#Handbook: Being Comfortable in Your Own Skin

Being Comfortable in your own skin isn't all about what you look like on the outside.

It's about excepting every aspect of yourself from the inside out, and this includes loving the unique little quirks that make us who we are. 

I've struggled with this my whole life and especially when I found out about being autistic when I was just dealing with being a teenager let alone autistic. 

As i've matured and become to understand myself more as an Aspergers gal and embracing my little quirks and characteristics that make me who I am, has made me more happy to go out into the big bad world and start living. 

I'm comfortable with the fact that I'm a major geek (kind of like this guy on the right but not as anti-social or completely off the scale Autistic), I love Comic Books, Star Wars, Harry Potter and the list goes on and on as I'm that geeky. 

"I love the fact that I have a way to escape the world that we live in and submerse myself into other worlds and that if I was accepted into Hogwarts, well I would ace my owls!!! I've read the text book Fantastical Beasts and where to find them and as a proud Hufflepuff I'm not bothered what people think of me and say i'm silly to still love something that is a children's book. I'm the Harry Potter generation (as you would've seen in another blogpost) and I still love the world of magic even if that is considered childish."

And I'm not ashamed to say that I have read every single Harry Potter Novel more than 10 times and that I still find things within the books that I didn't get the first time. 

The same can be said for comic books and I love Marvel and DC  equally and love the adventures that all the characters go on in their panels, even the anti-hero who loves breaking the fourth wall, is a friend of you're friendly neighbourhood spider-man, has killed the Marvel universe more than once and even the writers of his own comic book - yes it's Deadpool! 

And I love the fact that I can now say that I am a comic book geek! I love the fact that I get so excited when I walk into a comic book shop or a book shop and geek out over graphic novels and comic books and plan which comics I want to buy that week because it's who I am and I'm really not bothered if other people think it's sad but look at some of the biggest grossing films of the last decade and you'll find that they are either  from the Marvel Cinematic Universe or the DC Extended Universe. 

I struggled for a long time to fit in to different groups to be popular (stupid me) as the pressure mounted at high school to put myself into a little box and not express who I truly was and except that this was the status quo! 

The thing with the pyramid is that it's a load of complete nonsense!!! I'm being polite here!

And I was at the bottom of said pyramid when I was younger as I was a complete outcast who loved Panic! At the Disco, My Chemical Romance and other bands that I was just considered a lost hope. 

This is something that looking back I shouldn't had beat myself up about, I was expressing myself and finding myself in a really awful and confusing stage of life and dealing with undiagnosed Aspergers! 

Being popular and the best at everything isn't the actual goal in life , even now as a 25 year old I look at what and who i've got in my life and I'm pleased to say that I'm happy. I have friends that just accept me for who I am (comic books and all), a amazing mum who still stands by me and finally I am looking inside myself and seeing the person I want to be rather than being unhappy. 

It's lead me to want to do things that as a 16 year old I would've never dreamed of doing, like going to Steampunk festivals and having the confidence to say that I can rather than I can't. 

Apart of this problem does come from Anxiety and Depression, it effects how I see myself on the inside and how I think other people perceive about me. 

And the struggle with Anxiety is there on a everyday basis, it's never left me and still dominates how I interact with the world around me and how those mental illnesses have shaped me as a person and I accept that I am a completely anxious wreck from time to time but I have the strength to stand up for and to myself and get on with life anyway because I don't have a choice anymore. 

And learning to accept that I am autistic, that it's okay to say I'm Aspergers and that I understand the world from a different perspective and allowing those autistic traits to come through instead of hiding them as it's a emotional and physical strain that drives me to a meltdown or complete exhaustion. And to be proud that I have Aspergers and to change opinions of what autism is from a negative to a positive. 

And this extends to how I see myself in the mirror from a physically point of view, I'm trying not to see what my Depression brain wants me to see but rather who I actually am.

I always never really cared about wearing make-up but now I care about my body and I more importantly listen to it. 

All this is due down to having my gallbladder removed, having to go for surgery to have it removed and now living with nerve damage and scars from it ( my belly button is not the same as it was before). 

It's made me change my diet and also find alternative ways to deal with the pain without using prescription pain killers or other kinds of therapies that might damage my body long term. 

What I'm trying to say is that people will always judge or find some flaw about you but it's just their opinion! 

What matters is how YOU see yourself and that you accept yourself with all the wonderfully unique things that make you who you are. 

If you're struggling to fit in but have an interest in anything, there will be a group of people out there just like you, who geek out and love the same things as you and you won't feel alone and yes people fight and argue about things and get to serious but that doesn't mean you have to get involved in their dramas. 

Learning to understand that your autism isn't what defines you as a person, it's apart of who you are but underneath there is you, that completely unique human being that sees the world from a different perspective and doesn't completely understand it (don't worry I'm still confused) but is still willing to live and be happy despite all the battles and obstacles that are in your way. 

And finally being proud of who you are, you're amazing in you own right and don't let anyone tell you different! 

You are beautiful, you are unique, you are talented and you are wonderful just the way you are and never doubt that because thats who you are! 

Before I go, remember Tomorrow @ 12pm (GMT) I am doing a Facebook Live chat and I hope that you can join me with a good cuppa and a piece of cake to chat about all things Aspergers.