As I am being adherent to my mental health medications, with them aiding in fully allowing me to live life,  I am also able to better acknowledge when it becomes essential to practice better boundaries to protect my mental wellbeing so I do not become overwhelmed with the issues of the things that I cannot control.

I do know that I can control how I react to things that can be stressful and cause me to become agitated or frustrated with things that I cannot control, particularly the actions of others. For far too long, I have been consumed in wanting to be the people-pleaser of the situation in order to bring myself a sense of calm my environment, however no matter the environment, there is always the potential for conflict or things that I will be unable to control or prevent from being the fixer.

As an autistic person, there is a part of me that always wants to be the one that solves problems, but many times it comes at the price of destroying my mental state and in turn my feeling can be omitted onto others that have their own set of issues to bear. I had to realize that I cannot be the one that can be in control of everything in all my environments to keep myself happy.

One of the biggest reasons that my anxiety flares up and the act of wanting to avoid things is the fact that I allow myself to be consumed with the actions or thoughts of others without shifting my focus on what I need to do to protect myself from reacting negatively. Along with wanting to just “keep the peace” or wanting to always fix something to find peace for myself and then ruminate about the actions of others that could have been challenging for me, not seeing that they are things that I have no control over how others act. I invest too much in what I can control versus using coping techniques and defense mechanisms, etc. to protect myself.

It can be difficult to build boundaries, but  not doing so is affecting my ability to be at ease in other parts of my life outside of where the stress is occurring, such as day services or around those who do not have the ability to manage their challenges. Me wanting to leave an environment because of a few people being who they are was not the solution. Discussing my concerns with another party while working to find solutions or alternatives that work  better for me is a better solution, especially when factors have not been totally put into play yet,

I have not been able to evaluate having the assistance of medication, in which I do not know if  the things I cannot control are an issue or whether it is something that I need to learn how to work with as part of my mental heath challenges. My goal at day services is to learn how to manage my mental health condition by fully adhering to my medication regimen and seeing that indeed since many stressors have been eliminated in the years since I have not been fully honest or not totally adherent to my medication regimen are actually a factor as to whether I am allowing the things that are not out of my control be as intense as they really are in my mind.  Rather, I need to identify when stressful in which are out of my control arise and how I can find better ways to cope with them and not allow them to gravitate onto others that I use as venting or sounding boards.

It is time that I work towards solutions and not continue to allow  the things that are not in my control to become the sticking points of my anxiety and allow my sense of wanting to run away from things just because I feel uncomfortable. Rather, I must work at being better cognizant of when challenging situations arise and work to find coping techniques that are helpful in the moments of getting through them and not allowing them to consume my life.