Conversations About Letting Go and Letting God

I got in a weird conversation with another friend the other day...I wrote her:

 "I think in this society some people do not fit in. Don't take this wrong. Many good people are being outcast and "thrown away". One thing I have noticed is if you still have emotions and an emotional life, the cold as stone types do not welcome this. I did not fit in due to being an Aspie. I guess I have accepted these limitations and no longer banging my head against a brick wall to be loved and accepted."

I had to accept the fact I do not fit in. This means accepting myself as an Aspie. Chances are I never will. This may sound like a strange revelation but it is what it is. One thing I have been freed from over the last few years is that feeling of "having to perform"  or "censoring" myself to be accepted. While some frozen moments can still crop up, I just stopped.  I put a lot of energy out in the people pleasing and for the repression. Now more of this energy is reserved for other things.

This was a major change that also knocked down my anxiety levels quite a bit. I started saying what I wanted. The other day, they had changed my art class to a place with stairs, due to a one day special event. It was in a neighboring house the art center owned. This shocked and surprised me. I think people did not mean malice but just didn't remember. I could not get up the stairs especially since I had my walker and left my cane at home, and made it clear this was unacceptable.

I am not so sure the old me would have done this. She may have just gone home and cried over feeling "left out" and hating herself for having a giant body that can't navigate stairs. They changed the venue and moved to the basement of the art center where the elevator goes, so I could go to art class and paint. I was happy and people apologized. I said, "It is important the disabled are thought of and not left out that way."

 I am dealing with the reality of who I am socially since I went no contact from abusers and more, and I'm done with the demands and trying to be someone others wanted me to be or "fitting in". Being this old, I got too tired. I gave this friend the advice, "Don't work and struggle anymore to fit in, you are who you are." 

 There's too many people hurt by this. They try and try to be accepted and loved and to attain positions denied them. Some live in object grief for not entering worlds and places denied them for decades. Abuse victims especially are put in that place of trying to "earn" people's love. It is a tragic place to be, and the terrible adult outcome for a child denied unconditional love.

 Love is short in the USA as a whole with the narcissists in charge. We are seeing the collective grief I believe of the USA right now for their falling fortunes, which is one reason the orange faced man promising new things got in. One reason for all the grief and craziness, is people were told to strive instead of live and when they see goals not attained and carrots on sticks snatched away constantly they go a little psycho. The whole country seems to be a tinderbox for a reason. If one imagines the USA as one big dsyfunctional family, the narcissitic politicians have gaslighted us all to be at each other's throats.

 People strive socially not just professionally and otherwise, and that can be a treadmill leading to grief and sadness too. This applied to me too and surely you see that theme on this blog, where so much of my life, was dedicated to "trying to be accepted" by others. Sure does it hurt that I have no family that loves me. Sure it does. We all have the dreams of loving families that were vanquished.
 There's times that all ACONs mull over "What we could have done different." but honestly it was a decision they made, we didn't make it.  I have other things to attend to in life rather then begging for love and attention from people who don't have it to give. With many of them, I don't think they even love or care about each other except the sons of the Aunt Who Loved Me.  The gift of unconditional love is the gift that changes a life for the better. The others lacked it. The coldness, competition and more was not just reserved for me. I just was unwilling to accept it.

A lot of my energy has been needed to attend to my own household.  My husband has been really sick a lot. He's in bed almost as much as me. I am worried about my husband. I fear for his health. My husband has been sick a lot lately with gout and then he needed an emergency tooth extraction which he got at our free clinic. Yesterday after the gout attack seemed to be over, his leg started giving him problems where he was limping around. He is always exhausted. Sometimes I wonder if he has some kind of fatigue disorder. He is older then me too, so that affects him too. He has the free clinic, but he definitely needs a specialist to get to the root of all the fatigue and constant gout attacks. He is diagnosed with vein disorders in his legs as well.

I went for moral support with him to the dentist.  One worries about a loved one. It can get scary when your caretaker is ill. He still did my laundry on better days and put me in my Flexitouch machine and helped as much as he could. I worry for my husband, we have had a lot of stress, and he didn't have regular health care for years. These things have taken a toll on his health. If we won the Lotto, I probably would put us both in an assisted living place that had private apartments but help with laundry and cooking. It seems awful, that for both of us mobility is so compromised.

I took the trash out on my walker during his worse illness bouts which always seems to get me some sympathetic looks and offers of help from the neighbors.  Some sympathetic souls have looked at horror with me bumbling along on my walker and him limping along on one of my canes with his latest gout attack.  He was able to get his pills when we both got paid and seemed to be doing better for a time but fell back into some kind of leg/gout problem. When he loses his mobility for short periods of time, that's when things can get scary for us both.  When he can't walk, I'm taking things to him.

I plan to talk to some disability advocates and others about what we should do if he gets sick for long term. He has health problems that are serious but they told him in his 2009 turn down for disability he could do sit down work which the freelance stuff is.  More and more disability is being reserved for the "Can't breathe" people like me. Many others don't get hired and cut out of the work-world but unless they know you can't walk or breathe normal like me, and a demanded work shift would mean an ambulance ride, they don't want to know. Something is wrong with that. Poverty alone sickens and ages people. We are both in far worse shape, then people of better means around here who are even 10-20 years older.

 To be honest, I think his health would be a lot better without sitting in a chair transcribing for hours or worrying about meetings or getting enough work, to make minimum wage pay.  One newspaper just cut some work the end of last week. The constant roller coaster stuff is crazy-making. He makes money about equal to someone working at McDonalds.  Someone who can't stand for more then ten minutes can't physically handle most of the menial jobs out there. Sometimes I watch all this, and I hate that guy so much who fired him at the last job in 2007, but then I think health-wise probably most of the narcissists would have booted him out. The fix was already in when the newspapers knew he was barely able to keep the 14 hour days going anymore.

