Neurodivergence and political correctness.

I thought begin with a little addendum to the previous post. Speaking about what anxiety actually is and there’s much more to it than what I wrote. With that said though I haven’t made much progress on that front.

It is complex and the chain of logic goes deep into what makes me tick. I realise that to some extent, I just want things to be fantastic but I expect things to be terrible. The cognitive dissonance arises and things just don’t feel right.

I did go back to the last two times I went to the local autism hub to maybe check in and see if my old friends were there. And they were.

I can only go to the conclusion that my life was so wonderful with them that I could just never go back to that state having made such a mess of things. The new expectation of being snubbed and dismissed just cannot be tolerated having know what was and what could have been.

It still remains the aim to be in a place where I can begin anew and replace those extreme expectations with openness. But to go back I must do something drastic to be able to change my outlook.

Some disappointing news from the hub is that despite a previous intention to restart the monthly social evenings, the socials have now been organised in the Friday afternoon drop in slot. So for people like me who work the usual 9-5 we cannot attend unless we book time off work.

There was a shock change around Christmas as the 2 most senior staff members quit without much warning so I can imagine staffing issues prevent them from expanding back into evening socials.

I occasionally drop in on my lunch break for half an hour. Been meaning to go recently but work is extra stressful at the moment. I’ve grown into more responsibility in m y role at work, currently just got my colleague his checker accred and training a new team member. We’re close to getting him signed off as well.

Work has been pushing daily productivity targets for several months now and I try my best to ignore them and just do what I can.

For the topic at hand, I’m taking some time to watch vids from the neurodivergent community. It struck me how the journey of self-discovery I’ve been on has never been far away from the political battle for better treatment of and understanding of us neuroatypicals.

When I say political I’m really talking about the morality and correctness of how society treats us and represents us. Are we a burden to be lifted? Are we a special snowflake that needs to be coddled? Are we just like everyone else in most ways?

Should we be discriminated against for our disabilities? Should we be singled out for special treatment? Should we be normaliased? Should we be raised the same way as everyone else?

Are we the archtype of advanced future Nu-Human? Are we making neurotypicals look bad? Should we care about any of that and just get on with our lives?

I think we can all agree it’s the height of evil to send us to the Nazi killing centres as Hans Asperger is now known to have done.

It all comes down to ideas of whether autism is an illness that needs to be cured or if its fine and doesn’t. I can admit there have been many times I have wished I didn’t have it. Wished my friends didn’t have it. Or at least some aspects of it.

Separate from that though is how society sees us and the messages people send when they deal with us. Reductive stereotypes abound. Unhelpful rhetoric. And of course the common trope of claiming to be an ally while speaking for us and over us.

Beyond the fundamental axioms of good and bad I wonder if there is or ever will be a correct answer.

I don’t really believe living according to anyone else’s standards and systems is of any benefit to me now so I’m quietly digging in to living life my own way. I’ll find out for myself what’s good for me and bad for me.

Its hard going but I slowly learn to accept other people shouldn’t have to live up to my standards either. Though I will offer my own perspective I’m not going to insist on helping people and trying to fix every problem.

I know I’ve never wanted to force my opinions onto anyone else. I don’t do it and never have. Always sit back and say nothing. Its not in my nature to think I’m better than everyone else. In my own weird way I always respected individuality and I like people who are truly unique and different.

I don’t like change I never tried to change anyone I didn’t like. Quite the opposite actually, I ended up trying to maintain consistency and predictability while trying to stay interesting enough.

So meek was I that I viewed boundaries as a repressive force and so I never said no. The last two years can be summed up as a long overdue blanket of saying no.

It is and can only be from those authentic voices of neurodivergence that I build an understanding of how best to behave around us.

The mutual support and friendship I found was wonderful. I would do anything within my power for them to the point of love-bombing. It would have been great if I could do it forever without any conditions or expectations.

Alas I was doing it because I wanted something and when I wasn’t getting what I wanted, soon enough I was no longer acting with the same kindness. But at the same time I felt that I had been pulled in with kindness and pushed away without kindness.

My experience has taught me not to trust kindness anymore. Through the same eyes I can see my best friend had plenty of reason not to trust kindness and she always made independence the most important thing in her life.

She was diagnosed a year or so before me and I think she had done so much to help herself already before I came along.

I looked for friends and social excitement before I had really begun to process and come to terms with my diagnosis.

She continues to have a massive influence on me as I continue to learn my lessons in her absence. For so much we had in common we are still different people but I find myself finally following her footsteps in valuing independence above all.

Outside of those times I was completely in thrall of her I can appreciate how stubbornly I’ve taken the lonely path of living in my own world to avoid the demands of normal society and live for myself.

I pride myself on how few people could realistically live the isolated life I live and how fiercely I fight to be by myself.

More and more I see the neurotypical crowd devote their lives to other people. The people who see me sitting alone in the pub and think there must be something wrong with me.

