Abscissa – Autism and Techno Blog

Greetings again, time for another blog. Out again tonight to blog actually. Not that fussed about getting drunk. Had somethong to say today.

Watched the new documentary on Man United winning the treble in ’99. Football. People celebrating kicking a leather ball around the best.

A reminder of how things don’t truly matter are what matters the most sometimes.

Why does winning mean so much? From an evolutionary stand point we are all in competition for survival and reproduction.

Sport in general some would say is a microcosm of the competition we all face to stay alive and thrive in this world. A safe place to roleplay winning and losing the real battles.

Rekindling the old dreams me and many other kids had to be a champion ball-kicker. Not that I was ever even any good at all football. Still dreamed though.

Many other dreams held on the same theme. I wished to be a champion at whatever I choose to do. Anything else didn’t seem worth the effort.

Someone who I follow on X and like a lot asked the question “is life without hope worth living?”

My answer has always been that life is worth living unless suffering chronic intolerable pain. Anything done well is worth doing and only very briefly this week, did I go to bed with a sense of a job well done.

Anything I watch that involves people being happy together, celebrating, I’m compelled to remember the times when I was happy with others. And how I lost it all. The same despair at the thought that those same people have found happiness with others.

It goes without saying that I felt like a winner for the first time in my life but now I am a big loser, a bitter loser. Taking my ball home and saying I don’t want to play anymore. That’s what I did to be honest.

Pledged one day that I would only live for myself and refused to look elsewhere for happiness. It goes deeper to the point that I stopped trusting happiness in general. Refused to do anything that would make me happy.

Though at the time I was desperate for something to happen that would lift the gloom. Desperate to find the key to unlocking the joy again.

Worked hard to improve my mental health and begin to change my outlook on life. This is the real life, the only real life we have. Things matter, even those things that shouldn’t matter.

Putting myself first has made a big difference but this self-serving will only go so far and I doubt I’ll ever feel like I’m winning, not when I’m just getting through the day. A first step perhaps.

If you actually stop and look at society, how it operates, you’ll see how history remembers the victors and no one sees or cares about the losers. Everyone says we should not compare ourselves to others.

That has always felt like a coded message saying society won’t judge you well so you should just ignore it and just “do you”. Care about yourself because no one else will. Love yourself because no one else will.

Well I took that advice one step further and shut everyone out. It doesn’t feel like good advice but then maybe I just took things too far like I always do.

What does winning actually look like for me since I had to drastically rewrite the expectations.  We mustn’t forget the small wins, every little step towards the big win.

Settting goals is good, taking failures to heart is bad. Being ruled by your failures, letting them ruin your life is very bad.

It’s coming up to the 3rd anniversary of my most traumatic loss. I had a realisation this week. Can’t remember what prompted it but I understood how deeply I wished it hadn’t affected me so badly.

Why couldn’t I just say “no problem, no worries”. Actually I did say that but it was a lie. A lie to myself. Why did it not just ruin but destroy everything I was? Why could I not get over it?

I wanted nothing to escape the prison I had made for myself but I could not. That prison was me. Every decision that took me to that point. It was all I had become.

After the trauma, I spent a good deal of time self-diagnosing any number of personality disorders. All the while, I can see now the avoidance of taking any responsibility for 40 years of failure.

Avoidant Personality Disorder was of course the first thing I self-diagnosed. It didn’t make a difference, I was still a loser.

Actually I’m revisiting the self-diagnosis of ADD. I suspect it has a more significant impact on my life than Autism. I have been diagnosed with ASD of course but that alone didn’t make a huge difference to my life.

The funny thing is an ADD diagnosis wouldn’t change much either. I don’t really plan on being on medication or any other fixes. The diagnosis for me would just be a other badge for me to say “look how hard my life is, look how bad a hand I was dealt”.

Or perhaps there’s another community to join but then why wouldn’t I fuck things up there as well?

This bitter loser has always been a core part of my identity, each new failure integrated with ease.

Life now has simply become so tiring. Full blown brain aches. Lie down in bed and have a rest. Can’t be arsed to do anything. It all feels too much. No escape.

Winning is addictive as anyone who wins will tell you. There are occasional flashes of terror each time I realise my addictions are a prison to which I have no escape. All well and good when the prison is a lot of fun. But it is still a prison.

To ask once more, what does winning look like for me? To overcome. To overcome anything and everything. To stop making excuses. To stop surrendering. To do something bold and courageous.

But also, to not be defined and identified with each and every loss. To lose and just go for it again.

Having said that it may not be enough for me. Because I still hope for so much beyond the limits of my neurological difficulties.

Everything I ever wanted in life was outside of the prison gates. In the land of fantasy, out of reach in reality.

I wish now to not give a shit about how I’m perceived by other people but it’s hard to see how I can live a life well without making a positive impact and being perceived, and perceived well.

Society makes a big song and dance of how much better it treats people like me but I don’t feel it translates in reality. So it’s up to me to make my life a success, up to me to make things happen.

It’s a 2-way street but I have to drive it and I can’t expect anyone to meet me half way.

It would all be fine if only I can do it all myself and win without needing a team. It feels like I’m the shit choice in the draft that no one wants to pick. I’m bitter but I’m doing my very best to keep going anyway.

I want to win now, to either gain the positive perception from other people or to just rub it in their faces for not choosing me.

If I’m going to lose, I’ll settle for chasing the chemical highs and fuck anyone else. If my fate is determined by the perception of others I’d like to live on my own terms and lick the walls of my private prison, chase the dirtiest form of stimulation.

Anything to feel alive. Anything to avoid emptiness.

Thanks for reading as always xx