Shut the borders and declare independence (Metaphor again, Jim)

Greetings

Got a week off work this week. As you can imagine I’ve done little worth talking about so far. The best thing I can say is that I went for a walk this afternoon for some small overdue exercise.

Today being the day I got round to my only planned activity of walking and going to the pub knowing I don’t have to get up for work in the morning.

Some possible notion that I might try to organise doing something other than staying at home doing nothing productive.

Resting has always been the main aim anyway as I have my first booked annual leave since before Xmas. Not being able to sleep early always leads to writing the next day off as just resting.

Well I’m here again, blogging to keep myself busy in the pub except I don’t really have much to talk about at all.

My latest distraction has been returning to an old live from my teens. Something I was wildly into once upon a time slowly grew out of.

Yeah so I’m back into the old professional wrestling sports entertainment behemoth now known as the WWE. Been watching some old classic footage and have been catching up with where it is now.

Also interested in reliving the history of the business, the feuds, the stars, from the early days through the periods I originally stopped watching. The business as a concept has always been compelling for one reason or another.

The fictional world of the WWE has a peculiar logic of its own and it’s something I think about studying and recording as an aid to seeing how things unfold.

It becomes a strange macrocosm of a fantasy world that mirrors so much of humanity, especially the dark extremes.

There’s much to hate about it and I don’t know how much time and money I’m willing to invest in it but for now, my YouTube homepage is being dominated with wrestling thanks to the all powerful algorithm.

What the whole thing has reminded me of is how much excitement I’m missing at the moment. The business is fake of course but so long as you actually buy into it, it can be a rollercoaster.

The business was protected for so long but recent changes in the social media age means they’ve dropped much of the pretence and everyone knows now but it doesn’t really matter. Pretty much any wrestler of note has a podcast filled with secret spilling.

You buy into it to get what you want out of it. The melding of reality and fantasy is now just as compelling as anything else.

It’s been a long time since I bought into anything. The old problem remains, losing myself in the process of seeking excitement.

The conflict between emotional stability and excitement of the unpredictable. What I’m doing now is more about regaining the stability so I’m not really buying into anything.

Not sure what is actually worth buying into. Just keeping myself distracted enough to make the days worthwhile.

There comes a time when you realise that the only thing you ever need to buy into is yourself. Whatever it is you do. Invest yourself, your time and energy. Perhaps even your money.

Whatever can be said about my neurodivergence, a big problem has always been that I seem unable to invest myself in myself. To actually buy into and believe in anything I actually do.

Well I know I’m just crap at many things, particular anything that involves performance. I always did like and respect people who can do things I can’t.

But I guess it does nothing to compare myself in this way. Nothing helpful. Just an escape. It could be argued that I create the excitement I feel internally but it comes from something created by someone else.

This is the dependence I have on others. Left to myself I don’t feel much excitement at all. It’s probably true of all of us that we can’t feel excited by our own mental worlds because we can’t really be surprised when we just be by ourselves.

We know only what we know and change doesn’t come from our assumptions. Possibilities and hopes come from something outside of ourselves.

It’s hard to describe but the very idea of performing anything causes such paralyzing fear in me and I think it comes from the idea that I have to go against my very nature to express something artificial. I have a hard enough time expressing anything that’s true let alone fake.

I kind of know this is the reason why i struggle with creativity. My brain doesnt do artifice. I can do routine, predictability, patterns, orders, sets, categories, expectations, etc. Not so good at anything that uses new ideas, such as spontaneity, flexibility or hope.

Why am I writing this blog again? To talk to myself for a bit because I already know it’s helpful but I’m not going to actually achieve anything with it or change anything.

I would like life to be exciting again but I’m not really built to provide any excitement or variety. I’ll just keep on doing what I do regardless. The forces of change have always been other people.

As I learn to be more self-assured and secure and independent, I’m no longer willing to sacrifice myself for other people. But hot damn, I’ll need to gamble at some point.

It doesn’t feel like I’ve reached that point yet so I’ll keep on being me in the meantime. Going AWOL in the face of anything that should or needs to be done and just taking the pressure off.

Yeah I’m still not ready. And still no one has reached out to make things easier. No one to lighten the load. No one to build the bridge I can’t build. No one to offer what I can’t provide for myself.

It’s no longer a pity party for me but it is a justification for why I stopped caring. Every interaction is a two-way street and yet it is one I continue to travel alone. Told at every turn it is a road I have to travel when no one else bothers to meet me half way.

I still need to make the journey but it should be no surprise that I seek to shut the borders and declare independence. The very moment I can be self-sufficient and meet my own needs, I’m gone and you will never see me again.

We humans aren’t like that though and I will always need people around me for various reasons. Variety makes life so exciting.

Thank you as always for reading xx

Chronophobia

Greetings. A new blog today but first I do regret the tone of my last post. Needlessly oppositional and a sign of how my mood was slipping.

To balance things out I thought I’d get back to examining and critiquing myself again.

