Before I begin, this particular post is about two nearly completely separate topics, though one bleeds into the other. The first half is about a particular issue I struggle with when it comes to communication, mostly due to my autism, and how you can better understand and help both me and people like me express themselves. The second part is a more general life lament venting session. I don’t blame you if you skip that part, but at least read the first bit: it’s important!
Recently I’ve been feeling…let’s say…a bit down. As a result, at a recent get-together I was a bit quieter than usual. One person noticed, and, a few days later, called me up to see if I was feeling OK. This was a conversation I was not anticipating, however, and my brain decided to short-circuit, saying at first that I was just tired. This was true, but it wasn’t the whole truth. The whole truth was complicated, messy, and had to be extremely carefully worded in order to get across exactly what my issues have been recently. I tried making a few stabs at explaining myself, but before I could really get a conversation going, I was cut off with, essentially, “Well, you know how to contact me if you need help. Bye!”
This is not an uncommon occurrence in my experience. One reason I tend to avoid phone conversations and one-on-one conversations is the need to think and plan ahead when it comes to the next thing I want to say. In a group setting with three or more this is far easier, as I can take the brief moments I need to to analyze and absorb the conversation well enough to get a handle on where it’s going and what I want to say next, while the other people present are conversing. Over the phone, or with just one other person, if something suddenly goes off-script then I’m left creating a ton of awkward silences, or even worse, the other person moving onto different topics, thinking I’ve said all I want to, when, in fact, I had plenty more to say: I just hadn’t quite thought of the right way to word it yet.
People with autism have a tendency to rehearse or script conversations. We have to plan out what we’re going to say in certain situations because the social instincts necessary to start and maintain conversations without them going off the rails and weirding people out are not there. I personally have to actively and consciously think about my responses and all the various ramifications to everyone present were I to say my first thought, because I’ve been burned so many times in the past. This takes time and effort, time that often isn’t given to us in the normal ebb and flow of a conversation, and as a result we seem slower, or more awkward, or otherwise disinterested.
I’ve done enough practice that my response time is usually OK, at least when it comes to small talk or topics that I’ve rehearsed beforehand. My particular brand of scripting is less stock phrases like a play, and more “if this, then that” like an improv show. Also, for some reason my brain’s first instinct in almost any situation is to come up with something funny before coming up with something appropriate, which often gets me on a lot of quote walls but gets me into trouble when things are more serious. It’s not that I don’t recognize a particular comment as inappropriate (though sometimes this is the case), but the social pressure to keep the conversation going sometimes outweighs my need to take my time to think of something appropriate without being glib, and I blurt out the inappropriate thing, hoping that people will at least laugh at it even if they take it to mean I don’t care, or that I don’t take them seriously (which usually isn’t the case). (also I just realized that this is probably why these blog posts are almost never as jokey as my normal speech is: it’s the one place where I can take the time to be serious.)
When it comes to my own personal serious topics, I’m almost never able to discuss them as much as I need to before the other party moves on because I haven’t been able to discuss it quickly enough, or seriously enough. I throw in a lot of dark humor when discussing my own demons, which trivialized them in the eyes of others, so then they think I’m good with it all and move on. This is the case sometimes, but not all the time, and often people don’t even realize this is the case, because to them, it seemed like I was done with the topic because I was either silent or made a joke.
These problems have even extended to my dating relationships. A lot of the relationships I’ve had have actually started because of this blog. A woman reads a post or two and she really like what she’s reading, and the person that wrote it. She contacts me, we go on some dates, but eventually the fact that I don’t communicate nearly as well in person, or on the phone, or even in texting, as I do here, ends up creating a disconnect between expectations and reality, and as a result the relationship dies. I can inspire people with deep, meaningful prose when I have the time to think and process, but when I gotta talk to you I end up either over-using vapid, small-talk scripts, or hemming and hawing because I don’t have the time I need to answer the way I want to, which gets mistaken for either lack of interest or attention. My most recent relationship (the one in which I discovered my own aromantic orientation) turned a lot more sour than it needed to because it took me literally days between the date when my red flags were raised and when I was able to express exactly what those red flags were (most of which made it into this blog post eventually), but by that time she had gotten a lot more serious and focused on the relationship than she would’ve been had I been able to express myself earlier, and as a result the break-up was not a pretty one.
This scripting tendency is one reason that autistic people will talk your ears off over their hyperfixations, then clam up when the subject changes. It’s not necessarily that they can’t talk about other things, it’s that they’ve rehearsed conversations in their head about the subjects they care about to the point of obsession, and their brains are ready like a fire-hose to douse you with knowledge the instant you express any interest.
Any good, thoughtful autistic person will be happy to discuss other topics if they are allowed to process and respond at their own pace without the pressure of a neurotypical person thinking they’re bored, or rude, or shifty, or stupid. The problem is that most neurotypical people don’t know this, and so the burden of explaining it falls upon the autistic person who, unless they can stick to their script, will have trouble doing it effectively and tailoring it to the neurotypical person in question. Even if we get good at it (and I’m not, at least not in person), it becomes exhausting having to explain all of our issues over and over again to every single person we come in social contact with (and that’s assuming that said neurotypical person believes us and doesn’t have some sort of ableist viewpoint). I wish I could just write this blog post about it, then send them a link and say “Read that! Then come back and talk to me!” but that isn’t an option.
But for you lucky few who have read this post, please give us the space and time we need to express ourselves. Ask us if we’re done speaking about a topic, and if the answer is no, then be patient and let us speak until we’ve said everything we need to. Instead of trusting your social instincts, take a page from us and ask us how we’re feeling, or if we are genuinely interested in a conversation without judgment. It may take time (and will probably take us off-guard since people are rarely sensitive to our needs in that way), but you may find that we are more well-rounded, intelligent, and caring individuals than we come across.
And you won’t even have to dig deep into someone’s blog posts to figure that out!
When the person I mentioned earlier called to ask how I was doing, I was unable to articulate the answer I wanted to give in a three-minute phone conversation I was not prepared for. So the rest of this post is the response that I wanted to give.
Because the truth is, I have been feeling tremendously down lately.
There have been times in my life when I’ve felt discouraged, or overwhelmed, or otherwise angsty. A lot of them have been documented on this blog, in fact. However, there have been very few times when I’ve legitimately felt actual, probably diagnosable, depression. That numbness, that listlessness, that inability to work up the motivation to perform even the most basic of tasks. That feeling of dissociation, where your problems seem so overwhelming that your brain has decided to make reality seem less real just to be able to cope with it. And worse, the inability to see a way out of it.
This has been my reality for the past little while. I don’t think I’m clinically depressed. But I do think I’m suffering from autistic burnout, which has a lot of the same symptoms.
When most people talk about burnout, what they really mean is occupational burnout, or burnout related to one’s job or chosen profession (this includes things like “stay-at-home parent” too). Autistic burnout is something else. According to some British website, autistic burnout is “…a syndrome conceptualised as resulting from chronic life stress and a mismatch of expectations and abilities without adequate supports. It is characterised by pervasive, long-term (typically 3+ months) exhaustion, loss of function, and reduced tolerance to stimulus.” According to their study, “Many highlighted difficulties with their health, especially their mental health. They talked about struggling with independent living, loss of self-belief, and being frightened that the loss of skills from the autistic burnout might be permanent. They also talked about a lack of empathy from neurotypical people, who had difficulty understanding or relating to the autistic person’s experiences. Some people related an increase in suicidal ideation and suicidal behaviour.”
Let’s take that second sentence in that quote, piece by piece. First, my struggle with independent living. I consider myself a fiercely independent person. The fact that I’ve been able to live on my own, or at least with roommates where we all pulled our fair share of the weight, has been absolutely vital to my sense of well-being. So many people with mental health issues end up living in a situation where they have to completely rely on someone else’s charity, usually from a family member. This is perfectly fine if all parties involved are OK with it, and I don’t mean to throw any shade at anyone in this type of situation. But, for me, I value my independence too much. Often autistic tendencies and preferences are seen as juvenile and immature by neurotypical society, and made fun of, or used against us in employment situations or relationships as proof that we can’t handle more responsibility. (Being single in a society hyperfixated on marriage and family doesn’t help matters; at least I’m out of that religion, though I’m still in that society.) Something like “That guy takes a while to respond to my job interview question, and then keeps interrupting himself to correct himself,” (see the first part of this post) “Why does he think he has a shot at this tech job that has nothing to do with personal charisma? Sure, he may be great at audio, but for some reason his speech pattern makes me vaguely uncomfortable, so let’s give the job to this other person with twenty fewer years experience but who looked me in the eye during the interview.” (Fun fact: due to that link I learned the word “prosody” today. Look it up, it’s interesting!)
Sorry, that was a bit of a tangent. So, independence is my way of saying back to society, “You think I’m immature, eh? You think that just because I have some hyperfixations and I’m not spending all of my time keeping up with the Joneses, that I’m not a true adult? Well, I’ve been living just fine on my own, thank you very much! So you can take your judgment and suck on it!”
The problem is, my living situation has become increasingly untenable. My professional issues have already been well-documented on this blog (I’m not even going to link to any particular post; just click on the “job search” category and you’ll find more than enough posts to read), but to summarize, I’m at a job where my cost-of-living has outpaced my income (my rent alone has gone up more than $300 in the past three years or so), and it’s been very difficult for me to get reliable supplemental income. I’ve cut back on spending as much as I humanly can without it affecting my health (much), but it hasn’t been enough. My attempts to find a roommate to help with costs have all ended in failure (as a side note: it’s not great for one’s self-esteem to have literally all attempts at asking, “Hey, would you like to live with me for six months?” to be completely rebuffed by everyone I’ve asked). And the only solution anyone has come up with is, “Well, you can just move back home.”
