Aada asked me if I ever turned the judgment on myself, and I’m still pondering it after a week. That’s what I do. I think about what she has said and reflect on it. I am so full of flaws and failures that I really don’t know where to start, but I don’t think there’s a single thing I haven’t copped to on this web site. I have copped to a lot of a things, leaving nothing out, because I want people to see that I am also fallible. That my blog is a manual on What Not to Do.
So far.
Things are looking up because I’m making progress in my Cognitive Behavioral Health group and accepted that I am disabled. There are certain things that I cannot do that I used to, such as social masking my way through an event. I get anxious in crowds more and more as I age, and I judge myself harshly; not getting out of the house is to my disadvantage. Buying a car has been the most practical solution to getting me out and about, because it’s so much easier a proposition than getting myself to the bus.
I just often come across as a judgmental dickhead and know-it-all because I remember things and write them down. It is simply amazing how many people have come back and read my entries about them after years away from my blog, surprised at how much I’ve learned.
It makes me roll my eyes, because the fact that I remembered something small becomes precious. Yes, I leave breadcrumbs, but it comes from a good place. I try to leave them out when people don’t want to be identified, but I’m not always that good a writer. I am thinking about the art of craft, not focusing on other people’s reactions. It’s the only reason I have enough chutzpah to hit “post.”
It’s what you do when you’re willing to take arrows over your own opinion, but I finally isolated my last friend… Or I thought I did. Turns out I have plenty and they thought I was rejecting them because I was always remote.
I have been letting Aada live rent free in my head for 12 years, when it was good and when it was problematic on both sides of the equation. Judging myself means acknowledging that I didn’t compartmentalize well so that I wouldn’t isolate myself from my other friends.
Through all of this, I have never made a single “you made me” statement because I am not that emotionally crippled. I understand that my reaction is my reaction. That, too, comes across as lack of empathy because I believe that my opinion is equal to yours and I will accept responsibility for my part. She didn’t make me do anything; I volunteered.
She says that she knows I went through a lot, too… But she’s very wrong when she says I must be happy about her strife because of it. I have never said that and would never in a million years. I put her in a bad spot because I thought she was alone in knowing what she knew. She put me in a bad spot because she tanked a relationship of mine, watched the fallout, and really didn’t care.
We could have worked together to make our story peaceful, but we decided to fight each other instead.
I berate myself for every time it happened, because I couldn’t fake being neurotypical over the internet. I couldn’t just do small talk and make her laugh all the time. I had to dive deep into our issues, so that she felt like “every day was therapy day.” That wasn’t my intention, either. I was trying to move our relationship forward, to make it peaceful. She was avoidant and tight-lipped, fighting me on so much until recently.
That’s the part that lives in my heart to this day. She regrets that she ever told me anything, and feels like she’s paying a penance for our friendship. I feel the same way, and enlightenment could be achieved. It’s the saddest thing ever that the trust is gone on both sides, but trust is not impossible to rebuild. It’s just only possible if both people want it.
I have a habit of not being able to let go of people. I’m still thinking about Patty and Selma. It’s only been a decade.
If I was weird to you once, I’ll think about it forever.
This is also to my detriment because I cannot seem to turn off the echologia. My stream of consciousness fills the page for better or for worse, for boring or for interesting, etc. Being autistic isn’t an excuse to be an asshole, so I definitely need to work on my communication skills. But as an INFJ I’m always going to be interested in helping people find the best version of themselves, and relentlessly dedicated to self reflection. I have chosen to be a blogger, regretting when it goes into the repetitive nature and flow of the ’tism.
But it is this ability to start at one place and end at another that keeps people coming. I don’t link to much so that people don’t lose interest halfway through. I repeat things not only because I have echologia, but because I get new readers every day. Echologia works in my favor because you can jump in at any time and be caught up.
I am sure that Aada wants me to see that my blog has destroyed all my personal relationships because I’m the common denominator. Yet, when I walk away from writing, the same people that criticized me are the people who wonder why I don’t write anymore.