I’d rather be by myself now. Rather sit here writing my blog. I could have stayed at home but I like being among people so long as I can just chill out and focus on myself.

It’s amusing to think now that the neurotypical crowd with all problems that could do with fixing. I’m not gonna tell them what they should or should not be doing. Let them figure it out.

What truly defines my social anxiety is knowing that my words and actions could change someone’s life but not really understanding how. Social interactions in particular have the potential to change my life. Recent experience confirms that 1000-fold.

And those who told me that i shouldn’t try to change people, well they’re right in a way but isn’t that why we socialise? To bring some new opportunity, to open doors for change? To meet someone who can provide what we can’t do for ourselves? To see another side of life?

My problem was always how I couldn’t accept any possibility of affecting someone or being affected negatively. My deep drive to be perfect can be the best thing about me but it leaves me totally incapable of handling tough times.

To play devils advocate here, maybe this is the cross for us autistics to bear. Absolutely not generalizing here but experience with my friends tells me that it’s better to be flexible with friends than become dependent on them.

I find myself regretting how deeply I loyalty checked my friends when the truth is that they had every right to do their own thing. They would and maybe still will always be my friend but I wanted to know if they would be sad to lose me as a friend.

I wanted to know if I was a good friend or bad one. What I know now is that I’d rather be the only friend I need than ever be in that position again.

I overhead some pub talk from the normal folk and I feel distinctly unimpressed and uninspired. This is why I don’t feel any urge to join them.

There is no objective answer to the question of what is the correct way to be human. I only know what I feel is correct. Though the balance between doing the right thing for yourself and for others is a delicate dance.

To sum up and come to some sort of conclusion, society is not set up to benefit those of us at the fringes of neurodiversity. We are the ones who need to ensure we do what’s good for ourselves and we need to protect ourselves from the demands of others.

We need only to trust ourselves. At the critical point of confrontation I asked her if she still trusted me. She didn’t say yes so that is the real reason I could not stay friends. She was either right not to trust me or she was wrong not to trust me. Either way it spelt out something awful. But I had stopped trusting myself and that left me a hostage to a horrible moment.

Always trust yourself xx

Explicit addendum in edit. Trust cannot be freely given but has to be earned. Trusting yourself is I think the most important thing you will ever do but you cannot just give it. It takes work and experience. I hope that those who read my blog know how fucking difficult it is.

Trusting yourself becomes slightly easier when you stop trusting others so readily. But then it comes from walking a lonely path.

We all crave understanding but some of us have to go without it. Then we will know how much we matter if only to ourselves.

As always thank you for reading xx

The Destruction of Reason

Been working on getting back in touch with my moral compass and developing the framework of how to approach moral life.

Currently reading this meaty tome. An exposition of the background and causes of the rise of fascism in 20th century Germany. The central role of what is referred to as irrationalism and how reason, reality and history are erased in favour of romanticism and fantasy of myth and mystery.

Everything happens for a reason and those reasons are cause and effect. It’s becoming common today to see people demanding the world accept their irrational and ideological calls for change while simultaneously not giving a shit about how other people are affected.

It is common knowledge that the devastating economic effects of WWI led to the rise of Hitler. It less well spoken of that Germany was late to develop economically and had not been through the same cultural revolutions that prepared the way for democratisation.

Germany was also late to develop a national identity and it’s culture was still heavily influenced by irrational superstitions, believing that moral authority was the product of otherworldly supermen.

A loose collection of diverse small statelets whose commonality was found in being left out and bypassed from the economic expansions of the time. They came together looking for identity and above all, looking for an ancestry, a history.

Dependence on their “betters” was the overwhelming philosophy of the era thanks largely to the ruling classes entrenching their ill-gotten wealth.

Same old story eh? Of course Russia was even less developed than Germany but they skipped the bourgeoisie revolution in favour of the proletarian revolution.

Just to be clear I don’t call myself a Marxist or communist but my political leanings have always been influenced by humanism and equality. I’ve always been in favour of that which benefits people in reality.

I’ve seen and experienced the way fear twists a persons mind away from reality. In the micro my own fears came from the fact that I became totally dependent on being valued and wanted. The fear of being rejected caused the worst feelings I have ever felt.

I’ve made sufficient progress to be able to talk about it honestly. But yes, the way I felt meant that I was becoming a possessive, bitter jealous loser. I have no doubt that if I did ask her out and started a proper exclusive relationship with her, then I would have been intolerable. I think I always knew this so I never asked her out but when I was struggling I opened up and told her how badly I’ve coped with heartbreak in the past.

How many things I said and did that ultimately gave away what I hid for so long. That I was completely infatuated with her but it was always going to end up in a messy and destructive self-loathing.

The sheer desperation I felt at my worst and hurt that came from even innocent things that made me insanely jealous, that made me feel like a terminal loser. That feeling is something I never want to experience ever again. I just can’t go through that again.

