Short Stories

Hello, this page holds some short stories I have written concerning my life. I have not had an easy time. I was abused as a child, I was a victim of violent crime, and I am a survivor of Cancer. Through it all I had to cope with it as a person on the higher end of the Autistic Spectrum or Asperger’s. This has not been fun. So, here are some stories about events that happened.

The Trouble with Me (2017)

by Robert John Burton

From an early age I knew I was in trouble. My mother relentlessly nagged it into me. My father thrashed it into to me. Most of my teachers— ‘twas the 60s—

yelled it into me. Complete strangers reaffirmed it, which always left me surprised. What had I done?

“The trouble with you is that . . .”, my mother would rant. The list was long: I didn’t listen, I didn’t open my eyes, I didn’t understand simple English, I wasn’t kind, I didn’t love her, I wasn’t grateful. Or, I was lazy, I was careless, I was stupid, I was too smart for my own good, I was cruel, and once I was a Communist? Surprisingly, I was actually numb, heart-broken, sad, frightened, and confused as I was cooking, cleaning, earning money at fifteen too. I had already realized that my parents were not up to much and would not support me, or could not in a million years of suffering. I was on my own. 

So, without any great expectations my mother dumped us and went off to have an affair leaving dad to drink and smoke himself into an early grave. Deciding between self-protection and despair I ran away at the first opportunity leaving school, siblings and the sad dysfunction that had ensured emotional scar tissue to make my future as bleak as my parents expected it to be. Unfortunately, events would force me to return home for a brief time.

“You need me!” repeated mothering monster and I thought I did not. The thing is, I do not care. I did not care then, and I do not care now— as Freud suggests I sublimate well. I dust off as much of the toxic spores I can and move on. If I understand anything then all I could do is observe, do what I could in life, and just keep moving—my mantra, keep moving, just keep moving. My parents were cruel because they could not move on from their horrible abusive pasts and they made the choices to act as they did. I broke the mould and refused to be part of their histories.   Nevertheless, some weird emotional baggage is attached to our relationships in that we do not freely attract to just anyone. Failed relationships thread through my life like tough weed roots. I carried an internalised list describing what type of folk I could only love, attract or at least be interested in. These potential partners, friends, and associates you might think would be centred around healthy requirements: kindness, emotional intelligence, with friendliness based around a similar age and social group. No such luck. However hard I tried to  negotiate these social mine fields, I became a stranger in a strange land instead and magnetized every user, abuser and self-righteous pain-in-the-neck available. I just had no sense of myself and headed directly to people whose characteristics were plain awkward and not conducive to my well-being, for example, I attract people who are really selfish and self-absorbed, even narcissist and whose sarcastic traits destroyed any self-confidence I deserved. I blamed myself and questioned why I could not make better choices. Freud was right, we are all mad in some way, and what we are looking for in love is not automatically someone who is good and easy on us; instead, someone who feels familiar and reminds us of our childhoods. 

Our parents, our teachers, and others who were supposed to be more understanding taught us in a variety of ways, and often in difficult, dysfunctional methods to train our unconscious minds to guide our love ideals. These early templates of what it is to love and be loved will cause havoc with our chances of well-being, especially without sensible interventions. My father was distant and often violent, beating me as a child so hard I could not scream, while my mother was later to be shown to be deeply mentally unstable suffering from schizophrenia with paranoid delusions. She controlled through fear and lies, and it is amazing how many people will support such a personality, at the expense of the children involved—power games of the well-intentioned. These dreadful relationships were plain abusive but become the only role model to base a life on because it was still a love relationship of a type. I endured years of abuse from others because I did not know how to defend myself, especially from those that thought I needed to be parented, even as a very mature adult. I was not an adult or an equal to them, and they would not or could not give me the respect or goodwill I desired as that interfered with their need to dominate, especially those who had problems of their own. There are all the issues around accepting benign authority as well and the slow deadening suspicion that the world is out to get you—because it constantly proves through such abusers that it is. We get used to be belittled and accept the familiar attachment—and the occasional tossed kindnesses—and no matter how crazy and illogical it appears; it does not quite feel right unless the relationship is confusing and uncomfortable. 