Still a few things to confront on the journey to fully accepting myself. Something I’m coming to terms with about myself. A new source of interest in regard to a realisation about myself. A new perspective to come from and engage in what has been a long term issue.

Fear of time wasted. Fear of time lost. Everything in life that I have lost reduces to the same thing. The loss of fun time.

It’s not time itself I fear, far from it. I love time. I don’t give myself enough time because I’m always looking to do something with my time. To fill existence and fend off the blackest emptiness.

Regrettably the term Chronophilia has been co-opted by nonces as a sanitizing euphemism.

Time is the most fascinating concept. I challenge anyone to attempt to define it without getting tied in knots.

To talk about living in the present at every moment is to ignore the past and the future. I’ve been thinking about how it feels like time stands still despite the fact that time always passes. To connect past and future at the joint of the present is a way to ensure never to get bored of the present.

Everyone knows how time flies when you enjoy yourself but when you’re not, you stare at the clock willing time to pass quicker. And yet it drags more than ever.

There’s something to the way time flies when you’re absolutely engaged in doing something that it feels like no time was lost at all and the present seemed to go on and on.

And so to the artistic and romanticized summary of recent times. But roughly two years ago time itself was shattered for me. The world stopped turning. The future and the past were lost to trauma leaving me trapped as time stopped and died.

Metaphorically my heart stopped beating, everything died around me. Everything changed and nothing was the same. In my heart, nothing has changed, no time has passed. Nothing will ever change again. Time itself has no meaning and the present moment is in a state of chaotic flux.

All is potential and nothing is real. The reason I haven’t moved on and gotten over things is because the moment I do, the world have restart and I will wake up knowing that time has been lost.

I will be older and little wiser, without any momentum to kick on. I will have to think about the future again and plan for things that I don’t actually want in any way, shape or form.

It means I’ll have to start caring again and that was ultimately my downfall. It comes at great cost to invest yourself. Through the transactional lens good things can come your way but it can be more of a curse than a blessing.

Time is the most valuable commodity you can invest because you can never get it back. I’ve spent my whole life trying to hoard as much time as I can because what in life was actually worth giving it up?

One other thing I’m truly afraid of now is confronting how much has gone to rot in the last few years as I refused to spend time maintaining things. How much time will it cost to repair the rot? Can I not just get away with hiding forever?

I’ve come to appreciate avoidance again, it’s an underrated defense mechanism that’s gotten a bad reputation. I’ve tried to address avoidance and tried to overcome it. It didn’t work and I don’t expect it ever to do so.

This is the core of who I am and living my life by my own rules. Avoiding things I don’t like in pursuit of all that I do. Because it doesn’t make sense to waste time feeling uncomfortable.

I was hyper-attached to the present moment, only ever seeking to improve the present moment, extend the present moment, let it evolve in a continuum, let it dominate the past and the future.

Even if it’s the reason I’m so anxious all the time, I wouldn’t ever give it up. I never have.

There have been so many times I wished I could stop dwelling on all the loss and pain. I know why I did and still do dwell. It’s only to keep those moments alive in the present and ensure I never have to say goodbye, never have to let go of the present and never have to face the future.

I’m not hostage to the opposing forces of past and future. I stand guard, eyes on both, chaining them both to the present moment, to the very core of my being.

If we’re all honest, I rather suspect that fear of death is in fact just a manifestation of the true fear of lost time. I remember as a child, the first time I learned of the concept of death. Had a big old cry as I understood I didn’t want to ever die.

Didn’t want to ever lose conscious existence and be no more.

Roy Batty is the hero of Blade Runner because he wants “more life, fucker.” Rutger Hauer understood it so deeply, he adlibbed the famous Tears in Rain speech.

The long search for connection with others has always been about connecting myself to something bigger and deeper. More profound. The connection of consciousness and human experience. Connecting my past to my future, creating a conduit for joy in the present moment.

A gateway for a troubled past to become a hopeful future filled by living in the present moment.

Change can be good or bad. It’s not change I’m truly afraid of but change represents a death and a birth. If change is a natural evolution of something then it is connected. If not then it is a conflict, a separation that only feels like a death.

The darkest demonic inner critic serves some useful functions. Keeps me anchored through times of loss. Keeps me in the present. Reminds me of how good life could have been and tells me when life is too shit to deal with.

I’m slowly turning what used to be negatives into positives by understanding and appreciating what makes me me and why. Everything for a reason and all that.

Time marches on and a thousand other cliches. I’ll do my best forever and always to ignore and deny it. It’s what I do best.

3 hours spent writing the blog and it’s always time well spent. I don’t regret a single second.

Thank you for reading xx

Clocks go forward – all else goes backward

Having a bad day today. Combination of a number if things. Cumulation of tiredness. Really need to some time off soon.

Didn’t sleep very well last night. Not just losing an hour in the night but basically barely sleeping into well past morning. 3 bad dreams in the last 2 nights. 2 of which came after finally nodded at about 7 this morning. Eventually slept until 1.30pm when I was woken up.