And I slowly begin to accept that the girl I fell for didn’t really exist. The girl who made me insanely desperate for affection didn’t really exist. I know that the fantasy version of her I fell in love with was who I thought I was in a relationship with.

Its difficult to fully come to terms with how far from reason I had chosen to go in favour of an irrational desire to be irrationally in love. It was thrilling, exilerating and life-affirming. Until it wasn’t.

But the hope came from believing that in some small way the fantasy might meet reality. Everything changed when I had to face a reality where my deep irrational fantasy was quashed.

I never wanted to become dependent on her and I never wanted her to be dependent on me. I always wanted her to choose me. But I know there were times when I wanted to be the only one she looked to for company. I guess I wasn’t a very good friend to her and I don’t expect she would ever want to be friends again.

All of that is why I’m dedicating my energy to becoming fully independent so I never become that desperate again. Most of my life has been without friends and I think I at least feel independent and free to do what I want albeit lonely and sad.

Lesson learning time. I guess I never really learned how to deal with true heartbreak as I never risked it. Well I finally met someone who I liked enough to fall in love with. I learned so much from her but only when we stopped being friends did I learn how to say “never again”.

I don’t plan on chasing a romantic relationship and not sure I even want friends in my life until I’m in a place where I feel bulletproof, that no one can ever make me feel inferior. And for that I’ve had to readjust my hopes and dreams.

I don’t ever want to do stuff I don’t enjoy for the sake of spending time with someone. I don’t know if I really want to enjoy anything to the point of depending on it to be happy. I want to learn how to be able to do anything and not need to do it to be happy.

Ultimately the desire to appear normal and enjoy the social life that everyone else enjoys was a big part of why I became so dependent on her. What am I trying to do now? How can I be both happy and independent?

By forging my own path through life and living in accordance with my values above anyone else’s.

In some ways I value reason above anything else. My way of understanding the world and the people in it is to look for the cause that explains the effect.

I’ve learned that I shouldn’t take to too much stock of other people judging me. The only criticism I would entertain now would be those who can accurately link the harmful outcomes of my behaviour to a specific cause and offer a better way. It seems like this is something I’ll have to do for myself and I prefer it that way now.

In the hunt for the secret of how to provide something good for my fellow humans, what I have to offer may be just teaching the wisdom of reason and advocating independence and sharing the benefits of living life by owns own rules. And forever warning against the dehumanizing effects of fascism.

Contradictions are what drive social evolution and I’ve only evolved when forced to overcome the real contradictions of life. There are happy times when we don’t want things to change but they must and they will.

Changes are underway at work but I’ll probably write about that another time. In short a lot of my colleagues are losing their jobs and my own job status long term is uncertain but probably safe for a couple of years at least.

I’m thinking positively and if the worst happens it’s an opportunity for change and I’ll try to make the most of it.

But for now I’m just getting on with things, avoiding other things, just doing what needs to be done. Taking my time, not knee-jerking, not chasing fantasy but following my head and not giving a shit.

Thanks as always for reading xx

Row, row, row your boat

Returning to the blog for a little ramble. It’s nice to be back into it. Taking a rest from blogging in the pub has been good because I feel some things have changed sufficiently for me not to feel bogged down in my struggles.

Been on call for jury service this week though I wasn’t needed in the end. It was rough going day after day being told that I’m still on call. Glad it’s over and glad I didn’t have to go in and attend.

Things have settled now to some extent but I’ve been feeling the usual pressure building up to get off my head drunk and lose the inhibitions.

The next thing to worry about is that I’ll be training a new colleague at work and it will be full training from scratch. It means I won’t have much time alone to work by myself at my own pace.

Work has been stressful recently as we’ve had to rush things in preparation for my jury absence which never happened in the end.

I’ve been taking the pressure off by succumbing to tiredness and lack and motivation to do the usual stuff to keep my mind busy. Spending more time just lazing watching new stuff online.

Still wrestling over the same issues but I think I’m seeing things more clearly and am less conflicted. It’s about time that I restart digging deeper and confronting the emotional pain I still hold.

Ive got a plan now at least. Might not work in any way but it’s a tactic at least. From watch have learned from mental health advice, I am going to have to begin to be my own shoulder to cry on.

I’m going to have to parent myself and offer the support and acceptance and validation and love that I can’t get from anyone else now.

And I need to get a consistent code of behaviour that I can get fully behind. A guide to direct me in my decision making. A system that governs me and is in line with my true values and my conscience.

Recent news that has become a hot topic for debate, with a lot of emotion behind it. Touching on the unwritten rules of public morality or more pertinently, a complete upending of reality in favour of dodgy, narcissistic ideology.

My heart goes out to those who speak the truth at huge personal cost in the face of foul abuse and it’s inspired in me a desire to walk the path of authenticity. To never again hide myself away from social judgement.

Because I’m more aware now of how intolerant and unaccepting people are towards those who say no. Those who rightly refuse to bow down to ideology and rightly defend themselves against increasingly predatory demands.