 More and more disability is being reserved for the "Can't breathe" people like me. Many others don't get hired and cut out of the work-world but unless they know you can't walk or breathe normal like me, and a demanded work shift would mean an ambulance ride, they don't want to know. Something is wrong with that. How come there is never talk about progress when it comes to hiring practices? That's something I wonder about. The work-world is to be kept as mean and draconian as the worse 19th century factory.
Being scared for him and a little over-wrought and tired, I was writing stuff about "Why won't God help us?" and "How did our life come to this?" I was getting mad at God thinking, "Hey God, my husband has had it hard enough!" and then over life in general.  I wrote on my Facebook wall,

"For Christian friends, have you ever had a time where you felt like God was not hearing any prayers? What am I to make of this?" 
I told them I felt like God had left the building like Elvis and I had prayed about some issues for over a decade and been unable to fix them.  Watching someone else suffer so horribly who I loved was difficult. I did add I feared falling away and was not interested in going back to being an atheist. My husband would joke and say to me during some of these theological musings, "Just send Peep her suitcase full of 50s and 100s already!". Yes sometimes he can have a wry sense of humor.

Some friends reminded me to be careful to listen to God's Word and not abusive religious people in my mind like Mrs. Curses who threw up endless hoops for me to cross. Sometimes I think in our society a false view of God has been forwarded. There's many people who are finding out fast we do not fit in the Christian world. I even sat down and thought "Why am I angry at God?" Is it Him I am listening to or Judgmental people who told me that when bad things happen to me, that it means I do not have God's blessing?"

Remember Queen Spider and Mini-Me present themselves as ultra religious in the Catholic flavor.  I was told for many years that God favored those who He blessed. Narcissists will tell us, that poor or sick people did something "bad" to deserve it. I never judged people myself that way, but I internalized that crap when it came to me personally. Sometimes ACONs will hammer on themselves as much as the world does.

Christianity has gotten into the status and competition game. It's become STRIVE city too. The evangelical churches seemed like competition factories for who has the most loving families and picture perfect lives. They now have all the jockeying for "leadership" positions and family first teachings, that have helped to fuel all this. There's a reason the concerns of the poor and down and out get thrown out of the church window to vote in another blonde Richy Rich. They worship those who have achieved and those who have STRIVED and attained it all in this world instead of Jesus Christ.

 Rick Warren pushed it with the "What is your purpose stuff?" in Purpose Driven Life. Churches became more about life improvement and self improvement. A lot of people got left behind in all that. The more I thought about it, when husband got sick, and I was ranting about God even writing in my journal, "God why are you so mean to us?" and then feeling guilty over the times of some answered prayers, I thought, "Where is this stuff coming from? Whose judging me for being lacking, the judgmental people or God? I know keeping one's head on straight in this society can be crazy-making. It also produces a lot of the anxiety.

People who are told spiritually and otherwise that they must always be producing, and improving or showing evidence of being blessed in this world with God smiling favor upon them are very anxious people. There was part of me who even started getting embarrassed at seeing no improvements in our life or fortunes.  When one's social life becomes one of competition and fitting in instead of feeling loved and accepted in real relationships, people feel afraid. There's a lot of fearful people out there. They are scared. What are we scared of? Is it actual hunger or trouble or the loss of status and favor and love or being the one with the fingers all pointing at us?

One friend's advice was to let go and let God. They told me the more they stopped caring what happened to them the more peace they found. They had suffered from anxiety too and just got tired of worrying. They still make plans and do what they have to, to better their life but they don't get caught up in what could happen. It did help take stress and frustration away. They also mentioned sometimes people can get caught up in an always praying and never receiving mode. Yes, that probably happened to me. It was better to let things go.
I have ponder thoughts like I am tired of trying to swim against the current, and all this worrying, and trying to 'fix' or 'change" life instead of accepting what "is" was screwing me up and I wanted done with all of it. When one gets old, they want peace and rest. That's what I want.

Us ACONs can get caught up because we are always pushed to perform or impress or please that we learn not to just be. I actually had started working on stopping caring about what happens and realizing I can't control it anyway. I don't have that kind of control. It had cut down some of the worries but they were still happening.

Yes more happiness lies in the path of just letting it go and not worrying.

I told my husband we need to worry less. He worries a lot, and is like me in some ways. For the sake of his own health, he has to ease up and we both have to stop being so scared of the tsunami coming to overtake us. There's a point where you're running and fighting so hard just to survive, a lot of energy is getting expanded, but you're stuck running in the same place. He is of the age now too where he deserves some peace and quiet as well. If only they didn't design work itself now to be so maddening. He is one of those people who strived for success. He still does. He published a book in 2003 and used to have articles in national music magazines, he already has had success. I don't see it as "giving up" but a mellowing out. Still do what you can do but don't bang your head on the brick wall.

Like in others cases if they lose your job, there's not much they can do to stop it and you do what you can.  Still try and do what you have control over but realized you don't have control over a lot of things. I don't have the energy as much to fight the rising tides and the world has gotten more complex and scary. His stress needs lightened up for his health. The endless expectations of this world have beaten us both down.

 I got caught in fighter mode with all the illnesses and maybe it kept me alive longer but it has done other bad things to my psyche. The energy that kept me alive through severe abuse and when I was almost dead and 700lbs, fueled a fire in me that kept on burning hot. My friend's advice was good in helping me to think about mellowing out and find more peace. Let go and Let God. And I tell myself, "Oh you don't have to fix everything and it's not in your control anyhow". I'm done with the strive-a-thon beating so many others down. I pray my husband's health improves too.

Update: I don't believe in God anymore, not the Christian concept of one anyhow. Sadly I was talking to empty air.