Published on 12, July, 2020
I feel very strange today. Disoriented. Lost.
I've tried all day to do some writing, but it's like trying to squeeze water from a lump of wood. I've tried to do some reading, too, but that's still refusing to come back to me. There was a time when I always had my head in a book. Now... it's just a jumble of meaningless words. I went out for a short walk earlier, but I was glad to get back. Too many people hanging around in the warm evening, at the end of the weekend - skin burned from a day on the beach, a bit drunk, looking at phones (as usual), talking loudly, eating take-away. The rubbish on the pavements and in the gutters. Cars passing endlessly. No sense of anything for me to latch onto or find meaning in.
On Thursday, it's the first anniversary of my mother's passing - although last year, the 26th was a Wednesday. I'll set time aside on both evenings to sit quietly and remember her. I've taken the week off work for the occasion. I've got nothing special planned. The way it's feeling, each day will be pretty much the same. I don't want to do anything special, anyway. Just be by myself. Me and the cat. This time last year, we were all together in her home, sharing those precious moments as she began her final decline. Where has that year gone?
On days like this, it really feels like simply going through the motions of a life - because that's what I have to do. Go too far along that road, of course, and it can easily start to lose its meaning. And I don't think I've found the meaning of it yet. Maybe there isn't one. Just be here, for a while - a span of years - and then pass on.
I feel more alienated from society, in many ways, than I have before. I simply no longer understand the things that seem to preoccupy everyone. I no longer feel any of the urges or excitements that I felt when younger: the sense of something new waiting for me just ahead some way. I no longer even think that I'm interested in trying to fulfill the ambitions I once had: to travel, to publish books, to seek new truths or experiences, to find love. I've been through many of those things already, and they haven't given me any sense of satisfaction or fulfillment. I can't seem to shake off, just lately, that underlying sense I have of things gradually winding down, like an old clock someone's forgotten to wind. The ticks are getting more drawn out by the day. The hands are slowing. Maybe exhaustion is catching up with me.
Sorry to be so downbeat. I just needed to put something down in words.
Anyone else get to feel this way?
Thank you all for your kind and generous comments. I'm sorry not to have responded properly before, but I've tended to avoid this thread. I often feel that way after saying something like this because it feels so self-indulgent and attention-seeking, and it makes me embarrassed. But thank you, anyway.
I've not done very much at all this week so far - mainly just spend my days on the computer, making silly memes, commenting on social media, and posting on here. I was going to do some more work on the book I'm writing about growing up as an Aspie - but it's been pretty hit and miss. I feel guilty for neglecting it and getting distracted onto other things, but that's the story of my life in another way! Distractions are so easy. When I think what I could have achieved if only I'd kept my focus on things that could actually have made a difference to me! However, there are some special circumstances this week, so maybe it's as well that I just relax and be a bit lazy. I've also drunk a fair bit of wine. A bit of emotional anaesthetic! I'm okay with it, though. I'm in control.
Part of my reason for writing the book was to try to demystify, through examples and analogies, the Aspie mindset for an NT audience. But do you know what? I don't think I can be bothered with that any more. Even among switched-on people, such as my colleagues at the autism day centre, there's a gap of understanding that seems unbridgeable. I still get asked what my special talent is. I still get asked to do things at a moment's notice, even though they know I need notice for change. Just the other day, I was having lunch and preparing for my afternoon activities with one service user when I was asked if I could instead scrub that and take some other service users out on a bus to horseriding. The staff member who was supposed to take them had been likewise switched to another duty because of an emergency. Not wanting to let anyone down, I nevertheless had to rush because it was already late. I think my anxiety was picked up by my new service users, because one of them had a meltdown in the bus and we had to turn back.
No... I think the book will just be for people like us. Perhaps it'll help fellow Aspies to understand that they're not alone with some of the issues we have to face, and some of the problems we've suffered in our lives. In some ways now, that feels like a much more worthwhile objective.
There's nothing to feel embarrassed about Tom. I know that feeling after posting something but, as someone said to me on here, it's these deeply honest posts that probably go on to help the most people because so many others can identify with them. You were just brave enough to be the one to post it - not attention-seeking, not overindulgent, but brave enough to actually reach out and share how you feel. I'm not often as brave as that but I admire you for it.