Giving Life Some Meaning with Asperger’s
Some people believe the human brain has evolved for survival, some people give credence to a Divine plan, and some people like me, believe we have to make our own meaning. All theories begin with chaos which must be sorted, fought against, eliminated, or accepted and built into a mathematical equation. My Aspie brain has decided we exist and that a sense of justice, egalitarianism, and order means I look at chaos like a Mandelbrot pattern of never-ending, fast-moving, and repetitive set of patterns. We need chaos to invent. Living is a question for humans because so many earthly species do not seem to work much past the famous four: fighting, fleeing, feeding, and fornicating. Humans are proving everyday how well they fight. While, fleeing and feeding have become an asset or problem from the first one, depending on your point of view. The final one is for breeding or an industry which both are causing more of the others.
A lot of the problems of fighting and fleeing depend on nonacceptance of diversity. Multiculturalism is more than a country deciding who they want in their borders. Rather, it is a sociological concept that incorporates everything from racial diversity, their social, religious, and economic constructs, ideas of gender identity, physical capabilities, and an acceptance of neurodiversity. However, opponents of those disabled by the latter differences reject the variations and demand a cure. Rather, the evidence for neurodiversity and cultural diversity accumulates, and that the diversity is at the root of certain people’s achievements. Monocultures reduces ecosystem diversity and human inbreeding is generally undesirable, although popular with ancient royal families. As an adult with autism, I find the idea of natural variation to be more interesting than the suggestion than I am bad, or broken and bereft of value. Not all things born different in the natural world die: albino dolphins are mysterious, the occasional two-headed lizard or anything are amazing, and the plant kingdom relies on diversity to be spectacular.
I did not learn about my own autism until I reached middle age. Previous to my diagnosis, I assumed my struggles stemmed from intrinsic absences: absence of support, absence of common-sense, absence of mentoring, and absence of a plan. Asserting that I am different is a much healthier position to take and realizing the idea is based in neuroscience is even better. Neurodiversity in people generally does not alter their physical appearance unless they have neurodegenerative diseases which causes the brain and body to deteriorate over time; my half-sister Lynette Iris died of Multiple sclerosis, only at her end did she did not look like anybody else. My mother who had schizophrenia with paranoid delusions looked just like anyone else, until a brain tumor got her. I look like everybody else too. Therefore, when we act in unusual or unexpected ways we may elicit unwanted negative responses from an oblivious public, apparently individual thinking is so hard. So, for that reason it is important for all of us who are different to learn the basics of getting along in neurotypical society—rules are rules—certainly, an unacceptable compromise.
I have been attacked for being me for as long as I can remember for being different. In 1992, Australian governments were committed to a national approach to supporting people with disability to maximize their potential and participate as equal citizens in Australian society. A right to be accepted and supported, rather than being made into something else, to suit a manageable image. Enlightened types see in human diversity a range of different thinking that has made humanity’s progress in science and the creative arts possible. We are not broken. It is insulting to tell me that I do not show any obvious differences as though it is a compliment? Rather, it demeans me and lies at the heart of my depression. The people I most wanted to accept me would or could not. The would-nots because of indifference or questionable morality and the could-nots because of questionable morality plus other’s manipulation. Those who worked tirelessly to remove or change me to their idea of living eventually failed with consequences poisoning everyone and everything. My sense of purposeful meaning had been diminished with being hurt by stupidity.
Crazy-making is when a person sets you up to lose. You are damned if you do and damned if you do not. There is no reasonableness or emotional understanding with a crazy-maker. Chaos is there again, as you are manipulated with nonstop crazy-making strategies. I am already discombobulated by anything that requires mind-reading, face-reading, body movement-reading, obscure emotional-reading, and the reason-you-are-screaming-at-me-reading. Please explain? Sometimes people will not play fair. They engage in made-up power struggles to feel better about themselves. So, it takes a lot of my energy away to give my life meaning. I can take the higher road or just leave by any road away which I have done a lot of. Taking the higher road includes finding internal strength and validation. It is the ability to rejuvenate through an interest that causes one to become resilient in the face of the most challenging adversity. Some may think it is the source of hope. I think it lasts for a while, then something else happens because life has an inconvenient way of continually moving forward; hope is a journey, never a destination. Some like change, but rapid change drives me into dark places. The meaning of life is not impossible to define: it is all about communication, understanding and service.
