Apologies for the length here, and the mood of despair contained within too. I'm kind of freaking out a little and hard to abridge. Much appreciation for any who take the time to read it all. 
I haven't visited here for a minute so please excuse if some of this is old news.
I am an old man so I've had decades to learn how to cope with living in the world. 40 years ago my autism was pretty obvious, but today I am actually pretty good at conversation even though it wears me out and I am now good enough at the "social graces" that I can get by. My stims are restricted to private rooms, etc. In other words, I have learned to acceptably mask and cope. I eventually found a job that pays pretty well, allows me to just do my work virtually alone all day long and leverages my advantage of being able to concentrate better than most on small details.
I have always been quite a bit better than average, possibly very good (difficult to self-assess), at, with no fear, taking complex things "in" and assembling them first in my mind and then in the physical world. This has been a great advantage at my job. The process of doing this in my mind just happens all day long and never stops. If this was a problem I would have driven me crazy by now, so one can assume it's no big deal at my age. It's a very helpful advantage at my job. I can't remember the name of a person or movie or song more than a half day of first learning it (for example), but my mind has evidently traded that ability for one of assembling things together.
However, and it has already occurred to some of you readers, that this can be a frequent problem at home. It's not quite the same as "perfectionism", but I do have a problem sometimes doing simple house projects and stuff just because, since the complexity thinking thing never really stops, projects stumble way too frequently before I start because I can always think of some step that happens later which I'm not quite prepared to get through yet.
This is all just background. The current problem has to do with my stance regarding current society.
In case you've been living under a rock: The big news is that the world has gone insane this past year in eleventeen ways. Since I am adept at thinking about everything several layers deep whether I like to or not, this happens when assessing world events as well. It goes something like: thing A happens, which was from cause 1, which flowed out from cause 2 and cause 3, and none of this would have been possible without thing B and C happening, which both come from cause 4 and 5, and cause 6 also contributed to thing C, etc. etc.
The thing is, it seems so obvious to me that almost everyone on the planet from king to peasant doesn't bother to think past the top layer of anything, ever. This could be my own perception and not quite reality, but I tell you that's what it looks like to me. And of course my processing of this is an extra thick layer cake as well, whether I want it or not. Anyway, my point is that every single reaction, lie, maneuver and stupid decision you've heard about from the regular sources this whole past year is mostly caused by and certainly wouldn't have been possible without people from top to bottom, stem to stern, habitually thinking things through no more deeply than one layer in. It's no wonder that everything is falling apart right in front of our eyes all at the same time.
But today is a landmark day. When I got home after work, I tend to talk to myself for a few minutes after I get out of the truck. It's not as much thinking things out loud but more a kind of free-associating vocalization of my feelings. My most common stim. Usually it's just a repeated word or two that goes on for an hour or so, but today it started out that way and I could hear that my voice sounded a bit more distressed. Not long into it I found myself talking in truncated sentences to my deceased Mother (who I still miss profoundly after several years) and saying I was so tired of everything and I'm just ready to go. I felt the core distress, but after voicing it I also felt a bit of relief. This wasn't suicidal thinking but rather felt more like acceptance I guess. Either way, it made me a little concerned. I haven't had time to think this through much yet. But I thought maybe posting this here might be a step into that and I wouldn't mind hearing some thoughts in reply, so feel free.
My first layer in: I kind of feel like I can see the writing on the wall. It doesn't take a genius to look at what's been happening and tell from a mile away that it is extremely likely that we're only at the beginning of this. It's not like leaders, owners and their underlings will suddenly start acting with any wisdom. That's fantasy. And in case you're wondering, NO this isn't partisan politics or something. I pretty much despise the way political leaders from all sides have been incompetently & short-sightedly messing things up for decades. I'm an equal-opportunity complainer. Side effect of being old. Anyway, I am pretty good at thinking complex systems through and I do not see any way we don't end up going off the rails in 8 different ways at once and having things end up in a very rough condition. And even though I say it's just getting started, it looks to me that it's all going to come at us VERY rapidly. This isn't run-of-the-mill pessimism. When you haven't experienced disaster, and maybe even if you have, it's a human survival method to think "It won't happen to me".
Humans have the potential for such great things. But here we are, worldwide, cowardly, lazily squandering every bit of that potential for some short-term, reactionary dopamine hit. Like a bunch of junkies. Honestly, if we end up extincting ourselves from this, we (as a whole) deserve every bit of it, don't we?
In my mind, a picture that fits how I feel is what a lone, limping zebra must feel when it sees five lions coming in to pounce. I can't see an escape route, and today I realized that something shifted in a big way for me. I am really, really tired of the worry and honestly, profoundly disappointed with my fellow man. I'm not sure yet how I feel about it. Kinda hoping to get some other perspectives. I'd like to hear how other autistics are feeling these days. We're usually not great at dealing with people at best, and lately, factions have been changing the rules before we can even read them. For us, that's impossible to navigate. Anybody been through something like this lately and figured out how to come out uneaten on the other side yet?
