Published on 12, July, 2020
I saw my health and wellbeing support worker from Reed yesterday. And something she said amazed me.
She had a colleague sitting in with her and she turned to him and said, that she loves seeing me because my passion for life inspires her and uplifts her to such a degree, that she feels amazing for days afterwards. She said it’s like she suddenly starts seeing all the good in the world and she finds herself enjoying herself more.
I couldn’t believe it. I’ve only seen her twice!
And both times, to my mind, I was anything but passionate about life! I thought I was rude to her. Both times. This is usual for me when I’m first in these kinds of situations. It takes me a few weeks just to know if I’m warming to them or not. I thought her ideas were ridiculous and stupid and that she clearly didn’t know me! ~ I don’t take any notice of these thoughts, by the way, meaning after the event, I know they’re not true. They are pretty standard and as far as I knew, this was the attitude I was displaying ~ that I didn’t want to be there, I hated it and her and I couldn’t wait to get out of there.
How the hell did we go from that, to her thinking I was inspirational!!!!!
Honestly, I’m baffled. When I think I’m being nice and friendly, like at the church last week, when after only a few moments of talking to the minister, she suddenly, and to my mind, totally randomly, exploded and said she was going to walk right out of the church, hand in her resignation, because I had just destroyed everything she had ever believed in!!! I had no idea what I had said. The only thing I could remember saying, was, why don’t you kill your self. But that wasn’t as harsh as it sounds, out of context, so I know it wasn’t that, that upset her. If she was upset. I couldn’t tell. She confused the hell out of me ♀️. I couldn’t really work out what was going on.
I wonder if everyone sees me as the opposite of what I think I am? That’s weird!
I have a conundrum with how people now see me at work. I've been off following a disciplinary, prior to this I disclosed my AS to a couple of people, who didn't really take any notice, with whats happened now work, moving me into an alien unsuitable environment, I have had to formally disclose, diagnosis letter sent to them the full works, Occ health involved. I've asked for 'reasonable' adjustments by this I mean put me back in a community role,location of their choosing but since they now have my diagnosis its like everybody has gone into panic mode and are now treating me like I'm totally disabled, the fact I've worked for them for 12 year and until this minor blip have a really good reputation and have been highly regarded that's all gone out of the window and now I think they see me as a total liability. So people now don't see me as me any more, just my AS or disability as they call it. What people don't realise though is in the right environment I am not disabled but put me in the wrong environment and I am very disabled. So now I am going to have to get them to see me as me and not just my diagnosis.
I agree with that sentiment entirely. Being high functioning (hate the term btw) just means for me a spikey profile of areas of super human awesomeness alongside kryptonite like struggles.
i am super(woman) in many ways but the impact of the keyptonite can cripple me
I like that, its just a shame others don't see it that way. I can't understand why they are not seeing the actual role change as my reasonable adjustment. Its so frustrating. Think I've really put the cat among the pigeons now, just hope colleges don't start acting the same way.