It’s time to live the life I’m supposed to live, and not the life others have wanted me to. And, if I don’t really know what I’m doing, that’s great too!

Now that I’m probably out of burnout mode – I’ll be posting more on this later – I am making some plans. How will I do? Who knows? But, this is what I believe I need to do in order to get my life back on track after a very difficult last 2-5 years. It’s really been more like 20 years.

MY PLANS

1. Believe in myself.
2. Don’t get sucked into any more toxic relationships.
3. Don’t rely on my wife (or anyone else) to help me avoid or get out of toxic relationships. I wish things were different, but they are not.
4. Stop thinking my father will ever apologize, care, or show remorse.
5. Stop feeling guilty about not wanting to hug my mother. That is her fault.
6. Become more independent of my wife.
7. Don’t allow my wife to “manage” so much of my life.
8. Stop expecting an apology from people who have hurt me.
9. Accept that the worse a person treats me, the less likely it is that they will ever show me remorse. The two go hand-in-hand.
10. Be happy when I think about gaining my freedom.
11. Don’t let good relationships scare me.
12. Don’t let bad relationships in the past define me.
13. Stop expecting people to change, even if they know they should.
14. Stop expecting myself to change when others are being unreasonable.
15. Don’t expect anyone to care at all about autism.
16. Friendly ≠ Friend!
17. Run from vampires!
18. Just because someone might understand me doesn’t mean they treat me well.
19. There are bad people in this world, as much as I don’t want to believe that. 😦
20. I probably am not a bad person, but I will keep doing my best to not be.
21. Have good acquaintances, but be cautious before considering someone to be a friend.
22. Stop thinking I need any more friends than I have.
23. Stop worrying if I’m a horrible father! I’m better than my parents in many ways, and my children know that.
24. Keep working on creating and maintaining my personal boundaries.
25. Enforce my boundaries.
26. Stop worrying so much about upsetting other people. Remember how that’s worked out in the past.
27. If people don’t care, they don’t care. Yes, it’s that stupidly simple.
28. Follow the boundaries of others. If they are unfair or unreasonable, ignore the person, not the boundary.
29. Remind myself that I’ve been hurt before when people didn’t understand my boundaries.
30. Remind myself that I’ve been hurt before when I didn’t understand boundaries.
31. A world without personal boundaries could be hypothetically possible. But, that is, on paper, a fantasy world. In real life, it doesn’t work out.
32. Keep trying to believe and understand that boundaries are not just a neurotypical scheme to exclude me or upset me.
33. Setting boundaries does not mean someone hates me, or I hate them.
34. If I don’t make and keep boundaries for myself, someone will do it for me, and that’s not going to go well — ever.
35. Avoid being triangulated. Find a way out of any current triangulation. (Triangulation: caught in between two or more people or groups of people.)
36. Push back from “gaslighting” (minimizing someone else’s experiences, making them believe they are crazy, etc.). That includes gaslighting from people closest to me and from myself!
37. Don’t gaslight anyone else! Ever. I know how devastating that is.
38. If I let someone treat me a little badly, they will only get worse over time.
39. Celebrate the success I’ve had in forgetting about toxic people, and continue to celebrate all the days I don’t think about them.
40. Wish people well, but don’t let them suck me back in.
41. Do my best to maintain healthy relationships with my children. Encourage them to keep sharing their emotions, even when some might discourage it. They can with me, at least, and they will always know that.
42. Stand up to bullies when needed, but disengage if at all possible.
43. Continue seeing my autism therapist. She is so helpful!
44. Refuse to allow others to abuse or take advantage of me in any way.
45. Accept my wife values her image over the truth, her happiness over my pain, and her comfort over my questioning. That’s probably true for most people.
46. Remember that my wife is a generally nice and helpful person, moreso than most.
47. Don’t expect people to be honest – ever. This is frustrating!
48. My wife is most likely just exhibiting “normal” and “typical” behaviors more than I have been realizing.

