Published on 12, July, 2020
By the time I was 13 years old I knew that I would forever be alone--- no spouse, no "girlfriends," no hope for romance, and no hope for love. This was obvious because I knew I was the only orange monkey in the monkey cage, and I was brutalized because I was (and am) "strange."
If I were capable of feeling hate I would write "I hate being autistic."
I do, however, utterly detest being autistic: autism has robbed me of my life. Autism took from me the chance of finding a woman who found me worthy of standing by her side, as two equal partners. What autism left for me in exchange was 61 years of a loneliness so suffocating, so ravenous, so crushing of spirit that I longed for death --- only my brother's compassion stayed my hand.
I loathe my inability speak nouns and pronouns when I am talking with people face to face: the Anomic Aphasia kicks in and I struggle to say the names of objects (that includes humans) , nor the names of places. My mind knows the word but I cannot speak it: try having a successful job interview when the evaluator believes you are on drugs--- I sound like I am choking because I am.
I abhor my inability to remember something that I heard mere seconds ago.
I deplore the way I rock side to side when I sit; rock on my feet side to side when standing in line at the grocery store; spinning on my heals to release some of the anxiety I collect when I am among the humans.
A few days ago (Monday June 14, 2021) my councilor (via telephone) told me that I "still have around twenty years left; there is still time to find love." I shivered with dread. I do not want to live another twenty years with painful eyes because I am required to look at people's eyes (it is agony for me). Twenty more years of strangers insisting that I must "shake hands." Twenty more years of strangers calling me by my first name--- as if we were already intimate.
Twenty more years of being macerated in the vicious jaws of loneliness.
It is a wonder that I have not been driven insane. Yet.
I never knew that Anomic Aphasia was a thing, but it describes my word forgetting to a T. I don't know if its just nouns etc for me, i just know that i forget words all the time, even just moments after saying them. I could probably continue a conversation without the word if i tried, but it usually leaves me stopped in my tracks focussing on the forgotten word than everything else and i end up forgetting what i was talking about in the first place.
I'm also terrible at remembering things, my long term is great, i remember all the things id rather forget, but anything new is gone just as quick as it came. I have to write everything down before i forget it, but half the time i forget that its written down and forget it anyway.
I really hope im not alone till im 61 or beyond, hell at this point i think id rather be dead long before that, but the way my life has gone so far, i reckon im travelling along the same path as yourself.
It is my boundless hope that no one follow my "path." I lived alone in a cave for 28 months because I could not stand another hour around people: desiring to be among people, meeting women, and meeting interesting people could not be satiated. I lacked all ability to tolerate not participating in love, romance, and social "belonging."
As for Anomic Aphasia, you certainly do describe it well: perhaps you could discuss that with a professional physician. I have read about "speech therapy" that might help.
I have a tendency to forget basic words, too.