This can be a trap. One thing too if you are like me and know you are "different" from society, an Aspie, an artist and what some people would consider "eccentric", you are told in endless ways to scale yourself back. To pretend to fit in. Us Aspies especially when high functioning are told to "cloak" and always work on being socially acceptable.
My family rejected the real me. As I grew older and realized others liked my artistic and free thinking bent, and my intellectual forays and didn't spit on them every chance they got, inside I grew to like who I was more and more.
I don't want to try so hard. Take it from me, that is wasted effort around people who reject who you are. Go find the ones who like you. They are out there. I felt like my mother literally wanted to squish the real me out too, stomp me into the ground. Smakintosh would agree this would be to squish the light out!
One thing I am realizing is I can't keep company with people who reject me as the person I am.
I always felt I was a nothing, not even able to have an opinion. I was raised to be a prop. Props don't talk, don't think. Even the real me of today goes overboard and I get that, it is hard to be me. I don't even know who that is, and is a stranger to me when I am me.
ReplyDeleteThe first time my husband and I got into an argument, he said, "That is how you feel about it, not me!' And that was the most validation I ever got from anyone. I don't remember the exact argument, but I remember that line of his. It made me feel like a real person.
My former ex-husband would laugh at me if I said something, and made fun of me for thinking. I don't know how to explain it properly, but I love this topic, so fitting for me. I could talk all day on this.
I definitely felt that way too, I was a total wallflower until college and then I started talking back. I wish I had much earlier. Sure I fought a bit but that was the standard position. LOL that is validation someone admitting you have feelings of your own. I understand the types who invalidate via mocking everything that is said, it is an abuser's way to silence. I know with invalidation, they do block you out, they don't like what you are saying and refuse to hear or stop the conversation.
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