Putting my superhero cape on

I get tired of seeing people put down.

I get tired of seeing people excluded, simply because others cannot deal with the fact of their pain. And their contradictions.

I get tired of seeing people treated with the same disdain and disregard that I’ve been, so often in my life – and currently, as well.

I get tired of it all.

And I’m in a position to do something about it – speak up, speak out, and offer a different point of view that supports and validates the experiences of others.

I’m not interested in changing the ideas and behavior of those who exclude and marginalize and oppress others in however many ways. I don’t even want to challenge them, because that just makes them more defensive, more self-righteous, more determined to do what they do and say what they say. I’m not feeding that impulse. Their sh*t is their sh*t, and I’m never going to change their own experience or their biochemistry that kicks them into non-thinking fight-flight attack mode.

I am interested in supporting people who need help holding their heads up, in offering words of encouragement… ideas they can actually use to effect positive change in their lives. I want to put my energy towards building up the people who desperately want to build, not joining the tear-down people in their narrow-minded ideological circle jerks.

And that’s something I think can make a positive difference.

I could have really benefitted from hearing from / about someone like me, when I was struggling all those years with the sensory issues, the light sensitivity, intolerance of noise, troubles with something as simple as a hug or a touch on the arm, balance issues, confusion, focus issues, social cluelessness… all of it turning my life into a non-stop obstacle course that left me exhausted at the end of each and every day.

I could have really used some encouragement, some support, some new ideas and proof of what else — what more — is possible in my world.

I could have used some stories about people just like me, struggling with what I struggled with, who made it through — and didn’t just survive, but thrived.

That would have been super for me. Anybody who’d done that for me, would have been a hero in my eyes.

Time to don my cape. And just be the superhero I would have been to myself, all those many, many, many years.

Survival is one of my superpowers. Thriving is another. And telling the tales is the most important one of all.

Stories matter. Mine do, too.