Autistic Brain Has Difficulty Coordinating

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The desire for peace over rides all other considerations in my life. When I got fired from my last job, I decided that until and unless I found a way to be at peace with myself, I would live with the material deprivation of not working and live off my pitiful savings which I deploy on the market. What I have discovered has convinced me that working at any job will probably exacerbate many of the worst effects of autism. So I am self employed (in a fashion) and “work” very long hours gathering data and analyzing it. Social isolation, a quiet environment, and ascetism has actually given me the measure of peace of that I seek. Enough at least that I have been able to reconstitute the fractured self that had to endure so much tumult, despair and humiliation. There is a person within the autistic, one that is free of the raging torrents of mindless hate and hopeless fears. And amazingly, social isolation has actually improved my social skills. Without the horrible effects of having cross signals in my brain all the time, I can be assertive in a manner that engenders self respect. It is like as if I am normal, or better than normal. But to achieve this, my existence is necessarily eccentric.

Zeno,

Yes...the more I am around people and the social environment that they inhabit the more alone I feel (even here); just being within the presence of a single human being causes me unbearable pain, either “hate” and its cousins, or overwhelming fear. These distorted and disturbed emotions haven’t left me, each and every exposure I have with society doesn’t reduce the amount of disturbed thinking I produce; the longer your hand is in the fire the more burnt it gets. This is completely different to evidence based cognitive behavioural therapy that’s used to treat phobias, where your “irrational” thinking lessens with each stepped exposure.

Personally, I see no way out of this other than complete isolation or death; professionals say the same to me. With isolation and avoidance I do feel a lessening of these emotions and I notice my obsessive thinking returns; which I prefer to this hell (or heaven depending on your outlook)....

My symptoms are very mild and almost everyone I have told has expressed disbelief when I told them that I am autistic. It is what goes on in my head that drives me nuts. But even though I can manage it and can actually be an engaging conversationalist and a natural public speaker, groups and society have never held much attraction for me. It is the life of the mind and the life within that has held my fascination and dictated the course of my life. After four years of contemplative unemployment, I now understand that it is the very chaos of my mind that made it so attractive. The raging torrents torment me, but in an odd way, they also keep me engaged; without which I might already have taken my own life out of sheer boredom.

My days are now spent largely in silence and seclusion. It is a monk like existence without the religiosity. In fact, had I been more religious, I would have entered some kind of religious order. A constant, predictable routine of chanting and physical labor is actually attractive to me. And since I am celibate by choice and care very little for the material side of life, being a monk would be an almost perfect fit. But before I reach for the transcendental truths, I would like to find that ledge in this world where I might stand on and look up with the certainty that ground is beneath me; the quiet peace of knowing and feeling that my existence is okay.

I have given up all society and in truth I have let go of a lot more, and the letting go has helped. The space I need is very different from the space that others seek and it was hard to learn that being different was okay. And no, I did not reach this conclusion through therapy, I do not do therapy. It is what I come to after a lifetime of struggling with autism and then learning that the struggle was part of the problem. Autism cannot be battled; it must be accommodated and lived with.

Outside of posting on message boards, I have very little desire to interact with other human beings. And I would actively encourage other autistics to seek solitude because being alone is perhaps the best way to live with the effects of autism. Unfortunately, not everyone can make that choice. But for those who can, it is something worth considering.

Zeno,I know we have strayed from the original post but I agree with your sentiment.Some autistics appear to feel a real need for human contact.I think others of us are more schizotipal.......human contact is more of a drain and adds little.I find the opposite experience when I am around animals,interacting with them actually recharges my energy levels.As do books and being in nature or engaging in an "interest".One of the most destructive experiences for me was "therepy".They only have one model of mental health and it is based on social interaction being a positive for everyone and if you avoid it is considered a sign of mental illness.It took me awhile to abandone this concept and except that that model does not work for me but I have been much happier since making that choice.

Congrats, Danielismyname- I notice you just reached 1000 posts! Create your custom title!

Having tried therapy only once, there is little I can say about it. But the experience did leave me feeling bitter about therapy. The year was 1999 and I was working in New York as a junior investment banker. The experience was very painful as the long hours and irregular hours pushed me into meltdown a lot and even though I did the work well, I could not click with my peers who were mostly rich American kids. It was then that I started feeling that something was not right – I could not sleep and I became progressively more and more disoriented; that was when I sought therapy. After explaining the background to the therapist, she looked at me in an insensitive jaundiced way and asked me if I had hopped from one therapist to another all my life! One cannot expect much from a therapist picked at random from a health plan, but surely it is reasonable to have expected more; they are supposed to be health professionals.

I did not go back and have never gone to therapy again. And if you want to know, yes, I got fired from my Wall Street job. The process was long drawn, brutal and incredibly humiliating.

There is probably very little that a conventional therapist can offer an Aspie. When I talk about running mind or meltdowns, all Aspies can relate immediately (I understood immediately when I first came across these words) without having to ask what it means to have a running mind or a meltdown; the terms are enough to evoke an understanding. It is probably impossible to explain to someone who has never experienced it what it is like to have your worst memories played back over and over again while you stew in a cauldron of primal rage and fear. And since the cause is probably how the autistic brain is wired, there is nothing that therapy can do anyway.

gawd... this is precisely what kept me up til 4am this morning (i get up @ 7am...........)

i absolutely hate it when i cant get to sleep. i had to teach today too. my personality really suffers (as does my tolerance, signifigantly) when i get no sleep... which can be often if things are bugging me around the PM time...

Got a suggestion? I’m unable to name or title myself other than what I was called when I was born. I suppose "indecisive" would describe me adequately.

http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/dysp ... praxia.htm
http://www.out-of-sync-child.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deficits_i ... Perception (Europe)
http://www.balametrics.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_Fit

That explains why I have a hard time, multitasking.

cross-posting the above in "dealing with rage as an adult" topic.

thanks for posting.

I do have the typical bad handwriting recognised with ASD but i am very good at hand/foot eye coordination and physically controlling devices. I am in flight school and have been told numerous times that either im cheating and doing more flying somewere else or have a magic ability to do anything on first try. All of my hobbies and interests involve controlling something and maybe i have grown into being good at those things.

I can relate to this. I have recently had to remove myself from having people constantly in in my life (I had a roommate and a bf who lived with me) because it was overwhelming and led to several meltdowns, and I do feel more at peace. But I also find loneliness unbearable, and I don't know how I will cope being alone, which adds to my fear and general feeling of unease. Having more peace is good, but, for me, being alone is a terrible price.


Thank you for articulating this. It has been exactly my experience. Every time I expose myself to something I find difficult, like a stressful social situation, it only makes coping with it the next time more difficult, not less so. Every therapist I've talked to and everything I read or heard about this subject was in complete disagreement with my experience.

Part of it, I think is that I -- and I don't know if this applies to other Aspies or not -- am extremely sensitive and feel wounded by any setback. It's as if every small trauma is experienced as a life-changing trauma that leaves painful scars, rather than de-sensitizing me to future painful experiences.

same. and yes, thank you danielismyname for putting that into words.