But I can’t. I know, without reservation, that, for my mental health, I cannot move back home. This would be akin to eating a baby. I would be a worthless failure, doomed to surf the internet in my childhood basement until I died from a coronary due to obesity. Therefore, for me to continue living independently, I need a different solution. I haven’t been able to come up with one yet that I’m OK with. The roommate thing hasn’t panned out, budgeting hasn’t done enough, and the employment situation is an ongoing process at best. I don’t necessarily have to keep living by myself, but I can’t go back home. So I don’t know what to do, and even thinking about it sends me into a tailspin. Hence, burnout and depression.
Second, let’s look at “loss of self-belief.” It’s no secret to anyone who’s been reading this blog that my self-esteem isn’t the best. It’s what has kept me from being enough of a self-promoter to succeed in the music business, or any other field which requires oneself to extoll their own virtues to stay competitive (which is nearly all fields). So my self-belief wasn’t that great to begin with.
This has been exacerbated by my need to mask all the time. “Masking,” in autistic terms, means the ability of autistic and other neurodivergent people to blend in with neurotypical society. For autistic people, that means constant and active self-policing, which is a tremendous mental burden in nearly every social interaction, and, at least for me, every slip-up means frantic and often harsh self-evaluation, and eventually leads to burnout, which leads to more mistakes, which leads to even more judgment (both from others and myself) and loss of self-belief, which leads to more burnout, etc. This isn’t coming from some stressful uncommon situation, this comes from just existing in a world with other people. Add to this the stress of knowing that just being myself in this society leads to reduced opportunities, fewer friendships, and unfair stigmas, and it’s no wonder that a lot of neurodivergent people are introverts.
Next, let’s examine “a lack of empathy from neurotypical people, who had difficulty understanding or relating to the autistic person’s experiences.” This is bad enough on its own, when autistic people are dismissed or otherwise gaslit by neurotypicals as “not working hard enough” or “not doing the common-sense thing” or “being too prideful to do what I think you should do” or whatever. In my particular case I also suffer from a major case of internalized ableism, which means that oftentimes my own self-worth is based on what I’ve been told all my life I should be able to accomplish. I should be able to hold down a steady job that pays my bills. I should be able to afford a living space. I should be able to work hard, pass job interviews, accomplish what I need to in order to be a productive member of society. Me not being able to just means I need to work harder. Forget other people understanding me and being patient with my faults; I can’t even do it with my own brain.
It’s one thing when others have a lack of empathy for me. It’s quite another when I’ve internalized a lack of empathy for myself.
So I end up not liking myself for not being OK with an obvious solution. “Why can’t you be more reasonable?” part of my brain yells. “Just go out and get a better job, then! Why don’t you immediately go apply at all these job listings that your family and friends send you, you lazy sack of $@*#?!?” It doesn’t help that well-meaning people keep sending me random job listings, assuming that I’m in a mental state where I can act on them, further piling on the failures. Because the fact that I haven’t acted on them means that, to myself, I’m not a good enough worker or problem-solver to be independent, and moving back home would be the final nail in that coffin. It would be the end of all hope. So I yell back at that part of my brain that I am independent, that my lifestyle is fine, and it’s one of the things that keeps me going. At least until it won’t anymore.
I’m aware that the only real solution to all of this probably lies somewhere within the realm of therapy. It’s obvious that I have a lot of issues that need to be worked through, and that blogging about it has been insufficient. However, navigating that labyrinthine task — finding a therapist versed in my particular mental challenges (hopefully someone with experience with adults with autism, ADHD, and social anxiety disorder, as treating someone with that particular cocktail is a different beast than treating people with those disorders separately), connecting with them in a way that doesn’t also bankrupt me thanks to my minimal insurance, and making sure I don’t feel trapped in a therapy situation I’m not OK with (thanks to my social anxiety this is a more serious issue than you may think) — these are all things that, thanks to my burnout, I can’t even fathom tackling on my own right now.
I want to ask for help, but I need it to come from someone who will listen to me, and offer assistance that I’m OK with instead of assistance they’d be OK with. And if I can’t get that assistance (and I can’t; I’ve had to literally invent personalities to help me since I haven’t been able to rely on people in real life to care about me in the way I need them to; not that people don’t care, but they haven’t been able to help in the ways that I need), then my only hope is to wait for a good enough mental health day that I can accomplish what I need to on my own. I don’t know when that day will come, but if I’m forced to move back home I know it will never come. Honestly, I don’t need solutions (especially ones thrown at me without my input), I need support. I want people to believe in me, believe that I know what’s best for me, and show it through actions, and I need to be in a mentally healthy enough place where I believe in their belief too.
Anyway, that’s at least partly what I wanted to say over the phone to the person who called me. Now you know why three minutes were probably not enough. Now I’ve got my script, though, so I might be ready next time!
Part of Me 
Pingback: The Second Gender Post: Miss Master Hollow Knight Gamer | Part of Me