Celebrating more

Blog time, I’ve been meaning to blog more. Got a few small hobbies keeping me entertained.

Celebrated the Man United Carabao cup win. Genuine feel good stuff from the players which has made me fall in love with football again.

I thought to myself, it’s the way the players celebrate every win like it’s the World Cup. Particular Lisandro Martinez who actually won the World Cup just 3 months ago.

Yeah, it’s something I heard a while back as part of mental health advice. Celebrate your wins. Celebrate taking part. Celebrate the lessons from losing.

All the good times in my life have been a celebration of taking part in social occasions. I was never good at the other side though. Dealing with the painful side of human existence.

I wanted to say a sincere thank you to those who subscribe and like my blog posts because it does make me feel good and that’s part of what I wanted to get from blogging.

The good feeling is the reward for having made a positive impact from writing about the stuff I write about. And so I’ll celebrate it as a win every time.

I’ve always wanted to be a respected voice for the autistic community but I don’t know if I’ve really managed to take things in that direction.

Still have many doubts about whether my diagnosis really says much about me. I’ve mostly just been sharing my perspective regardless of how my autism affects me.

Communication has always been my biggest weakness and and I don’t really know how to communicate in such a way as to describe how my autism manifests.

I watched several prominent autism/adhd Youtubers and I get the feeling that they don’t have the same communication problems that I have. For how could they when they successfully carve out a large audience for their sharing of autistic content.

It doesn’t really matter whether it’s verbal or written. I struggle to find the words that really speak clearly.

I was actually taken to a speech therapist in my first year of secondary school at age 12 as my PT was worried about why I didn’t ever ask or answer any questions in class. I just didn’t really want to or need to.

I suspect though that my mouth muscles didn’t develop properly due to lack of use and I just never felt like I was any good at talking. Mumbling and stumbling over words.

Looked into Hyperlexia because I learnt to read at a young age but I always thought I was just skim reading and I didn’t properly take in or absorb much information.

I got a good skill for learning the meaning of words through the context of how they’re used and I can quickly figure out how to use a new word. But I was never able to find the right word to use when talking about myself or when other people talk about themselves.

Communicating in a normal social way? Don’t do that well. But I don’t think I’ve really wanted to be normal so I talk in a way that makes things harder to understand. If I communicate something that needs to be said I’ll do it in a simple snappy way that doesn’t really encourage further debate.

I don’t think I lack social imagination. Quite the opposite in fact. Overwhelming is how I find social ideas and activities. But the filters are on hard. I don’t find normality all that interesting but I find it extremely hard to share my interests with others.

Too many words. Too many concepts. Too many implications. Too many possibilities. Too many choices. When I’m bored and need something new where all they all? Hidden away behind some dark veil I can’t explain.

I dont like change because my brain likes to understand how things are and routines make me feel comfortable because I can predict what will happen. Changes disturb all of that. Literally disturbing they are.

When my brain resettles and adjusts it begins to feel exciting and interesting but there is always a period of anxiety.

When i was with friends who i connected with it was addictive and I didnt ever want to stop. Sinve things fell apart i had to readjust and learn how to be happy on my own again. Now I’ve basically done that I don’t want to push myself back into socialising because I’ve gotten used to the freedom that comes with being only focused on making myself happy. I’m happy to be own my own now and I don’t want that to change.

Only one subject of focus at any time. Anything else just disturbs the peace.

Its time to get back into music making. I’ve been listening to one of my own tracks, the one I’m most proud of and like listening to. The glimmer of inspiration has been calling. It will be nice to take break from what I’m doing now. My spreadsheet projects.

Blogging is good for me because I feel more empowered when I do communicate something personal. Working a full time job, I now look forward to logging off at the end of the day so I can be free by myself to do what I want to do by myself.

And in that space I don’t need to talk to anyone or struggle with personal insecurities. Blogging for me now, is the best way for me to meet social needs. To get stuff off my chest and communicate without having to worry about anything. I’d still like to achieve a wider reach and get more likes.

Its doubtful whether the blog will ever be professional enough and I absolutely don’t want to sell it to anyone with the usual bells and trinkets. I just want to perfect the writing and let it speak for itself.

With my long term job security now not quite iron-clad, it may be a real option to seriously consider what I can do within the autism community.

What can I actually do for the autistic community. Dunno. Just be myself probably. Be a voice for advocacy and support but above all be honest.

If course I sank into a very dark place over the last 2 years. I simply wasn’t able to offer any kindness, gratitude, any positivity at all. There was simply no option but to react in the way I did and always have done. Only in a much deeper way than I ever had before.

Are you in a bad place? Why don’t you try being in a good place?

Eff off, it took so much time and work to turn my life around. I wish I had the words to explain and describe the process but it didn’t come from anything that can be put into words. Just a 40 year old man slowly plucking up the courage to stop being ashamed of himself and stop caring about what people think of him for the first time in his life.

One small step at a time. One boundary put in place here and there. And all of this without having conquered any of the biggest fears. They still remain. Still avoiding many things.

