Published on 12, July, 2020
This is harping on a very familiar subject, I know. Most of us feel dislocated to a greater or lesser degree. For me, it seems to be accelerating. I've always found 'society' tiresome and exhausting, but have nevertheless always been able to manage as part of it. In the last couple of years, though, I've found it harder and harder to associate with others - even passively. In just the last year, I've retreated even more. I no longer want to be around others, unless it can't be helped.
I suppose getting my diagnosis has played a role in this. Any form of diagnosis, for any condition at all, has an effect on us. The awareness it gives us of certain things will influence our thoughts and behaviour. Of course, it was a relief for me to finally have answers to the questions I'd always asked. At the same time, though, the idea of being different was now firmly planted in my head. As my awareness grew - reinforced by research, and by things I learned from others - so, too, did my sense of difference. It was almost as if I'd previously been a human being, like everyone else - just one who was simply a bit odd. Now, though, it felt more like I was a different species of being altogether. An alien, almost. I was in a culture that made no sense to me. I couldn't read the signs. I didn't understand the language.
Growing older, of course, also has had an effect. The natural 'generational' thing. At 59, I'm old enough to remember times that almost seem like ancient history. London as an affordable place for working people to live. No mass travel (or not on the scale we have it now). Hardly anyone in the road owning a car. High streets full of independent retailers. No fast-food joints everywhere. Phones that were useful communication devices rather than things that controlled our lives. As little as 30 years ago, things were enormously different. And even if they weren't necessarily better times (depending on your criteria), they were in many ways more comprehensible to me. I look around now at the way people are jacked into the system via their devices, and it completely baffles me. I'm the only person at work who doesn't carry a phone with me during working hours. They all think I'm simply eccentric. So nothing has changed there, then! It makes me smile, too. They're all connected to one another - and through that, ironically, disconnected from their surroundings. Whereas I'm connected to my surroundings, but disconnected in other ways!
My colleagues at work are practically the only people (apart from the service users) who I spend a lot of time with now. After work and at weekends, I see no one - apart from when I go to the shops. I like to get to work early - well before everyone else - so that I can settle in. I've always been like that. When the others begin to arrive, we chat, and I'm included. Once the numbers reach about 4 or 5, though, I'm getting marginalised. By 8 or 9, I'm out of it altogether. When I try to join in, I'm quite often ignored. Sometimes, I've noticed, I'll be speaking and not a single person is looking at me at all. This scenario has generally been the case for me, throughout life, in any social situation. So I'm used to it. And it isn't necessarily that I'm disliked. One colleague, whom I've no reason to doubt, told me "Everyone here likes and respects you. I haven't heard anyone say a bad thing about you." Hm. Odd. He said "You're the most interesting person who works here." Really? You could have fooled me!
It makes no sense. And I no longer look for any sense in it, to be honest. I'm happiest just being out of it all. Where I've always been, basically. More so now, though. I used to feel like a moored boat: connected to land, but not really part of it because my natural environment was the water. Now... well, things are shifting. Is the current pulling me out, or is the land falling away? A bit of both, probably. Whatever the case, the ties are loosening.
I just can’t stop myself from telling people that I’m autistic, lol, honestly, it’s embarrassing, I sometimes feel embarrassed for myself! I tell them simply because I’m proud to be autistic, it saved my life and gave me a life and I want everybody to know about autism, how diverse it is and I want to spread awareness, more for people who can’t talk for themselves and for their families who get horrible comments from people who think their child is misbehaving or that they’re bad parents or something, I want to make life easier for them. I want to spread awareness so we can get more understanding but I know what your brother means, autism doesn’t make sense to me either so it must be harder and near on impossible for a non autistic person to make sense of it. It fascinates me though where it used to drive me crazy trying to work it out but since I’ve accepted it, I know there’s nothing to work out, apart from how I now want to live my life now I’m a this new person.