And to the painful thought that I became very selfish, very narcissistic, very demanding at my worst. I’ve made many excuses, used my autism as an excuse, demanded people understand that I had no choice because of my inability to deal with loss and change. I was never very good at not getting what I want. So most of the time I just don’t ask for anything.

And I’ve never been very good at dealing with criticism. And I absolutely cannot deal with the thought that someone might find me unlikable.

Its a been long, slow process to finally think differently. To begin believing that I’m actually better off being alone than try to desperately please someone who just doesn’t like me.

I guess I’ve had to face up to the fact that I had gone from someone deserved support as an innocent victim of a traumatic neurodivergence into someone who was just perpetuating a cycle of traumatic abuse.

Always much easier to see it in others than to see it in myself. Much harder to take responsibility and admit it.

It was all the trauma’s fault but I wanted other people to be traumatised with me instead of working to heal it and overcome it.

I find it easier to be told no, now I’ve started saying it myself. But of course I’ve been humbled by the experiences of others who face horrors worse than my own. Those who face the worst kind of abuse just for saying no.

It’s no secret that my recent experiences have left me feeling disconnected if not oppositional and adversarial to other people. Times like these I feel like it just might be the wise decision.

I am ultimately using this lonely time to rebuild myself and forge myself anew as someone who can finally stop pretending to be someone I’m not and be unafraid to be myself. It may be the case that I’ll never truly be able to do that around anyone I really care about and want to spend time with.

My own wellbeing should be more important than anyone else’s for the simple reason that I’m the one who has to live myself and I’m the one who is responsible for what I do.

Right now I don’t feel like putting myself out for anyone else. I’m not yet ready to do it for myself let alone anyone else.

We’re all in the same boat but some of us feel the crashing waves affect us more. I’ve taken the path of rowing my own boat in calmer waters but I’ve had to row it alone. To stretch the metaphor I’ve been rowing in the opposite direction to everyone else so it feels like I’m a hindrance while I’ve been going backwards.

But at least I can say that I’m rowing in the right direction and I should only choose to row with those who are aiming in the same direction.

That’s an issue I think a lot about. We’re all told that we should embrace what’s different and we shouldn’t judge those who are different by own standards.

I can sum up now why I struggle with people who are different. Because I don’t really feel like I’ve ever had enough people in my life who were rowing in the same direction.

I always have clinged on to anyone who I thought was similar to me and yet I always end up feeling abandoned to row alone, to face the currents of life without help and with only one rickety oar that might just break at any moment.

And well fuck it, at least I get to decide where I’m going now.

But to get back on track I need to overcome that source of pain that keeps me afraid to row because I can’t see any further than the choppy waters.

Stretching the metaphor to breaking point I need to learn how to actually enjoy rowing enough to get back in the boat.

It’s usually my fellow rowers who make the journey worth taking, who make the rough waters tolerable.

I’m a social creature by nature but I don’t know how to row the boat the way other people do it. Do you know what? I never wanted to be like anyone else. But I don’t know how to navigate life and the only thing I’ve learned is how to pretend I know just by copying what everyone else does.

And yet I can’t help but note that maybe no one else knows either. The real reason that we humans look for company because everyone needs a co-pilot at times.

Spend too much time listening to your co-pilot and all of a sudden people start to ask why they put any faith in you and start to look to the one who actually has an idea of where to turn.

Social life is all about letting people into your boat and them letting you into theirs. On the rare occasion that I got invited to someone else’s boat I always chose to set my own boat on fire and then cry over being thrown overboard.

To take the metaphor to its conclusion, it’s taken nearly 2 years to build myself a new boat and to gingerly test the waters again. I’d give nearly anything to have my co-pilot back but I like my own boat now and it needs more time and energy to maintain before I ever leave it again.

The obvious social advice is that I should be proud of my boat no matter what and that not everyone will like being in my boat and that’s fine.

To sum up, I’ve never really let onto my real boat. It sails the darker waters and goes only where I know.

Thanks for reading and excuse the heavy handed metaphor throughout but I felt it was working xx

New Year New Perspectives

Happy new year to all. It’s not something I really feel like celebrating but it’s still a good time to offer that sort of thing.

About time I wrote a new blog, it has been a while. Blogging for me was as much about giving me something to do when sat alone in the pub as about anything else. Last couple of times I’ve just got distracted by actually talking to people and not bothering to go to back and finish.

But I’m doing other things now and don’t really take the time to reflect so much.

Spending much more time playing games, actually doing stuff for fun and enjoyment. Taking time off from worrying and not having to be productive.

On the road to recovery and if there’s anything I wanted to share that might be useful advice it would be to share how my perspective on mental health has changed. Hard to tell whether this is what happens when you heal or if it’s a necessary step towards healing. But I feel different about a lot of things.

