So upset

I am so utterly heartbroken and I don’t know what to do. My eyes are so swollen from crying. I’m crying deep heartfelt sobs. I don’t think I’ve cried this way in a long time and I can’t stop the sobbing. 

I just want somebody to tell me it’s ok. That they love me and it’s all going to be ok. That they’re here for me. 

I’m so confused as to what to do. I attended my niece’s wedding yesterday. We used to be so close and yet she hasn’t spoken to me for years. She said it’s because I didn’t attend my uncles funeral in 2012 when I was in India. But I spoke to him from India when he was dying, which was incredibly hard for me and he told me not to come back. I wrote him a letter and he was ok with it. And it was a good while after that before I became aware that she no longer speaks to me. 

I went to the wedding yesterday because I wanted to be with my family but it was so hard. I had to get ready by myself, putting on make up and getting dressed up so I looked the part, because I knew that was the right thing to do by my family. I had nobody to tell me I looked ok. Nobody to talk to as I was getting ready. And I drove the half hour or so by myself to get to the venue, to walk in by myself, when everybody was sat there in this beautiful setting. I said all the wrong things when I got there but I swear I didn’t say them on purpose just to be rude or insult anybody. I was scared, lonely, incredibly sad that I wasn’t included in any way in any of the preparations. Most of them didn’t even care if I was there or not. How can they not care? I don’t understand it? If I say anything, I get told I’m selfish. If I say weird things because I’m so scared, I get told I’m doing it on purpose. My head was all over the place trying to find one person to just be there for me. I stood with my cousin and I couldn’t help but cry but it at least took the sting out of the situation and enabled me to carry on with the day. Wearing the mask as best I could. I felt so alone and it’s clear I was. Another niece from my sisters husbands side said I looked like a wanderer. Just walking around looking lost and lonely. I was trying to make some sense if it. I need to know where people are all the time and I couldn’t find some of them so I was wandering around by myself just trying to find where they were so I could at least find a piece of stability in my mind. Nobody could see what was going on inside of me and I couldn’t tell anybody because I would be accused of trying to ruin the day. So I kept quiet and kept on trying harder.

My son told me I had to stop being weird. I had to stop saying weird stuff. He said I was pushing everyone away and he didn’t know what to do. He said he has spent his life defending me. Getting beat up by people, which is true, and defending me to the hilt and now it seems like I’m purposely pushing people away. He said I’m not autistic. He has seen autistic people and they bang their heads. He said I’m not autistic and I should go back to doing the work I studied so hard for. To go back to social work where I was earning £40 an hour and was in demand. Why does it have to be about that? I was taking drugs for most of my life. It’s the only way I could cope and I don’t want to take drugs anymore yet they want me to back to how I was? 

Last night I thought about heroin for the first time in a long time. When I took heroin, it was like being wrapped in the warmest, softest blanket. As if an angel came down from heaven and wrapped me in their wings and took away all the pain. All the confusion. All the noise in my head and the fear in my heart. All the loneliness and pain. For a few moments, it took it all away. 

At the end of the night, another cousin told me to look at my family and ask what is life without them. He said he doesn’t understand. Tell me what autism is. I don’t understand. But they don’t listen. He just said family is life. 

Don’t they think I know that. Why did they think I was there? I’m not trying to push people away, I’m trying to bring them closer to me and I don’t know how to do that. I thought the diagnosis would help, but instead, it’s caused an even greater distance between us. They’re all giving up on me. One by one. Some of it is because they don’t understand and they don’t know what to do. But that doesn’t mean I know what to do. 

I could go back to social work. I could go back working in the Isle of Man. The place where I was at my best. There’s an opportunity right now, for £46000 per year and a £5000 relocation package, 34 day’s holiday and an 8 year work permit. 

This would make my family happy. I love living on the island. I like the security of a job and the regularity of life. It’s easy to work in the Isle of Man because I’m surrounded by nature, my medicine. So if I have a difficult client visit, I step out and I’m in beautiful natural surroundings or I can take myself to the sea and quickly recover from the visit. It’s a good life. The island offers all the things I love about life. Island life suits me. That’s why I also love living in Bali. 

I could do all the above and still work on my other dream. To use what I know of metaphysics and raw food/food and optimum health, meditation, relaxation, yoga etc. And it would please my family. Maybe this is the answer. I don’t know. I just don’t know. Maybe it is. 

My eyes are so swollen and raw, but I’ve stopped crying and feel more at peace. 

Maybe the Isle of Man is the best place for me right now. It could give me a good period of recovery. In a beautiful place, with good friends and lots of the things I love to do and I could save the money I need to grow my own business and I feel sure I could do this along side working. Earlier on in the year when I was offered an independent/temporary post, at £35 per hour and free accommodation, I wasn’t ready for it, but I think I could be now. I know I’m not ready to be launching my own business. That’s far too much for me just now but I think I could use my time when not at work, to work on that in an un pressured way. 

