Dear Anon(s)
What you've done is taken away my pride, joy, confidence, and sense of self-worth. It's horrible to be suddenly tripped and slammed into the ground. It's horrible to have come so far only to be crushed again. It's not okay to be treated as if you have no value as a person, to not be consulted for things even directly involving you. Intense emotion is expressed in a multitude of ways- it's soul-wrecking to pour your heart into something just to end up with negative return.
Did you know intense emotion, empathy, and sympathy are theorized to be characteristic of Aspies? But so are sensory issues. And to perceive something so strongly often causes one to shutdown or lash out, especially if one struggles to communicate what one feels. Or has no-one to communicate it to.
Did you know it's been a struggle to become confident enough to speak to anyone on any level? I still feel like I put myself at risk every time I express myself. There's not a specific fear, just a persistent fear that something will go wrong. That people will turn on me, that people will hate me, I don't know. I'd say it's an irrational fear, but it's been proven to be rational time and time again. Makes it very difficult to connect with people. Or, you know, do anything. A crippling fear of being negatively judged leads me to do nothing most of the time and just hate myself all the more for being useless and incapable of anything worthwhile.
But I didn't do nothing this time, did I? I built something great. I cheerfully poured my heart into it. I fought my own fears and misgivings to do what I knew would work. I convinced myself to put so much effort into it, because I knew it would be worth it. I had to fight my own self every time I brought something up, every time I offered my opinion, every time I tried something new. And I did a lot of that. Most things worked out alright, but some things utterly failed. But for once in my life, I was at a point where I could tell myself it was okay. Because I could just try another thing. I don't think you understand how hard it was to convince myself of that.
But was it worth it?
Was it worth it to grow to that point only to be cut down once again? People tend to say it is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. But is it really? Is it really worth it to do something you can be proud of only to watch it all crumble before your eyes? Sometimes people say that if you've reached that point and fallen, you can certainly get there again. But is it worth it to try if you're just going to fall again? It hurts to fall. Is that hurt worth all the work to get so high in the first place? The higher you climb, the further you fall, after all. And the further you fall, the more it's going to hurt.
Especially when no one's there to catch you.