Suicide and Obsessions

I don’t think NTs process tragedy and loss the same way we do. When you experience tragedy, something that leaves a hole, deficiency, in your life they say stupid things like you need to get over it, just need to adjust.

In my experience the most successful autistic people are those who find places where they don’t need to adapt. Or find ways to adapt the place they are to them.

I lost a pen once. It wasn’t any pen. I was just starting my second semester at uni and my parents bought me a special nasa space pen for Christmas. And I left it on my desk at the lecture theatre. I did everything I could to find it once I realised I’d left it and as the options ran out and I realised it was gone and wasn’t coming back I started to panic. So something snapped in my brain and I marched immediately into town and bought a new identical nasa space pen. Cost about 50£ as I recall. It was the only way at that point to stop me completely falling apart.

When life throws us curve balls NTs tell us get over it, what we need is someone to help us find a new pen.

But what if I didn’t have 50£? What if it’s not a pen you’ve lost? What if it’s your friend or a family member or even your health? What if there are things you can’t do any more because of your body, or at least not enjoy as much as you used to? And all people can tell you to do is get over it, Move on?

It doesn’t work that way for us. When something leaves a hole in our lives we need to fill it to move on. So you feel like you’ve no control, and when people tell you there is nothing you can do, move on, it just reenforces that lack of control. I understand how suicide could seem tempting. It might seem like a way to take back control, end things on your own terms.

My life often feels like sisyphus pushing a rock up a hill only to have it roll down again. And the people by you keep saying stop pushing the rock, just get over it. It’s like hell. But it occurs to me that even if they never help me, even if I never get that rock over that hill it’s not nessacerally all in vain. The things I do today may pave the way for others like me, who one day stand in my stead, to have and achieve what I never could. A man once said civilisation only exists where old men plant trees they know they will never sit under. It’s small comfort but at least with that thought in your mind there is still some point to it all.

I don’t think NTs process tragedy and loss the same way we do. When you experience tragedy, something that leaves a hole, deficiency, in your life they say stupid things like you need to get over it, just need to adjust.

In my experience the most successful autistic people are those who find places where they don’t need to adapt. Or find ways to adapt the place they are to them.

I lost a pen once. It wasn’t any pen. I was just starting my second semester at uni and my parents bought me a special nasa space pen for Christmas. And I left it on my desk at the lecture theatre. I did everything I could to find it once I realised I’d left it and as the options ran out and I realised it was gone and wasn’t coming back I started to panic. So something snapped in my brain and I marched immediately into town and bought a new identical nasa space pen. Cost about 50£ as I recall. It was the only way at that point to stop me completely falling apart.

When life throws us curve balls NTs tell us get over it, what we need is someone to help us find a new pen.

But what if I didn’t have 50£? What if it’s not a pen you’ve lost? What if it’s your friend or a family member or even your health? What if there are things you can’t do any more because of your body, or at least not enjoy as much as you used to? And all people can tell you to do is get over it, Move on?

It doesn’t work that way for us. When something leaves a hole in our lives we need to fill it to move on. So you feel like you’ve no control, and when people tell you there is nothing you can do, move on, it just reenforces that lack of control. I understand how suicide could seem tempting. It might seem like a way to take back control, end things on your own terms.

My life often feels like sisyphus pushing a rock up a hill only to have it roll down again. And the people by you keep saying stop pushing the rock, just get over it. It’s like hell. But it occurs to me that even if they never help me, even if I never get that rock over that hill it’s not nessacerally all in vain. The things I do today may pave the way for others like me, who one day stand in my stead, to have and achieve what I never could. A man once said civilisation only exists where old men plant trees they know they will never sit under. It’s small comfort but at least with that thought in your mind there is still some point to it all.