REJECTION PROTECTION CLUB CHAPTER 5
“I GOTTA BE ME/
HIT OR MISS”
ACCEPTANCE AND NEURODIVERGENCE
PUT most simply, acceptance is one of the most important facets of living a full life for all human beings. Whether looking at acceptance as an aid to feel empowered, confident, or assured or as a counter to loneliness, negative self esteem and dread, our perceptions around acceptance are highly influential in determining our quality of life and therefore our functioning as well.
Acceptance has many different definitions, but in the context of this article we will be looking at the idea of self acceptance as the level which someone feels they can present as themself safely and comfortably in society. While it is important to acknowledge that secondary factors ranging from aspects like confidence and social understanding to prejudice and tolerance are very influential on individual experiences with acceptance, we will broadly be looking at the ways in which acceptance of self and further execution of that self presentation can become a challenge that many neurodiverse individuals may not even realize as an inhibition.
“EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE THE QUARTERBACK”
One of the foremost problems that we see around acceptance is hard to concisely define, but is certainly something that most humans (at the very least from ages 12-20) are likely to have experienced. That problem is the arbitrary pressure and value ranking we develop from our environments which can start to create clouds in our decisionmaking processes. Peer pressure is one of the most explicit ways to see this: we may not have even considered doing something– hell, may not have even been aware of a concept– before other people’s decisions and opinions around that thing quickly and to some degree, irrationally, make us strongly favor the idea solely due to the fact that other people feel that way. While this discrepancy between internal and external motive may be clear when we are a 14 year old and offered a cigarette, the same concept can exist on a much larger level into adulthood around decisions which are less cut and dried. As I often am wont to do, let us look at some examples to help try to find more clarity.
Generally speaking, there is an overlying idea that everyone wants to be in the most socially ‘admired’, ‘professional’, ‘responsible’, ‘appropriate’, ‘cool’, ‘right’, ‘safe’, or [dozens of similar adjectives] position in life. If you’re playing football, the most prominent and therefore most seemingly desired role would be the quarterback. If you are forming a band, that would be the face of the band. We are told those who occupy the “best” career outcome would be people like doctors, lawyers, and high-level executives. The lead actor is far more heralded than the supporting role. The headliner is supposed to be the musical act you came to see.
What we lose in this perception is twofold; first, that the quality and success of any process that involves multiple humans is far more reliant on group role cohesion than the impact of one single individual. In reality, it doesn’t matter how good the quarterback is; for a team to succeed, they will need the protection skills of 5 players in front of them and the receiving skills of the 5 players around them in order to actually flourish. One can simply look at history of the NFL to gain hard evidence of this. Even if the lead singer has an angelic voice, or Jimi Hendrix is on guitar, the band together will sound pretty terrible without an adequate performance from the rhythm section. You may have gone to the concert for the headliners, but to be a truly great show, the openers also have to be enjoyable. What I have always personally found funny is that most people will wholeheartedly agree with this in theory– yet it is clear in many different ways that general behaviors of humans are not particularly focused on building cohesion over a drive for individual successes.
Secondly, the desire to attain an arbitrary social status does not actually consider what we may be best suited to excel at, and may damper the experience if someone does not realize they are in a wrong fit. I can’t deny the socioeconomic benefits of becoming a doctor, lawyer, or executive, but we can say that getting to these positions are guaranteed to require sacrifice of far more time, effort, energy, and autonomy than many may realize. Many must be willing to trade most of their free time for every week of their waking lives to attain that social status. “Heavy is the head which wears the crown” indirectly comes to mind. The lead actor will typically get the highest salary, the centerfold of the movie poster, and the first name on the credits, but I am sure you have witnessed many plots where the supporting characters actually carried the story, and often in those situations it is due to a “less is more” principle. I often offer the analogy of how the typical promotion from server to manager in restaurants may be seen as a natural progression, but the actual skillset required to be an effective manager is completely different than the skillset of an effective server, and many may end up taking a role they are not suited for without even realizing that as a possible influence on the difficulty. While we may expect or be told that having 'highly acceptable' roles in society will make us feel more accepted, this is not necessarily the full story.
