Kevin Davy<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://a.gup.pe/u/actuallyautistic" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@<span>actuallyautistic</span></a></span> </p><p> One of my most self annoying habits, is feeling that I have to justify my existence. In part, it is the autistic style adoption of the capitalistic work ethic to ridiculously rigid levels. Damn my black and white thinking. But mostly, it comes from a lifetime of knowing that I was different, but for the largest part of it not knowing why. It meant that I never saw my life, or the way I needed to live it, reflected anywhere else and so never had the chance to learn to see it as normal. So naturally, of course, I believed that the onus was on me to somehow have to justify it, because how else could I even begin to feel good about that?</p><p> This led me to pushing myself far more than I ever needed to. To feeling that time spent on myself, especially the wasted time of just enjoying a comfort show, or re-reading a comfort book, and especially doing as little as possible in order to rest, was always wasted time. That it wasn't justified and that therefore it was worthy only of guilt and remorse and that, as I'm obviously not doing anything better, that it was time better spent beating myself up about it. </p><p> The more spoons become an issue, as I get older and iller, the more annoying this habit becomes. But, it is a hard one for me to beat, as it's been a false way of judging myself for far too long. It's hard to just be myself and do what I need to do, especially if it means doing very little. But that is what is so often required when the spoons have been used up, or are low, and feeling guilty about that is what is actually not justified. The simple fact of it all, is that we live lives by a different rhythm. Ignoring that is what does the damage, not embracing it. And feeling that we have to somehow justify our needs, is the real negativity and wrongness. </p><p><a href="https://beige.party/tags/Autism" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Autism</span></a> <br><a href="https://beige.party/tags/ActuallyAutistic" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>ActuallyAutistic</span></a></p>