In the news I have seen reports of autistic men doing horrible things especially attempted murder. Is there a greater propensity among autistic people to disregard the reality of personhood and thus to endanger it? From my experience: at school I got upset with shyness when interacting with other boys and interpreted many remarks as hurtful. In order to minimise the negative effect I used to imagine the words of people who said seemingly bullying things to me to be as no more harmful than the ‘mooing’ of cows. It worked at school to deal with my hypersensitivity but as an adult it led me to the feeling that no one was really thinking behind their forehead. I found myself trapped in suffocating loneliness by my own imagination-based solution to social difficulty. I now fear that this ability -or disability- to dissociate from other people has the negative side effect of undermining their reality as valuable beings who have minds. The possible extension of this way of thinking is the notion that they don’t matter because they are not real.
It could be that there is something more seriously wrong with me than my diagnosis of ASD suggests. I have heard it said that schizophrenia is sometimes misdiagnosed as ASD.
Or maybe I am being self-bullied by another worry. In which case I need to surrender to the worry not fight it.
I have fought for years to be rid of unwanted feelings and thoughts but to no avail. I have finally had to realise that my fighting them has not succeeded. I don’t have power to fight them. I am powerless in my battle against my unwanted thoughts. Giving them any attention has always empowered them not me.