Time for the favour I have to give every weekend, usually Saturday but this weekend it’s the Sunday.

I didn’t feel particularly well so I didn’t accept giving the return lift. A compromise which was what had been normal but changes in circumstances have seen a increase in the demand placed on me.

I just can’t do it today. Too tired. Too wound up and anxious. Yes the gradual increase in demand on my time and expectation placed on me without anyone offering to support me has just caused a full blown anxiety attack today.

To keep the recent habit of talking about anxiety, today it’s the massive in the stomach that accompanies the anticipation that something bad will happen.

On a day to day basis, the more I’m forced out of my comfort by demands or expectations, the more and more I feel that something bad will happen. The more tired I get the less equipped I am to fight those feelings. Less and less am I equipped to actually deal with anything that does go wrong.

When the brain goes haywire there’s simply no way to deal with anything. The only option is to run away and escape.

I’ve come out tonight to watch the England football match in the pub. It’s nice and quiet in here. I don’t feel like talking much so this blog will probably end up fairly short.

Other than the need to express that I’m struggling today I don’t have much to say. I didn’t want to go out today, wanted to just stop in, lie down and veg in front of a screen. I’m not happy at home but I’m too tired to go and find my own place.

Too anxious to leave my room except to smoke out the back garden. Stuck in a cycle where I don’t feel free enough or safe enough to do anything that might change things.

I don’t really feel good at any time and haven’t done since losing my friends. Not sober at least anyway.

And there is too little positivity or motivation going on today. Don’t have any words of encouragement or support. Just running away today. Not caring about anything. Will take something to help me sleep tonight and try to get as much rest as possible.

Plan for tomorrow at work is to do the 2 things I’ve been putting off that should have been last week and actually then booking time off work. The first week I can take off the better. Maybe look to take a day or two in the next couple of weeks.

Long term plan, remove any source of pressure, demand or expectation that I can. Only care about getting myself rested and recovered.

Fuck everything else.

Thanks as always for reading xx

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

Telling your stories

Turning 40 on the morrow. FML as they say. Been looking towards the big picture. Asking myself what am I really going to do with my life.

Creative exploits are nice. Working on a techno track which is gearing up to be my magnum opus. Planning on turning all the tracks into a concept album, telling the story of my struggles this past year and a half.

I want to carry on doing what I’m enjoying at the moment while keeping an eye out for opportunities to grow by overcoming hardship.

I continue to slavishly devote most of my attention to empowering myself and learning to defeat the anxieties. To stop caring what people think of me and display my true self at any cost.

I’m moving away from seeing myself in terms of autism and begin to approach life as just doing whatever I do and not making excuses. Not look to hide away from negative assumptions.

It was and is the case that I need to fully understand myself, what I can and can’t do. How to get the best out of myself and when to step back. Defend myself where I need to.

Maybe I’ve been so afraid because I live under so many assumptions that really come from the way others see me. I’ve never been able to really look at myself and judge myself honestly.

I am so very different to everyone and I’ve never truly met anyone who really thinks the same way and sees the world the same way. It can be a lonely place when you are different.

The hardest lesson I’ve learned so far is simply that no one cares. People are interested but they don’t really care. They are just being themselves. They don’t expect to be challenged or confronted about anything important.

They care in the way such that no one wants to be alone in the world and we all exist only to give us someone to talk to. People say “you do you and I’ll do me” and we all just do our thing.

What brings us together it seems is a mutual dislike for conflict and so we don’t talk about stuff that really matters.

I’m going to have to plough my own way through life and that means creating my own environment that benefits me. They say that people don’t care if you fail and they’re more worried about themselves anyway.

I have to be ok with failing so long as I learn the lesson and keep growing. I have to be ok with hurting people so long as I learn the lesson and keep growing.

I have to be ok with telling people when they hurt me otherwise they won’t understand. I have to be at peace with my dark side to be able to be at peace with other people.

Reconnecting with the desire to help people and be of service to the common good but at the same time I want to show my subversive opposition to everything in the world that depresses me.

Had planned to go away this week and take some leisure time. Couldn’t really be arsed to make it happen. Might look out for a last minute booking and go for a couple of days.

I should have taken the opportunity to experience somewhere different and be away from the usual backdrop I’ve grown so tired of.

There is still work to be done and I find it hard to drop everything. It’ll be good to take a break from work but I think I just want to stay in and keep on letting my mind wander towards a better tomorrow.

What good is it going away somewhere when I still don’t know what I want to do?

I guess I want to be able to look for social opportunities but to feel bulletproof wherever I go. To find someone interesting enough to care about while feeling like they can’t ever hurt because I can be in control of my mind and I can say I don’t need anything from you that would make me vulnerable.

I’m looking for that iron will that says “I am here to do something I like and if I don’t like it I can go somewhere else”. I should also know what I’m looking for and stay open to opportunity.

Times like these I do ask myself “What am I afraid of exactly?” What is it that I’m so scared of losing when I don’t feel like I have much worth keeping.

It’s better to give myself away than have it taken away but either way I lose myself and I don’t believe anyone is worth losing myself over anymore.