40. Don’t judge neurotypicals too harshly. It’s not their fault their brains are normal.

41. Not everyone hates me. That’s illogical.
42. Not everything is my fault. That would be impossible.
43. Be happy that I don’t need people as much as I thought I did.
44. Feel relieved that others don’t need me as much as I thought they did.
45. Assume people are not telling the entire truth.
46. Don’t expect people to correct their mistakes, much less admit them.
47. Stop thinking my wife will be willing to admit to others (or herself) what mistakes she has made that have caused me much anxiety.
48. Stop worrying about why my wife insists on everything being happy all the time.
49. Be thankful for all the things my wife does to help me, but don’t allow her to control my life.
50. Stop grieving the loss of people. I’ve done that long enough now. They are gone, and that’s just how life works. Everyone knows that’s the deal.
51. Find people who can support me in the various ways I require it, or find a way to not need support.
52. Assume people don’t care.
53. Do whatever makes me happy, as long as I’m not causing anyone else to suffer.
54. Don’t stop asking “why” entirely, but find new ways to ask it, so some NTs won’t freak out. Discussed in a prior post
55. Don’t allow myself to spread the toxins others have injected into me. Get rid of them!
56. Create something new every day!
57. Breathe, drink water, stretch, exercise, good sleep, cut back on electronics.
58. Don’t worry about what other people think of me.
59. Be kind, but don’t be an idiot.
60. Nice people are not always good people. Mean people are not always bad.
61. I’ve always believed there is good and bad in everyone. Don’t let a few people make me change that view.
62. Other people’s jealousies have caused me a lot of pain. Don’t forget this!
63. Remember that I’m an easy target for people with certain “bad” qualities.
64. Stop beating myself up for not realizing people were taking advantage of me, even after I was warned. I made a mistake. Mistakes happen. Move on.
65. To not move on after one mistake is another mistake!
66. At some point, get out of the mistake trap.
67. Stop trying to understand people.
68. Don’t feel guilty about things that were out of my control.
69. Many things are out of my control.
70. Don’t let others control me.
71. Be more mindful of when I’m controlling others, even if I’m not aware of it.
72. Do not panic when one little thing goes wrong.
73. I am not my father.
74. I am not my mother.
75. Don’t be overwhelmed by empathetic feelings for others.
76. Don’t take on others’ emotions as my own.
77. It’s not bad to be empathetic; just don’t let it kill me.
78. Only an idiot would attempt to fix everything. Don’t be an idiot.
79. Don’t get too excited about any new job. Just do it as well as I can, and try not to become too close to anyone.
80. I now realize some people like to create drama, even when it hurts others.
81. When someone tells me to “think outside the box,” I need to assume that means for me to just think like I normally do and not take it to another level. It’s just another silly NT phrase, after all.
82. Stop worrying about what my wife actually thinks about me and focus on doing good things.
83. Stop expecting my wife to help me with my job (or anything else). If I fail, I’ll do it on my own.
84. Don’t be overly-excited about meeting new people or having a new job or doing anything new. Accept it won’t last.
85. Be at peace that there are people who have enjoyed hurting you in the past.
86. Believe the people who have told me that others have taken advantage of me.
87. Trust my long-time therapist, boss, and many others are not just trying to make me feel better when they tell me not to blame myself over what others have done.
88. Stop being frustrated by people who don’t seem to care how much I’ve tried to do the right thing but only focus on how I’ve irritated them in some, usually unspecified, manner.
89. Don’t forget my mistakes; apply them to the future.
90. Forget about ever talking to my wife about things that make me sad or anxious.
91.  📦🦝 It may be time to put them away, along with many other things. Declutter.
92. Get a proper amount of sleep every night.
93. I am good enough for myself.
94. Grieve that I never had the parents that my siblings and I deserved.
95. Rejoice in the fact I’m not alone in my grief.
96. Don’t expect my wife to ever understand complex emotions or trauma.
97. Don’t give up on helping my wife to understand incrementally more about me over time.
98. Continue to find ways to understand my wife more.
99. Find ways to practice being more independent, even if it’s only an exercise.
100. Show my children that I don’t quit, so they won’t ever think that is an option.
101. Stop blaming myself for everything that has ever gone wrong in my life.
102. Stop trying to figure out who is to blame in every situation.
103. Sometimes, nobody is at fault. The universe is a hostile place.
104. Take comfort in knowing who I am, and who I am is perfectly OK.
105. Be glad that I know I am not the kind of person who purposely hurts others.
106. Remember that some people have seemed to appreciate me in the past.
107. Not everyone hates me.
108. I don’t care what my father thinks of me or anyone else.
109. I don’t care what my mother thinks of me or anyone else.
110. I wasn’t a bad child. My siblings were not bad children. If anyone was “bad,” it was my parents.
111. I will be careful not to come across as “blaming” others, doing the best I can to use proper neurotypical speech.
112. NTs who are unwilling to understand me and figure out and understand my communication style is different than theirs don’t have any good place in my life.
113. I’ve been trying my entire life to fit in and understand what the hell is going on with people. I’m not going to apologize for that, especially when I know how hard I’ve worked – harder than most, I’m certain.
114. I won’t let toxically positive people make me paranoid.
115. I won’t let toxically negative people make me paranoid.
116. I won’t paranoid about being paranoid.
117. What’s that noise?
118. Schedules are good. When am I supposed to finish mine? I need a schedule!
119. Autism is not an excuse for every mistake I make, but it is an explanation for many atypical behaviors and misunderstandings. There is comfort in having an explanation, to know I’m not as bad as people have made me feel.
120. Allow myself to be happy and sad at the same time, for what I’ve had and lost, and what I will have in the future.
121. I don’t need people as much as they wanted me to think I needed them.
122. I deserve to be happy, and I will be. I already am.
123. When I am ready, I will reconnect to people I’ve been ignoring. (That’s almost everyone!) There is no need to rush back into the neurotypical fray.
124. Do not attempt to do all of these at once, or in one day, or in a month, etc.
125. Don’t worry if I don’t do all the items on this list.