Change can be so hard on the autistic community, I am one who never took change too well, but eventually it has gotten better for me. But in some situations, I have held on to residual anger for having to change to something different because in a way I had felt that I was being punished for things that were not my fault. I had eventually realized that I had to make my own style of pros and cons list of understanding if a change was actually good for me or not.

Some things that I struggled with realizing for some time was my current apartment or switching transportation sources. It took me a long to realize that they were better because I focused my energy on things that I could not change about the past without seeing the good things outweigh what was going on with the present ways of doing things. I was so stuck on investing energy in places it didn’t need to be, where no one else had the same energy about me. When in fact they thought a lot about me, but I had seen myself thinking that they were a monster in some cases because I was led to believe that.

Eventually I led myself to putting each situation on the top of a paper, each into a column. Instead of splitting the pros and cons, I would list the pros in green and the cons in red and eventually in both situations I would see that I would be better off where I was heading, in a better direction. I was able to see that my mental health was improving so much better and if I ever had to go back to the past situation, it would only make it worse.

It is obvious that in those worst moments I wasn’t taking care of myself in the way that I needed to, and this further compromised the situations that I had to endure previously. Sometimes I want to go back and forgive those that I lashed out verbally at, but then I realized that it was all a part of the plan of moving forward and as much as I wanted to put the past behind me, I eventually realized that it was better to do so by investing my energy in better places than where it was previously, in places that it didn’t belong.

Now focusing on myself, I see a brighter future ahead of me. The clocks have sprung ahead, but I have been feeling the longer days for some time now. I know that there are goals and opportunities that I hope to reach in 2025, and I can do them if I put my mind to them while fighting fear and seeing that there are plenty of opportunities out there if I allow myself to see and envision them with me in a better place than where I was previously.

It was any wonder how I was surviving, but now I see that was all part of the plan of learning about my mental illness and giving me the coping skills I need to get by in life, including evaluating the pros and cons when making decisions. It may seem small in nature, but it can be something that allows me to see what is good and bad in making decisions while realizing that change can sometimes be a good thing.