Published on 12, July, 2020
I’m gonna confess to a lot of horrible decisions I’ve made. I will also provide context and explanations, not to excuse my bad actions, but to try to make sense in order to solve this issue.
Naturally, my autism makes me highly emotional and sensitive to rejection. Although there is nothing shameful about experiencing intense emotions, it doesn’t make my vile behaviour acceptable. Regardless of what I’m upset about or what caused it, no one else is responsible for my actions, but myself. And it’s no one else’s responsibility but mine to do better.
To simply put it, I’ve became a massive ***. Starting from 17-20(current age), I’ve been more openly rude to others. Although I’ve always had mean thoughts as a teenager, I knew to keep it to myself and remain polite because:
• It’s common sense
• I want others to treat me the same way I treat others
Growing up, I’ve been an easy target to bullying. However, I never stood up to myself as a teen and the aftermath would leave me in tears, feeling significantly insecure, depressed, anxious and suicidal. In Addition, I started self harming due to the bullying. Regardless, I still treated others with kindness because I hated the thought of being a horrible person. Nowadays, I fear that I’ve became what I hated the most.
During college / my first job, I was bullied for being ugly and socially awkward. At some point, I relapsed and began to self harm again due to the treatment I received at work. As well, I developed body dysmorphia and considered suicide. I’ve been targeted by many men my age and I noticed a pattern. They were all conventionally attractive men who were loved by everyone. They received little to no consequence. As a result, I became jealous, leading to never ending bitterness. This made me think to myself, “if no one cares enough to be kind to me, why should I fucking care about being kind to others?”
I’ve developed bad anger issues leading to me saying horrible things which I later regret. When someone hurts me, I go to the extreme end and take my anger out on that person/others with the intention of wanting to hurt them. These are a few examples:
• Despite having body image issues, I take out my insecurities and insult others for their looks. One includes a guy who first targeted me a work. I went on a rant about his acne, saying that his skin is disgusting to look at, and how I’m surprised he hasn’t been cheated on. Another incident includes a male coworker who I thought was being rude to another female coworker. As a result, i picked on his height and said he has “small boy energy”.
•when I thought a coworker was mocking my voice, I called her a “whore”.
•When my teacher noticed I was in a bad mood, he tried making me laugh by screaming my name in a shrieky voice. In response, I yelled at him to “shut the *** up”
•when a girl I was jealous of (she was the gf of a guy who targeted me) was singing purposely badly and loudly, I yelled at her to “shut the *** up and kill herself.”
Once again, my actions are inexcusable. It doesn’t matter whether someone hurt me first, I should learn to control my anger.
How do I control my anger and stop myself from saying horrible things?
Some of these things are odd NT behaviour. But I feel this.
Does it help to know we experience EVERYTHING at a much greater intensity? External sensory and internal - emotional, psychological.
I've had to learn to walk way from toxic people. To Exit situations when I can. But when trapped, I've been known to lash back at someone when younger. Now older and having more control about who I choose to allow my self to be around, I haven't experienced this in a long time. And that may be the catch.
We need to be able to identify the difference between playful and abusive, between kind and cruel, but autistics have difficulty reading Typical-others. I never knew if someone was interested in me. I still wouldn't be able to tell. But I do know how to evaluate someone over time. And how to better line up my words/actions/intent and find people who share my values. The Artists Way was one of the first books I read which taught me about boundaries with others. I'd highly recommend.
We all have a limit. You may have been pushed past yours one too many times and could use a break from everyone...