Abscissa – Autism and Techno Blog

Greetings, time for another blog. Planned to post last Sunday as that day was the two year anniversary of the day that I was heartbroken and my world was turned upside down.

The focus isn’t on the heartbreak but about how far I have come since that day. How determined I’ve been and how hard I’ve worked to overcome the pain.

I’m looking at things differently now and crucially I’m more comfortable just being by myself and I feel like I don’t need the same things I used to.

Not that I can claim victory over the black dog but sometimes the light of happiness comes when for a brief moment the darkness lifts. It’s frustrating but I can’t always see how it happens or why.

I think there has been a brief revelation that I have been hurt by others but it’s not anyone’s fault and there’s no anger or fear. For that moment my brain let’s go of a dark belief that everything is my fault.

Not looking to blame everything on everyone else but the feeling that I’m not the only agent in the universe who is responsible for everything. Things happened and I didn’t need to take it as a personal slight nor did I feel like a victim.

If I’m on my own now it’s because I prefer it and I don’t feel excluded anymore.

A quick mention of exclusion though. Ultimately I couldn’t stay friends when I felt like I was being excluded as she started to push me away. It’s the only thing that really hurts me.

I watched a vid discussing the production of Lost and Game of Thrones, two of my fave shows. Both fell victim to the divisive Us & Them mentality of the In crowd and the outcasts.

The A Tier chosen few and the rest who don’t matter. It’s a story that horrified me for the reason that it’s dehumanizing to be excluded. We all want to be chosen but I find it just as dehumanizing to be forced to parade at market and be inspected and judged.

The already-chosen powerful few get to choose while the rest of us have to compete for scraps. Thus the fundamental core of my desire for freedom and independence.

I must be honest and own up to the fact that my desire for inclusion has come at the cost of many things, not least was how the person I lived the most felt less free to choose.

But I’m not here to take a guilt trip. I am here though to understand why things happened and learn how to avoid making the same mistakes.

As long as I needed her to be happy, I would always analyse her and try to figure out how she worked. I did it to be as perfect a friend as I could possibly be. In the end though I believe this only dehumanized her because I was telling her that she wasn’t free to make her own choices.

That is my “gift” to the world I suppose. To view people as mindless reactionaries who can be manipulated and predicted. To know and understand them but not respect them as individuals with their own humanity.

I’ve been round the block trying to understand who I am and what I should be doing. I realise now that the way forward is not to reward or punish but always to humanise.

Never again do I want to hurt those who hurt me. Never again do I want to feel conditional love that rewards or punishes and sets expectations that deny people of their own freedom of choice.

It’s the old dialectic. Freedom vs safety or excitement vs control. We need both otherwise we become imbalanced.

All that said and done, I still feel like I’m saying this because “If I do this or that she will want to be friends again”. Still predicting her mind and taking her free will away.

It’s been two years now and I doubt that she will ever trust me again and has probably moved on with her life. But I still want to at least reach out and try to make amends.

I always knew, always knew, that I wasn’t living in accordance with my own moral values and I’ve had to rethink everything. Getting my heartbroken was inevitable because I needed it to break myself down, face myself and rebuild.

And the worry is that even then it still didn’t hurt enough to really change things. I had begun in truth to pull away those last few months and that cushioned what would have otherwise probably destroyed me beyond help.

Still think about her everyday and it often still hurts but nowhere near as bad as it used to.

I make no excuses here, the only life I wanted was to be with her and the only thing I cared about was being able to see her and to make her happy. I never told her how deeply I felt about her because I couldn’t face up to the hurt I would soon feel but I wore my heart on my sleeve regardless and showed her plenty of affection.

I wanted to know but could never ask her directly, how she actually felt about me and if she still wanted to be friends or if she was waiting for me to show her that I still wanted to be friends. If the latter I probably proved that I didn’t. Except of course that I did but I was waiting for her to show me.

I was afraid and still am. Afraid that I would always feel excluded and would never be comfortable in her presence. There are times where I feel like the love-tinted spectacles made me unable to see her for who she truly was but I still miss her friendship every single day.

There are things I need from her to be friends and I stopped believing she would or could. If I had to guess it was probably the same for her.

I wish now that I could just talk to her honestly and get to know the real her in ways I never did before. We were both so afraid to hurt each other and lose each other as friends that the honest conversation came too late.

Talking about this stuff doesn’t make me feel sad anymore in truth because it helps me now to recognise where I can and have improved as a person.

She knows that I was deeply unhappy with who I was and I wanted to be someone else because I told her when my defenses began to break down.

I had to break contact and cut her out so I could finally develop as a human being, my own man. I have become someone I can look in the mirror with some pride, without really changing who I am. Just quietly growing in my own time and space.

The last thing honest thing I said to her was that I would try to get mentally healthy and it would take a long time. And that I wouldn’t ask her to hang out if it put her under any pressure. I meant those words and they remain true 2 years later.

If she hates me and won’t give me a chance then I can say it’s ok and I would remain available. I’ve still got to pass my own acid test first anyway. Can I actually be comfortable around her and be unafraid to talk to her?

If I can then I’ll know I’ve made it. I’ll have fully healed. Always will do my best to be the good guy but actually being healthy enough to meet my lofty standards?

To do that unconditionally? To lovebomb in my own unique way without ever needing to be loved in return?

She always encouraged and demanded independence and I understand why. Only did I learn why after suffering the ultimate heartbreak. I hope she understands and one day can see me say to the world that I need nothing and no one.

She taught so much by breaking my heart and that is why I will always love her.

Thanks for reading as ever xx