I’ve taken this logic from physical health but I feel it’s beneficial to look at my long history of depression not as a sign of being broken but as a sign that my brain is healing, doing what it needs to do to recover from the many blows of life that cause emotional damage.

It’s hard to picture but thinking of the emotional devastation as a literal mental injury. Just as a broken leg causes physical pain that represents the body healing, does the mind heal the same way? Does the emotional pain of social loss and rejection represent a genuine injury to the brain and does the pain represent the brain healing?

With my brain being the way it is, it’s easy to understand the concept that I have no choice in how my brain reacts, and how long it takes to recover. No one chooses to be depressed, I feared the loss of any control over my mood and felt like I was trapped in a state of extreme negativity. I didn’t ever want to be depressed and don’t want to bury myself in darkness.

In the spirit of gratitude I now see the depression as something that protected me by shielding away from further pain and emotional damage, allowing me to heal. It feels strange to say that I don’t hold any anger or despair or sense of injustice over my neurodiverse condition. For the time being I’ve accepted this is who I am and I’m no longer looking in desperation to find some way out.

Long term goals for the new year are to finally find my own place and hopefully that will help me to quit the cigs and give me the space I need away from the stresses of life.

As for the future of blog I’m going to refocus. Want to talk a bit more about ADD in conjunction with Autism as I’m fairly confident I have both. Not been diagnosed with ADD, very self-diagnosing at the moment. I’ve been listening to the stories of those who have both and I see more of my own story reflected back.

I think that a lot of my trauma stems from the fact that I never really felt like I belonged anywhere, that I had a tribe of people like me. Had to hide my true feelings in order to make friends and feel like I fit in. I don’t think I truly ever fit in at my local autism hub. Felt like I was still too different. Had to put on the chameleon suit to blend in.

It’s the real reason I’ve shut myself away the last 2 years, to find the real me by closing off any outside influence. The path to mental recovery has taken me back to who I always was, doing what I’ve always enjoyed. Relearning to enjoy what I had stopped enjoying.

If I’m being honest I tried to embrace every new idea during the dark times, grabbed out for any idea that promised to help me. Watching all the youtube vids aimed at providing support for mental health struggles. Would have tried everything with only a couple of exceptions. Nothing really stood the test of time, nothing really felt comfortable about it. Since everything necessitated significantly changing my behaviour in some way it felt more and more like an imposition of someone else’s idea of beneficial behaviour that just didn’t suit me.

I’ve always had a smidgeon of internalised ableism and I’ve never felt comfortable at the idea that I might be disabled. These days the notion that I need help or that my behaviour is unhealthy and should be corrected just feels like a plain old insult. But I started following some disability rights campaigners on twitter and the dignity they carry humbles me a great deal.

The one thing in the world that truly angers and horrifies me is the exploitation of the most vulnerable in society by those who have the most power. My heart will always belong to those who work to even the playing field. More so to those who call out and oppose the exploitation.

My words have always rang a bit hollow because I never really did anything to stand up for anyone. Felt like I was too weak and vulnerable myself. I know I always needed to support myself better before I could support anyone else. Who knows, I may never get there.

Actually standing up for myself is paying dividends now though. I may always see myself as less able than others but accepting that I am just different and have different abilities, I don’t feel disabled anymore and I don’t feel like I need to make excuses and I don’t need anyone else to understand or accommodate me.

I do however need to support myself and do what I can to make life manageable. Over the years I’ve mastered the art of getting through the day with as little work or effort as possible. Medicated myself with caffeine, nicotine and alcohol. And who’s to say that I could have done it any other way?

What really is behind this new perspective? I doubt it just arrived spontaneously, like everything else there’s a reason for it.

I think it comes from an emerging self-respect. Actually now taking ownership of and responsibility for my daily struggles means I can put myself first. I can filter out the judgemental voices so I can hear the loving voice of support. In fact I think I stopped judging myself completely when I realised that I’ve only ever put 110% into anything worth doing and I only ever failed when I lost sight of my true self.

In fact most of the time failed at stuff I didn’t really feel comfortable doing anyway.

Writing this now I don’t feel afraid of the future, not afraid of being sad or bored, though I’d rather not be. Plenty out there that I am still scared of but taking ownership of my mind, my internal experience, being the boss man in charge of my own head. That is the way to keep the fear of other people at bay.

Thanks for reading as ever x

A little more prep talk

One more post for this weekend. Still finding it hard to motivate myself to control. Still doing the work of understanding how and why things happen. It feels like a curse but I find myself unable to move on anything until I can 100% guarantee things will out well for me.

To that end I’ve reevaluated my personality again. 6th or 7th time now. But the latest model is interesting. It feels deeper and besides it’s telling me something I didn’t want to hear. But in a way it might still be a comforting lie.

So I guess I’m now typing myself an ENFP with an INFJ shadow. It makes total sense because I am attracted to the INFJ type. They represent my ideal partner I think. Normally this expresses the idea that they represent the personality within me that I don’t like using so I would benefit from them doing the shadow work for me.

