Let it… No? Those aren’t the words to a familiar song, but
as the familiar song goes the purpose is to let it go but that’s a concept
foreign to me and I was having an issue a couple nights ago and my dad told me
to just, “let it go” but it was then I realized that, quite simply, I couldn’t.
This is a story I hear frequently; an event that stays days,
weeks, or even years after the fact and for me the stories I hear are just a
reminder of my inability to let things go. A good example, and this didn’t
happen to me, was there was a student that hit a student with Asperger’s in
school and the student with Asperger’s complained to the teacher. This was
investigated at the story was true, but the timeline of the incident was that
the event occurred years previous to when the student said it. The student
informed each teacher throughout the years and yes, it was fact but the ability
to let it go and move on was not.
Why is this? Why is there this inability to move on form
something? First, the concept of time is different for myself and others on the
spectrum, in that everything is now. Events of grade school are just as fresh
in my mind now as they were then. Secondly is anxiety. In the previous
paragraph the student that talked about being hit, to him, was always at risk
because if it happened once it will certainly happen again because it feels as
if it just did.
In my life this has been one of the most constant echoing
themes which has brought me down the most and it doesn’t take much. In a
conversation one single word can get me caught up on it and the ability to move
past it isn’t there. It festers and then it grows in size and eventually it
becomes so big it begins feeding off its own size and what to most would be an
irrelevant event has become this gigantic monstrosity that has essentially
paralyzed my ability to focus.
Going back last week to my post regarding the contradictions
of Asperger’s is important because I know
I should just be able to move on, but I can’t. My body tells me otherwise and
maybe this is all rooted in fear. Of course, dwelling on something in the past
doesn’t help a thing and I know this and yet when I get hung up on something be
it something I did, or something someone else said, I can’t simply let it go.
It stays, lingers, and much like the hideous aroma of rotten milk it dampens
spirits.
This is something that you’ll either understand or you won’t.
If you live with it you’re thinking, “Yes, someone gets it!” and if you haven’t
lived with this then you’re probably perplexed and this is understandable
because I can’t see living with the ability to let things go. I talk about the
fact that “understanding is the foundation for hope” but the art of
understanding is becoming more complex and I hope to, in tomorrow’s post,
expand upon why I feel the dimensions of understanding are more complex than I
used to realize.
Thank you! I just started following your posts on Facebook, and this I totally get.
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