So cold

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I don't really know where to post this, I was holding on, kind of. And I slipped on the ice just now as I walked past the neighbor, in her car, who won't speak to me because 10 years ago it was decided by another neighbor that I'm a bad person on the basis of my child with ASD not being friendly. And as I felt the ice on the ground and felt my hands and feet and realized I was going to be fine to get up, I realized too that at best, there was a chance, in this "nice" neighborhood I live in, with it's good schools, a chance she might have noticed if I'd laid there and not gotten up and called 911. And a better likelihood she'd have seen and driven past me, uncaring, because, to her, she is entirely justified in acting on her belief that I, and we, are bad, and deserve nothing. And thank God I was not on the side of the street she'd be driving, so she would not likely have run me down, I'd simply have laid there, alone, on the ice, in the dark, in the cold, if I'd been unable to get up.

And I can ignore the bad, and hold my head up, and make things good for other people up to a point. Then, what? Because there are solutions to the concrete problems, sometimes, as they occur. But where is the solution to that difference that is subtle, where if you play the game by their rules, you are acceptable, up to a point. But as I realized today, there are always those who stay in their way of thinking and need to make other, and different, bad. For children for adults, in a neighborhood, in a school, in a job. And I do feel lucky to have a job, and schools that are pretty understanding with my children, but there is always this difference, as if we could be chucked out at any moment. And this disbelief, as if the difference, mine, my children's, is all pretend, just get it together is the attitude because you're fine is the attitude. Right up until it's not, and then, suddenly, where one was once on the cusp of acceptability as human, one is out, alone, in the cold.

If anyone has any solutions to how they go on trying in the face of continual almost acceptance that isn't really I would love to know as for now I must go on pretending to be ok with this, as what use is it to cower in bed and refuse to get up. But to do so has so much appeal right now, rather than tiptoeing around a world where the above neighbor is normal and good, and I and my children are tolerated by nice people who, much of the time, are really quite puzzled and don't approve at all of the differences they perceive as choices, ones that often, we don't see at all.

I've learned to simply accept that people don't care about me, and that's just how it is. I guess it's a matter of lowering my expectations, and deciding that it's simply not an important factor in my life, whether anyone cares about me.

Other people can live their lives, and I'll live mine, and I'm 100% responsible for my own happiness. (Granted, I am on the extreme end of Schizoid tendencies, with zero desire to interact with other people anyway, so my approach might not work for anyone else!)

Anyway I'm sorry that happened to you, and that your relationship with your neighbors gets you down. I hated neighborhood life for that reason too. I much prefer apartment living, where everyone is so transient that no one even bothers to get to know each other, much less develop lifelong grudges.

Thank you, Ashariel. I'm afraid of accepting people not caring about me as not mattering, that I might withdraw too much to function, but yes, from what I read here, most people with any sort of contentment are able to do that. I'm just not sure I can without going too far backwards.

Wow, very poetic the dichotomy between ice and your neighbor!

THis kind of stuff sucks. Maybe she will move out soon!

I'm glad at least to have made sense, so often people get this look of what-are-you-going-on-about. Thank you, I was really trying, but I'm always trying to make sense and it gets so frustrating to have to keep working so hard.