What can I say? I wanted to be an INFJ because they represent everything I look for in someone else. But because they are so different and they represent the part of myself I don’t like, I have difficulty with what’s different.

So what I did in effect was to try to become more like an INFJ to fit in and belong with another INFJ. And for that reason I became someone else, someone who wasn’t really me at all. This is exactly what happens when someone loses themselves trying to seek a relationship.

And in a way I stepped into an alternate persona because I was so lonely and had to rely on myself to provide the company I needed.

And so my crush who I had thought was likely an ISTJ (like my own dark superego), she may well be the INFJ I was looking for. It explains why she still represents the dream partner for me.

To cope with the pain I began to see her as the hateful figure. I began to hate the qualities I saw in her which were similar to mine and consequently I began to hate myself more because of it. I was falling in love with my own shadow while falling into hate of my true ego.

I think im becoming less scared of finding the truth now I’ve started to be more compassionate but I’m still very afraid of putting myself back out there. I’m afraid that I won’t be able to keep my identity stable if I look for the happy life.

I’m slowly accepting the fact that I’m crap at talking because I tend not to be very authentic. My mind is too damn flexible. It’s useful to be flexible and the world needs people like me but I don’t want to do all the talking. I want to keep some things secret and private.

Sometimes I just don’t want to talk at all.

I’m slowly accepting that I am the shyest, quietist extrovert, that I need people around me but I get too overwhelmed by being around people. I’m having to consider the notion that I never will be mentally healthy enough to pursue a happy, healthy life.

I may end up lonely and miserable for the rest of my life or I may keep going further down self destructive paths to keep myself occupied.

My latest brainstorm has been curtesey of a CS Joseph YouTube vid. One truth I’ve been running away from is that I’m not actually very smart. I’m not naturally talented and have to work to get good at something.

Impostor syndrome is real with me because I think I’ve self-hated on this so much that I’ve taken pride in being smart. My brain just knows I’m not talented, waiting patiently for me to get found out.

The truth is that I don’t want to do the work. Don’t want to have to. And I must if I am to turn things around. What if it doesn’t get the results I want? What if its a waste of time and energy? I’ve wasted so much of my life already.

To finally solve my mental health, I’ve worked to learn. I’ve studied. Committed to the long game. Not gonna settle until it’s done and dusted. Though this hasn’t felt much like work. The real work is still to come.

When I actually believe in something I will become a workaholic, always sacrificing balance. Not looking at how my actions affect other people.

And so the work that I have done, I want it to be reflected in others. I want so desperately for people to see who I am, want I have to work with, what work I am doing now, and I want people to show compassion and above all respect for how much work I have to do and how hard it is for me to do it.

That I only have so much to give and that I don’t have any choice but to run away and hide when things get too tough to handle, which is a lot.

That I spend every hour I can trying to figure out how to be less scared of life and that maybe I actually do need things from other people to help me feel safe.

Maybe I’ll stop bitching about how hard life is when it actually makes things a little easier. Because if who I am, I will always make life harder for myself until I figure out how to get the best out of it.

I should use my extroverted intuition to see life’s opportunities. The problem is that I don’t see a path that takes me anywhere I want to go. But I should continue to rebrand myself and find the identity that really brings success.

For now I’m continuing to wallow in filth, not wanting to do the work of organising my personal space. It’ll come when I start to feel better. My wounded inner child still needs some attention and he just wants to play.

I’ve finally started playing Cyberpunk 2077. It has plenty of faults but it’s still my type of game and there’s been some really cool stuff. It’s rekindled my creative imagination a little and I have to be honest, it feels good just to dip into the futuristic fantasy world again.

We all need that space to play without having to worry about anything. To take a break from dealing with the world’s challenges.

In games like this, you can escape yourself in the virtual world and become someone else. A badass power fantasy that is invulnerable.

I can forget about all the real world problems and achieve things in the virtual, making liberal use of the save game function whenever virtual death occurs.

So to sum up, im getting closer to figuring out who i am but the work to do is how to be myself around others, how to be secure enough to hold onto myself without having to defend myself by hiding away.

How to find people who get me and like me for who I am? How to go out and find somewhere to be myself and get some happiness? How to not be afraid of the outside world.

Hopefully I can be empathetic and be able to connect with people but always to make sure that I be honest authentic when it comes to expressing myself. People can be so difficult to understand, it’s very easy me for me to just say that people aren’t worth the effort but they are.

They say that the healthy way to do it is to say that if people don’t like you it’s their problem and you shouldn’t take it personally. Move on to somewhere else. Treat them as a stepping stone.

It not how I look at life. Maybe it should be but it’s not me. I had to move on but it was never what I wanted and I guess I’ve learned that I should have just been honest and said that I wasn’t happy instead of holding on and having my happiness taken away.

But then I understand better now that everyone has their faults and I need to embrace imperfection and always see an opportunity for growth.