I guess that it what means to stop caring but I want to keep caring, just not at my own expense.

Perhaps I was never truly authentic in any of my social groupings. I did my best but I didn’t have the mental strength to be authentic and people liked me more when I cared.

At least I imagined they did. Actually only a select few people who I felt good to be around made it easy for me to be myself.

My loyalty burns strong in this state but it quickly dissipates under conflict.

I think being reborn at 40 will hopefully turn the tide so I embrace being unique, different, unusual, edgy, subversive, etc. while never feeling the need to conform because that just doesn’t appeal.

Not a fan of mantras normally but I say I’d rather be alone now than ever pretend to be someone else in order to fit in. Long may it be the case.

I need not be alone in the modern world of online connection but I can be picky and selective about who I dedicate my time to.

And in any case I’ve got a rich inner world to tap into and I hope to create my own worlds to enrich my soul and embiggen the spirit.

I’ve not explored enough in my life. Rarely felt the need to but life was so much more full when I did.

Yep, knowing that my life is far too dull and that I need to try new things that don’t feel comfortable at first, it takes bottle and drive.

To expand the point I’m trying to make, we live in a society where everyone loves to tell their story and everyone wants you to tell yours, but that’s as far as it goes when it comes to it. The full content of your story is of little genuine consequence.

As long as you tell your story people are happy but does your story actually matter to anyone else? I feel compelled to say it shouldn’t but we all need someone to listen.

If that was all that mattered was there any point to telling it? I only know that I needed to start listening to myself despite how painful it was.

I like very much for people to hear my story more than I ever have before which is a good sign. Though I would prefer it if it’s from genuine interest rather than just having someone to talk to.

I don’t know what to expect tomorrow. It will be lovely to see family but there will be some darkness as I still miss my old friends. Very tempted to get hammered and dance with the demons.

Why not begin my life anew with a brand new dark ritual? Set a new tradition to celebrate victory over the old ways. Get in touch with the my demonic alter ego and scheme the undermining of pointless morality.

Big thank you for reading as ever

Jamie x

Self-rediscovery

Well it’s been quite an epiphany light bulb moment but I feel like something has clicked and I sense I’ve finally hit that mark and now I’m back into the real me.

Been late for work a couple of times recently and I had to admit that I’m struggling to organise myself and keep on track.

It felt good to admit and it allowed me to readjust my thinking. Opened me up to new ideas which I hope to explore this weekend.

Now I’ve got a better idea of how my brain works I can begin to form a plan to live the right way. I’ve been doing it so wrong for so long.

I absolutely shouldn’t feel any shame for who I am and what I want. I should feel ashamed at being so ashamed.

So what can I say about how and why? Social anxiety – it plays hell with me because it prevents me from being everything that I should be in accordance with my deepest desires.

I’ve always felt I was trapped in the wrong mind. That might be true quite literally. That I couldn’t be myself and was forced to become someone else out of fear. Fear of myself maybe. Fear of others certainly.

And you might well say that only other people can influence us to fear and hate ourselves. We would never see ourselves that way without falling under the spell of believing others instead of believing ourselves.

I hope the time I spend alone can strengthen my inner beliefs and inner resolve so I can can stop giving a fuck about what other people think of me.

So I believe now that my personality type is actually ESTP. I thought I was INFJ but it seems that was actually my subconscious.

I’m an INFJ when I’m depressed. They say that depression comes with a personality change. I’ve got the same tools but I use them in the opposite order.

Without the anxiety I would be well and truly extroverted, living life to the max, seeking and spreading love while not caring about anything.

I love physically interacting with the world and I feel like a hero when I give pleasure to others.

I use my rational brain to solve problems and I feel like a healthy adult when I can figure out how to do something.

I blindly seek love and harmony from others to please the selfish inner child.

I’m stubbornly singleminded in how I see and interpret the world but my will is the weakest link. My own intentions and those of others are probably the real cause of my social anxiety and insecurities.

And to quickly dip into the shadow.

I worry deeply about loyalty and need to test the loyalty of those around me to keep me safe and give me routine.

I get actively defensive when people criticise me as it feels like people are trying stop me from growing and developing.

When I’m rejected and unloved the inner child does what children do when they’re scared and runs away. I hide my true feelings where no one can see them.

If I’m being watched and observed it feels like I’m being controlled my mind is filled with intense loathing and hatred. This is my biggest demon and biggest hypocrisy.

To sum I realise how much I’ve internalized. So much negativity directed towards people like me that I had turned on myself for my own detriment.

I have become woke in the true sense. I can now admit that I’m much more vain and shallow than I had thought. I wanted to think of myself as deep and soulful because I had been led to believe these were the desired characteristics. I’m interested in people who are because they represent something that I lack.

I’ve tried to emulate people like that to fit in and feel accepted but it was at the highest possible cost. That I had abandoned myself and lived a fraudulent existence.

