Nigel, the Autistic Companion

I really, really did not want to work with people. At all. Ever.

What I wanted to do was be a monk, and write – far from the human population. A life of the mind, not an intellectual, but a life lived in the mind. Focussed on an idea of God, on prayer, thoughts and reflections.

I wanted to be a Catholic monk. Not a hermit, I knew I needed some human contact. I wished I did not need human contact, but without that I had no orientation. But not much contact.

The Catholic Faith gave me purpose, it was very logical, very orderly. Without purpose there was no reason to do anything.

The monastic life was a controlled environment. Filled with patterns, routine, ritual, repetition. Decisions were made for you, life was protected, defended. The world could not enter, it’s chaos kept completely at bay.

This is what I craved.

I wanted to write. In me was a great desire to communicate, but direct contact was far too much. My mind has always been filled with thoughts, imaginings, concepts. I wanted for so long to write fiction. There are so many problems with writing fiction – mostly that it is not real…and if it is not real it seems very pointless to me. Fiction has a purpose, I know. It teaches, it distracts for good reason at times, it creates identity. Yet…it is not real! I have no idea why that point matters, but it does.

My years were filled with relentlessly pursuing the Catholic vocation, and trying to fight my mind on writing fiction. I couldn’t overcome the mental block on fiction; and I could not fit into the Catholic vocation. No surprise there. But I had no idea I was Autistic.

All I knew was I fit in nowhere, did not follow others rules well, and most everything about people confused me, stressed me, broke me.

It was made clear to me I did not have friends because I was not worthy of them. I did not fit in anywhere because I was a coward, annoying, wrong, just plain rubbish.

I reached a point where it was clear I was never going to enter a vocation in the Church. This was in my mid-thirties. I saw nothing else I wanted – the writing was not an option. So I threw myself into a Philosophy degree, with no idea why beyond I thought it would teach me others underlying motivations. I really could not understand why people did what they did. I thought philosophy would teach me. Turned out I was good at the subject and I loved it.

But after…the time had come to find a job. The only jobs I could do without skill (I had no practical skills) were care related. So I tested the waters doing voluntary Support Work. To my surprise I found I really enjoyed the one-on-one relationship. I was scared to death, but there was something there I wanted.

So…I was funnelled into working with disabled people. And from that with all kinds of Autistics. I found it gave me a purpose to knowing others, helping them in their needs, and it filled that need for me to know others. This was a hard thing for me, since making friends, or socializing at all, was impossible. I did not understand what a friend was for to be honest, or what socializing had as an objective. I was lonely, but the answer to that feeling was non-existent to me. Purpose, goals, systems, processes, where did friends or social occasions fit into that?

But even though I felt these things and got a lot from my work, I continued to not want this work. The world of humans is exhausting and agony. I think if I had found a way to make a living minus human contact I would have. But I could never figure that out.

I didnt want to follow. Or be managed. I wanted to be independent, in control. I always wanted to be self-employed, my own manager.

I fought and fought and fought.

Then by accident I found myself directed to recognizing I was Autistic. Suddenly the mess, the chaos, the utter hell of my existence came into focus. I saw why I did what I did, I understood myself at long last. I saw what my work was about and why it was important to me. I stopped fighting.

That is an overview of my life direction. What follows is a closer inspection of the particulars as and when they seem to be useful to reflect on, perhaps learn lessons from. Interspersed will be my present day attempts to bring balance, order, peace to my life. Perhaps these will be of use to others.