Patience in Communication Part II

So I've had more people message me about a lot of these communication things than I could have ever expected, so I'd like to touch on it a little more. If you saw my instagram post where I begged everyone to have patience with the people you care about, I want to say more on that - but in a more positive light.

As long as two people are willing, anyone can learn to communicate with each other. Anyone. Anyone who reads this, if you are willing to understand me, I will be willing to understand you. As long as we can both remain patient, and accountable to each other, we can learn to communicate. I am 100% comfortable making that promise. I don't mean that I would be unwilling to understand someone who isn't interested in understanding me, it just takes two to tango, so to speak.

Just like anyone can learn to communicate, anyone can have communication struggles. Most of the people that have reached out to me are neurotypical, and have nothing "wrong" with their brains at all! Yet they still struggle. They still struggle to find ways to communicate effectively with their friends, with their families, with their partners, with their peers. This is frustrating, because I know that I have written about how not understanding something can isolate you a lot, but being misunderstood has the same effect. On everyone, these feelings are universal.

This has made me re-evaluate my position a little bit. I don't want to promote the idea of "OKAY, someone with autism needs you to do THIS, and someone with ADHD needs you to do THIS, and someone with Bipolar Disorder needs you to do THIS" blah blah blah. That's divisive, sounds like a chore list, and, unfortunately, makes people treat you like you're handicapped. Which you're not, obviously. I'll be writing a post very soon about all of the different gifts that we have as well, but that's beyond the scope of this post.

What I would like to promote, instead, is that we all need to work to understand each other. Every single person, and every single relationship we have with each other. Despite our differences, we are still more the same than different. We still want the same things. We all want love, we all want companionship in life, we all want to be understood and cared for. We want to understand, and care for the people in our lives.

I'm not asking to be treated differently, or special. I'm not asking you to treat "us" differently, or special. We are all human beings. I am asking you to look at every single human being as just a person that wants to be understood. That wants to understand.

That's all that we all are. That's all that we can be for each other, and that's all that we can ask of each other. Together, we can all do it. We can make a better place for all of us, we just have to be willing.