When It’s Best to Not Speak Up

I tend to have regular periods of down time, that is… feeling really defeated, really overwhelmed… like a total and complete failure. Actually, I feel like that all the time but sometimes it really drags me down more so than others. The struggle I have at these times is whether or not to reach out for support or words of encouragement or just keep it to myself.

Most of the time, like 99% of the time, there are no words of encouragement that will get me out of it… pretty much, I just have to ride it out until one day I wake up and the feeling isn’t so bad.  Still, I tend to keep hitting facebook or twitter or anywhere and everywhere with some rather negative and depressing messages because there is simply nothing else that I can write.

The end result is that a few times a day, I end up typing out something that I really want to hit enter on but never actually do. People are going to ignore it anyway, or not know what to say or in those rare times, actually say something nice to me and I’ll dismiss it anyhow.

The point I’m getting at is, in the Autism community online, we are all there to support and motivate and share stories… we’re also there to help pick each other up when we’re feeling down but sometimes, when you are just going through a rough patch, it’s best to just keep those sites closed, or keep the keyboard away from yourself.

I could go into a bunch of ‘techniques’ to perk yourself back up, such as getting out of the house, indulging yourself in something you enjoy, what ever… but it’s so much more simple than that. If you know that you may wake up feeling better tomorrow or one day soon, then just don’t speak up until then.

People won’t forget about you, people won’t have lost interest in you… there’s no harm in taking a breather even at the best of times, so don’t feel bad taking a breather at the worst of times too.

Now, that’s not to say that when times are truly difficult that you can’t feel terrible and reach out for support and help… that’s different. I’m just talking about the low patches we all get at random times when we just feel defeated and your only intention is to share negativity with others.

There’s an old expression: “Don’t drag everyone else down with you”. It’s a very difficult urge to resist but sometimes just knowing you resisted that urge is enough to help you feel a little bit better about yourself and thus, break out of that funk.

I have a lot of experience with this, I get into those ‘moods’ a lot. If you don’t see any updates from me for a few days, chances are, that’s why. I’m just taking a breather, I’ll always be back.