Abscissa – Autism and Techno Blog

Greetings again. Time for another blog. I have been writing but not publishing recently. The posts are not quite living up to the standard. If this one gets published, hopefully, it means it is a good one. We’ll see.

In the spirit of shadow work, I did think it would be a good idea to confront some fears and try to bring the darkness into the air.

With that being said, there is plenty of scope here for rationalising and making excuses. Bitter laments about the unfairness of life. But there are some things I need to fully take responsibility for and accept.

What is it within me that I’m so afraid of? Is it the autism itself, the lack of support and affection growing up undiagnosed, or the many maladaptive responses and coping mechanisms?

And to what extent did external events shape me? What drove this need to protect myself from life at all costs? Why do I suppress my every facet?

Yes, the internal suppression, repression or whatever. It’s every moment of my existence. Even when I’m alone. It’s worse around other people but always, I can’t help it, can’t stop it.

I’ve been watching Derry Girls recently and I noticed the autistically coded character of Orla. So deeply in her own whimsical world, so unashamedly and obliviously being herself without ever giving a shit about what others think.

How I wished I could be like that. Maybe I would have been if I had been raised without internalised shame.

More likely though, I could never be like that because my brain was always so hypervigilant, as long as I have lived, I have only ever known full blown self-consciousness. If only I could lose the ability to see myself through such damningly judgemental eyes.

Herein lies the heart of the matter as to why I still haven’t really come to any form of acceptance over my own disabilities. To some extent, I still can’t look at anyone who just does what they do so effortlessly, without feeling the deepest jealously.

And yes, I keep bemoaning the fact, whenever it sinks in that I just can’t do it, a deep sadness overwhelms my heart, a level of pain and sadness that cannot be accepted.

If I’m being honest, I’m beginning to suspect that those people who can just be themselves so uninhibitedly, perhaps may lack a certain type of empathy that concerns itself with the thoughts and feelings of others.

And yet such people would seem to still have a heart of gold, probably because they have been untouched by social traumas.

I said very on in blog history that I felt I had to learn how to stop giving a shit about how people see me. So maybe that means switching off a certain empathetic component. After all, it’s not very likely that the world will need me to be a hero.

Who can say where the real me actually resides. Suppressed myself for so long that I can’t even understand what I want or why.

The overwhelming sadness continues to hit. They do say you need to feel your emotions, allow them, accept them, before you can process them.

I found myself asking the question, did I narcissistically fall in love with someone who was a kindred spirit but had so much that I wanted for myself. That I was unable or willing to give myself. The one thing no one can ever give you is the gift of being yourself.

They can give you acceptance and validation, they can give you support and affection for you who they think you are. Up until they realise you weren’t who they thought you are at all because you tried to be someone you weren’t.

Didn’t believe in yourself, but suppressed who you really were for whatever reason.

In truth, I continue to see myself as broken, but the one thing I held dear to myself was that my heart will always lie with my fellow broken souls, my fellow sufferers.

Society began to talk about autism and neurodivergence as being not broken but different. It left me with nowhere to go, no one to turn to, no one equipped to deal with actual suffering.

And so, I may have to do something drastic here. Be willing to believe that I’m not broken and turn myself up to 11. That means actually doing what I want to do and not giving a fuck. That’s the aim, anyway. It’ll take time, won’t happen overnight.

Given every pain and heartbreak from holding myself hostage, I fucking owe it to myself now, to be and become the man I should have always been. Well, I still haven’t figured that out yet, but then that’s still the old paranoid doubt creeping in.

Know now that what I want more than anything, before it boils over, is to just be unafraid. Not just to stop suffering in private, but to actually take charge and do the things I need to stop suffering.

To risk, knowing I can face being hurt again because I can always take the pain and keep going. More than that, though. To believe I can go for things again and put the full force of my stubborn conviction into living life.

To know who the right people are and to be able to trust people again. To trust myself first and foremost because everything else good will follow after that.

Just a few days ago, I had begun to remove a lot of personal stuff I had been posting on FB, including the link to this blog. Preparing myself for a little bit of regression back to a time when I was happy and untroubled by trauma. So much I have said has been driven by nothing more than the need to express myself and my need for reconnection.

And yet it all felt so cringe. Perhaps, for the first time ever, I began to appreciate what it really means for me to be authentically pro-autistic, to feel unashamed about being autistic. To not actually feel cringe at the thought of it, but to feel genuine pride and love whenever I see it.

Even if I may never fully get over that fucking hump of self-shame and fear. It’s perhaps enough for me to know how difficult my life is, but salvation isn’t going to come from bitter recriminations and “woe is me”.

Indeed, no one came to save me from myself. No one could, obviously.

Thanks as always for reading xx