Fear Versus Fear
Again, this chapter is so right, so
precise, and filled with so much of the emotions that are hidden well below the
surface. Early in this chapter I talk about money and the amount I was talking
about in this chapter was having $1,000 in the bank. That was it. I had been
flirting with being at $0 so often that my mind would always, ALWAYS, be
worried about the next credit card payment.
When I wrote this I never could’ve
imagined being able to make a car payment, or a house payment. While I am at
this point now the fear vs. fear concept is still there. The stressors may have
changed, somewhat, but fighting fears of daily life remain. How long will I
have a job? Will I ever be in another relationship? Can things truly be better?
These questions go on, and on, and on. They repeat and then repeat the repeat.
As with the other chapters recently this is another one that I can’t add too
much on because I still consider them right and there’s nothing more to add
except that the game I quoted at the start is now tied for amount of innings
played, but a game between the Giants and Nationals in last year’s NLDS in the
sport of baseball had a longer amount of time played.
Sentence
You want a short chapter that
summarizes where I was? The chapter “Sentence” is it. I still couldn’t tell the
story of the first website I found, which said there was no hope, but the
firsts that came from my first few weeks of knowing were awful.
This is where I hope there is true
change in this world. The battle I’m fighting is in essence born from the way I
felt and the way I described my life in this chapter. When I wrote this I felt
as if my life had already been lived and that there was no possibility of
anything ever becoming better. It’s still a battle I face, myself, and I have
to constantly remind myself that these thoughts are wrong. It’s difficult, I
can’t lie, but deep down I know these words are wrong.
One of the battles here is the
media. The media can very easily create one of these sentences that I refer to.
Before I get to that, I’ll explain I feared that my diagnosis was a life
sentence of solitary confinement and there would be no changing that regardless
of how hard I tried. Now enter the media; when a news story happens and all people on the autism spectrum are
lumped together and generalizations are made and there are no mentions that, “if
you’ve met one person with autism you’ve only met one person with autism” it is
very easy to create a sentence in one person’s brain.
Awareness and understanding are the
way to combat this and one of the many different reasons I do what I do is
because of this chapter. This may read as one of my most depressing chapters,
and it very well may be, but it’s still there because I’m here now. When I
wrote this hope wasn’t in my dictionary, vocabulary, nor would it be something
I’d ever imagine and yet, here I am. That’s where the hope lies. We are all
going to take different paths, and no two people are going to have the same
story, but even though things may seem and appear hopeless things can change. What I saw as a sentence
that all but guaranteed that my life would never amount to anything was
actually a calling, not a sentence, and now I wouldn’t trade what I have for
anything in the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment