Why

 I looked back on my life and all I saw was a vast trail of wreckage and I had to know ……… why?

Things were going better in my life than they ever had. I had a loving wife and two children. We were a happy family. I had a good job with benefits including healthcare.

At 50 years old I was 20 years removed from the hellish landscape of my youth. I looked back at that life and all I saw was a trail of wreckage and I had to know why.

Why did I do all those things that make me cringe now?How could I have made those choices?

There were drugs and alcohol, a very familiar story but there was something else. Some need I had to fight every system that I felt had failed me. Screw them is what I always thought.

In my youth I was always so confused at the world around me. All the things that people said were right and just were not available to me. My mind could never connect with those things because I did not fit.

When “they” would say everyone is welcome , it felt like everyone was welcome but me. I had to be like them to join but I was never like them and was never going to be.

I joined the wretches of society because they truly welcomed everyone. Misery really does love company. The more miserable I became the more kindred I felt to that group.

After a long time , and the fading illusion of connection that drugs and alcohol give I realized I was not like that group either. I did not wish anyone harm, I did not wish whatever it is I was on anyone else. I then, and still today, wish peace and happiness for everyone just the same as I would for myself.

By the time of that realization I had fallen so far down a dark hole it seemed I would never crawl out, but I did.

I started listening to myself , to what felt good and right to me. I stopped doing drugs. It took longer for me to totally put alcohol down but I stopped binge drinking and only drank on rare occasions. I didn’t  stop these things because of how society looks at them but because how they felt to me, Wrong.

I was introduced to drugs and alcohol at a very young age. I was drinking at 12 and by the time I was 14 I was regularly using pot , cocaine and LSD. From there until my late 20’s I lived a life like what you might see in a movie but there was nothing romantic about it.

For as long as I can remember I have suffered great social anxiety. When I was a young child , 5 or 6 years old , I would  often elope. At school, I would leave after being dropped off or when I became overwhelmed by what felt like crushing social interaction during the day I would turn a corner out of sight from anyone  and  make a break for it, spending my days exploring the woods or streets of my suburban neighborhood and beyond.

At home , when gathered at the dinner table with my 4 siblings and parents, I would become overwhelmed by the social interaction and run from the table and out the front door. My father would send my two brothers to retrieve me, being younger than them, I would never make it far.

The whole world seemed like this foreign thing that I couldn’t be a part of.

There are too many stories to share and the truth is I don’t because of the moral and legal implications of my actions.

I compare my life then to being underwater and not knowing which way is up, always holding my breath and never knowing when it was safe to breathe.

In my late 20’s , when I started listening to myself and what felt right for me I met a wonderful woman. We married , started a family , bought a home and I became stronger each day with this amazing person by my side.

Still, the difficulties of my youth haunted me. I always felt like there was something “wrong” with me. And the question of why I did all those things persisted.

In my mid 40’s I began researching everything I could online pertaining to mental health. At some point I came across autism. Everything I read about autism seemed to be about me.

It explained everything. At the age of 49 I began seeking assessment . At that age assessment is a very hard thing to come across. Most of the attention about autism (and rightly so) is focused on children, but autistic children grow up and become autistic adults. 

After about a year of hit and miss opportunities with mental health professionals I found a psychologist that took my insurance and assessed people of all ages for autism.

After 6 one hour long sessions and multiple test the psychologist made a diagnosis. F84.0 , Autism Spectrum Disorder , level 3 of 3 (in need of very substantial support). The diagnosis process is very subjective. It can vary from doctor to doctor so I recognize that my level of autism may have been assessed differently by a different mental health professional but I agreed with the diagnosis of ASD.

Some might say having learned of autism before seeking help from a mental health professional may have influenced my behavior during assessment but I was as genuine and honest as I could be durning the process. In that office , with that psychologist, I decided to turn all of my masking and presenting skills off and be who I was behind the mask.

After diagnosis I began to attempt to make changes in my life that would help me. Changes that might lessen the social anxiety I had always suffered.

I asked for and received accommodations at work. I began working through things with my wife, by things I mean daily interactions with people (usually at work) that I had never really understood before. In many ways I was picking up where a scared and confused little boy had left off.

I realize now the burden this must have put on my wife. At that time we had been together 20 years and had two children. I had become a strong person with them.When out in the world I was still the confused person I had always been.

 I would act with certainty with my family, although those actions were often flawed because of the lense of autism that I view the world with but none the less I was a strong figure in our family.

In my journey of self discovery I took that strong person from my family. I began openly admitting when I didn’t understand or was confused. I was learning to be myself, my autistic self.

At first my wife was doubtful of my diagnosis. She had seen many of my autistic traits but I am and have always been, albeit near involuntary ,very skilled at masking my “symptoms”. During this time I could see a change in my wife’s perception of me, I had become “less” in her eyes.

After years of talk , her helping me understand others and me helping her understand me , we are in a better place. I feel she recognizes my challenges but I have proved to her that I am still a strong person with many things I excel at .

Before diagnosis , I was at a point in my life where I did feel strong. I still had my struggles with all things social but with my family ,I was by all apearances ,strong and capable but all those questions from my youth of why persisted. I needed to know.

Recognizing and accepting my autistic traits has been difficult. Understanding and admitting my perceptions of the world around me can be flawed has been hard to accept. 

I went through a very weird time of change. I’m at a place now where I can reconcile the actions of my youth through my diagnosis.

I’m on another journey now. I want to get back to the place of strength with my family that I feel I lost during my self discovery.

I’m ok with being autistic , it’s just how I am. I am not ok with being anything less than a strong person for my family.

I opened this post by writing about the things I had pre diagnosis. A loving ,happy family and a good job. I still have those things. I stepped away from those things a bit to learn how to be me. I’m trying to step back in now, as the person I was before, only this time I know who I am and for the 1st time in my life and I’m ok with that.