It’s the other way round for me. As soon as I realised I was autistic, I instantly knew I had a place on this earth, for the first time ever, and I knew that I was a human being and that I was just different to the majority of other human beings.Before my diagnosis I didn’t feel like I belonged on this earth. I felt like I must be an alien because I had never met anybody who was like me, who thought like me and who experienced the world the way I did. I had never felt a connection to this world, not even to my family. I used to wonder who the hell these people were, who I had been given to live with.
It’s the other way round for me. As soon as I realised I was autistic, I instantly knew I had a place on this earth, for the first time ever, and I knew that I was a human being and that I was just different to the majority of other human beings.
Before my diagnosis I didn’t feel like I belonged on this earth. I felt like I must be an alien because I had never met anybody who was like me, who thought like me and who experienced the world the way I did. I had never felt a connection to this world, not even to my family. I used to wonder who the hell these people were, who I had been given to live with.
I suppose I felt that, too, if I'm honest. It was, as I said, a relief to get those answers: to discover that I was no longer the awkward, incompetent loner I'd come to regard myself as. I now had a sense of validation. It's why I tell everyone I meet - though it sometimes feels like I'm coming up with an excuse to justify any 'oddities' other people might perceive in me. I suppose that's what it is, though: a foregrounding. For some people, it probably means very little. For others, though, it could be quite disconcerting. It depends on how much they know about autism. The people at work are all generally okay. Some other people, though, have looked at me slightly askance - as if I'd told them I liked doing indecent things! It's distanced me from my brother. It makes no sense at all to him, and he refuses to acknowledge it. Maybe he thinks it's a stain on the family name. I don't know, and I don't care any longer.
Yes, I take your point on that. When I was still in my teens, I had a colleague at work with a son my age. He had a lot of problems with allergies and skin conditions. She tried everything to help him: medications, different diets, etc. He was a nice lad. He used to come into the shop a lot, and I think she hoped I'd become friends with him. But he was shyer than I was. His conditions had made him self-conscious and reclusive. One afternoon, I answered the shop phone to a call from head office to say that my colleague needed to go home as her son had committed suicide. He'd hanged himself in his wardrobe. He'd left a note to say he no longer wanted to live with his conditions, and he no longer wanted to be a burden on his family. It was awful. It destroyed the family. I think it was remarkable that she managed to move on from it. The guilt must have been overwhelming for her. But she'd done so much for him. She couldn't really have done more.
It sounds like, from your observations, that many people in this life are currently very dissatisfied with their lives and they’re disconnected from their lives and their surroundings and have sunk into distractions/addictions to help them cope with their lives instead of realising they can change things, that they don’t have to live within the horrible restrictive current way of life, they could change that, but they’re so disconnected from their true selves that they allow themselves to be conditioned to believe they can’t change things and that they have to go to work etc, etc so they think that their greatest chance of survival is to distract themselves. I know that feeling, I used to do this and still do sometimes. People distract themselves when they’re not connected to their true selves and when they’re not connected to their own true self they can’t connect with anybody else, beyond a superficial level so they distract themselves. When I pass people who are clearly in pain, distracting themselves from life in any way they can, I send them silent blessings and pray they find themselves and therefore they find happiness and they have everything they have ever dreamed of in their life. I used to be like them but my distraction was usually drugs. So I can empathise with them, addictions can be very strong and because mobile phone addiction is more acceptable than drug addiction in our society, some people don’t even realise it’s an addiction so they have no way of ever getting out of it, as you can’t treat an addiction if you don’t even know you’ve got one. But maybe it’s their time to be in addiction. I’ve had mine and I appreciate my non addicted life better, so maybe some of us have to experience addiction before we can appreciate freedom.
The thing about not paying attention when they were still alive is what I meant. What happened meant end of the community anyway. No guilt tripping intended, we all genuinely felt so bad about what happened. It certainly all happened very quickly in the end.
Recently there was the story of a famous TV presenter who went to Dignitas to die and he made his goodbyes in good time, as far as I can gather, but he was 104. I can quite see why deciding to end it can conferva sense of having some control over your life.
