
I can't see any grey area in your post. If youre anything like me, difficulty regulating emotions + getting stuck in the mind = all or nothing. If you are having some difficult days this might be manifesting in the frustration. "I think our lives and emotions and capabilities are cyclical . . . Just allow your wheel to spin under it's own momentum for a while."
I struggle a lot with the "practical" side of autism as alluded to in other posts. It's incredibly frustrating and one that I have never had any help with nor have any answers to. It's a battle with ourselves but we are ALWAYS trying our best with it.
These are all assumptions from me...and we know what can happen when you assume. Also, I often royally miss the point. I wanted to respond as you have helped me and many others with your kind words. So some of your life might be self-defined nonsense but there's the other side that isn't.
My thoughts are: you are being the best version of yourself that you can be right now at any given time.
You may have hit one of the dips on the post diagnostic/realisation emotional rollercoaster.
In the beginning it can be quite euphoric, the relief that there is a reason for everything you have struggled with in your life so far.
Once the initial elation has worn off it becomes more apparent that nothing really has changed, you still have the same struggles as before, you still have the same lack of support as before.
Any changes have to come from you and as all autists know change can be terrifying
As Homebird says you can avoid some of the things you find difficult or don't enjoy, without feeling like that is the wrong thing to do. Conversely it also empowers you to seek out and enjoy what matters to you, without feeling guilty about it.
I realized I have spent a lot of my life wondering why I found some things so hard, so apart from preparing myself more for situations I have to face, rather than trying to self improve I have allowed myself to accept that some things are always going to be a challenge.
Those things I don't need to do I opt out of knowing now I have a reason for avoiding them without feeling guilty.
I have a bad memory so can't quote anything but there have been many occasions when you have made helpful comments on here. In life maybe make use of the strategies you find help and accept you have permission to opt out of others.
I guess it depends on what you want to improve on and how you want to do ‘better’. So working backwards is probably the answer. Or would it be more beneficial to accept that that is who/what you are, and you don’t need to improve as there isn’t actually anything wrong with it? In other words finding happiness with yourself instead of finding fault?
A couple of things I’ve realised during my journey, coming back here for one - as much as I appreciate the forum and reading about people that have similar issues to me, it also makes me focus more on the fact I am autistic. Rather than just carrying on living and accepting that I am as I am and there isn’t actually anything wrong with me (that could also be due to my age).