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.
There are lovely old movies with interesting humans who always use a pocket square when shaking hands with others.
I'm the sort who has tried to find how to make my eccentrics... interesting. I hate the way I speak sometimes - it's too intense. I'll go on about the physics of some absurd element and have learned to follow it up now (when I catch myself) with a 'wow! how fantastically boring!' which eases a great deal of situations. Go big or go home, right? I'm a fan of aesthetics which can turn the oddest of oddities into something which NTs only wished they possessed. I've spent time finding out how to be even more indulgent with my strangeness.
But I am also single. As a female, I found myself in too many abusive situations. And some good but overbearing. As I got older, I began to love not being irritated with someone else's nonsense in my space. They're demands and expectations. I think many of us would love to find connexion. Is the grass always greener? I think it is truly difficult to find someone who is respectful and understanding and steadfast, most cannot handle vulnerability. But then I can't say I've mastered this art!! My father sometimes tells me he wishes he was single. How sad that must be for my step mother, but he's loyal to a fault. My mother remarried a few times and the last one cheated on her for 10 years. How do you not know? I think it's contributed to her illnesses & medication intake. I don't envy them, but I do wish I could find someone who won't buy LEDs or lie to me about sensory objects. The world is a strange place.
Thank you for sharing your experience dealing with "being odd:" it sounds hopeful, though you ended with the sad "I wish I were single" experience of your father.
I can understand, I believe, how hard it is for most people find someone they can successfully partnership with: your insight that it requires vulnerability --- the nakedness of one's emotions --- to form a lasting romantic partnership.
It also takes trust,and (if it means anything at all) I think people trust too easily. Trust must be earned, and never granted. It therefore takes time to create a healthy relationship.
These are things I have never learned to do.
There is a reason why you buy your child a pet. It's to teach basic "caring & co-existing" skills.
The secret to being loved, is simply repetition! It's how my cat changed in one day, from the three years of fearing or disliking me to the currently infinitely more enjoyable relationship we now enjoy.
I became the centre of his routines for three years and when I took a short holiday, suddenly, he realised a whole lot of his life wasn't the same. People are very much like this too.
It's not the whole story, but it is a start.