the emotional blind spot.

“So now that you know about your autism diagnosis, how will this change things?”

This is the question I’ve received the most over the last few weeks. Awareness has been the biggest change going forward, as I’m much more cognizant of the people and situations around me.

Hindsight has truly been 20/20 on this journey, as it’s helped me to discover something that has caused me to make a lot of mistakes…I have an emotional blind spot.

Who amongst us hasn’t wished for a “do-over” for how we’ve reacted in a given situation? My do-over list was humongous – either I reacted irrationally or with immaturity, or I missed queues that were obvious to the others around me.

Self forgiveness has helped me to put these things in the rear view mirror, and I’ve apologized to a number of people who I feel I had wronged.

More than anything else, I’ve embraced an attitude of gratitude. I’ve gotten to know others around me who have been diagnosed as being on the spectrum, and I feel much more comfortable in situations where I’ve always felt awkward.

On the gig I played over Memorial Day Weekend, there was a level of comfort that I have not felt in years. I didn’t have that feeling of needing to be “on”, nor did I have the fear of saying or doing the wrong thing, which has been incredibly crippling in the past. I attribute this to my awareness of the blind spot.

Going forward, I can only hope that I see things much more clearly on this journey of neurodivergence, and that there are no blind spots going forward – may they only be in my rear view mirror.