Why I write

 One thing about me is that I'm passionate about raising awareness about mental health, mental illness and PTSD/CPTSD.  What happened in my past happened so that God could be glorified.   

I'm not trying to be preachy it's just as a follower of Jesus I do believe there is a God given purpose for my sufferings and the things that I have gone through.  I want to make sure that what happened to me does not happen to anyone else.  When a person works in supported independence they should be there not for a paycheck but because they are passionate about the people that they work with that they want to assist them.  

I have lived in supported independence for years and met a lot of great people and most all of them have been people passionate about caring for those with mental illnesses or developmental conditions like autism.   Stan is one in 3 million.  But it's that one in 3 million that concerns me.   Many people have gone through that experience of being misunderstood or verbally threatened.   And many of them have carried the hurt for years inside.  

The best way to help is to be a friend and support, to scoot up alongside and walk with us and understand the past that is causing us so much hurt and anger.   That's the start to the road to healing.    For me the pain ate me alive for a lot of years.  And it was not just Stan it was others.   Most of us on the autistic spectrum just want to make friends and we want to be understood.  That's certainly been my greatest wish over the years.  Thankfully I work with a great bunch of people at my company that understand and love walking this walk with me.  

For years I carried that pain bound up on the inside.   Part of me was scared that when I would talk to people Stan would come out of their mouths.   There are four ways a person with trauma can react.  We can either fight, we can flee, we can fawn or we can just freeze up.  For me it was a combination of fighting and freezing.    The wrong comment and all that regressed anger can come flying out.   For me there are triggers.   For instance, someone could speak with the same North Carolina drawl that Stan spoke with and use some of his same words and that would be enough to set off a reaction.  That's what happened when I went to work with SAE and I ended up working with a man that was a drinking and talked in somewhat the same matter as Stan did.  He had that same "Ghetto" attitude and on top of that he was a drinker just the same as Stan.   That was all it took for me to be majorly triggered.  I didn't know why I was so upset or would fight back and get so angry when he would yell but now I understand.  It was repressed anger that I had been hanging onto for years.  

I'm reading a book right now called How to Win Friends and Influence People.    In the first chapter the author Dale Carnegie writes about how you shouldn't kick over the beehive if you want to gather honey.    For me sometimes I struggle with reading people or reading their emotions and I frankly have had a lot of trouble navigating the social jungle as a person on the spectrum.  Some people are well meaning but at the same time they inadvertently kick over the beehive

For instance so long ago I was riding to GVSU with a bunch of college students on a bus that was operated by the Rapid, our local transit authority.   I wanted what everyone else wanted, to just be one of the guys and make friends with people.   Unfortunately I came across wierd to people.  In one case another girl stood in front of a girl that i was trying to get to know and told me basically that she didn't like me and the girl didn't like me either.   That stung me.   There would be a girl that would get on near the college and I would always talk to her.   I don't think she understood me and was a bit wierded out by me.  

It's like I'm on another planet.  I want to be social, I want to get to know people but at the same time I think a lot of people don't understand me or the way I talk and so on and they get wierded out.  And I've held onto this pain for so many years.  

I just want a chance. At work.  At my church (I know they love me there), and in my family as well.

God bless you all.