At the end of the day, we will feel most confident, successful, and accepted if we are mastering things that we actually feel competent, comfortable, and connected with– not solely based on how many people oohed and awed at our title or status nor how much money we have made. We can see through these examples that what we may think would make us feel more accepted in actuality can hold the risk of making us feel less acceptance should that “high external acceptance” role lead to self doubts around our own competency, sustainability and skills. Our positive perceptions around acceptance are actually highest when we focus on our OWN definitions of success and happiness rather than what would get us the most external validation, but the tribulations of becoming internally motivated cannot be overstated when operating from a brain which chronically battles issues with low self esteem and struggles around feeling good enough.
Now this is all swell, and to some may seem obvious, perhaps even easy. We are not forever in high school, we often grow out of peer pressure, when we get older enough we tend not to care so much. But in reality, acceptance of self is a lot harder than it seems, and that’s just looking at positive traits. The rub may be…
ACCEPTANCE IN A WORLD OF JUDGMENT AND IGNORANCE
If we are being fully honest and realistic, no amount of micro or even mezzo level interactions will override certain macro-level ‘truths’: it does not matter how stressed or unhappy or inconsistent with personal values that a doctor feels, they are still going to be seen as a doctor, ie “respectable”, “smart”, “accomplished”, “accepted” from a general societal perspective. I am currently just a therapist writing some paragraphs on google docs to eventually copy and paste to a website for 50ish people to see, but this exact same process and content makes me a famous blogger, perhaps even a professional writer should some stroke of luck and opportunity lead to it having 50 million readers.
Nothing changes at all in this situation besides a number on a screen, but you can guarantee that I would feel incomparably different about myself in one situation as compared to the other. It’s also very likely that others would treat me even more differently if I had those extra 49,999,950 viewers, and in fact in full maximization might make my ideas go from counterculture to the mainstream view. Until then, this is just something I wrote, and because as far as I know I myself am the only person who accepts it, the feeling is probably significantly less than if I was writing something called “how to eat healthy” and had heard hundreds of people tell me that reading it was a great boon to their health. Again, this may be happening, but the purpose is to frame that without the outside validation, I am going to question it and have the natural inclination to think it is potentially not going to be accepted. While this might not have any direct negative impact to my self esteem, the point is that it very well could if I see my low number of viewers.
Most people can probably relate to these first paragraphs, but when it comes to neurodivergence, we have to unfortunately start to consider even more layers of challenge and barrier. Though they may mostly be derived from uncertainty around our small quirks, oddities, peculiarities, I can assure you that most neurodivergent people on earth right now would probably agree, at least in the most reflective state, that self acceptance and feeling worthy is one of the largest challenges that life has to offer. While this is again a difficult challenge for most humans– and very crucial to note that anyone acting with narcissistic or otherwise ego-serving “self-acceptance” behaviors are actually the people struggling MOST to accept themselves– the challenge grows even larger when your naturally effective proclivities, habits, and strategies go against the norm.
Take the most effective strategy I have ever found personally in organized chaos as a clear example: broadly, organized chaos is basically just acceptance of what works best for self and resistance to what may be ingrained as not acceptable. The sole reason I think it’s weird that I make breakfast, go for a walk, and then go to the gym in a completely different order every day with 25 different permutations that never go in the same sequence is because other people told me it’s weird. What would be weird and diminish the experience to me would actually be doing the exact same pattern every single day of my life. The end result of my process is more or less the same result as someone orderly, why should I care?
This final question is certainly a main ire of neurodivergent individuals– pardon a small outburst, but it is because we DO CARE because SOCIETY HAS TOLD US WE ARE WRONG! Even if the desire is not to appear more ‘normal’, the idea that other people can be baffled that I enjoy going for a walk at 1 AM, or can’t believe that I am far more likely to fall asleep at an earlier time that way than if I went to lay in my bed at 10 PM like a ‘normal person’ is certainly making me fight against what is inherently very true to me for no reason besides outside dissent and counterargument. This isn’t even mentioning the thousands of comments that tell me specifically why it is “weird” or “incorrect” or “irresponsible” to do things the way that I do them. Going back to the first piece of this section, the question is equivalent to me asking someone “why don’t you feel like a famous musician? You’ve made a song before!”.