It’s going to be a wild ride to start living the life I want without anxiety and maybe I’ll always be rusty. For the first time in my life I’ve got a genuine reason to get myself physically healthy and strong.

Getting mentally healthy will always be the acid test. I simply don’t and never have seen any worth in living this pointless non-living existence.

Plan for the weekend is to actually plan things. Plot a course towards following my dreams. Also to develop a healthy routine so I’m actually taking charge over the little things. It would be nice to actually prepare myself for every tomorrow instead of waking up as a hostage of life’s demands.

So many opportunities now, different things I like doing. I’ve never been very good at making decisions. I think there’s scope here for giving each thing a turn for a short time.

Honestly never thought about things this way before but I’d like to make each day more variety based.

What I can actually give to humanity is only my own particular flavour of humanity.

I can sum up anxiety by saying that it’s the feeling that things aren’t going to be ok. And if I’m not doing what I do and love, of course things aren’t going to be ok.

So why the fuck am I not doing that already? I’m so out of practise. Lived my whole life under my own shadow.

The lesson to learn is that you should never be afraid to admit when things aren’t going well. Just be honest with yourself and those around you.

Life is a series of lessons, don’t ever think you are perfect the way you are. Ask yourself what you’d rather be doing and how you can be doing it.

Love of humanity only comes when you learn to love yourself.

Thanks for reading. All my love to those who do.

Jamie

MBTI INFJ

Well I’ve rather gotten myself hooked on this. Been thinking about constantly. And this classification actually gives a good explanation as to why.

It’s a fascinating system to model how the brain works and what it does best. With that being said I’m not of a fan of those who wield it for mechanically explaining everyone’s type. Typing is what they call it.

But it popped up one day thanks to the YT algorithm and I gave it a look. Straight away I was introduced to the INFJ. Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Judging. It sounded like me from the get go and every vid I watched described me perfectly.

To understand what it means you have to dig deep into the definitions and the hierarchy it represents.

Cognitive functions and their place in the hierarchy. That has been really engaging and has really fired up my brain.

The first slot is where your ego begins in the conscious mind. They call it the hero and it’s the goto function of choice. The big man.

Next is the auxiliary support function. Often called the parent function, this gives your hero back up like a sidekick. It is also completely different to the hero function.

Next is the tertiary child function which is the innocent vulnerable part of you. It exists as another tool in your belt when you need to rest and play.

Next is the most interesting. The weak inferior function. It exists to give you a weakness to improve and actually gives you drive and motivation. What is also does is complete the set and if used well can get you your wildest dreams. It’s potentially a superhero function but it can be also be your fears and insecurities. If not used well it will be the biggest bane of your mind. Well maybe not quite the worst.

For this represents your conscious ego, there is the shadow side which I think represents your unconscious personality. The complete opposite of your conscious.

This has the same order but all the functions face the opposite direction. The theory is that all the darkness and pain that you avoid is pushed into the lazy unconscious mind and thus poisons the unconscious. It may be that we have this in order to defend ourselves against the forces of stress.

The hero becomes the villain, the support becomes the critical punisher. The child becomes the mischievous prankster. The motivator becomes the poisonous saboteur. Most terrible of all known as the demon function.

So here’s what I look like under this system;

Hero – introverted intuition

Supporter – extroverted feeling

Playful child – introverted thinking

Dreamer – extroverted sensing

Villain – extroverted intuition

Punisher – introverted feeling

Manipulator – extroverted thinking

Demon – introverted sensing.

Ni Fe Ti Se – Ne Fi Te Si. These are my two personalities. It’s important to make clear that this about how I deal with the world in terms of cognitive functions. It says nothing about the content of my character.

But to make a start with my Ni Hero, this is really when I’m at my best. How I interpret this (ironically through my Ni) is that I perceive the world through what I intrinsically know already. It can mean that I maintain fixed assumptions and rarely question them.

So I didn’t actually take the MBTI test, I have essentially typed myself based on the fact that it was telling me what I already knew deep down.

But it gives me a ready made framework to hang these ideas on and hopefully a complete understanding of who I really am.

The issues I’ve had to face this last year and a half, they did break me well and truly. I see a bigger picture of why I’ve tried to become someone else. Because all of my strongest cognitive functions broke and I was left with only malicious demons guiding me.

I needed to reverse the directions to undo the damage. I’ve been cautiously exploring the demons in a more healthy, beneficial manner and that has helped. Because these demons can be angels if used willingly and for the good.

Writing this blog helps me because I use Ne to externalise the internal. It’s good to get that expressive creativity. To bring new ideas to the table.

To give my overworked and over tired hero a break.

It’s not good for me, or anyone for that matter, to spend too much time internalizing. You need an outlet. Spending time with family helps to bring in new sensory information and it really changes my perspective.

So what is what the conscious ego actually for? Do I work to rebuild my ego functions or to cleanse my shadow functions? I feel like I’m becoming a different person in some areas but it’s tiring using your shadow functions and I’m just permanently tired these days.

Some life advice I’ve received is that I really need to sort out my Si Demon because this is what seems to undermine me at every time. This is the part of me that wants to fail and I am still failing at the end of the day.

