Reflections: Everyone Else is Moving On, So Why Can’t I?

A few weeks ago in my Reflections blog, I wrote about letting go of the past. And as time moves and others move on with life, it somehow seems that I cannot let the events of my past escape my mind and I continually think because they happened to me then, it is still that way and always will be.

Having this state of mind produces increased anxiety onset by the rush of adrenaline and cortisol and as an autistic person can be challenging to have my body exit when it needs to. Another trait that is coupled with autism and anxiety is the fact that the stories that I either have been told or tell myself from years ago just will not go away and I cannot see past them because that was my experience. 

I experience great difficulty in allowing myself to entertain the thought of someone having an experience in a place that is different from mine or that it can be better than mine while I am having my experience. It’s like I want to control my feelings and not allow it to be what it was and move on to what I am experiencing in my life. Just because I experienced what I experienced does not necessarily mean that someone else will experience the same nor should they, Yet, my brain only allows me to think about how it will affect me by bringing up the past traumatic experiences and not allowing myself to move past them. 

Regardless, I know that living in this state of mind is not healthy for me. It brings on an undue burden that is just too much to bear for me let alone those around me. I know that seeing my life as it is now is very important to making sure the door is closed on what was and remembering it just as history, There is nothing I can do to change it, even though it can produce a lot of trauma which in turn can be a catalyst to the evolution of my anxiety and why I get into such bad spells of the adrenaline and cortisol in my body and as such, it in turn lies to the struggle of it leaving my body.

In a logical sense, I know that I cannot allow my past experiences to play a part in how I interact with others or have a sense of displeasure with myself and what I must endure just because I have to be near some things that can trigger those feelings and be traumatic for me. That is where I have to learn how to better cope with life because it is never going to truly go the way that we want to, even though we as autistics often think that it should go the way we think it needs to go so our needs are best met. 

However, that isn’t always a possibility and we must try our best to live life in the best way we can by learning proper techniques to best manage our challenges. What may not be seen by some as a big thing, can be magnified greatly for an autistic person because of our unwillingness to see beyond the memories a place or person plays in our mind. It can bring us to a dark or overburdening place that no one should experience, let alone an autistic person. 

Moving on, as much as it is needed, is very challenging for the autistic person. It can be hard when you have an experience that produces anxiety or trauma and giving a chance to see beyond that can be very challenging as it is often the right thing to do. 

Seeing beyond what was and seeing life as it is can be difficult to imagine even though it is possible, it just takes autistic people a little more time to move on beyond what was and see things in a different light that what they have been used to knowing. No one deserves to live in my misery and I need to respect the fact that past experiences can be just that and as an opportunity to learn and move forward to better things.