There are a multitude of things that happen in life. Everyone gets on with life and in some cases people don’t really bat an eyelid over situations that I’d expect would warrant more of a reaction.
Over the past year or so, I have grown in confidence. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting people of different ages and being able to gain wisdom from them and hopefully help them learn things from me too. Often the thought process is that the best anecdotes come from older people. Not always necessarily the case though. Young people can have the same amount of wits about them that someone double their age or more.
It’s when these people move on that it becomes more emotional. You just don’t expect it at times. It just lands at your doorstep like that 53rd letter you’ve had from the opticians telling you about an eye test you’ve already had. And by that I mean it’s unwanted. The upheaval is unwanted.
Having Dyspraxia and some Autism features make it difficult enough navigating the world socially. It just adds more anxiety thinking about how to sustain connections or even whether some people really want that if the connection was forced to be more a professional one rather than a friendship for example. Again, just more questions that I ask myself and spend ages thinking about the answer or what I’d want the answer to be.
There are some quotes about adapting and moving on and emotional intelligence that I want to discuss- purely from the standpoint of making more sense of things.
It’s words like these that make life more difficult. For me personally, there’s a lack of understanding of people with varied challenges to always say that we have to adapt to the world. Another thing I hate is this thought process that some people or a fair few people in a similar situation to me live a sheltered life. I don’t want to be viewed like that if I’m honest. I don’t want to be a control freak either. But I generally think the world can be anxiety inducing enough already without saying that people are essentially better people if they adapt to what I think is a broken world where a multitude of things need fixing. And the pressure of progress being dependent on people like me… To be honest you’ve got to love it. Because in many contexts I’d say I’m reliable. But this is the point I check out and let people create their own expectations and reality. Don’t depend on me and don’t take advantage of people like me is what I’d say!
Some things in life could hugely benefit you at different stages. You could’ve learnt something of use early on, and you hold onto that. You could’ve met a friend for life at school and want them in your life forever. I know I would. As I’ve said, it works better for me to make my friends earlier on in life and try my best to hold onto them all. Mainly because I don’t expect to make new friends or have the confidence enough to join different things in order to meet people of a similar age. This has improved and I have met a few people over the last year or so. But again, it’s the lack of being told that at some point there will be less and less time to be around these people. And then comes the inevitable burnout where given the choice, I’d probably avoid all social contact on a given day where I feel all my household jobs (changing my bed, doing my laundry and steaming my clothes) are in jeopardy. And I don’t mean to be the definition of boredom, but I’d rather complete household chores to leave space for the excitement of social interaction rather than enter social situations for a time that’ll be decimated by the thought of having to complete household chores. It’s difficult to know what the right thought process is. These are just the words that make sense right now.
At this point, I definitely have a more enhanced understanding of myself. Included in this, is an understanding of my skills, my threshold for attention and the sort of people I want to be around as well. I feel I express myself well around people. I feel I can adapt to people and collaborate with people better as I’ve had the opportunity to get involved in different things. The demands, challenges and pressures of understanding are something I feel other individuals have that don’t have any hidden differences. But rather than be a hindrance, I want to step outside of my comfort zone by doing presentations on Dyspraxia, Autism, Anxiety and how these things affect my life. The Venn diagram is something that relates a lot because mental health is more of a challenge for people like us who by default, are less understood. This is why I also live by my wish of making the world adapting to us, rather than us adapting to it. And I’ll bang that drum as long as I live. Because I feel the way I try to do things makes the world more inclusive and more understanding rather than more restrictive and therefore more downward spiralling for people.
It doesn’t surprise me that suppression has less to mass struggle. Keeping emotions hidden is something I’m a master of, though I will let you into the fact that I cried at the end of Toy Story 4 and when the England Women won the Euros. If you are interested to know more, here goes: Toy Story 4 left me emotional because one of the group of friends was essentially saying goodbye. And not knowing what would be the next phase of life caused that emotion to arise. Secondly, I’m a football fan. I love football. And it made me so proud to finally see my nation win something. It was just a true portrayal of determination, of people working together to create a lasting memory for the country and hopefully again create a more inclusive world where, in this context in particular, more women want to play football and feel encouraged to do so if this is something they wish to pursue. There’s just two examples of emotions that have come to light for me. I hope this could help people to share things that have made them emotional too. Not every emotion has to be a really bad one or feel heavy.
Of course, like it says here, there should be no issue with people being open about how something has affected them. Everyone has a different emotional threshold. And because of how challenging the social world is to navigate, if people leave my circle so to speak who I wish to stick around, this will affect me. You don’t replace people. Nobody has a chart on their wall at home with a list of characteristics and a clipboard to go and carry around to find a replica of someone who meant something. See- while this would be strange to witness, pardon me for feeling aroused by the idea. I know people who have (of course jokingly) mentioned the idea of cloning people who hold that much value. I’d just simply say that if a mutual connection is found between 2 or more people, please make the effort to stay in touch. You could have just given someone a serious lift to their mood by exchanging contact details and the like.
This is an interesting point, considering I see myself, and have had analysed about me that I’m a note logical type of person. But does a logical person become illogical if they fail to see how the world is mapped out- or how things turn out. Essentially what I’m trying to say here, is that it’s almost like the pressure increases of people needing to realise that those who may be a part of your life at some point, won’t always be of that sake value if they become more distant for any reason. So what does that make me? A creature of logic and a creature of emotion. I kind of already knew this. No shock horrors here!
I hope this has made sense to people. There are so many things in play that affect me in times of change. As I mentioned at the beginning of this piece, I feel more confident to step outside my comfort zone. But that’s not supposed to be a substitute for the regulation of emotions when important people to me move on and changes are made that could impact the way I perform or whatever. Until next time!
Sam's Mental Health Blog 