I wish I could think of a joke to lighten the mood here at the end, but I'm not good at remembering those either.
I haven't visited here for a minute so please excuse if some of this is old news.
I am an old man so I've had decades to learn how to cope with living in the world. 40 years ago my autism was pretty obvious, but today I am actually pretty good at conversation even though it wears me out and I am now good enough at the "social graces" that I can get by. My stims are restricted to private rooms, etc. In other words, I have learned to acceptably mask and cope. I eventually found a job that pays pretty well, allows me to just do my work virtually alone all day long and leverages my advantage of being able to concentrate better than most on small details.
I have always been quite a bit better than average, possibly very good (difficult to self-assess), at, with no fear, taking complex things "in" and assembling them first in my mind and then in the physical world. This has been a great advantage at my job. The process of doing this in my mind just happens all day long and never stops. If this was a problem I would have driven me crazy by now, so one can assume it's no big deal at my age. It's a very helpful advantage at my job. I can't remember the name of a person or movie or song more than a half day of first learning it (for example), but my mind has evidently traded that ability for one of assembling things together.
However, and it has already occurred to some of you readers, that this can be a frequent problem at home. It's not quite the same as "perfectionism", but I do have a problem sometimes doing simple house projects and stuff just because, since the complexity thinking thing never really stops, projects stumble way too frequently before I start because I can always think of some step that happens later which I'm not quite prepared to get through yet.
This is all just background. The current problem has to do with my stance regarding current society.
In case you've been living under a rock: The big news is that the world has gone insane this past year in eleventeen ways. Since I am adept at thinking about everything several layers deep whether I like to or not, this happens when assessing world events as well. It goes something like: thing A happens, which was from cause 1, which flowed out from cause 2 and cause 3, and none of this would have been possible without thing B and C happening, which both come from cause 4 and 5, and cause 6 also contributed to thing C, etc. etc.
The thing is, it seems so obvious to me that almost everyone on the planet from king to peasant doesn't bother to think past the top layer of anything, ever. This could be my own perception and not quite reality, but I tell you that's what it looks like to me. And of course my processing of this is an extra thick layer cake as well, whether I want it or not. Anyway, my point is that every single reaction, lie, maneuver and stupid decision you've heard about from the regular sources this whole past year is mostly caused by and certainly wouldn't have been possible without people from top to bottom, stem to stern, habitually thinking things through no more deeply than one layer in. It's no wonder that everything is falling apart right in front of our eyes all at the same time.
But today is a landmark day. When I got home after work, I tend to talk to myself for a few minutes after I get out of the truck. It's not as much thinking things out loud but more a kind of free-associating vocalization of my feelings. My most common stim. Usually it's just a repeated word or two that goes on for an hour or so, but today it started out that way and I could hear that my voice sounded a bit more distressed. Not long into it I found myself talking in truncated sentences to my deceased Mother (who I still miss profoundly after several years) and saying I was so tired of everything and I'm just ready to go. I felt the core distress, but after voicing it I also felt a bit of relief. This wasn't suicidal thinking but rather felt more like acceptance I guess. Either way, it made me a little concerned. I haven't had time to think this through much yet. But I thought maybe posting this here might be a step into that and I wouldn't mind hearing some thoughts in reply, so feel free.
My first layer in: I kind of feel like I can see the writing on the wall. It doesn't take a genius to look at what's been happening and tell from a mile away that it is extremely likely that we're only at the beginning of this. It's not like leaders, owners and their underlings will suddenly start acting with any wisdom. That's fantasy. And in case you're wondering, NO this isn't partisan politics or something. I pretty much despise the way political leaders from all sides have been incompetently & short-sightedly messing things up for decades. I'm an equal-opportunity complainer. Side effect of being old. Anyway, I am pretty good at thinking complex systems through and I do not see any way we don't end up going off the rails in 8 different ways at once and having things end up in a very rough condition. And even though I say it's just getting started, it looks to me that it's all going to come at us VERY rapidly. This isn't run-of-the-mill pessimism. When you haven't experienced disaster, and maybe even if you have, it's a human survival method to think "It won't happen to me".
Humans have the potential for such great things. But here we are, worldwide, cowardly, lazily squandering every bit of that potential for some short-term, reactionary dopamine hit. Like a bunch of junkies. Honestly, if we end up extincting ourselves from this, we (as a whole) deserve every bit of it, don't we?
In my mind, a picture that fits how I feel is what a lone, limping zebra must feel when it sees five lions coming in to pounce. I can't see an escape route, and today I realized that something shifted in a big way for me. I am really, really tired of the worry and honestly, profoundly disappointed with my fellow man. I'm not sure yet how I feel about it. Kinda hoping to get some other perspectives. I'd like to hear how other autistics are feeling these days. We're usually not great at dealing with people at best, and lately, factions have been changing the rules before we can even read them. For us, that's impossible to navigate. Anybody been through something like this lately and figured out how to come out uneaten on the other side yet?
I wish I could think of a joke to lighten the mood here at the end, but I'm not good at remembering those either.
Last edited:
