I was diagnosed at a young age and went through the special education system in public schools. Family is incredibly important to me as I grew up in a large supportive family. I enjoy being outside in nature and arts and crafts.
View all postsI am more than enough!
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Some things in my life have been remarkably consistent going back years since I was ten. It was around that age that I found out my official diagnosis of autism, ADHD and some learning disabilities to boot. About that same time, I went from “more than enough” to “not quite enough,” at least in my own head. I would constantly compare myself to my same age peers and other people in my life.
This constant comparing myself to others wasn’t good for my mental health. It led me to feel angry, anxious, insecure, and jealous, plus a host of other negative emotions. This emotional weight slowed me down and made me more critical of myself. I would try so hard, and I would work as fast as possible, but I usually felt like I was lagging behind. This was especially hard at school because it looked like my peers were able to produce more published results than me on a consistent basis. For me, writing was physically and mentally painful as I have difficulty typing and writing, in addition to not spelling very well. This made a lot of things in school increasingly difficult. As a high school and college student, I needed my mom’s physical help and ability to spell to write my papers.
Even as an adult, it has meant I have to be creative, finding other ways to express myself since the traditional manners of communication like writing and typing are so difficult for me. A past employer told me to get help with my writing tasks from another staff member because my handwriting, grammar, and spelling was so bad. I was incredibly embarrassed then and I still think about this many years later.
Why am I blogging about not feeling like I’m enough? The reason is because May is National Mental Health Awareness Month and this year’s campaign is #MoreThanEnough. I was checking out the NAMI website https://www.nami.org/Get-Involved/Awareness-Events/Mental-Health-Awareness-Month and the theme for this year. I am excited about it because it is a subject that affects me a lot.
I strongly feel that believing I’m more than enough rather than the opposite will benefit my life greatly. I don’t think it’s easy to change my thoughts and attitude, but I know it’s very important and worthwhile to do so. I’ve been thinking about things that could change my life for the better. I will attempt to be more willing to try difficult things. I can apologize less and say “thank you” less. I say thank you and apologize way too much which are both things that can make my life more complicated. I will try to speak up more about things that are important to me even if it makes me uncomfortable. Most importantly, I’ll try to be more realistic when I’m comparing myself to others, especially if I don’t know them well.
What do you think of the campaign #MoreThanEnough? Do you think the campaign applies to your life or someone you know? What would you change about your life right now? If you feel up to it, consider answering these questions for yourself. You may also find it useful to check out the website for yourself. I hope you have found this interesting and thought-provoking. Best of luck to all of my readers.
Out-of-Sync Woman