The steps of self-acceptance, particularly within neurodivergent individuals, must first start with an understanding of why we do not feel accepted from the context of outside validation. But as is the core of any therapy… the next and more impactful step is actually just learning how we really can get to accepting ourselves WITHOUT need for any external validation.
BECAUSE ACCEPTANCE IS HARDEST FROM OURSELVES
But to add a dialectical contradiction to everything stated above, people, generally, do not actually care or judge the way that we do things to the degree which we perceive they do. This is true, even if we may never internalize it. While it is paramount to separate internalized negative self image from actual oppression that a person may be facing in regards to neurodivergence, the ability to discern these two concepts are one of the most actually effective ways for someone to feel more positive around their own self esteem as well as fitting in with others.
There are almost two opposing takes that we can look at here: acceptance of self through autonomous compromise and acceptance of self through autonomous patience. I for sure just made those terms up, but until we have a snappier and more clever way to describe them, this feels best descriptive.
In the former, autonomous compromise, a neurodivergent person first accepts and understands that their motives, presentation, communication, etc may be different from what is expected and therefore find themselves in the minority, misunderstood, struggling to connect, or similar barriers in social situations. The response is then to embrace that role, essentially compartmentalizing the idea of being socially accepted in a way that is abiding to the expected social norms, but acknowledging that the “expected” response to these interactions may feel very different to us, and may require additional avenues to satisfy needs such as connection and understanding which many may just assume would be met naturally through socialization. A person valuing themselves by comparison to a group that has differing traits is sure to lead to negative feelings, but a person who values themselves as a unique addition to the dynamic of a group is typically seen much more positively.
However in the latter, autonomous patience, the opposite approach is employed. A neurodivergent person may accept that they are experiencing things differently and recognize that the disconnect or overwhelm of trying to follow along with a situation they do not relate to may in fact be the largest actual deficit to functioning, and instead respond with a more selective and careful approach to socializing with the understanding that there are likely to be uncomfortable feelings around not socializing as much. This often takes an assumptive jump that the person will then become isolating or socially withdrawn, but the concept is actually far more of a parallel to the idea that we should date people who bring value to our lives, and not just because we want a partner and a situation is convenient.
The battle vs self is often times the most difficult when it comes to acceptance, an unfortunate reality when considering how many other layers of external influence which coexist on top of it.
ACCEPTANCE VS MASKING VS SELF ABSORPTION
A final consideration to mention around this general idea is mindfulness about the fine line between masking, self absorption, and true acceptance in a social situation. In some ways, these nuances are the most important factors in how the outside is perceiving us regardless of whether we are following the social norms or not, and could alternatively be seen as doing too much one way, doing too much the opposite way, and finding a workable balance.
ACCEPTANCE THROUGH MASKING is a response where an individual is sacrificing too much personal motive in favor of overly appealing to the motives of others. Someone may learn exactly how to script, act, or mimic a behavior which will gain them acceptance, but do not actually feel fulfilled or rewarded as much as they feel they are fitting into the situation adequately, and therefore staving off feelings of inadequacy. While this can– and will– work effectively for anyone trying to blend in with a crowd, it often can result in experiences we would describe as “empty” or “going through the motions”, and may create a negative perception of socialization or at the very least diminish the experience.
ACCEPTANCE THROUGH SELF ABSORPTION is a response where an individual is overly focused on their personal motives and ignorant or disregarding of the motives of others to a degree which prevents them from connection. Someone may take an apathetic approach to their struggle with acceptance and determine that the most effective way to meet their needs in socialization is to become monopolizing, combative or steamrolling rather than compromise or empathize with others. While the connotation of this response is likely negative and seen as ‘bad’, it is also a good area to highlight that it is entirely more probable that this individual has no idea how to connect, is terrified of not being accepted, or simply does not recognize the impact on others rather than assuming they are looking to make enemies or bring down others. That being stated, we are guaranteed to struggle to make healthy connections if we employ this strategy, and in some ways, we are just flipping the script and not allowing others to accept us or not accepting others when we do.