If it is a case of distress at one particular point of time, that is a different matter, I would have thought, all other options would have to be gone to take this step. I argued strongly with someone a few years ago who was talking about taking this step, my arguments being shot down. As far as I know things are still very difficult, but things did move forward again.
No doubt it was me one other in particular considered selfish and attention seeking, when I was not coping with restart interviews in the UK in the 90's and declared 'I would rather be dead.' Earlier on some kind soul had seemed to think it helpful to tell me If would end up suicidal if I could not 'make money's as she put it. Yes, really helpful!
Since my diagnosis and particularly in the past month or so, I have spent less and less time with my family, yet I feel closer than ever to them and they’re slowly learning that my preference for spending my time alone, doesn’t mean I don’t love or like them or that I don’t feel connected to them. I spend more time alone, now, than I ever have yet I feel a greater connection to the world and it’s people more than I ever have.
I love how the world is changing although I keep my distance because I don’t like change so I stay in my own little bubble most of the time, my own little sanctuary where I’m happy, safe and content. Prior to my diagnosis I was never as comfortable at being by myself as I used to compare myself with other people and wonder what the hell was wrong with me. Why wasn’t I like other people who seemed to enjoy being around other people? Now I know why. I know there’s nothing ‘wrong’ with me, that’s just the way I am. So now, I happily spend my time alone.
However, I have realised that none of us are alone in this world. We’re all connected and we need to be connected to flourish in life and achieve goals. So I joined a local group for autistic people and I’m about to join another. I love my Friday mornings with my group and we’ve even started to go out for a meal together once a month and we’ve got some other outings in the planning. My new group goes on lovely walks once a month and on day trips. Next month we’re going to Whitby and although I generally go to Whitby by myself, and will continue to do so, it’s so lovely to go with other people, that I feel so comfortable with. I’ve never had this experience before. I never really fully enjoyed outings with other people but when I’m with other autistic people, it’s a whole different experience. Because it’s a new experience, it is taking some time to get used to. Not because I don’t love it, but simply because it’s something new, it’s a change and I don’t like change. My support worker has been encouraging me to keep up contact with my new friends. She seemed to think it is something that is very important and will be of benefit to me. I, of course, had no idea really what she was talking about because I’m happy by myself, right! But I trust her so I followed her advice and I met one of my friends from the group, for coffee in town one day. I was really nervous, I wanted to run away and not do it, but when I got home that day after our coffee meet up, I was almost ecstatic. I was so happy. I messaged my support worker to thank her for encouraging me to keep in touch with my new friends because I said for the first time ever, I really do feel like a normal human being. Like I had a real friend and we met like real people and really enjoyed ourselves. I learned about some of his special interests. He didn’t know what a special interest was but after we talked about it, we discovered he had loads and they were super super interesting and he called them hobby’s. I thoroughly adore how interesting we all are and on Friday just gone, at our group, I discovered my friend has another really interesting hobby as well, he collects stickers and goes on line and swops them with other people. I honestly never thought I would ever enjoy the company of other people as much as I do now. They’re like my new family. I usually sit with the boys. There’s me, and three guys and we sit and play scrabble. The women have got a couple of other groups and they all sit chatting. The week before last I was really tearful by the time I got there and one of the women must have sensed this and she very gently took me to sit with her and I poured out how I was feeling and WoW, I felt so much better after talking to her. Not only did she understand, so no explanations necessary, but having that validation or whatever it’s called, enabled me to move on from how I was feeling. I was able to go back to the boys and get a game of scrabble going. I’m starting to get the benefits of friendships etc that nt people have, by being around people just like me. We’re all on the spectrum of course, so we’re all different, but we share an unspoken language, a bond, an understanding, that we don’t have with nt’s and I’m really enjoying it. I think some of my ex work colleagues and even some of my nt friends, might think I’m with a client if they see me out with my