Shayne HolzmanSearch For Your Soul
Have you ever felt like you lost yourself and are trying to find yourself and realize you were here all along? Soul searching is an important process. I think it’s really important to notice your emotions and thoughts and how they influence who you have become in your life. The past shapes us, but doesn’t make us who we are. Instead, what we have gone through in the past has prepared us for the present struggle at hand.
People with developmental disabilities are born with struggles they must face for the rest of their lives and that’s okay and a normal process of life. We may struggle more than others, but that doesn’t mean we are doomed. We may have special abilities that a lot of people don’t have and that makes up for the difficult parts of us that we have to face.
1991, The Resilient One
Born under the weather in 1991, I was a wild child fighting for my life. Now at 33, I can see who I am now, surviving on my own in a new and positive way. Recently, I felt I had lost my soul, as I have erased thinking about my birth story every day. Since I was born extremely early, that felt like the only part of me that made me resilient and strong my whole life. Obviously, that is not true, and it never was, but it was hard for me to see for a long time.
All There Is In Me
Up until 3 days ago, I found myself not thinking about my birth story every day and now I am trying to shape my adult self in hopes of finding what makes me strong and resilient now, instead of back then. I have given up thinking about my birth story that I’ve thought of since I was 16 when my dad told me my heroic story.
At first, when I didn’t think of my birth every day it was difficult because I felt I was completely lost. After I got used to not thinking about my birth history, I realized I’m in such a better place and I feel I can succeed independently as an adult. Now that I have given up thinking about my birth story, I feel free and my opportunities and capabilities are limitless. I am realizing how I can shape the adult me, and I am in a better and different head space now. After all, I’m not a baby anymore.
Rewriting Your Past
I’ve always wished I could rewrite the history of how I was born, instead of holding on to the truth that I was born early, so I pretend I was born full-term. If I think I was born full-term, which is a false statement, maybe I can finally feel caught up with my peers because I am already ahead of the game and completely independent. So with a new outlook on life, I can consider myself to be a full functioning adult with full capability.
At a certain age, it’s very normal to have the desire to come into your own and figure out who you are on your own. Just because something is hard to figure out, does not mean help comes first. Help should be secondary, in that people with any kind of struggle needs to figure it out on their own, or else they won’t understand how to do something. There’s a difference between can’t and try. How do you know you can’t do something if you haven’t even tried yet. That’s how I always felt. People around me thought I couldn’t even do any kind of job, so I believed them when I shouldn’t have. The problem was never that I couldn’t do a job, it was a matter of having the experience of trying. My parents raised me with every indication of love, respect and support so I could succeed and be who I am, just like every parent should. In. My opinion, I feel my parents helped me in my every corner because they were scared I would fail, but that’s how you learn. You learn by failing and when you learn to fail you learn to succeed. Besides, no one succeeds at everything they do, that’s why you learn by failing at what you do and the more you do it, the more you succeed. Now as I am older, my new story begins and I have started to write my new story all by myself. I feel as if I found my wings in life and I can fly high all by myself.
Stepping Into Who I Am
Who I am is not who I was back then, but subconsciously I wasn’t ready to accept that and move on. I felt trapped in my childhood, in the role of being dependent and being taken care of. I think it’s really hard when people around you see you struggle and over-help you. It’s one thing to help someone because everyone needs help and its another thing to over-help. When we over-help someone who doesn’t need it or no longer needs it, the person with a disability doesn’t learn.
So how does someone with a neurodevelopment disability learn? We learn by doing, but if everyone in your every corner helps you too much, it makes learning who you are and how much you can handle on your own much harder. Sometimes over-helping someone with a disability can be stifling to those with autism, even if it is out of an act of pure love. This is exactly how I used to feel. It was really hard because I had the capacity to do adult things even though I needed help in certain areas, I never had to the confidence to have a job until I was 30 years old. I think my lack of confidence not only came from struggling to meet milestones at my age, but also from the fact that my parents did everything for me growing up. But of course they would, why wouldn’t they? If you had a child born as fragile as a feather who couldn’t fly on their own and struggled for each step a long the way, wouldn’t you help them in every way?
Rewriting Your Own Narrative The good thing about living through struggles is that you have a chance to rewrite your life. You can rewrite your experiences by changing how you relate to your problems and thinking differently about the challenges that you face. So when you feel lost as a person in this world, I hope you find who you are again