Published on 12, July, 2020
Who am I? I have little idea. I know what I am interested in, and I know what my strengths and weaknesses are, and what I like and dislike. I am often told that I am a very articulate and self-aware person.
However, most of my life has been an act. I have internalised multiple personas over the years, pretending to be someone I am not, regardless of whether this someone is real or a figment of my imagination. As an extreme example, once, when I was at school, I imitated the precise way a girl pouted her lip. I ended up pouting my lip, and must have looked quite ridiculous.
I try and imitate hair styles, dress styles, speech patterns, actions, almost anything. Sometimes this is very conscious, sometimes it is almost unconscious, but I am always aware that I am playing a part. Even when I am alone in my bedroom, I act 'through' others. Even my interests are often dictated by someone else, someone I admire or want to be like. It feels like I have no autonomy or 'self' that I can call my own; everything is stage managed.
My interests currently come and go, but I am only interested in one area of a subject, and find it hard to generalise my interest to related fields. I have always had this problem, but I am more aware of it now; it means that I find it hard to plan my life, decide what I want to do, and what I want to achieve in life.
I also get obsessed with certain people, and live my life 'through' them, often in fantasy.
Can anyone else relate to this lack of self, identity confusion?
I think that one of the main issues with autism, is that it is a spectrum. There are many characteristics, that depend on an individuals personality. We are all different, just as nt people are all different. No single book/web site has all the answers and can only give examples of the types of characterisics and issues we face.
I am currently reading Valerie Gaus, Living Well on the Spectrum. It is a much tougher read and I have to look back into my life to find examples of some of the problems she describes, but I am slowly gaining understanding.
I have also realised that the help I received in the 90s was cbt and it has, in the long term, helped me change and cope better. It is not about having someone challenge our eroneous thinking for us, more about seeing that we have erroneous thinking and challenging it for ourselves. I was given the tools to challenge my own thoughts and had to practice and experiment with new ways of thinking, to develop new habits.
One thing I was advised to doin my cbt, was to look out at the world more, to find things that stimulate my mind and give me more to talk about. It has helped me to become less self absorbed (some of the time) and have a little knowledge on lots of things. Eg as you walk down a street, you can lift your eyes to the buildings around, looking above shop window level, and see the beauty of the old architecture, surounded by the 60s carbuncles etc. The more you absorb of the world around you, the more involved in it, you become.