I’m just going to tell it like it is. No need to sugarcoat what my life is like lately. So, why is this post titled “The End Of The Road”? Well, that’s what my situation feels like. It’s just that, and there’s no point in continuing. I’m usually the one helping others, and I kind of always have been. I don’t consider this a bad thing, helping others brings me so much joy.That’s something I’ve been proud of. I’ve saved people’s lives. I’ve changed them.However, I’ve been forgetting one important thing. Myself. Honestly, I feel like I’ve been focusing SO much on changing the lives of other people that I’ve forgotten to focus on self-care. And that’s the problem here. The more I help people, the more inspiring I become to them. But, I just don’t think feeling so powerless and anxious is inspiring, at all. It’s not inspiring to worry all the time. It’s not inspiring to have a developmental disability that seems to control your social life. I was diagnosed back in 2015, confirming all my fears. “Autism Spectrum Disorder”, they said. Those words still make me feel panic. And this why I’m here now. Telling you how powerless, anxious, and worried I am for the future. Should I continue to help people? Is it worth it? Should I focus on self-care, knowing that my friends will be worried about me until I recover? Or should I do some completely different thing? Is my situation hopeless? Geez, I hope it’s not. No situation should never feel that way. It’s just, I’ve done this alone for so long. that I can’t do anything alone anymore. I hope my story gets someone, anyone, to help me. Because, man, do I need it right now.
Hey man, you’re not alone in so much of what you’re feeling. In our community there are a lot of well-intentioned people who burn out because it’s easier to help others than help yourself. I understand that myself too. It’s vulnerable to say, “I’m struggling, I need help.” Especially when you feel you’re in a position as “helper” or whatever. I get it too because I hid for a long time working at HS, pretending I wasn’t still struggling with an addiction to porn. Helping others every day but feeling like a fake, or like I was empty, or slowly withering away…my care started to slip, and I just wanted to hide. So that’s what I did, for a long time. I felt completely stuck and ashamed. You’re not alone in anything you’re facing.
Here’s what I’ve learned recently as I stepped out of denial about my struggles:
- you don’t have to be healed to be helpful
- the most helpful people are actively healing
- you can receive help while giving help
- you can’t advice anyone to do something you’re unwilling to do (get help yourself before you advise someone else to do that)
- your most powerful impact is your example, not your advice
Pursue healing first. By doing that, you’re actually helping people in and of that activity itself. But getting help doesn’t disqualify you from helping others. It actually helps you help them.
Glad you took the first step by reaching out here. What I’m saying is: keep going. The better you are, the better others will be as a result too.
Sometimes being broken is what makes some of us relate more with others than when everything is going well. For me, I’ve this delusion (Yes I know it) that our emotions come from nature. Animals, humans, etc. have them. So whether you’re an Atheist or some sort of Theist or inbetween, etc. We all have them whether we’re connected to these feelings or not.
So we all have a compacity to relate. We all in a way have the opportunity to sympathize, empathize or decide to be apathetic. It doesn’t matter because we are all in one way or another connected directly or indirectly through nature. IMO
So when we hurt we may get defensive, we may be vulnerable and others may be more open. Yet when we’re hurt we are all honest. When our feelings flow, no matter if we’re misguided, ill-informed or just excited. We have the capacity to be humane towards one another. That is what makes anyone capable to being human in times where you may think you’re less than human or ashamed of being human or not human at all.
Sometimes the best times to be human is when you’re so broken you can’t be fixed.