Some things that will always be a source of anxiety and I’ve reevaluated the wisdom of actually avoiding environments where I don’t deal with things very well. I’ve let go of silly fantasies of magically fixing myself.

Letting go of any notion that I should meet expectations that aren’t reasonable for a man with my condition.

No less than altering the fundamental approach to life to finally reflect who I really am and what capable or incapable of.

I hesitate to say it but it’s been on my mind. I think I might actually be mentally healthy now. I can appreciate and show those things I listed above. To show gratitude. To now celebrate everything I’ve done that has got me to this point.

It may always be fragile in the end.

Never far away from having the peace disturbed. Have I just learned how best to avoid and not actually learned how to deal with any conflict?

It’s no longer of any importance to. I don’t feel any urge to change who I am anymore. Or to learn or to grow. That will come anyway, I don’t need to force it.

Maintaining the desire to be great at anything I do without letting it destroy me.

Ultimately I’ll always be highly sensitive to how others see me. I’ll always be hyper-self-conscious around other people.

I’ll probably never be what is commonly thought of as “cool”.

But in my isolation I now see myself as cool enough. Can I hold onto that? Will reconnecting with friends destroy that feeling? I’d rather not risk it right now.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I think I was always more scared of myself than I was scared of other people. In some ways it amounts to the same thing. I react to other people, they are the trigger but I’m the one who fears.

And how I always wished it wasn’t the case. But wishing doesn’t get you anything does it?

Something weird happened. I actually began to love myself despite all my faults. The really important thing I did was merely to put myself first. To finally recognise that I’m only in control of my own wellbeing and to fight for others wellbeing but never at the cost of my own.

So let’s celebrate this victory for what it is. A love denied for so long has now been earned and given.

Thank you for reading and anything beyond that I love you very much.

Jamie xx

Update: Plans and Corrections

This will be the last time I talk in depth about this MBTI stuff as I think I’ve changed my mind again and have gone back to ~~ISTP~~ INFJ again. Trying to stick with this one now.

Basically I see now that I’ve been leading myself through this forest of self-discovery in a self-deceiving manner as I take myself around in circles instead of finding an answer.

This part of my brain that deceives to protect myself works through the creative ideation and I’m doing it to keep running from my problems.

So I’m engaging now in what I think I need to do which is to plan my day to day living in a way which is good for me. And to introduce a little bit of structure.

I’ve been living at the behest of everyone else’s routines because I lack so much in the planning department and it’s never going to be my strength.

Regaining control of my life means being independent so I can manage what I need to manage in a way that is in my interest rather than someone else’s.

Ultimately I think that I need to be stronger and more confident in the physical world. I feel weak because someone is always trying to manage my life for me and I never felt physically safe around people because everyone around me treats me like a snowflake.

Their worries and anxieties, I picked them all up and absorbed them like a sponge. Living in the physical moment and feeling the physical world is really my only connection to the outside and yet I’ve come to fear and mistrust it.

I don’t care much about safety but I know how much I need to have that ability in my locker to pursue the excitement of living in the moment.

This is the vital support structure that bridges the gap between my ego and my inner child. How I actually support myself. Those who try to protect me are robbing me of the very means to grow up and connect with adulthood.

The other issue to fix is the social anxiety. I’ve thought long and hard about how and why this manifests. I’ve remembered now that I’m not really and never have been a people person. I’ve pursued life in a way such that I’m only in a small group of close friends.

Really it is just a matter of stopping this obsession with having to perfect and learning how to say it’s ok to be crap, ok to struggle, ok to ask for help.

It’s ok to fail and it’s ok to not care.

I don’t owe my fellow human beings the best at all times and I can’t expect the best from them.

I do want myself and everyone to be as good as possible but it’s not actually how things are and ultimately, people will do what they do and I’m free to not give a shit about people if I can’t help them.

Believing and trusting in myself is where I want to be. Learning from the pain of bad experiences is how we really grow.

They say that when we avoid things, our unconscious mind has a way of directing us towards repeating those things so we can finally process and deal with them once and for all to clean our minds of the problem.

Past traumas can be particularly hard to deal with. But what can I say? I’ve been reliving the same shit so often there’s something deep within me that I haven’t confronted.

It is probably that the fact that I have well and truly submitted my entire life and that I should finally grow a backbone, stand up for myself and stop being afraid to actually be myself.

I like the fact that I have very high standards but I should engage openly about when things aren’t working and I shouldn’t take everything as a personal injury.

I am weak and vulnerable. My mind frequently shifts into shameful submission. I need my mind to be stronger and for that, I need to understand that other people have done little to deserve the attention I give them and both I and they deserve to be masters of our own destiny.

And so the plan is to start the process of doing things I don’t normally like doing but I totally should do. Learning how to be comfortable and flexible in the realm of the difficult.

I’m giving serious thought to allotting my free time between 6 useful activities, Dice style, letting fate decide which activity I should pursue. Ideally restricting each one to an hour or two, then switching to make sure I’m balancing different things and not obsessing so single-mindedly.