autistic friends, but of course I would let them know that I’m not, that I’m autistic - I tell that to everybody I meet anyways, much to my own annoyance sometimes! Lol! Not so long ago, as a Social Worker, I would visit these types of groups/day centres etc, as part of my job, to know what’s out there that might help my clients, and now I’m one of the people attending, and I couldn’t be happier or more proud of myself, because I’m finally daring to be me and not hiding from the world and I simply love love love some of the totally random but inherently honest and innocent and almost childlike conversations that me and my autistic friends have. It’s funny, because when I did a waitressing job a few years ago, some friends clearly thought this was beneath me somehow because when I went back to social work, they said something like, oh that’s more suitable for you or something like that, like being a social worker was somehow a ‘better’ job than waitessesing. I would like to see them now and tell them that I’m now a service user and I have a support worker and I’m on the dole! Lol! And that I’m more proud of my life now, than I have ever been because for me, finding the courage, with the help of the diagnosis, to be me, is a far greater accomplishment than any university degrees I have or might get, greater than all the money I have ever earned or could ever earn and far greater than the things that the majority of people think are achievements, so I no longer compare myself to others, like I used to, because that would be like trying to compare a mango to an apple, we’re different, and I accept that and I’m enjoying uncovering and discovering more about myself and how my mind works while creating a life I never thought I would have, that includes (sometimes, but not all times), time spent with friends (my autistic friends, of course) and a life where I don’t get burnt out or I’m so tired on an evening that I can’t even be bothered to meditate, so instead I’m creating my life around me and doing what I love. I could never have created this life without the diagnosis, in fact I probably wouldn’t be here at all because I had had enough of simply surviving but I was saved by the diagnosis and now I really do feel like a part of life and like I’m a real human being.
It sounds like you might be feeling a bit nostalgic for the past. I used to get like that sometimes although I’m not sure if I will anymore because for me, my years pre diagnosis, when I wasn’t living as me, are fading into a distant past. My life started when I got my diagnosis so the past doesn’t really mean much to me anymore. It was just a lot of trying to fit in and not get found out! I learned a lot of skills that may or may not serve me well anymore. They were great for helping me fit in, but as that is no longer my agenda, who knows if what I learned will help me or not. I don’t really care. I like my new life as autistic me and the past holds very little interest to me, unless I’m researching a favourite person, of course ;) I found myself after I allowed myself to become totally adrift at sea, to surrender completely, to come to a place of zero, where I was nothing and nobody yet everything and everyone, and from that, is emerging the real me, finally, lol! But I had to go through the dark night of the soul before I got to me. And here was I thinking I had already been through the dark night of the soul. Not so, they were just practice runs!
You don't think about those you leave behind. There's a tendency to guilt-trip suicides for their selfishness. But actually, isn't it more selfish for people to expect others to live in great pain, just to spare their own feelings? I think so. 'Oh, how could they do this to us?' Well... why didn't you pay a bit more attention while they were still alive?
The last attempt I made was when my mother was still alive. If I'd succeeded, it would have destroyed her. But I wasn't thinking about that. My head was so f*****d that all I could think about was ending the pain.
The way she did it was much messier, she was an alcoholic who lost her way in life. I do see that there maybe dying.g with dignity in certain circumstances, but suicide sucks for those you left behind,there is always that guilt. A friend who was in our artist group jumped off a train in 1992. There had been a red flag, in the way he bequeathed me Allis treasury responsibilities, after that it happened very quickly.
nexus9 said:One of my oldest UK friends decided to take the scenic route to suicide and finally succeeded in drinking herself to death
I'm sorry to hear this, nexus9. However, I have to say that it's something I'm reserving for when things become unbearable. Some decent booze, some pills, oblivion on my terms. It's always there for me. The things that currently keep me from it are my cat, my work, my writing and my books. As long as there's something to live for, there's a reason to continue living. When it's not there any more, I shall have no hesitation in calling 'time'.
Robert124 said:I actually like mobile phones.
