Medicine saves lives.

Used for ill, it can end them.

The same is true for kink and relationship advice. Even my own. Maybe especially my own.

I have said many times that I am nuerodivergent. My brain does not work like the ideal norm. This makes me a different thinker than most. And what works for me is not what will work or even be desired by others.

Which is why I don’t often give wholesale relationship advice, but instead write opinion pieces and talk about my own life and policies.

Not because I want everyone to be like me, but because I want to offer others a different viewpoint that may strengthen or challenge their own. Sometimes, I just want to give those out there who are a bit like me proof that “common wisdom” is not always right, and it’s not always wise, for every person, in every circumstance.

When I found out I was ASPD, I suddenly knew why I had struggled with certain things my whole life. And aside from drug therapy, I was not given any options to feel normal and integrate successfully (socially) with society in the ways I wanted to.

I had to go out and research and try things on my own.

And on the way, I found a lot of things that didn’t work for me.

I also found many things that worked for me also worked for neurotypical people, when I explained them. You see, if you are relatively normal, and you’ve never had to question how you act on a base level, you might miss out on the things that challenge you and help you grow into a better person.

OR you may be perfect the way you are. I don’t know and won’t judge.

But to give a few examples:

I don’t compromise in relationships. More…

I don’t believe in it, as it is defined in the dictionary, and how most people practice it. For many, though, compromise is the foundation of their relationship, and what holds it all together. I am not wrong. They are not wrong. Different medicine for different situations.

I believe that white lies are harmful to a relationship. More and More…

I don’t do it. There are many relationships I could probably have saved with white lies, but i have chosen a different path, and I don’t want a relationship I can’t be 100% authentic and honest in. There are people who will say (or will show you through their actions) that they prefer the white lie. To be in a relationship with them means lying in small ways. I’m not wrong. They are not wrong. Different pills for different ills.

I don’t believe empathy is the determining factor of someone’s goodness or ability to relate. More…

I don’t have empathy the way it is clinically defined. I was born without it. And I was a pretty crappy person in a lot of ways before I found that out, and decided to be a better human. And I am. I still don’t have empathy. I have compassion, though, and for many people that is not just good enough, but better… or so I’m told. I suppose that could be a white lie. That said, many people use their empathy to be good people and to build amazing relationships. They are not horrible people anymore than I am. One size does not fit all.

And today, I read an article I found linked on FB: We Only Fall in Love with 3 People in Our Lifetime—Each One for a Specific Reason.

It’s a good piece, discussing the concepts of emotionally maturing through love, using three people as focii.

However, as Pet and I discussed this morning, some of those loves will overlap. Sometimes, we will have more than one of each (some people, like me, double up on #2—or more—slow learners, perhaps? ), sometimes people will find all three loves in a lifetime with one person.

So, it’s a good piece to make you think… but if you are on love number two and decide that number three is coming, and this one doesn’t matter, you a using your medicine as a poison, not as a treatment.

EVERYTHING we read, see, hear, take in, even when we don’t agree, can make us THINK. Compare and contrast with what we thought up until this moment, proof it (test it), and determine whether we still believe it, whether we want to learn more, or whether we’ve changed our minds.

And so we grow, and we get better and stronger.

And that critical and comparative thinking that we do, that is the cure.