For Clever Title Goes Here, my last blog, I ran because I didn’t have the guts to hit post, even when it was locked down to seven readers. It was more popular than this blog, probably because I was younger and doing more things.
Aging has done a number on my social masks, where my compensatory skills are completely lacking. Finding other autistic friends who have known me forever has been both amazing and scary. I know what my deficits are, and they are large. I need therapy to deal with my uncertain future, because disabled people, especially to those who cannot see your illness, are freeloaders on the government when they need the most help.
There’s no such thing as needing support in this country if the president is holding SNAP hostage. Lots of my friends are going to go hungry if this isn’t fixed. Those are the type problems I should be focused on, when I’m seemingly obsessed with myself.
My grandmother died of Alzheimer’s, which fuels my need to make memories because I do not know if that will happen to me. I also want what really happened, not some facsimile thereof.
Wait. I just realized that this blog is full of lies if you know where to look for them, because everything I thought I knew changed several times.
New shit has come to light.
Did I really think I could get away without damage in separating from Aada? No, I didn’t. And I didn’t pretend I was fine when she saw herself out. We don’t talk enough about how painful it is when a friendship ends, because we have rituals for everything else. In a way, this blog is where I burn the sins of the past, because yesterday’s news is yesterday’s news.
I am striving to be a better person, not walking away from this relationship without saying up front that I haven’t learned more from anyone else. That the positive things I say are not clues in a game, but reflective of the reality that love is complicated and so are people. At least if it’s anything serious, and she treated me like a sibling when she was feeling good about our relationship.
I cannot believe that I am being saddled with the reality that she thinks I set out to do anything. That judgment of myself means accepting that I have done all the things she said I did when she didn’t ask me any questions about what I wrote. She has in the past, and what she understood was *wildly* different than what I actually said. Why would this not be the same? Because she read a story that wasn’t true, and thought that I really believed it.
It would have been true if she hadn’t lied.
This is the crux of the problem. I feel like she discredited me as a writer and messed up a professional relationship I needed. Neither of those things could be forgiven easily, and I didn’t respond well.
I know I didn’t, turning the judgment on myself.
What else is there to blog about except the mistakes I’ve made? Acting like other people are responsible for my feelings is insane, and I don’t. I express my needs, and walk away when necessary. I probably come across as arrogant in conflict because I’m not deferential to anyone. I treat janitors like I treat CEOs, meeting them toe to toe and being kind, but not polite.
I don’t mean to come across this way, it’s just my nature- kind of like House, kind of like Sherlock Holmes.
I had to accept that I’m different, and that’s the hardest part of all of this. Being different is not better. I was born into a fantastic career that I couldn’t see once I came out, despite people telling me I should go for it. I couldn’t follow in my father’s footsteps and be ordained by the Methodists, so I learned not to care.
I think that I would have been wonderful and terrible at being a pastor. I couldn’t have known how my illness would progress and make me feel like I was unfit for it. They say God calls the most unlikely people, but I have my doubts as to whether this is actually wise.
I think that Aada has given me a lot of ableist bullshit over the years because neither one of us knew it was ableist. I couldn’t say “it’s the ’tism,” because I didn’t identify that I had it until I was 45. The criteria had changed since I was a kid, so both autism and ADHD fit like a glove when I was trying to identify my weird.
My interests are too varied to be all autistic, and my ADHD shows up in my disorganization. My deficits are too large for ADHD alone. It also comes with the territory- so much crossover between cerebral palsy and autism.
I have been trying to discover how my brain works, calling myself out on bad behavior when I knew I needed it. Aada was not fond of it when I called her out, but she was not into me expressing emotional need. I’m sure that’s because I was often deaf to her needs as well.
