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.
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.
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!
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.