How do you stay positive?

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Everyone else's life (in my life) seems to be getting better or will soon. If you recall I'm still waiting on SSI to get fixed (some time next year!) My online Friend just got a full-time job so won't have as much time to email me anymore.

Sister in Law School becoming a lawyer!

16 year old sister PT (part time) job! (SURE she's blowing all her money though lol!)

Mom got a raise at work!

I am looking forward to two vacations with the family a resort in a few weeks and a cruise in December but my life is a wreck waiting and waiting for SSI to get fixed. Looking towards in the future if this works out get a job coach and get help getting a PT job myself. But that's 1+ year OFF!

Considered exercising again even walking around the neighborhood at least (endorphins) and all that. and these "work" "job" "law school" people don't have time to exercise is that a plus? (only "plus" I see!)


Sometimes I just want to CRY! and it's so hard to be "positive!" With everyones success around me! Me doing NOTHING with my life! currently!

If you want to cry, you should.
Otherwise it builds up...

Besides that, pick out specific intrusive thoughts circling in your brain, like, "I'm doing nothing with my life!" you [mentally or out loud] tell that thought, "No!" and present it with a counter-argument.

1) You don't deserve to feel bad about yourself, especially on top of everything else you're dealing with. You should be mentally pampering yourself, like you are a baby bird that fell out of the nest and needs some nursing.

2) Most of those repeat thoughts are not logical, but emotional, and if you focus on/keep repeating the logical argument, you'll start being able to "shout it down". Like, you're not doing *nothing* with your life, you're doing what you need to and can in your particular circumstances. It's also not fair to compare you at a time that sounds like your "worst" to other people just living their normal lives. I'm sure they've all had hard times, and you've had better ones.

3) Even if a thought is correct, dwelling on it won't do anything to improve whatever is wrong. Quite contrary - you'll feel worse from thinking about it. So the third argument is, even if this thing is wrong and I can't do anything about it now, I can help myself to ultimately get to a better place by not dwelling on it and feeling bad. Then I'll have more energy/motivation/initiative to do stuff when I am able to do something about it.

Sure, they're cheesy and every time I have to start doing them again I feel silly. Even just doing them in my head.
But they help me

Thank You. I also have plenty of time to get into a video game or good book since I'm not as busy as other people. Also I am sort of happy I've been able to keep my weight off for nearly a year. I was 150lb. last Oct. nearing Oct. again and I'm 135 or less which I am grateful for. I'm also eating better and may start walking again. I am doing the best I can and what I can as of right now also (waiting over a year to fix this SSI issue.) I'm also planning for the future and what to do with I can get back on my feet such as a programming degree and not spend my monthly check all the time. Planning to better myself when this is fixed but "planning" is all it is at the moment and it will be awhile before it's fixed.

I don't have the stress these other people have in there lives that's sort of positive.

I've gone from 175 to 155 in the last six months.
While recovering from a massive flare-up of an imperfect body (scoliosis/muscle spasm/sacroiliitis).
During which time I finished studying .NET and started on Unity and Holographic for Hololens.

What fun coincidences.

It's an effort, but you will be able to retrain your inner monologue some over time.
Heck - you can even logic your negative thoughts away by pointing out to them that defeating them is a worthwhile use of your time.

I don't Yeah, that sounds like my family. Alwaying being top accountants or engineerings. They all got straight As. They all went to university straight after high school and got high paying jobs soon after graduating.

I resent them because I envy their achievements.

They all had part time jobs when they were in high school. I was so stressed with the workload in high school that I couldn't imagine having a part time job at the same time. I wouldn't have had enough time to do my homework or to rest. And yet even while combing school and work they still got much better grades them me.

My 15 year old cousin is in an upper upper middle class family, has a part time job (for the experience, they def don't need more money), does subjects above her year, gets straight As, never seems to get stressed out in spite of her massive workload, never had a weight problem like I did, she's going to become a veterinarian and unlike me, her parents are still together instead of separating when I was 3. I hate her!

And she's good at sports. And she plays the piano better than I do. She practically lives on KFC and McDonald's yet she doesn't get fat. I have to be hungry all the time just so I don't get fat again.

And everyone in my family got married before they turned 30. My other cousin got married a couple years ago and he's six months younger than me. I resent him most of all because he's a highly paid engineer and he got his driver's license three years before me and he moved out of home seven years before me and I absolutely hate how he and his wife look so happy together. He's naturally thin as well.

Aside from my mum I was the only fat person in my family. They all think I'm lazy because I'm not an overachiever like them. That veterinarian girl? Her mum, my aunt, who's the chief accountant for a large company hates me the most of all. When I dropped out of community college due to sever depression and interference from my meds, she told me I should just suck it up and called me a "namby pamby whinger". At least she thought I could achieve something (though she got mad when I didn't), my uncle was even worse. He thought I'd never amount to anything so I shouldn't even try.

Maybe I could have been a success like them if I didn't have depression and medication that fogged up my brain. But they think that's making excuses. They think if they had depression they'd still be equally successful. How would they know what it's like to be depressed when they're happy all the time? The only time when they're not happy is when they're complaining about me.

It's hard being lower middle class in a family of upper middle class narcissists. I guess I'm not posh enough for them. I hate middle class people. They're so shallow. They're even more shallow than rich people because of the way they pretend to be rich. Rich people don't need to do this because they're already rich. And middle class people always try to hide that they were poor a few generations ago. Grandpa was a janitor.

My upper middle class people are always preaching about how prim and proper they are and how they're all good Lutherans. It makes me sick. I hate the way they have such a perfect image. Yet acting like bogan as*holes to me doesn't seem to mar their perfectly prim and proper image for some reason.

My current plan for mental health is to stay negative and focus on how much I envy/hate people who are more successful than me and to spend time thinking regretting past decisions that lead to my relative lack of success.I know right! I makes me so mad I want to blow up the universe!

Stop comparing yourself to others. Drop the "should" statements in your head telling yourself that you should be here or you should be there at this age or that you should have this education or that you should have this money, this job or that success. Forget all of those expectations that society has arbitrarily imposed on your life. Life isn't an even playing field so your specific challenges whether they are autism or something else entirely different may be something you are struggling with but not something the person your comparing yourself has to struggle with at all.

Even if both people have the same condition autism(or any other specific life challenge), it can affect all of us differently so it isn't fair to yourself to compare yourself to others who aren't in your shoes.

Focus on the effort you put towards your life rather than focusing on the outcomes. You only have control over your attitude and effort towards life, not control over the ultimate outcome and how your life turns out.

Get rid of the ANTs - Automatic Negative Thoughts - that pop into your mind, everyone has them. Learn to recognize them and replace them with a positive thought.

How?

When an ANT pops into your brain, immediately tell yourself stuff that is positive.

ANT "I'm so stupid". REPLACEMENT "I may not be good at everything, but then no one is. And I am good at blah blah blah"

ANT "No one cares about me". Replacement "I have a few close friends and my mom, grandma loves me" or whatever.

ANT "I will never get a job". Replacement "A lot of people have a hard time getting a job, I'm not the only one. I am going to keep trying until the right one comes along."

ANT "I am so fat". Replacement "I want to be healthy so I will walk/bike/swim whatever for ten minutes each day."

You get the idea, just work on it to fit your personal circumstances.