Touching autism

I’ve written for as long as I can remember. It’s always helped me  communicate with others and myself .I’ve come to believe it’s a form of scripting, writing what I might say to someone about any given subject. It also helps me sort and understand my emotions.

I think I’m much better at writing what I think others want to hear than I am at expressing what I want to say.

I’d like to accurately express to others what I am , or rather what it’s like to be me. Admittedly I don’t know how others think so the way I am ,inside my head, may be exactly what others are but it doesn’t feel that way to me.

I feel separate, as if I’m something different from those around me.

There’s been a great shift in my reality this year, apart from the total knee replacement I had in the spring. My mother passed ,it’s been difficult for me to deal with. I struggle with emotional regulation. As a result of that struggle I’ve learned to assign emotions that I may not feel in place of the ones I don’t recognize or understand.

After my mother passed my focus was on the anger I felt towards my siblings and their children about the way I perceived they treated my mother. I’ve still not focused on the grief I feel at her passing . I think this is because of the shame I feel at choosing to be mostly estranged from her in her final years.

I saw the mistreatment she endured and did nothing about it. 

Emotions are very difficult for me. It’s common that I don’t recognize the emotions I feel until sometime after the fact, if at all.

I look at all the data I have about any situation and assign what I think are appropriate responses. I don’t acknowledge how I feel, only what the data suggests I should feel. What I think others will gauge as appropriate.

A walking , taking ,flesh and bone AI. I can only approximate what I think a human should be.

I’m certainly not without emotions , it’s just if I give in to the emotions the control I have over them seems faint at best so I find it’s easier (when I can) to not let them out. I can simply choose to let them flow or dam them up. That dam creates a reservoir of emotions. For whatever reason that dam will fail from time to time and all the emotions from the reservoir flow out , following the path of least resistance. Leaving a path of destruction that is only apparent to me after all the emotions have spilled out.

When dealing with most any emotion I have less cognitive ability than when not. The decisions I make at that time feel like a desperate attempt to rid myself of these emotions that change who I am.

The confusion and frustration that emotions cause me are as overwhelming as any external sensory overload that I have ever felt. Simply put, it’s just too much.

When well regulated and unaffected by emotion I can present a totally rational , well adjusted person. Throw an emotional monkey wrench in my mental gears and that presentation comes to a screeching halt.

I go from having higher cognitive abilities than most people I encounter to being less able than a child to express my thoughts accurately. A steep drop of at least 30 IQ points. I become less.

I can only speak for myself but I hypothesize that other autists (that can’t mask as well) may always be in the state that I describe when dealing with emotions.

I live in peaks and valleys , perhaps other autists are more hills and lowlands, maintaining a much more even presentation. Perhaps other autist don’t “present” at all, they just let their emotions flow. I do think I share their seeming inability at controlling those emotions , it’s just I can hide (mask) mine a lot of the time.