Advice

Every day of my life I have received advice. 

Some good; "Pack your bag the night before school" Grandma. c.2000

Some bad; "Nah, it's fine to go out drinking tonight, it's Wednesday!" Random Uni Student. c.2007

Some weird; "You shouldn't eat oranges when your pregnant, they'll make the baby spotty" Random person in a restaurant to a pregnant me. c.2013 

My problem is that I internalise every piece of advice, even the ridiculous ones, and they all get mulched up into a ball of confusion. 

Everybody gives advice, everybody receives it too, there's nothing wrong with that. I have had some pretty awesome advice, usually when I least expect it, but my main issue is with conflicting and unwelcome advice. 

I get these a lot, usually from random people I don't know but sometimes from "friends" too. Yes, I know I'm not your "average person". Scarlet hair, very much on the heavy side, smoker, self employed, interesting fashion sense... but I'm still a person. I have had my fair share of cutting remarks disguised as helpful advice. Unfortunately I have tried to follow them instead of my own path and this has made me a nervous wreck when making choices. I reckon most people have had this too and it sucks. 

Apparently I should eat less, eat more, eat grains, don't eat carbs, eat lots of meat, be vegan, fast, don't starve yourself, cut down calories, don't count calories, have 3 meals a day, have 6 small meals a day, follow a diet plan, eat natural, eat ready meals, eat palm sized amounts, unlimited amounts, high fat, low fat, no fat. 

As you can see, I am very clear on what a healthy diet is...

Obviously, I know smoking is bad for me. I know that dying my hair too much might have a damaging effect on my do. I know that comfort eating is bad. I know that being self employed is more difficult and a risk. 

But never once has anyone asked me why I do it. They just jump straight in with their 2-peneth and seem offended if I don't immediately start to live by it. 

I appreciate advice. I thank everyone who cares enough to impart knowledge that has helped them. Some of it has been very useful and I religiously live by it. It shows a caring side to human nature that people want to help everyone they see, but it's not possible to follow every piece of advice given.

Sometimes it gets more confusing than the government guidelines for social distancing...

“But this isn’t related to autism!!” I hear you cry, shocked and amazed that I could possibly talk about something else. However, as an autistic person, everything I am is related to autism, so I guess it could be. But also, we’re people too, with people-problems, people-hang ups, people-ideas. 

I do wonder if I follow so much advice because I am so scared of getting things wrong again. There are only so many times you can be told you need to change how “wrong” you are, before you start to internalise it. And that most certainly is autism based. 

I guess I can only guess....

Much love!

JWD