I have often been brutally honest; words just flow. I have been brutally treated. However, I gave good service and people took more from me than I received from them by harshly judging me for my voice. Hatred, self-loathing, depression, sadness, and bitterness took over. Social situations undid my hard work, service is unappreciated, and talk is cheap. Perhaps YOUR heart is not hardened, and YOUR mind is not cynical. You are fully adaptable to change and at peace. What a shame I was not allowed something similar? I suspect that the more people are frustrated with meaning in their lives, they relieve it by attacking people like me.
Neurological differences can functionally disable a person; everyday situations are much more complicated. Neurodiversity have brought many great things to human society. We deserve more than understanding. We deserve meaningful help. Neurodiversity is part of multiculturalism. Everyone is diverse from the people they encounter every day. The making of a meaning of life for me needs others to better communicate, to better understand neurodiversity, and to be more gracious about the service I have freely given for years. My deficits in attention switching often cause painful rumination and creates added challenges when having to cope with change. Eventually, things become unbearable and I just let it all go which may include seeking help. Good counsel is most critical in times of turmoil. Perhaps too, a refusal to give in regardless of what builds and then change happens. After all death is certain, success is what you think it is. Therefore, giving my life some meaning is about the steps I take each day. It is a battlefield. Longer term plans fail for me, the tides turn quickly, and I find it too difficult without some framework to work around. People are impatient with me and now after so many disappointments, I would rather be left alone which is my natural state anyway.
To add insult to injury, there are common traits in Asperger’s and depression, as both depend on black and white thinking. It is suggested I believe in myself and in my power, and do not allow others to pull me down with bad attitudes or words. Really? I wonder when those who preach these sorts of feel-good affirmations really understand the complications of human diversity? The journey of being likable requires you are curious to be alive and when that is dependent on others the results are disappointing. If you are used to feeling odd around people, the sense of not being part of the world caused by depression just seems like parts of a pattern. Obsessive thoughts about my interests become obsessive thoughts about feeling inadequate and hopeless. The two states co-exist for estrangement and emotional detachment. As the Aspie brain has compromised neurological mechanisms in place to immediately understand the everyday, then misery will prevail because my brain is out of brain-out of mind. I know something is wrong, but cannot see it.
Giving my life some meaning under these circumstances is difficult enough, now I am old too. I feel old. I look old. Old is not the turn of the tide, it is the baring of rock and the bones of dead things. Time to step back to watch things, to understand more what life is all about, it is a doubling up of my autism—I am the consummate observer. The constant barrage of overload has depleted my energy and trusting people I do not understand has aged my batteries; the more you use the device the more you have to charge it. Youth has energy, and for decades I burnt my candle at both ends. My artwork was my obsession, collecting stuff was my obsession, making gardens was my obsession, and study was my obsession. Family was not my obsession, art colleagues were not my obsession, and I did not collect friends. People attacked me constantly for not understanding them. Isolation meant I fell right through the mental health system. Eventually, my mental landscape took on the look of a bombed Syrian city.
So, I am better off without the worry and effort of keeping it all going. It is time for a fresh start. When people tell me I am stubborn, I understand my black and white thinking. Depression is black and white thinking. Asperger’s or high-functioning autism is black and white thinking. The wallpaper that fills my mental house is a patterned black and white design of balanced Mandelbrot fern leaves. Black and white artwork is an acquired aesthetic. The 18th century philosopher Kant argued that the aesthetic judgment is always a singular one. There is no WE who can reach a valid universal aesthetic judgment. Beauty signifies moral good and Nature is the primary example for beauty. Regardless of humanity, Nature grows and defends itself any way it can and is spontaneously itself, tries to be itself at all costs. As a force, it does not need us, a million tribes of humankind have been buried by it. Therefore, it is good to be solitary, to be alone, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be one more reason for us to do it. Lone wolves survive, trees will crack through abandoned roads, and Nature needs no sermon. I travel alone to places that are closer than hope ever was with simple connection and ubiety. Aloneness, first enforced as isolation and loneliness by others, has now become my default setting. For which I am grateful as I have found rich deep meaning in aloneness. Something I am developing into an art-form.