It is hard to imagine three years ago that I was participating in my first Telehealth Psychotherapy session laying in my childhood bed in a room that was also my parents’ home study but temporarily my refuge from safety during a desolate situation that was exacerbated by the unknowns of the COVID-19 Pandemic, however I am now in a place where I am much better.
Just knowing the fact that I was so drained from a month of experiencing a traumatic situation with my first apartment that was not only because of the property, but the fact that my mental health was severely declining over the course gradually of what I know deeply a year and a half, although, I recently established that a behavior has been happening for nearly a decade. However, it took a long time, many meltdowns and one public meltdown to really start to understand the necessity of reeling in my mental health and ultimately understanding that what people have been telling me for decades to be well are in fact what I need to do to be well.
Besides the issues with my first apartment and the COVID-19 pandemic occurring, I feel I needed to understand the way things occurred to understand how bad things can really get to if I did not reel it under control. It was a series of trial and error and at times I had to really experience and learn what I needed to do to make things right and take care of myself so I can live the best life possible.
It took feeling the way others observed me in those times that I wasn’t well. In fact I knew all along that I wasn’t well and wasn’t quite honest with doing what I needed to do. For decades I disregarded the orders and advice that I was given about things that affected my behavior and as a result the behavior occurred and yet, I kept fueling myself by doing what I know made these things worse.
It is repairing the damage from what I have done that increasingly makes things better. I am a much better person because of not only what I have learned, but what I did prior to being independent, mixed with being independent and the new skills I acquired makes life so much more manageable and brings hope from times whenever hope in my own self was very difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel. But now, I am seeing that light and the parts of my life that seemed so distant years ago are getting back together. Negativity is slowly disappearing and I am understanding my body more.
A rough lesson has been learned, that is for sure. Maybe it had to be that way as part of becoming an adult nearly two decades later in life and not seeing the value of my life, all the great things I do and how I truly kept myself together in those trying times when indeed on my own it was difficult and many times I did not truly let my inner circle know what I was truly feeling in the roughest of moments.
The mind can play the roughest of games to us. It can really bring you down if you allow it to. Sometimes you need that silver lining to really know what you need to do to better yourself and move forward with life and understand that sometimes life is just the way that it is, but with having the proper tools, defense mechanisms and coping strategies in place, you can excel in a world that is oftentimes can be very challenging for an autistic person.
Dustin's Dynasty 