Depending on the definition of introverted sensing, this is probably related to self care. Looking after myself and getting physically healthy. The good news is that I don’t need to go overboard, dont need to become Charles Atlas.

Just a little here and there to show the demon I’m not afraid and that will boost my Se Dreamer.

I’ve got so much to say about all this and I will continue in my quest to refine the model to regain my ego.

I plan to make my next blog a vlog. Tried about a year ago but got frustrated with the video editor and gave up. I felt very alien and uncomfortable watching myself talk.

Planned to do it last Monday during the day off not grieving the loss of the royal parasite. Felt like shit the whole weekend. Didn’t go out for a drink or anything. Didn’t do anything worthwhile. Lots of plans that didn’t work out.

Talk will be more about this stuff but I want to connect it to my autism as well because I have lots of hypotheses about how it affects my cognitive functions. I still need to be alone to film myself and it may take a while to put it together. This is a promise I will keep. Hopefully.

Thanks as always for reading xx

Restless

Been a while since my last proper blog. Plenty going on in the meantime. So much so that I had for a while taken my mind off the usual issues. Had some more stuff to take my mind off things.

Hard house night last Friday was funnish. Got off my face and danced a lot. It’s true though, hard house isn’t quite my thing these days and I was praying for some more techno stuff.

The best part of the evening was the 2hr walk home at 5 in the morning. Nice and quiet and peaceful. I let the remaining hyper energy slowly dissipate as the sun rose.

All day hangover Saturday, family party on Sunday which was a nice time though I kept myself in the quiet area.

Cinema Monday to see a secret horror film which was recently good. MOT Tuesday and then tiredness through the rest of the week.

Getting back into things I used to for fun. Started watching HotD which rekindled my love of the game of thrones books.

Pushed away the darkness for a while and felt like I was doing stuff for myself again. Relearning to actually do things I enjoyed.

Somewhat distant from all that there’s been some reflection on how I’ve changed since everything that happened.

My lifelong shyness has become more focused now. I think now that I find it harder than ever to be myself around other people.

Or actually instead of that, I’m much more myself but life has become so much harder. Trying to be more social but I’m just less connected to people and more of a lone wolf doing whatever I do.

Trying to be my unashamed and true self really meant that I’m just completely closed around new people and I’m not charismatic enough to actually attract anyone inside the walls.

The more time I spend alone the more I realise how deeply I just want the right people in my life. I get so bored and restless on my own because it’s just not much fun to be in my head.

I spent so much of my life masking and repressing myself exactly because it was better than the alternative. Better to have fake friends than no friends at all.

It’s been an important step to find my old self again but I don’t feel I can get any sort of life back until I reinvent myself. I’m still looking to do that but I don’t really believe that I will manage it.

Who I am deep down is the real me and I’m not going to change without outside help. From someone or something else that forces me to change. And even then I’ll stubbornly resist.

Emotional time at work this week. Part of my job is calculating death payments for life insurance. I’m pretty detached from the thought of death and generally most claims are from natural causes.

This week however I had my first claim for a murder victim. And the circumstances were pretty shocking. And so this person wasn’t a faceless name and a policy number but a known person.

Hadn’t had time off for a while and probably won’t get any soon. Still waiting for authorisation for my birthday week as we are losing another 3 members of the team.

The lad I’m training at work has got an accreditation, so maybe my training has been quite effective.

I feel a little isolated at work sometimes. I sit alongside some colleagues but don’t quite feel like I belong in the circle. I feel sad when I feel I’m not being fully included. Times like these I wish to shut myself off to take control and preempt being alone.

Haven’t felt very creative recently. Probably just too tired.

What’s my plan for tonight? Drinking but probably not too much. The weekend? Fuck knows.

Spent time with my younger brother recently, we might it a regular thing, walking up the Wrekin. Impressed that we did it in half an hour with it needing a rest.

It was great to talk honestly about what I really needed to talk about but had kept quiet about. My bro is a great listener. I’ll let him talk more next time.

So it’s doing me good to aim for, and do stuff. To choose to do something and do it. Just do it however I can and not let any anxiety stop me.

I’ve not magically become fearless or anything but I’m not beating myself up about anything.

I don’t know if I can ever achieve what I really want in life and am still plagued by many doubts and fears but I’m feeling more like I’m in control of myself and more patient with myself.

Events have left me in the nasty position of needing people around me while I’ve stopped trusting people in general. But I keep on. Keep going.

Continuing to work on myself and to keep connected to people as much as I can.

It’s time to kick start the process of loving myself by actually looking after myself and reparenting myself. Doing stuff that’s good for me. Looking after my physical and mental health.

Muster up the energy to properly tidy myself up. That’s something they teach in CBT. I struggle to do things because I don’t have a tidy personal space. I feel oppressed by the mess I’ve made of myself.

It’s no good dreaming of doing stuff when I’m trapped by my own personal clutter.

