Since last year I have been undergoing Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) for PTSD from an isolation that I felt powerless to change. At the start I had to write a narrative about Why the Traumatic Events Occurred. My task now is to replicate that narrative with what I understand about myself now. I have been working for three days now and I hope a sense of what I have learned has finally gelled. Here it is to let me know if I have avoided non sequiturs. After this, I am feeling good about myself.
My neurology complicated my life, especially socially when it amplified the negative. Yet the positives; the interests, the focus that let me be ultimately successful at work and prepare for retirement, to live in a beautiful area, with friends and accepting acquaintences, I would never want to relinquish.
Part of my success has to do with things that I formerly thought far beyond my capabilities as I was never successful in things like sports which we were told, as men, we were supposed to value.
I cannot be envious of others. Measuring myself against others started me on the road to hating myself.
I told myself lies that prevented me from having a full life as a teen and young adult. My mind took things as rejection even if, in truth, they were not, and just ordinary miscommunications or brainfarts. I need to forgive myself for that. I do not know what my mind was trying to protect?
I am not the person that I was at my loneliest. I have matured socially and am happy that while I may not have been Susan's first, I was the last lover she wanted. I just wish I could have parented that younger me, to offer the guidance that I never received but sorely needed.
Overcoming my isolation, especially as I was not aware of my ASD, means that I should have confidence in my value. Should I be bereft of Susan, some woman will be lucky to have a loving, interesting, and self-sufficient man, me.
I am starting to see the wisdom of Hunter S. Thompson. Being spiritual, I believe this is the only life we have: death is just like it was before being born. So: "Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!" Hunter S. Thompson.
My neurology complicated my life, especially socially when it amplified the negative. Yet the positives; the interests, the focus that let me be ultimately successful at work and prepare for retirement, to live in a beautiful area, with friends and accepting acquaintences, I would never want to relinquish.
Part of my success has to do with things that I formerly thought far beyond my capabilities as I was never successful in things like sports which we were told, as men, we were supposed to value.
I cannot be envious of others. Measuring myself against others started me on the road to hating myself.
I told myself lies that prevented me from having a full life as a teen and young adult. My mind took things as rejection even if, in truth, they were not, and just ordinary miscommunications or brainfarts. I need to forgive myself for that. I do not know what my mind was trying to protect?
I am not the person that I was at my loneliest. I have matured socially and am happy that while I may not have been Susan's first, I was the last lover she wanted. I just wish I could have parented that younger me, to offer the guidance that I never received but sorely needed.
Overcoming my isolation, especially as I was not aware of my ASD, means that I should have confidence in my value. Should I be bereft of Susan, some woman will be lucky to have a loving, interesting, and self-sufficient man, me.
I am starting to see the wisdom of Hunter S. Thompson. Being spiritual, I believe this is the only life we have: death is just like it was before being born. So: "Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!" Hunter S. Thompson.
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