Autism and Inner World

Post Reply New Topic

My inner world used to be almost entirely fantasty - I would go to school as normal on the outside but inside my head would be full of Tv characters and I would become one. I would view the world through my character's eyes - never ever being the true me (whoever that is).

Nowadays I'm lost and don't seem to have a consistent identity. Does anyone else feel this way? On the one day I might find my identity in the possibility of a new relationship, the next day I might be obssessed with a particular book or subject and I decide that is my new identity, on another day I might decide I'm addicted to food again and become obsessed with diet, then another day I want to be a musician and I focus on my piano playing. It never ever stays still. Please does anyone else experience such a yoyo of identity like this or know why it happens?

That is exactly what i was talking about

Read the post directly above yours--I don't know exactly why it happens, but I have some thoughts and I am working on it.

My inner world is filled with whatever I am obsessing over at the time. At the moment, I am obsessing over death, so my world is full of dying and decaying things. Compost, worms, leaf litter, taxidermied animals, dirt, dark slimy languageless things. But it's also warm and comforting, like the womb. It's not a morbid preoccupation.

Other times, my world is full of books, or text, or textures (fabrics in particular). Or vectors. Or maybe pictures if they're geometrical and patterned.

I'm in my world a lot. Luckily I have a job that allows me to retreat inside myself for hours at a time. I sometimes find it difficult to listen to others when they walk into my workroom and start talking to me, usually about something I don't care about. But I'm at work, so I make an effort to listen. It seems, though, that my inner world and the social world I sometimes inhabit are very dissimilar. I prefer nature and books, because they are more like me.

Thanks mate - I hadn't read it Really glad someone else experiences this as it drives me mad.

Would an 'inner world' be analagous to what drives you, or what you focus on?

Not to long ago my inner world would probably have been full with just depressive thoughts and outlooks. Now my inner world is dedicated to self-improvement. How to stop all the situations and experiences I hate from happening. Basically, how to better exist in the real world. How to live a successful life.

I think alot about music too, just because that is a specific interest of mine. I am too removed from everything now to do anything with it however.

Lets say your inner world forms the basis of your existence. It provides the scaffolding which builds your psyche (inwards) and personality (outwards). The main point I'm trying to establish is whether or not an inner world can be preset or not. Let me explain. As a kid you recognised that you were alive, for the first time you became conscious of your consciousness.

Lets say that that consciousness is your inner world. Now would it be acceptable to say that anyone on the spectrum has traces of a particular consciousness, a consciousness which would apply to everyone on the spectrum? A set consciousness with some sort of boundaries which is inherit with everyone on the spectrum. If this be true and if a set NT consciousness would also exist, in which ways would these two differ? Maybe it's a question which has no answer, I don't know.

But I must admit, this whole idea fascinates me. I think everyone has made some intriguing points, all of which has a basis, as all points of view are true in there own way.

Very similar to how I was. And it still happens.

I am not into tv characters, but i am into developing a world and life where my inner world is uninterrupted as much as possible and takes precedence over the outer material world, by way of a commitment to my special interest as a career.


I do not want to "surrender" my inner world to the machinations of a real world. Firstly, in my case, while i can move about in the material world, i am not really a true part of it as others are, and I also find it unbearable.

Attempts were made to do so earlier in my life by way of traditional therapy methods and each attempt was an abject failure and a completely pointless and useless exercise. For me, adhering to an "outside world" except where absolutely essential (for my son;s sake) is akin to small and painful and repetitive deaths of the self each day. I will not do it to myself anymore.