Does the messy mind cause a messy room or vice versa? The environment I create to keep people out is unfriendly to myself as well. I keep people out more when I don’t feel good about myself. So why do I do things that make me feel bad about myself? To keep people away.

A vicious circle if ever there was one. Also it gives a rare sense of control to actively sabotage yourself. The funny thing is that I kind of enjoyed not being in control because life felt more interesting that way. Not good though when things go badly.

Life will be a long, perpetual quest to find things to do that I actually like doing. And to perfect the art of keeping myself safe while I throw myself into whatever comes along.

It really sucks to be me sometimes, but I do it as well as I can and I don’t think anyone else could ever be me and keep their soul like I do.

Thanks as always for reading.

PS I’m not shedding any tears for the royal parasite. The only reason I’m not celebrating is because the new king is far worse. I’ll dance a jig when they’re all removed from this Earth.

Getting back

There’s no denying or escaping the fact that I’m feeling increasingly lonely at the moment. I’ve no desire to spend the rest of my life alone. This isolating was with the aim to be more secure around people by being more comfortable alone.

The place I’m in now is not a good place to be alone. I do need someone to talk to and offer a distraction.

So tonight I’m back out for drinks. It’s a been while but probably not that long really.

I’ve been through something taxing today and I probably should be resting but I committed myself to getting fairly drunk and felt like staying open to some company.

Had a first at work. The first time I’d had to report a breach due to a policy being incorrectly administered.

It was nerve wracking because it’s the sort of thing I don’t like dealing with and to be honest after 3 years I was worried there might be questions asked as to why I haven’t done one before.

But yeah I asked for and got help and it’s something I know I can deal with now.

We’re a regulated industry and our breaches must be reported within 72 hrs. There was no putting off until Monday.

That didn’t happen until mid afternoon so I took my extra half hour dinner break and popped in to my local autism hub.

I was hoping to be a bit more social again and it was nice to see an old friend who I haven’t seen for ages. We had a quick catch up and I’m pleased to see she’s doing well.

I got to ask how the others are doing which put my mind to rest a little.

I mentioned that I’ve been spending too much time alone as I learn to be myself. It got me thinking again about how the real me is so difficult to find.

The real me is someone who is friendly but at the same time I’m doing it because I need other people around me to feel human. Without company, what exists deep inside doesn’t really feel very human.

It is totally part of who I really am that I don’t feel safe alone because if I have to isolate to protect myself I’m already trapped in a place where I don’t feel safe.

I am such a different person when I’m around people who make me feel good. The 2 sides of me don’t recognise each other.

That’s the reason I have pursued the Jungian ideal of integrating my 2 selves. To become a balanced person.

During the bad times I had unfriended my old friend which i immediately regretted and fully expected she wouldn’t want to talk to me. But she did.

It made me think that she was so casual that she didn’t even notice I had disappeared which kind of sucked in a way but I was ultimately really glad that she was still friendly.

I’m going to continue pursuing building bridges to being friends again with the old group but I also want to just keep going to new places and begin to meet new people.

Perhaps now I’m becoming more like my old friends by staying open while not really doing anything to cement friendships into demanding relationships.

I still want to pursue relationships of course because I find it easier to trust people when I know they’ll stand by me and stick with me.

It’ll help to spend time around people again but at some point I’ll want more and become unhappy again. But better to be unhappy than to repeat the experiences of the last 18 months.

And so the burgeoning creative inside me really wants to start writing something. To create a world that I can lose myself in and hopefully provide me some alternative to the loneliness.

It’s a big deal and I’m still so hesitant to give it a proper go. I can tell myself that it will be some thing worthwhile that I can be proud of. Maybe it can be what I dedicate my life to instead of seeking out the company of real people.

One fear is that it will make the isolation worse and I’ll ultimately get lost in the dark forest again. But it might be the sort of thing I need to give myself the belief that I’ll be ok.

At this time I can reveal that I finally deleted my Facebook and it’s too late to reclaim it now. I’m already plotting how to relaunch myself by creating a brand new account but only in order that I might have better control over how much I share of myself.

I’m returning to some good advice, to take things one at a time and make slow but steady progress. Trying to rebuild myself but it has to be done right. And it needs good foundations.

I think that I need to apply myself in such a way that I can win one small victory at a time while making sure that I get as much rest and healing as possible.

It’s truly a great feeling when you finally deal with something big but there’s an energy cost and things don’t sink in until you’ve rested and recovered. Feel that weight lifted from your shoulders.

Getting in touch with a better self-image now. I’ve been trying to hold onto the various schema that exists inside myself.

The demons who are covered in spikes to hurt people who get too close. The harsh taskmaster who demands I do better. The child who always want to play and won’t listen to anyone else.

There was even a brief dalliance with the archetype of cool. The unbeatable aloofness of the smirking figure who is above everything but whose eyes smoulder with the fire of warm charisma.

I know I’ve needed this tonight. To take a break from worrying and engage with the part of myself that is free to imagine something better.

So it feeling I’m getting my humanity back again. It feels like connecting with other people helped me connect with my better self again. That was probably always the case.