ACTUAL ACCEPTANCE is hard, particularly when considering that the baseline barrier to most neurodivergent people is a struggle with self esteem, and the two most common psychological responses there are polarized, tending to either trend towards either narcissistic or toxic self-sacrifice type behaviors. The key in any situation is just to constantly self-assess– many people have probably found themselves on both sides of this coin in the past, and many people likely find one to be more comfortable, ethical, moral, or responsible than the other. One way to look at it is an old cliche of the “tennis match/ping pong” rule of interaction– we want to make sure that both sides are feeling accepted and comfortable enough to engage.
HOW TO ACCEPT YOURSELF (SUBTLY)
Notably I use the word subtly… because I am going on a limb and assuming someone who can just readily accept themselves by thinking, feeling, and believing they are worthy is probably just confused by this entire writing. I have found that, at least with many neurodivergent cases I've worked with, finding indirect ways for new perceptions which create new reframes that do not tie back to common platitudes or cliche messages about self acceptance which we have heard ad nauseam in the past is often more impactful to positive self acceptance than even major accolades or external accomplishments.
UNDERSTANDING=> EMPATHY => ACCOUNTABILITY => ACCEPTANCE
As is seen as the ultimate goal of therapy for many, full self acceptance is a path to the highest quality of life. But the actual challenge that is far more difficult to overcome and much more difficult to see is connecting the dots between our own self acceptance and acknowledging flaws, shortcomings and weaknesses. To look at the reverse engineering of narcissism, it is actually the extreme fear of looking inadequate which leads to the problematic behaviors– at its rawest form, someone with NPD is simply so scared of their own flaws that they do not even recognize how their defenses around the fear are hurting other people. The opposite must therefore be true as well: the more comfortable and accepting we are of our limitations, the more we can build empathy, take accountability, and ultimately truly accept ourselves, which is sure to be reflected positively in our interactions with others.
“IF YOU DON’T HAVE HATERS, YOU ARE DOING SOMETHING WRONG”
A classic example of a phrase that can just as easily be interpreted positively as negatively, “self acceptance will ultimately reduce many detrimental negative feelings around outside approval” is the take here rather than “any attention is still attention”. While it is the people pleaser’s achilles heel to have an impulsive drive to please everyone, most can recognize when stepping back that this is potentially dangerously untrue. We certainly do not want to please people who are trying to wrong us, hurt us, or even those who just have inhibiting opposing motives to our own, and we unfortunately know that conformity is the baseline psychologically. Even beyond what may be apparent here, we can also take an almost meta view on acceptance and say that people who continuously try to bring us down… are actually more likely to be struggling with their own self acceptance, as this response is most commonly triggered when someone is threatened or jealous.
KNOW THAT IT CAN ACTUALLY BE PRETTY UNCOMFORTABLE TO “JUST DO YOU”
It’s a pretty common platitude in the modern day to be told to “just do you”, loosely inferring that we should disregard judgment or preconception in our agendas and motives and in turn focus on what actually matters or brings meaning to us. It is a nice sentiment, perhaps could be worded a little better, but it can also be a lot more challenging than it sounds when considering that whatever is arbitrarily deemed socially acceptable has a lot to do with it. As may be plainly obvious, this is a statement which works much better when presentation of genuine self lines up with the expectations of the environment– if ‘doing me’ results in something like dressing up nicely most of the time, I can expect that while some people may tease me about being overdressed, many will compliment this presentation as well and I have the social construct to back me that this is an ‘acceptable’ behavior, or even a 'high class' behavior. If ‘doing me’ is reverting to my preference of ages 5-8 to solely wear shirts with dinosaurs on them, then full execution of self presentation and acceptance will also have to consider and proactively prepare for the fact that many people will likely be judgmental or at the very least have some kind of opinion or comment which may feel attacking or degrading of my own self expression. The social construct backdrop around this fashion sense becomes much more challenging, because we see this as 'childish' or 'immature'. You could break it down as self acceptance in full values the personal satisfaction of a decision over external validation without causing harm to others in the process.
