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Learning to Believe Yourself Again
The Cassandra story is about someone who sees clearly but isn't believed. When your partner, friends, family, or even a therapist keep telling you you're overreacting, you slowly stop trusting your own read on things. This worksheet is about coming back to yourself. Being believed by others starts with believing yourself.
Where I've felt disbelieved
Times I shared what I was going through and wasn't believed
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The self-doubt that crept in
What I now second-guess about my own perception
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Two things can be true
Your feeling can be real AND your partner may not have meant any harm. You don't need them to have intended it for your experience to be valid.
Write it as a 'both': I feel ___, and my partner ___
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Evidence I can trust myself
Times my read of a situation turned out to be accurate
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How much do I trust my own read right now?
Rate from 0 (Not at all) to 10 (Completely): ____
Believing yourself isn't blaming them: Coming back to trust in your own experience is not an attack on your partner. It's how you stop disappearing. You can hold your own reality gently and still love them.
Go deeper
Ready for more? These lessons pick up where this worksheet leaves off.
- Impact and Intent, from The Neurodiverse Couples Repair Program. Acknowledge the impact first, then the intention, then explain, and the defensiveness eases.
- The Cassandra Experience, from The Neurodiverse Couple. The real, often-disbelieved distress of the non-autistic partner, held without blame.
- For Supporters, from The Neurodivergent Brain. For partners, parents, and friends of neurodivergent people: the gap from your side, and what actually helps.