It’s no accident that all of my friends were autistic and it’s no surprise that I seek to keep them in my life and spend all of my time with them. It’s no surprise that I reacted so badly to losing that connection nor why I feel so bad for the way I reacted.

But tonight is a night for allowing myself to feel good again simply because I’ve reconnected with a part of myself that I love and have shut off the voice that tells me I need to be someone else to feel that love.

The pub is quiet but not too quiet and they’re playing some good music. I can sit by myself and blog or I can join some people I know.

What would the archetype of cool do? He’d do whatever the fuck he wanted.

Thanks as always for reading

Kindest Regards to those who do xx

Alexithymia

Thinking about this topic today. Something I can work on.

The trigger for this was that I’ve currently got the house to myself for 3 or 4 days. When I first learnt this I got a feeling of positivity. I was genuinely looking forward to it, having some good quality alone time.

2 days into it and what have I been doing? Not a lot really, not much at all.

So what have I been looking for all along to make me feel good? What can I do to feel good when I’m alone? I know how good I felt when I was with close friends, people I trusted and felt comfortable to be around.

How does happiness work?

I start from a point where I’m unhappy as standard. By default. I’m at my happiest when I’m getting outside of my own head. Overanalysing everything is not much fun.

So it’s for this reason I think that I never really embrace and appreciate the feelings and emotions of the moment. My happiness is tied to a projection into the future whereby I’m either living a life I like or I’m not.

What really drove me was a sense of hope and optimism with a degree of expectation, that life would continue to go well and give me what I craved. Fulfilling my psychological needs for security and freedom. And when I say crave of course, the addiction to these feelings is a measure of how strongly I feel them.

I associate these feelings with a black and white definition of good and bad and hence why they are so strongly positive and negative emotions. I don’t feel like I’ve ever struggled to identify the different emotions but I think that I have misunderstood the nature of them and how what they really mean.

And of course I’ve never got the hang of how to deal with them in a healthy manner.

I tend to think of them now as the spectrum between love and hate. These are the pure feelings of the moment and sometimes I can just let myself feel them. But only when I’m in a calm place whereby I can switch my mind off.

Love is a feeling that represents the force of attraction, hate represents the force of repulsion. Love is addictive and is harder to appreciate and to express. Hate is easier to express but less tolerable to feel.

And so what were the emotions that guide the motions?

I think in my case that confidence causes love and fear causes hate. And yet I’m not really in control of the confidence or the fear. Precisely because I’m not in control of my own future. More than ever, the world is becoming gradually evermore insecure.

The complexity of my emotions stem from the fact that they’re not governed by the moment, but the implications and the hypothetical consequences to be derived.

What should have been joyful memories of a wonderful past full of hope now become a bitter stain on the present without a hopeful future.

Anxiety is really the expression of doubt and uncertainty feeding back into the fear response.

What of sadness and grief? They emerge after loss, but I think they represent something much deeper. These are emotions that I hate feeling because I hate the fact I’ve lost. Moreover, the feeling is of profound hopelessness that I can never regain what I’ve lost. That I’m doomed to have lost forever.

Thinking about this now, I see a deeper connection between emotions and the fundamental insecurities I have about life in general. I can see the real reasons why I can’t get over some things, why I can’t forgive and forget, why I usually break contact, why I can’t deal with conflicts.

The best thing to do now is to spend more time learning to be in the moment and not to saddle myself with the full force of expectations that every moment will determine my fate forever.

Easier said than done though. I asked myself what is the best way to make the most of being home alone. Is it to seek maximal pleasure at all times? Of course not.

I still don’t know what I can do by myself that will make me happy but I set out to prove to myself that I’ll have more freedom and safety. That I’ll be more confident and less restrained, less inhibited.

What I actually want to do with my temporary free time and space is to do things that build my confidence and give myself a platform to feel love again. To do so in a way that doesn’t put too much pressure on myself.

Last night I ended up falling into the same addictive trap by staying up all night watching youtube vids. Needless to say that I felt like crap today and struggled badly with work.

Tomorrow will be a day for doing better things hopefully. Find a good balance between activity and rest. I like to be creative but I’ve been having nagging doubts recently that my artwork and music aren’t really providing what I need to be confident. I’m doing it for myself but ultimately I’d want to share it with the world and I don’t yet feel it’s good enough.

I need so much time, space and energy to create something in a way that truly feels worthwhile. I want to be more balanced in my approach which would mean I can’t pursue things so single-mindedly. But then again, I’ve learned that I have to take things one step at a time so it’s just more natural to me to work on something until I’m happy with it, then move on to something else.

Organisational skills I really lack and this is something I should work on. Taking control of my life means actually managing my life. Being the boss, making decisions. There’s little worse than having a crap boss who doesn’t know what he’s doing. So why do I tolerate the crap job I do running my own life?

If I’m ever going to achieve the dream of being independent, I’d better make sure I can do it well.

Thanks as always for reading

Fond Regards,

Jamie