I suspect that abused people punish themselves and others in the most unforgiving ways to find revenge for their unbearable pain. I developed high walls around all kinds of character traits that may have been acceptable to hide the troublesome ones caused by my isolation and fear and I did not see that other people might do the same. My father was distant but highly motivated to be self-sufficient which I found difficult to achieve most of my life believing I always needed others to justify me. Other people who understood that used and abused me mercilessly because no one wants to feel left out of the group. Even considering my mad mother was highly social but now sadly anyone who is chatty and overly emotional is imagined by me to be intrusive and dangerous and to be pushed away. An emotionally injured person’s inner love plans are well hidden and others who care have to work hard to find out what they are, and that requires trust and a willingness to deal with a variety of people. Understanding what suffering was inflicted by early caregivers and finding what in myself is drawn to others I fancy that is causing a negative reaction requires engagement. Certain people who offend me easily often have the traits I associate with people who caused me difficulties when young. 

Good emotional health means expanding on the number of people who have freed themselves of the bad stuff from childhoods that could have been better. We can live in different ways and get used to the unfamiliar and often challenging ways of people who could be better for us. Nevertheless, I find it curious how people who have no self-control and respect for your feelings, are the same people who demand self-control for you. Few adults are free from control patterns of their childhood carers, even those who claim solidarity within a family can be dreadfully unaware of overbearing manners, demanding attitudes, or unhealthy boundary invasions; your problem is not knowing you are the problem! Sometimes, care-givers can be over demanding and expect your complete dependency on them. I ran from my mother when I understood her manipulation; unfortunately, I did not have the skills to dodge others. Such is life, but eventually if you want to understand the problems caused by uncomfortable relationships then one must gaze and question what is reflected into the mirror of the past—be courageous, there is nothing easy about this. Platitudes and affirmations do not help and run from people who offer it as a solution as they have nothing professional to offer. Instead, write about your experiences and seek psychological help and make sure there is a connection based on trust and mutual respect. Do not be afraid to move onto someone else; the wolves outside the door, maybe sitting comfortably inside.   

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When Townsville was Fabulous: Based on Tittle-Tattle (2014)

by Robert John Burton

Sometimes, you get an okay dance; you meet friends, drink and look at the walking talent. Sometimes, you get plain dull in ugly night. Sometimes, you get lucky and find this night fabulous, maybe this night you meet a man of interest.

            Suddenly, in my face was my man of interest, the drop-dead gorgeous red-haired Scorcher who organised dances for the local AIDS Council; amazing how folk will leap to help the beautiful, and Scorcher was beautiful. Dances held at the Stockman’s Bar in the Townsville Show-grounds during the early 1990s gave our queer community a respite from heterosoc because during this age of AIDS we were an easy target for violence. The bar was a brown-brick, single-story building frocked in spiky foliage, protected and safe, with an enclosed beer garden next to the racetrack that allowed patrons to be loud as the best torch songs and dance anthems demanded; a howl of a building that loved attention. Old dykes, tough, business-like as old saddles and resembling such ran the place. Whether they had any fun doing so would remain their secret.

Dancing for queers is a serious business and requires a particular environment: the place must be dark, lights directed to mirror balls, smoking almost compulsory and sleaziness assumed. This darkness should continue outside allowing a cloak of invisibility—if you didn’t know where to go then neither did the more violent aspects of heterosoc. Beautiful people flashing flesh and glamorous attire gyrated, posed, kissed and more with no gaze or heterosoc privilege. Love reinvented, dissolved into something whole. A place where our community showed the best face.

I wore skin-tight black pants because I could, and a leopard skin print silk shirt ready to pounce.

‘Dance with me, Arty?’ Scorcher smiled and I was liberated, I was doing the dance-fandango with the hottest boy in the room and all that suspicion that heterosoc was stupid and bad things were happening to good people did not matter for now. I was going to eat this guy and be young and beautiful forever. Here on the dance floor, we did not have to be resentful of power that could dispossess even our own bodies, as happened in AIDS wards everywhere. Here we rejected the labels: even if you were HIV positive someone would love you.

Appearing in spangles of sequins were, oh Mary, Drag Queens. This one was called Ruby. Ruby, dripping with sequins, demanded attention. Scorcher’s smug grin was shadowed. At this I even managed to laugh.

‘Tell me how beautiful I am; look how this fabric clings to me’ Ruby cooed, fluttering a giant feathered fan of red and silver. In a strange deranged way Ruby was, but the affected voice and exaggerated eye-makeup interfered with the image. Or helped depending on your point of view, and alcohol consumption. Everyone was and is beautiful in the dark. I thought of the slogan: We’re here, we’re Queer, get used to it.