I've nothing against them per se. But it's how mobile technology has changed society. That freaks me out. Not so many years ago, you could go anywhere and see people walking around, taking in the sights, interacting with their immediate environment. Now, you just see people looking at their phones. Today, I went out and got some shopping. Then I came back and went to the beach for a swim. On those trips, I hardly saw a single person who wasn't engaged with a device in their hand. People walking with their dogs or their kids, but looking at their phones. People looking at their phones rather than looking at the sky, or the sea, or the other beautiful things around them. Yesterday, cycling home from work, I took a quiet route that took me along past a river. On the bank, a young couple had set up a picnic blanket under the shade of some bushes. They had two children - a baby in a crib on the blanket, and a toddler of a daughter. The daughter was crawling dangerously close to the river bank, as I noticed when I cycled by. The couple, though, were each engrossed with their phones. As I went past, I called 'Watch the little girl.' The mother looked up in shock, then lurched over to grab at her daughter. They'd both been so engrossed that they hadn't even noticed.
Here's one of my poems:
Everywhere,
people are looking at their phones.
All people do is look at their phones
or hold onto their phones as if their lives
depended on it. People drive cars
looking at their phones. People go
for long walks in beautiful nature,
looking at their phones.
People make love
Maybe they make love
to their phones. People throw parties,
then spend the whole time
People go to church and play
with their phones. People go to concerts
and play with their phones. People go
swimming and take their phones.
They go on jogs with their phones.
Phones have disfigured people –
they clasp them between shoulder
and ear as they carry their shopping or
hold hands with their kids.
Phones have disabled them –
they’ve lost the use of a hand, which
is the hand that is always holding the phone,
and the hand that is no longer any use
for anything else except holding the phone.
People fall down holes
and off buildings
and over cliffs
whilst looking at their phones.
People go to bed and play
with their phones. Maybe they
sleep with their phones.
Maybe they dream about using their phones.
Or maybe they dream about a day
long gone when no one had phones,
or needed them, or wanted them, or cared.
They just went for nice walks instead,
or got quietly drunk, or spoke to other people
face to face, or masturbated
in perfect peace...
I feel disconnected too, especially now both my parents are dead and I am alone on a foreign country. One of my oldest UK friends decided to take the scenic route to suicide and finally succeeded in drinking herself to death not long after my Dad died. I am not sure my UK long-standing long-distance partner is really brave enough to come out to join me, though I suspect we would each need more space than a small flat could offer.
It is comfortable in many ways, but where there is not much of a sense of community anyway. People work hard for very little and it's a city and it does not create a charitable mindset. and I still don't know what will happen with Brexit though I am seeing a solicitor soon about that. No doubt it will all cost money.
Things have opened up a little art community wise and teaching wise I have a little more my own clientele and I really hope I will be left alone and in peace to continue this way, as working for language schools was one of the most thankless and alienating apprenticeships I could ever have imagined. The early starts did not helpuch either so there were the joys of constant sleep deprivation too. Recently I was axed from the school where I had a handful of lessons, but I am not exactly collapsed with grief over that - the commute was horrendous, the pay was peanuts and my colleagues in the last two years didn't talk to me. So whatever.
I do have the odd friend and hope to find more like-minded arty souls. Toxic people with ego agendas need not apply.
I think you're feeling nostalgic for the past as you're getting older. And this is natural and quite common.
I only feel it slightly because the past for me was so awful I don't want to experience it again.
I have always been disconnected from the people around me so I don't any different.
I actually like mobile phones. But dislike voice calls. ( I prefer text or email). Since I have cut my phone off from the toxic people who used to phone me very regularly (by changing my number) I feel much healthier. When i go out in the local area I don't take my phone with me. When I do take my phone. It's for internet browsing, GPS mapping, live timetables etc.
The cities I lived in have changed. But I think most of the changes have been for the better. I estimate 30% changes have been bad. 70% for the better. The old shops and markets are gone, replaced by souless shopping centres. The people have changed.
Some places have not changed at all. When I was learning to read I was very into Enid Blyton books. And having a collecting disorder, I actually bought while collections, all 15 secret seven books, 21 Famous five books, 15 mystery series books. At that time (1960s & 1970s) the places being written about seemed complete fiction. I think they were written in the 30s, 40s and 50s. Now in 2015 to 2018. I am traveling around and I feel I am visiting places that remind me of these very books. Many places seem unchanged in a century.