Making music, creative writing, physical exercise, chores, lazing about doing nothing, socialising in some form, organising stuff. I should take an hour each evening purely towards nightly routine stuff to make sure I’m prepared for the next day.

I want to be as active as I can so I’m actually tired enough to sleep instead of staying up all night trying to make up for a wasted day.

I want to give my overworked functions a rest and work my underutilized functions. That will give me a better balance.

Few people will really understand the crippling effects of social anxiety and why the best thing to do is to stop caring about others needs and meet your own needs.

Being a hero to others is the purpose and meaning of my life but it is the last piece of the jigsaw puzzle and I’m still working on the edges, building the framework to establish the structure.

I use this metaphor because my autistic repetitive behaviour when I was very little was to do jigsaw puzzles.

Life is the hardest puzzle to solve and I long for the picture but the process is more important and I don’t know what I would do if I1 ever actually solved the puzzle. Find another one to do?

I’ve spent my entire life being crap at everything because I never learned how to deal with being crap at anything.

I’m working on a new techno track and I’ve finally looked into how to sample output from the laptop. And by jove, it’s exactly how I wanted it to work. I’ve got many ideas on what I can do with it but I’m being patient with it and taking my time to get the best out of it.

I’m less anxious about putting myself out there because it’s all about what I love and what interests me and it’s not for the pleasure of others (well maybe it is a little).

I guess that it’s all about learning what actually matters. My social anxiety is just my brain screaming that everything matters in ways I can’t even begin to understand.

I can’t help but feel that stuff that doesn’t matter is of no interest and everything should matter for the sake of actually meaning something worthwhile.

So the lesson to learn is that I should find my own self-worth and assertiveness be more important to me than anything else. I’ll look for those who share my interests and I’ll look for what is important to other people but never at my own cost.

Time and time I’ll say it again. I need to be self-centred to get myself healthy enough to be able to help other people and be a selfless angel.

And if people don’t like me for it I will judge them negatively for exposing their own selfishness. I can understand why they are selfish though and hopefully respond in the right way.

It is fundamental though, for me to finally admit that I’m not the man I believed I should be. I am in fact, only the man I can be. Contrary to bullshit societal shrieking, it’s ok to be who I am. But I have to reverse so much ideological poison to allow myself to act according to my own true nature.

My own subconscious is screaming at me to subvert every societal moral demand. My conscious and subconscious is divided. The key to inner peace to unite them. But you know what? My subconconscious loves it. It probably shouldn’t be the boss of me but it is.

More succinctly, I shouldn’t view the battle as an insurmountable conflict but as the natural argument of psychology.

The brain only wants me to fill it’s own gaps.

Thanks for reading as ever

Jamie

Addiction

I’ve been engaging in learning more about myself from a neurological perspective. Focusing on something I haven’t spoken about much yet.

I believe that I have plenty of signs of attention disorder such that I tend to get hyperfocused on anything that brings me the most pleasure. My mom used to say I was like an absent minded professor.

Dopamine is the main brain chemical involved in addiction. It is the neurotransmitter that reinforces the pathways leading to habits and routines.

Chemical addictions from drugs are associated with spikes in dopamine levels.

So what does dopamine actually do in the brain? It links memories to motivations. It lights up the brains associations and signals of pleasure and it is the anticipation and expectation of pleasure.

It also trains the brain to pay attention to something, telling you that something is important and salient.

I don’t know to what extent my brain lacks dopamine or overcompensates by flooding itself with it. I suspect that through hard times my brain is wired to only motivate myself to avoid. But when the good times come? Well I was a total junkie.

I’ve always needed an element of predictability in my life so I know I can engage myself without fearing that dopamine crash. But at the same time.

My life is frequently a yoyo between seeking the pleasure of stimulation to fill the void and burning myself out through overstimulation.

The discourse around addiction is very similar to the discourse around neurodiversity. Many still see addiction as a disease but I don’t see it that way. It certainly can be problematic but ultimately it is exactly that which drives me.

It’s only ever a problem when I have to deal with loss and change. And it can be so very destructive. Like everything else it’s up to me to figure out how to deal with it in the best way.

At the moment I have so little in my life that satisfies my craving for joy and I’m surrounded by anxiety and fear. Things will get better if I can push myself to find new opportunities.

I’m shutting myself away from the hurt and have ditched Facebook for now so I can work on myself again and carve a new path in life.

I guess I’m relying on society becoming open once more which will make it so much easier for me to open up myself.

At some point soon I aim to fully document all the pain, sorrow, anger, heartache and torture that I’ve felt since the world abruptly lost its mind over the last 2 years of germ panic. Because I want nothing more than to finally draw a line under everything and begin to move on.

My next blog will probably be about my job as there are plenty of autistic anxieties that come with employment. But there’s a lot of positives coming from work at the moment.

Today is Holocaust Memorial day so I want to leave a quick quote here.

Thanks for reading and kind regards as always