F’king hell maybe that’s the secret that has eluded me for so long. Every fault, mistake, hurtful action, is an opportunity to grow. It is a potential for something better, wonderful even.

We all have so much potential, the question is how to unlock it. Yes I’m probably a little scared of how much potential we have.

I’m a great believer in the idea that we all are aiming towards becoming more than our selfish selves. To fulfill life’s potential by shedding the selfish existence and producing something that goes beyond selfish desire and brings something to the greater communal humanity.

We all know the poisonous influence of those who only live for themselves and take everything they can from others. If they have truly chosen the selfish path then they are not deserving of anything.

Those who have given in to fear can’t be helped. This is why I fight so hard to overcome what I can. And here’s the truth about how my social anxiety works. It speaks to real fear that I can’t be helped. That I will keep giving in. That I gave in yesterday and I will again today.

It killed me to see my favourite person give up on me but she did. People like me can be helped but we often need people to stand with us, to see we’re struggling, to acknowledge that we want to grow but have lost our way.

At the end of the day we have got to do it ourselves, to have that desire and drive. People will stick with you if you don’t give up, but they will ditch you in a heartbeat if you do.

My words speak of never giving in but my actions don’t. People aren’t mindreaders (well maybe some of us are) so they will judge you by your actions.

Compassion is everything and my experience has taught me that people can only show compassion to those who demonstrate their struggles visibly and openly. And who show their kindness when they can.

Thanks for reading. My hearts goes out to you

Jamie x

Venting some darkness

I think this blog is going to become mainly about finding a safe space to explore and release some of my deepest demons. It’s where my journey is going.

I’m more convinced than ever that I want to draw a line between the old world and the new. To be well enough to defeat the depression I need to distance myself from everything that reminds me of my biggest psychological defeat.

I’ve binned my last post as I’m not ready to talk publicly about it and I still need to work on it. But in thinking more clearly and with a little advice I’ve had to admit that I did what I did because I needed to finally put up the hardest boundary around myself.

That it was about protecting myself. And it was the right thing to do.

The beliefs we hold about are what truly makes us what we are. I hold such terminally abhorrent beliefs about myself for certain reasons.

One factor I could never consider before was that that it is part of my hidden disabilties. I can’t fundamentally see myself well enough to actually recognise.

I can only see myself through the eyes of others. Even strangers have this effect on me. To pull my mind away from itself and force it outwards.

Everyone always tells me I should believe in myself but I just don’t, and why would I?

I can’t stop myself from masking because there is no true face to present. Only a mental construction designed to please others.

The real reason I’m dependent on others to make me feel good is because the only voice in my head is the mechanical explainer, telling me exactly why I’m alone in darkness.

It’s time to admit how deeply different I see the world compared to the empty individualist culture I live in.

My autistic sensitivity is exactly the full crushing weight of the effects others have on me. It’s because of this I understand we live in a deeply shared and connected world where we are shaped and made by each other.

Although I am much more connected than anyone else. And it because of this that I am so unutterably decimated by the rejection and exclusion of experiencing the lives of others.

And the truth is that nobody understands the massive effect they have on me. People still expect me to accept that bad things happen and that I should always accept my losses and look elsewhere.

What makes so special and unique in this world is that I can look so sharply into someone’s heart to see the humanity and the lack of humanity.

I hold a mirror up to the world so that it can see itself. Truly the society we live in is defined by lies and selfish hypocracy.

I’ve wanted to get round to the Autism research of Simon Baron Cohen. He who has identified that autistic children tend to be slower to develop the “skill” of not blaming people for unintended harms caused. He calls this “skill” empathy.

Isn’t funny how autistic people are bad people for not being empathetic to the inadequacies of others while those who don’t understand the harm they cause should be understood?

Who are the real empathetic heroes amongst us?

Is it those who struggle with communication but are sensitive to others or is it those who can communicate but are insensitive.

Theory of Mind, it is called. Baron Cohen himself appears to be quite poor at this judging by the reaction of the Autistic community to his project of harvesting Autistic DNA.

In my experience it doesn’t matter who you are, the culture is driving us to hate each other and isolate ourselves from each other. To fear each other.

I’m not strong enough to fight it because I was the most vulnerable to it. I needed so much more from those around me to stay with me but in the ends everyone else’s needs came before mine.

I can’t hide anymore from the fact that I need to become stronger in myself. That I need to be better so that the people around me become better. I’m never going lose sight of what I need to make life worth living.

There is an art to believing in yourself. For truly who we are to ourselves is just a narrative. Walking the path alone requires some extraordinary bravery.

The story I tell myself now is how to keep myself going. That I don’t care for the pointless pursuit of shallow self-validation and virtue-signalling acceptance. “Be kind” is the motto of those who only care only hiding themselves from being challenged or critcised.