I think that we have a beautiful story together, but it has been made impossible, because she thinks I don’t judge myself, and in my head I never turn it off. There’s a committee in my head telling me how much I suck, and it doesn’t let go easily. I do not know how to tell someone that doesn’t want to listen that I punish myself all the time, and it is relentless. We are both fighting a battle the other knows nothing about, because she was polite and I was kind.
Kind means telling the person what’s bothering you instead of keeping it bottled and saying everything is fine so as not to rock the boat. I’m not very good at that. I mean, I am with people who don’t bond with me deeply, but if there’s never been any small talk, I’m not going to go back to it.
I cannot put toothpaste back in a tube, my life has been irrevocably changed, and I am sitting alone at my own hand. There are reasons for it, mostly because I didn’t want anyone to tell me what to write and when.
Aada was the one that cheered it on, making me into a better writer every day because I wanted to send her letters on which she could chew. When I was writing to her, I was no longer writing about her. This blog went dead to my detriment, because being in her world was better than being in mine. I just couldn’t talk about specifics, so I talked about anxiety instead.
I keep hoping that someone will intervene on my behalf with Aada and explain my point of view, but I don’t think that anyone shares it. I think that they look at my disabilities and don’t see past them, because they’re not willing to work with me to get past them. But they read.
Some of them have even met me in person.
I’m feeling a bit sad today, which is why my energy is low and I’m feeling bad about myself. That’s when I crawl into myself and think about Aada the most, because the only thing I want is to be the better person I turned into when I met her, then crashed and burned. I don’t want to do that anymore. I’m too old.
My friendship with Tiina is going slow, just getting to know each other through lighthearted conversation. I need it so much after the roller coaster of emotions with Aada. Slowing down was exactly what we needed, and I couldn’t slow down with her, so I’m slowing down without her.
As much as that sucks.
The common denominator has always been how much am I willing to give up to have a voice? The answer, so far, has been everything I hold dear and more…. Because the same people who hate my writing love it. They embrace it as long as they’re not in it, because I’m good at writing about everyone except them.
I do better when I have more context clues, the main reason I’m sad I’ve never seen the laugh lines on Aada’s face in person. I miss social cues over the internet and she has never given me the chance to learn hers. Therefore, I’m off in left field when I’m writing and cannot reflect her accurately. She has blamed me many times for that, even when I’ve been willing to fix the problem. I cannot move if she doesn’t.
She works on fear and intimidation, so every time I’ve written anything she didn’t like I’ve been ripped a new one. The intimidation part works too well when she doesn’t need it. Her defenses are amped up, not mine.
This relationship has been pure torture on my psyche at times, true and impossible friendship at others. It is not Aada’s fault that she cannot meet my needs, but it’s not my job not to say it. My feelings are my feelings, and I am the author of my own narrative when it’s my story.
Or at least, that’s how it should be. People’s emotions get involved, which is why I don’t get involved in other people’s lives easily. I am built to walk the world as a loner, because I’ve been that way since birth. I was quiet and soaked up information, everyone tending to my needs because I couldn’t tend to them myself. I walked very late. I stumbled often. I still stumble often. Living in my body is not the best decision ever, but I don’t get a choice.
I have to deal with the problems in front of me so that they don’t dog me forever. I am trying my best, but it is slow going. I tend to reflect for a longer time than necessary, but no one is expendable to me. It takes time to get someone out of your system especially when the clock keeps resetting itself.
I feel like I should rattle on about something else… Maybe how Pepsi saved me from nausea this morning. Cola syrup really works, and I wouldn’t have had any if my order hadn’t been screwed up by Uber Eats. So, a bad thing quickly became a good thing as I was able to keep breakfast down. My medication really does make me more nauseous than I can tolerate, so maybe it’s time to either back down on the dosage or switch to something else.
Turning judgement on myself reminds me to manage my mental illness instead of letting it manage me. I need to put away thoughts of Aada even when I feel like I can’t. It’s the only thing that will move me forward, because you cannot help anyone across the river that’s determined not to go.
Stories That Are All True 