It's best to never judge a book by it's cover (and other personal ramblings)
Some days are just days where everything that happens makes you think about yourself, how you behave, how you react to things, who you are and what you stand for. Not all of those days are good, not all of those days are bad, and sometimes it’s something in between. This isn’t a bad thing per say, as I do think it’s important to happen as I believe that you can learn from it, grow, be more certain of yourself in ways you haven’t had before.
But sometimes things just rock you, and which keep playing through your head and make you doubt everything.
Take today for example. I was at work with three other colleagues (though one had just come in and would take over our shifts), and while I can’t remember what triggered the conversation on it’s own, it eventually came down to two of them telling me that there had been moments where one of them was literally just close to hitting me because I was so obstinate or whatever, and the other said she thought I was weird because of the way I reacted to things. While I knew where the reason probably came from, it still hit me hard, to the point where I am reminded again of how not normal I seem to be to many people and who judge without knowing what’s going on. (The fact that I had been having a conversation about sexuality and them telling about the moment they realised they were not straight, and me confessing that I was sometimes doubting whether I was straight myself was probably not helping much either.)
The thing is, as some of you may know already, I got diagnosed with autism (a high functioning form) last January. At the advice of the people around me and my psychologist, I hadn’t told many people. Some colleagues were aware of it, some of my bosses (those I work with the most) are aware of it, same with family, but I hadn’t told everyone simply because there’s a lot of people around me (and at work) who I wouldn’t trust with handling it right and suddenly started acting like I was a whole different, broken person entirely.
This was something those two colleagues, when I told them why it was that I could act that way, did not understand, as they believed everyone at work should know so they can keep it in mind and be more aware and understanding of what I needed. But at the same time they jumped to ‘typical’ autistic traits that I do not particularly show at all, especially not with people I’ve worked with for quite a while, and were also like ‘but you don’t behave like so and so’.
All of this combined, plus the fact that some people just laugh being amused as hell when I don’t get a joke and take it too seriously (which... I tend to do 9 out of 10 times), sometimes just makes me feel like I am absolutely broken. Not that I have a problem with being autistic or anything, because I feel like it’s who I am and always have been, but it’s more the fact that especially in those moments I realise how much I struggle with stuff like that, even without me noticing, have people judge me without knowing everything and me being unable to do anything about it because the damage has already been done. How this has cost me friendships because I was unable to strike up conversations without the conversations either falling dead or making it sound like I needed something from someone, or kept talking too much about myself/my interests without noticing people just wanted me to shut the hell up but never told me so, so I never knew.
I still feel like it’s my own business who I tell and who I don’t tell but even still their comments just keep lingering in my mind and whatever I do they just don’t seem to go away, even though I know that there are a lot of people who know and just keep taking me for who I am but also just tell me to shut up when I go to far, because they know I don’t realise it. I am very happy to say that I never experienced anything other than people here taking me for who I am and I can never truly say how grateful I am for that, so for that I want to thank you all, because it’s giving me the strength and knowledge that I am perfect the way I am even though it sometimes hard to believe. It’s making it easier to combat those comments and tell myself we aren’t that close anyway. And you guys just all help me get stronger as a person.
So I just want to say thank you, and to just give a reminder to try and remind people (and maybe sometimes even yourself) to never judge a person by how they react, because you may never know what’s causing it.
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