I would love anyone who actually sat down, read my words, and called out any bullshit I espouse. Because that would mean they cared enough about me to see my faults and engage with me to improve me. And teach me something.

I can’t remember anyone ever doing this since I was at school. Or maybe a blazing drunken fall out with an old drinking buddy.

I don’t see myself as a human being because people don’t treat me like one. People treat me like a child. Maybe I needed to treated as an adult in order to become one.

Maybe treating me like a child is what stopped me from growing up.

I don’t want to blame all of my problems on others, but I see so clearly how my development as a person was determined by all my interactions with other people.

I can’t stress enough that the culture we live in demands every person is his or her own boss, master of destiny and responsible for everything they do.

When horrible things happens to you it’s all your own fault because you are an individual God of your own existence. Everything that happens to you is your own fault and your responsibility to deal with.

And everything you call evil is a projection of your own evil.

It is not hard for me to understand why our culture tells us this. Because they take everything everything they can from us and tell us to blame ourselves.

I’ll end this post on a cheery note. I’d happily see these people burnt to death.

This has been liberating.

Thanks for reading. Kindest Regards as ever x

Fantasy

Blogging tonight as part of my routine of getting our the house and writing.

As my blog was originally created to discuss sci-fi and horror with the implicit element of fantasy between them, along with the autism talk, it always was an escapism of mine.

The eagle eyed reader will notice that I remained the blog in reference to what I call my esoteric heart.

However it didn’t take long to regret the decision so it will probably change again soon.

Well the journey to defeat the mental health issues I’ve always been plagued with is based on the understanding that I needed to finally grow up and be independent.

Escapism into fantasy seems to be essential to the concept of play that we humans of any age need to make life fun.

I look at my autism along with my upbringing and see that I never really grew up. I remain a child at heart and have resisted all the trappings and responsibilities that come with adulthood.

But it is the core reason why I’ve never really respected myself. It’s the reason why I deeply loved my autistic friends but didn’t truly respect them either.

The concept I’m really addressing is Infantilisation.

The child is the most beautiful spirit of humanity, imbued with all the potential of the future while totally unashamedly living for the joy of play.

I remain a child heart because I missed out on so much actual social joy that I would always escape into fantasy.

The child is and always will be vulnerable and needs the parent. I find it fascinating that over the course of my current reading, that humanity in general can be interpreted as being in a juvenile phase.

The psychoanalytical view off Catholic culture observes the symbolic practise of consuming the flesh of the son of God.

The pagan culture symbolically practised the killing of the king and offered frequent human sacrifice to the gods of fertility.

It is in the spirit of subversiveness that I’m drawn to any fantasy that offers something interesting and original.

And so I return to Infantilisation.

Has anyone noticed what is actually being pumped into the cultural consciousness thede days in the name of Escapism?

The same old Nietzschian superman bullshit. All the evils of the world are only to be solved by the supremacist fantasies of order.

The everyday working class man and woman should look to the fantasy for salvation while your “betters” will determine the problem and the solution.

The abnegation of the human will is weaponised to it’s fullest by this nefarious dross.

If I offer any advice it is to fully investigate the agenda of anyone who authors such propaganda.

But fantasy still can be a force for good. Don’t ever stop dreaming of a better world where you are empowered to achieve a life you deserve.

If you’re going to fantasize, imagine a better world but ask yourself how you can achieve it without ever letting anyone else dictate their own warped fantasies in your place.

Adulthood is hard but a life subservient to someone else is repugnant and abhorrent.

Thank you for reading as always

Mental health and Moral Values

It’s something I think about a lot and I’ll share my thoughts here.

But first I want to be fairer to my autism. I talk about my mental health struggles as if it’s all my autism’s fault when it plainly isn’t. There’s a lot to unpack but my autism is and always part of who I am and who I want to be.

How I’ve learnt (or not learned) to cope is really why I struggle with mental health.

And it’s all because I know what’s makes a good person but I don’t have the life skills and experience to be a good person.

And that is because I wasn’t secure enough to feel comfortable being my truest self.

It is largely subjective of course what constitutes good and bad to each individual. We’re all human though and we understand that which helps is good and that which harms is bad.

The underlying principle is humanity itself. The ultimate good is to be treated as a human being, to be free to be yourself and live your life.

It’s no accident that Human Rights are not produced, not obtained nor given. They are observed.

All the evils in the world, the greatest horrors committed against people have always signalled a denial of someone’s humanity. To be demonised. To be treated as objects to be used and abused.

On a much more common level, sometimes a person just goes unseen.

My own struggle with communication leaves me feeling isolated and alone. And I know this makes me feel less human. I tell myself I’m a bad person and a failure.

It makes things so much easier when someone’s sees you and humanises you.

But ultimately I needed to stop being afraid of myself. I judge myself for living in fear of other people’s judgement.

As long as I live by my own standards and be honest about how I feel I have no reason to fear the consequences of my words.

I can be free to be the best man I can be.

Thanks for reading and kind regards.