TELLING OURSELVES THIS IS DIFFICULT HAS A STRANGE IMPACT
One of the weirdest things I have tried that does seem to slowly improve my own self perception is actually telling myself I will have difficulty with acceptance. This seems, especially in a world full of evidence that positive self affirmation can be very beneficial, pretty counterintuitive. But the actual process makes me think about how I might be incorrect about my perceptions, which essentially just creates space to think more intentionally instead of falling to the ingrained patterns which I accept are that I am undeserving or incapable of acceptance, obviously statements that are not actually true. Comically, but genuinely, I sometimes wonder if this is simply just a contrarian take on the self affirmation strategy– if my natural inclination is to dissent, I may find more motivation to thwart my incumbent low self esteem by telling myself that is the contrarian move.
TREATING OURSELVES AS WE WOULD OTHERS
Finally, a phrase that many do relate to but I still believe to be overlooked, trying to connect and embrace the idea that many times we are more likely to sacrifice ourselves in a way that we would not expect of others, and must be mindful not to 'set ourselves on fire to keep someone else warm'. Trying to imagine ourselves deserving respect and acceptance on the same level as those around us may seem like an obvious and intuitive perception, but often we can find ourselves struggling to actually translate our behaviors and attitudes towards self with the same ease that we can treat others.
CHAPTER 5 IN REVIEW
Now I am not the biggest fan of Dave Matthews, but my parents might be, so I do know many songs. I would like to close with lyrics from one called “So Much To Say” because the lyrics can be interpreted highlight most of what we covered here, punctuated with
“I find sometimes it’s easy to be myself /
sometimes I find it’s better to be somebody else”
In the full context, the narrator is considering how he feels that he is just talking endlessly about banal things which don’t actually matter to him, with a repeating tag of “can’t see the light”. Although he recognizes he would rather focus on things which bring him value, he cannot escape the ease, expectation and comfort which comes from “talking about the weather” or similar droll social expectations. The narrator also shows how it can be extremely difficult to even know how to fully accept ourselves, describing the challenge of discerning whether to present genuinely or appealing to outside acceptance as “a hell” he is “stuck inside”.
The final line of the song reveals the narrator’s actual desire:
“Open up my head and let me out!”
Though not directly about self-acceptance, these lyrics do a good job of exposing the internal mental battle about how difficult it can be to accept ourselves when there seems to be outside pull to not accept ourselves fully, but rather conform ourselves in a way that will gain acceptance from others. Many may even struggle to accept that the unconscious pull towards conformity is inevitable, even though we can see subconscious examples of it throughout most days. It is probably safe to assume that the further from the norm that one naturally wants to present themselves, the more aware and therefore challenged by this concept that one feels.
Whether we struggle with acceptance on a daily basis or find it extremely hard in moments when we are faced with acceptance problems specifically, we will end with strong validation that the concept is HARD! It is important to remember that self acceptance is a lifelong skill that builds in nonlinear ways, and that perhaps one of the only things we can be sure on as far as a connective measure across all humans is the shared difficulty around our struggles to feel fully accepted.
NEXT TIME ON THE REJECTION PROTECTION CLUB:
CHAPTER 6: “THE THERAPIST'S DILEMMA”
For the next section, we will look into a recurring issue I have dubbed "the therapist's dilemma" in regards to emotional intelligence--
In any given situation for any human, is it worth the effort to be the person doing emotional labor to make a situation more comfortable, or would we be better off building our own internal tolerance to our uncomfortability around others emotions which we ultimately have no control over?
Throughout my time as a therapist, I have heard this query in one form or another time and time again, particularly as an individual continues to build their own emotional intelligence. While understanding both sides are very important, we will further focus the importance of recognizing our options when we inevitably fall into situations that involve this dilemma.
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