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'd like to start off by saying that your writing is very amazing, and I think that you should keep writing.
There are many men and women on the autistic spectrum, who likely share similar struggles as you do. So technically, we're all orange monkeys in the monkey cage, so once in awhile we all talk about how weird the world we live in is, and how much we struggle to be a part of it.
Many people have issues with verbal communication. Some people are mute, deaf, or hard of hearing, and they can use technology, write things down on paper, or use sign language to communicate. There's many alternative ways to communicate.
Some of us even struggle with written language, and have dyslexia, but still manage to write on this forum (I have dyscalculia which is math dyslexia, but through alternative methods, I can now do mental math as an adult, and I'm now learning computer programming).
So even through your struggles, you have experiences and understandings that others don't have, and I think that's an advantage in disguise.
Thank you for such an eloquent and insightful reply. I had no idea that dyscalculia existed! It sounds fascinating from the outside looking in, and a major source of dismay and frustration for people living with it.
You may indeed be correct in concluding my experiences about being autistic have had positive results. My councilor once noted that I am "wise," but I think that is a matter of age as well as contemplation on life and observing what is reality, and eschewing irrational beliefs.
Well I suppose the contemplating on life, observing what is reality, and eschewing irrational beliefs, is what wisdom is all about. So technically, you are wise. However, I guess the phrase "A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool," comes into play, and those who who are wise never feel like they are wise, because they understand that they cannot know everything, and that there's always questions that are unanswered.
Also Anomic Aphasia is something new and intriguing to me that I've never heard of before either. So many people experience things that I can't even begin to fathom, but reading and hearing stories makes me have at least some idea about how it's like.
That sounds very frustrating, especially when you're having a conversation with someone, and the word just randomly vanishes, and you can't say what you wanted to say. I can sympathise.
Speech and language is predominantly on the left hemisphere of the brain. I've watched videos about split brains, where the bridge between the left and right sides of the brain are severed (I'm not saying you have this though) and there's interesting experiments performed on these individuals, like with word recognition, item recognition, and so on. I think the connections of the brain are fascinating to look into.
However, I guess the phrase "A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool," comes into play, and those who who are wise never feel like they are wise, because they understand that they cannot know everything,
Thank you for your insightful reply. Alas, I fell the fool throughout most of the day. :-( If you were to observe me for a day you would be convinced that I am a fool, and dim of wit. Perhaps the only time I feel wise is when I am writing. As far as I know, there is no metric for what is called "wisdom," but I know it generally happens when one lived several decades.
A funny thing about Anomic Aphasia: several decades I heard the phrase and an example I my mind did an "AH HAH! THAT EXPLAINS IT!" because I struggled with nouns and pronouns. I then forgot the phrase, so that when I tried to discuss the problem with general physicians they did not know what I was talking about.
It is my presumption that general medical practitioners do not know much about neurological issues unless they have heard about the most common ones. With Anomic Aphasia a person *such as myself) can (and usually do) speak clearly, easily, and like an average person, yet verbally "slam into a wall" and be unable to speak because a noun "just vanished" from the ability to speak. This will confuse most medical practitioners, I presume, because it is only nouns and pronouns that are difficult, plus it does not always happen.