The ADHD instinct to think a six-month process will take five minutes.
That’s how Lolo described my frustration.
Add on the lack of strong men in my life. I experience weak men who can’t take action for justice or use power to elevate their egos and harm me.
It’s the overspill that prompts action and attention. Not the actual process of filling up. No one care unless you make noise. I am not making noise for sympathy. I want people to stop calling me strong.
I do not want to fight anymore. How hard is it to get that? I do not wish to be labelled resilient.
The irony of showing my vulnerability came back to take up even more of my exhausted energy. I just people to stop judging me in an extraordinary light. I am human. I have needs. I have weaknesses. I wamt to be loved and forgiven.
The lack of reliable men hurts. Why men? I already have plentiful strong reliable women in my life, but unfortunately, the men also have a part to play.
It’s the 17th May. Twentyfour years on and I am still watiting for life to become easier. Every day and night I see my sixteen year old, I see my brother. The sister longing for her big brother to protect her from the narcissitic men is waiting in vain. At least this big brother is attempting to bond and understand his difficult sister. She craves the same attention, belonging and acceptance that I did and do. Like me rejected by her father and brother. In the past. Alhumdulillah, her brother has returned to provide that emotional support if she would accept it. If she would overcome the communication differences, forgive and let go of unintentional hurt.
I know my post won’t make sense to many, but those who have experienced the oppression of men in power- whether that is domestic violence, professionals, the inaction of relatives, or even so-called well-wishers- will know exactly what I am talking about.
Add on the Highly Sensitive Person lens to all of this and no wonder I am unable to leave my bed or eat or change. It’s paralysing yet I don’t want sympathy or words. I just want to share my experience to let non autisitc and non-ADHD people (aka the neuro-normative) know they can make or break fellow humans with (lack of) empathy.
We all have the power to impact each other.
It starts with words then action.
Tag: Self-worth
Self Worth
It’s weird how throughout our life we pass many people. It’s like a bus where passengers hop on and off but some stay longer and others don’t leave.
It also depends where the bus is going which determines which kind of passengers get on board. We are the driver but not always in control of who we attract.
This week I faced the question of how do I present myself as to not attract the wrong people. Why are my loved ones so cautious of who I gravitate to, or vice verse. What vibes am I sending out?
“Available to take advantage of”
“Keen to please”
“Seeking self worth”
Imagining my marketing boards right now!
I need to become more aware of how I bring people to me by looking at what I do in my initial reactions. When I give myself value, then, and only then will others attach value and respect to me. Easy, right?
I wish! It’s about stepping back and reframing my mind. Stop seeking validation in end results but being happy with myself. I suppose I have always chased results as a way to prove myself to myself and my two closest relationships. It just didn’t happen so I went on doing more and more until burnout. I don’t know any other way of being other than being busy and achieving.
What if I allowed myself just to be content with me? Independant of benchmarks and standards, forgetting a lifetime of comparisons which I fell short of?
I have low self worth because I failed in other people’s standards, namely, my mother, husband, and recruiters. When it came to academics, each lecturer in four universities were amazed by my work, which I dismissed!
Time to take control of the bus, get the route map out for an adventure and only allow passengers on who want to guide, sing along, or learn with me.
Our Core Beliefs
Despite being in and out of counselling over the past 20 years, I don’t ever remember being asked what my core beliefs were. I find it difficult to look inward and pinpoint my feelings and causes of my thoughts and actions.
Everyone bangs on about self-care, which is a foreign concept to me. At least I thought it was. It turned out that going to CBT last year was the best self-care I could ever do.
Together, with the therapist, I managed to articulate three core beliefs that my world revolved around. They were:
- I am not good enough
- I don’t fit in
- That’s unfair
Throughout that year, with the help of identifying these core beliefs, I worked on dismantling my negative self-perception and how to change these.
My Aha! moment was when I stumbled across a lady with Asperger’s, I couldn’t believe the connection I felt with someone I barely knew. Her experiences were mine! I made my way to stalk autistic Facebook pages more and more and suddenly I felt myself gravitating toward a community that wrote, thought, and experienced the world like me.
Suddenly one of my core beliefs disappeared. I belonged! I fit in! I joined the Scottish Women’s Autism Network, where for the first time when I read, I read things I could have written. Where being coloured or Muslim made zero difference and being a woman celebrated.
What I realised was that all my life when I felt or believed that I didn’t fit in, it was because I was looking in the wrong places. I was desperate for approval from people who couldn’t imagine what my world was like. Even the one who birthed me.
The Diamond Perspective 