Since getting my mental health under control, it was difficult to set up the right routine. I needed this routine to take care of my mental health and achieve what had to be done. There has never been a consistent time where I have been mentally grounded by doing what was needed. For far too long, I ignored the necessity of taking care of my mental health. I didn’t do this in the way that I do now. One of the hardest things was finding a routine that worked for me.

It can be hard to do what is best for me. There is a part of me that wants to. But knowing that I had to was one of the hardest things to accept on a consistent basis. I finally put my foot down last year. Things that should have been easy in the past were just so hard. I had not done what was needed to care for myself.

Yes, it can be challenging to accept. This happens when things do not align with the routine or regimen we plan for ourselves. It can be equally hard when things get disrupted. The need to take care of ourselves sometimes comes more suddenly than we expect. It can feel like we got robbed of the time we needed. We needed that time to get ourselves back into place. We had to do what was needed to get back into rhythm. It can even feel like it was the worst thing in the world to us as autistic individuals.

I have had to accept the reality of caring for my mental health and autism. Adhering to the predispositioned medication regimen is a must. Yet, it can still be hard. There were times when it was impossible to do so because of flawed thoughts I had about my medication. I eventually understood that life would not consistently improve if I did not care for myself. I realized that taking my medication every day was necessary. Over time, after getting through the bad parts, things would get better in the long run.

It was a choice that I had to make for the betterment of myself and those around me. I had to find the routine and accept it for what it was. This allowed me to do the things that I wanted and needed. Sometimes, I had to be flexible to achieve this. I also needed to be willing to adapt quickly. This stopped others from feeling anxious. They didn’t have to guess if I was taking care of myself as needed.

I had to accept a hard truth about myself. Among other things, I needed to realize that things just had to be what they were. This acceptance was necessary, so I have the life I wanted. I did not want to be a failure at living independently. Nor did I want to fail at having a part-time job. I saw what would happen if I had not taken care of myself in the long run. It can be hard to see that sometimes. Yet, it is the hard truth of what I needed to accept. This acceptance was necessary if I had not put my foot down and started to make the right choices. After that, it took finding the right things to make that a reality.