This morning I was feeling much more able and positive.
The run up to Christmas and the months before have been extremely destabilizing. Too much changing and happening at work, attempting to get back into education, and endless money worries just took all joy from my life.
Christmas itself is just overwhelming. It is not the day itself, or really anything I do. The day this year consisted of a couple of people, me and watching films and playing games. It was controlled and calm and to be honest the nicest Christmas day I have ever had.
The real overwhelm is the atmosphere out in society – beyond my house. The tangible feeling of hysterics and over-indulgence. In truth it is the season of sensuality, decadence, and poverty of spirit. For anyone who is not able to give themselves over to this lust for things, food, and the presence of people then it is a dire period of depression, anxiety and misery high-lightening only their failure to achieve these goals. The roads are jammed with cars, the shops with people, the messages rammed down your throat – nowhere is there any piece, tranquility, balance.
I actually do love Christmas, but for me that is a calmer, more contemplative version. Not many people, just a few that are well chosen with relaxed time together. There is no need to partake in sloth, gluttony, or avarice.
In doing my 30 minutes of reflection, for the first time in a long time I felt there was the possibility of entering the day without needing to hide or discipline my mind to cope with high levels of anxiety. Partly I think this is because that Christmas atmosphere has discharged. For many the season is over with, it is done, there is no more pushing. The air around me is clear, free, without demands.
But also I can see what I want to do, though there is no means to do it.
Let me start by saying I do not really get along well with the current Autistic ‘help’ on offer. For those at Level 1 (Aspergers), you basically get:
- ‘Help’ to socialize – so that is endless groups of various kinds, usually either coffee or activities, all geared to getting you to be like others ‘out there’;
- ‘Help’ to get a job and fit in – so if your lucky you will get taught how to not be so Autistic and do like the rest do;
- ‘Help’ with anxiety/depression – so that is just learning how to put up with not living how you should be living…we might call it, ‘how to deal with the vicious affects of living a false life, or someone else’s life’;
- ‘Help’ to get on benefits because you cannot deal with the above and have ridiculously high levels of anxiety and depression…but it is not really helpful to be given a way to do nothing with your life. So they will then keep on at you to get you to do all of the above.
Well, I do not want any of that. I do want to know some people, because I crave a certain amount of closeness to other humans I can relate to. But I do not want to be in a group of any kind. I do not want to ‘socialize’. I want a few close intimate friends, and that is it. I like 1 to 1 relationships. I do not want help to get a job and fit in, because I hate the jobs on offer and always have done. I hate the system of management, control and all the teachings they give out and do not follow. I don’t even want to work for money, though I know I have to as there is no other way to keep myself alive. I most definitely do not want to be on any benefits. I do not want to be kept by a megalomaniac state that thinks its collective consciousness knows how I should be living, how I should be spending my money, and declares of its own ego when I am disabled and not, and all the rest of the rubbish it pontificates about. No. Keep out of my life please, you have no right to make dogmas about life.
This is why most peer support groups I am not interested in. They are usually funded by government money and built around government policy. They are not independent. They declare what Autism is and how you have to live. Many Autistics want and need this, and that is fine. I do not criticize them. All I am saying is no, I do not want that. I do not want other Autistics to tell me what is right and wrong about my state of being, or teaching me how to fit in the society and government plans.
That leads me to anxiety and depression…I do not want to be treat for these, though they are burdensome. I know exactly how to get away from these conditions – live as I should be living, not how others say I should be living. It is amazing how when the environmental conditions are as I need them…when I am allowed to be creative and express myself how I am built to be creative and express…when these are met I am at peace. I have to negativity. No depression and anxiety.
But who will let me live as I need to live? No one. Wherever I have gone others have scorned my needs and blocked my path. Where are the people who care? Elsewhere, but definitely not here with me.
So what is it I want?
I would like to find others who share my view. Others who want to come together to help each other to be able to sustain an environment that supports our needs. What I want it practical. It is not a bunch of people helping you to cope with fitting in and all the negative impact on us of living as others want. It is a bunch of people pooling resources and effort to create a way to live as we want to live. To some extent this will mean having some common ideas on how to live, or having ways to live that supports others to also live, like a jigsaw. But it is not a commune, or living in ‘community’ necessarily. Part of Autism is the need for independence, control. So I do not want to polarize anyone to one way. Variety is what we need, but central to it is the need and desire to care – genuinely care, united to a great passion to act.
Humility. I do not see much of this about. I see less of this than ‘caring’. Too many come together with no humility, and soon enough they attack and kill each other. Because the Autistic need for control and independence easily leads to pride and arrogance and self-entitlement. Autism is partly a different perspective (for many reasons), it definitely gives an alternative and divergent perspective. But that is not enough to bring Autistics together. Without real, genuine, heart-felt humility there can be no chance of support. I will write about humility another time, but this has to be foundational.
So…yes, this is a pipe dream. I do not see humility anywhere. I do not see any Autistic’s who are willing to help support other Autistics in practical, concrete, material ways. Everyone has their excuses, and they are all real and all valid. There is a lot of talk and a lot of effort to get us to fit in to government and its plans for society. But nothing much else.
At least, though, I know what I want. That is a start.
Nigel, the Autistic Companion 