I feel so tired. The venue for the wedding was stunning and all the family and some of the other guests stayed at the hotel, in beautiful rooms and suits. It also boasted a beautiful spa. In the end I could have stayed the night. One of the aunties ended up in hospital a couple of days before so there was a spare bed in one of the rooms where another Aunty was staying. So they did try to persuade  me to stay but after being there from 1.30 in the afternoon till almost 1.30 in the morning, I had to get home to be alone. I drove home, alone, scared, lonely, heartbroken, in the dark, which I don’t like doing anyway, along dark windy country roads that I wasn’t familiar with and when I got home, I thanked god I’d got home safe and alive and it’s now 2.20 pm the next day and not one person has called or messaged to find out if I got home ok. I could be dead and they wouldn’t even know. That’s how scary the journey home was. I was trying desperately to hold back the avalanche of tears that I’d been holding in all day so I could see as best I could to get home. I had glasses on that are years past my prescription but I don’t have the money to buy new ones. So with all the proceeds of the day, with not being confident at driving in the dark, I still managed to get home in one piece, yet nobody cares. 

I know they care to some degree. And I know people have their own lives and I know it’s not all about me and yesterday was to celebrate my niece getting married, but it doesn’t take away how I was feeling and I think I did extremely well to get through the day, yet nobody will see that. They will just see that I could have done better. 

My friend’s daughter, who is autistic and 10 years old, sang at the wedding as the bride walked up the Isle, then as she was signing the register and as they walked back down the isle as husband and wife. They then left but came back in the evening for a little while. Her dad is also autistic. The girl was loving the party, even though she could only cope for a short time. At one point we were stood close to the toilets and she wanted to go but she wouldn’t go by herself and even though her mum suggested she go by herself, the girl said no, so her mum went with her. That’s what she does. She supports her daughter. Her dad said he’d take her with him to the men’s, at which the daughter gave him a look that clearly said, no way! They support and love her regardless and after a difficult time in primary/junior school, she’s now doing well at secondary school and she now has fantastic support at school which was often lacking in her previous school. How different life must be when you get that level of support. My friend’s little boy is more ‘severe’, for want of a better word. He has always attended a special school and although he’s come on in leaps and bounds in many ways, my friend said he currently won’t leave the house to go anywhere. My friend said it’s difficult but she said she thinks she loves him even more for it. She knows he doesn’t do it on purpose and she said she did manage to get him to this special play centre place that he likes, even though it’s very expensive and they’re just holding on financially at the moment after having to make one of their staff members redundant, but she said it would have been worth it because it would have given her a bit of a break as well. But they were only there a short while and he wanted to go home. She wasn’t angry with him for that. Not in the least. It simply made her love him even more. 

Apart from the work situation, I just want my family to know that I don’t do and say the things I do on purpose, just to be weird and push people away. Things just come out my mouth sometimes. And I’m only just, for the first time in my life, realising that some, and maybe a lot of things I say, could be taken the wrong way by people. Can’t they see that that’s why I need their love, support and understanding. So they can say to people, who want to say things about me, that I didn’t mean it that way, I’m autistic and sometimes say things that other people don’t understand. Why aren’t they supporting me? I don’t understand? And if I help myself, and get a job and start ‘earning’ money again so I can join in on all the Christmas present buying things etc and so I can appear more ‘normal’ again, and I talk about the s**t that they talk about, which I hate, and nothing of what I want to talk about, ever, will I then be accepted and part of the fold again? Is that what I’m supposed to do? I would do almost anything for any of them, I’m sure, but is pretending to be somebody I’m not while suppressing my true self so I’m not even visible, the thing I’m supposed to do? I think that’s what I’m most confused about. When I’m under extreme pressure, like I was, walking into an outdoor area, where everybody was sat waiting for the bride, where I was a few minutes late due to a road closure, I’m going to say things beyond my control. I said something like what are we waiting for, is she (my niece) pretending this is like a church and she’s going to walk down the isle like you would in a church? I was under intense pressure. I had no idea what I was walking into. Everyone was sat there. I couldn’t see anybody I knew. I couldn’t see a spare seat. It was horrendous and I think under the circumstances, I did pretty well, yet of course, I was seen to be behaving very badly. Nobody could see that actually, I was behaving incredibly, amazingly well. I was distraught that I hadn’t been included in any of the preparations. I had a few days or so previously found out about the hen party that I knew nothing about which made me realise that my niece really has stopped talking to me. That was heartbreaking and here I was, having to be at her special day, when she could barely tolerate me and nobody cared if I was there or not and they would rather I not be there if I couldn’t play the part, keep my mouth closed and just pretend I’m having a nice time. I was sat in the beautiful room, surrounded by family and all her friends etc yet I felt so alone and lost and in great emotional turmoil, knowing that I couldn’t breathe a word of how I was feeling because they would all call me selfish and they’d be annoyed at me and it seems that even though I did my absolute best, it still wasn’t enough. Maybe I am just one big ball of selfishness that will never be able to enjoy life or be happy? 

My son said can’t you see that you’re pushing everyone away, I said no, I honestly can’t, I honestly don’t know what I’m doing to do that. I reminded him of the time that he was upset and I tried to talk to him about it and he said, can’t you see that I don’t want to talk. I said no, I honestly can’t, I thought people were supposed to talk about things when they’re upset so I was just trying to help. But he wouldn’t listen. He just kept pointing out all the things about me that are my autistic traits and wanting me to stop doing them, telling me I’m not autistic and to stop trying to prove I’m weird and stop pushing people away and be like I used to be. I used to be a drug addict and alcoholic. I’ve come through that and yet they somehow forget all the bad parts of that and want me to go back to how I was, super scale masking just to fit in and be accepted. Even the worst of what I say can always be explained if people took the time to listen.