Some Thoughts....

When in the past I was able to "Work mask" when doing various jobs (Unfortunately after many burnouts while working I can no longer work and not sure how I could cope if I wanted to)... But in life without work masking I find myself having difficulty in talking to people... If I go into a small shop (Can't do larger shops), I can talk because I am there for a reason so I can think what to say.

But in situations where I am not masking (Which is most of the time because masking is what caused me issues when working because it was twice the effort of working if that makes sense?) puts me in a position of when I see people I want to talk to, I don't because I don't know what to say, which makes me avoid people. I also am naturally shy when not masking. 

But it is as if I am going back to when I was four years old and I was in school, where I was dead quiet and at play times in the yard I would go to the furthest corner and just stand there on my own. It is very lonely but I just watch people as I don't know how to react or fit in or how to approach and speak to others! 

Yet stupidly I know how to speak and communicate.  I am scared of people talking to me in Welsh as I can't do it, and myenglish is limited in vocabluary. I always have had a limited vocabluary! (Used to be told I needed to read more books at a time when I was always reading books! Issue is words I don't know I just ignore, because if I look them up, the dictionary gives words to describe that word with masses of other words I don't know which makes it worse as I go round loops of words upon words and lose track of the origional word! So I ask my Mum as she thinks in words (She does maths in word form to understand it. I am a pictures guy as I think deeply in pictures). 

But I am told that foreigners like me because they find me easy to learn English from (Even though I don't have a clue how to talk in their language!)  I also speak slow. (Actually, I am not a quick thinker BUT I am a very deep thinker, and I enjoy the process of thinking!)

But what I am saying is that when walking on the beach etc, and I pass other people, all I can do is smile. I want to say "Hello" and talk like other people do but I tend to walk ways to avoid people as also the UK laws now prevent people like me talking.

(Example is men are not allowed to talk to women unless they know them and very few men walk on the beach. 

What I mean is life is extremely lonely. If I did now have my Mum I would rarely have anyone to talk to. 

How can I explain.  

People I became friendly with when I work masked in past jobs. I became friendly with an elderly couple and another elderly man who were at one time working with me, but they retired..

Because I know people can go off me, I learned to limit my visits so I could keep them friends. BUT now they are gone. They died. The one guy died a month or two ago and the couple died just over a year ago. I want to ring them up or text them but they are not there! It hit me! When something exciting happens I want to text them or call in but I can't. They are no longer there.

Is a mixed feeling of not wanting to be part of large groups and yet wanting friends who are like me and who I can connect with. Most people are hard to connect with. 

Most people are hard to connect with somehow?  I can connect in an outside way but not in a personal way. The three people who died I connected with. The rare few people I could talk long conversations with, as most people just talk about the weather and yet when I studied the weather so I could talk to them in detail, they looked at me with their mouth open and changed the subject. Why? I learned the weather (Forgotton it now as I don't retain information on things I don't use that I can't latch onto like I can with my special interests if that makes sense? Things I latch onto I can remember for ages without even trying!)

Why write this? 

I want to get feelings into words.  While I was only diagnosed earlier this year so in the past I didn't know that things were associated with autism...

But why I write is that I personally dissagree from a personal point of view that those on the spectrum want to be solitary. It is more that they end up solitary because they either get a hard time or they don't want to upset others by being who they are!  

I have avoided people because I don't want people to be upset by me if I can't be who they want me to be! And I won't change. I spent three quarters of my life trying before I broke down and realized I can only be ME, and I like being ME even if others don't like it! It is their fault if they don't like ME!

I was born for a reason. To bring joy to my creator. Who am I to question this? If the world goes crazy I do not have to go crazy with it!  

As I just need to be Me!