‘Hello Arty, how’ve you been?’ he breathed, and I rolled up my lips and gushed in detail my encounter with Scorcher—after all I was in the presence of royalty. A space rippled outwards as other dancers gave grace.

My buddy Blue came up later and stuck his tongue out for me to admire his black Kaposi’s Sarcomas—his death slugs—that covered his tongue and inside of his lips; on his death bed sometime later, blind and resigned, he still stuck his tongue out for me because he could hardly move any other part of his emaciated body. Death seen this way was shattering and made me want to counter the horrible fearful campaigns of the homophobic.

To be queer was never respectable, especially for gay males. Westernised countries reported huge numbers of deceased from HIV/AIDS; unprotected sex created the perfect murder-suicide pact. Safe sex was the new paradigm. To identify as queer in a regional area opened up attacks on vulnerable people from a hostile public and media because queers are grouped as different to the heterosexual ideology. Research from the local AIDS Council suggested that Townsville had a sizeable queer population with a hidden history which needed a public face to encourage safe sex practices and HIV testing. Too many young men were dying because they were lovers who loved freely. No nightmare could be as horrific as living. My generation became infected through lack of knowledge, but without action the next will become infected through lack of information.

Not surprisingly, desperate and disparate types started emerging from the suburbs to organise themselves into a social group to educate heterosoc. Political activity spun out from young things at James Cook University and the local AIDS Council to form GALRIN, the Gay and Lesbian Resource Information Network. We decided to facilitate social and cultural events to run concurrently with the Townsville Pacific Festival. At an uncomfortable inaugural meeting, our mutual ability to annoy each other while organising events contributed immeasurably to the general air of urgency that unless we worked quickly, all the goodwill would be lost. This bitchy scene with sneering queens and disgruntled lesbians was the reflection of society’s loathing that we absorbed and was not helped by the uncomfortable windowless cubicle—part of the AIDS Council office in the old Stanley Street clock-tower—enclosing us like too many big fish in a glass bowl.

‘As president I expect unanimous support, or I will resign!’ spat Pim. Unsettled, the small abused committee would at any other time have tested his bluff. For now, their attitude reflected the threats without. Some office bearers in GALRIN were HIV positive, so their desire to see acceptance rather than some insulting tolerance of queers became a badge of dignity as they suffered their night sweats, panic attacks, and grief for lives lived too short.

‘Think I have AIDS,’ divulged Pim and I felt for the silly prick. More would follow. Party boy sold his home and prepared for dying. Funerals were regular. Others purposely got HIV—the new wonder status—and I went mad from then because how can you be happy when the time past is so rotten?

‘You’re so arty,’ posed Diva. I blinked, and was volunteered unanimously to curate the Outproud Art Exhibition, which if successful assured that I would be pissed-on ever more; no-one could be queer and celebrated.

Community engagement kept the issues of law reform and other aims alive in many places; we were what we were—kill us, feed us to the cannibals, fence us up, make us hide—come what may, our self-realisation demanded a public face. GALRIN was going to change Townsville-homophobe-central with common attitudes of mutual distrust, and best-pretentious-twerp-foot-forward; the new modern nature of queerness and visibility was our best weapon to fight the misunderstandings surrounding AIDS.                                           

Meonly was the festival’s music coordinator for Night Music, an event held after Outproud. She was a real male hater. Contact with her was painful as she delighted in humiliation; a phone conversation was a test in civility. When I heard her voice on the end of the phone, I tasted bile.

‘Helloooo I have some helpers for the exhibition. There is so-and-so from the

 Burdekin, phone number blah, blAH, BLAH an’ CRUISER OVER AT…’

‘Just a moment, let me grab a pen.’

‘WHAT! Oh, for Sappho’s sake don’t you want these contacts…tut…tut…tut?’ Her attitude sucking in air from my end.

‘Hey, it’s okay, let me get organised, I have a wall phone here, and by-the-way, hello Meonly.’

‘Whateverrrrr.’

Something about sows passed my mind, as did the sinking feeling that little could come out of this. Regardless and relentlessly on my part, I convinced a State Gallery Trustee to open Outproud on August 20, 1994 at 412 Flinders Mall—presently Mary Who? Bookshop—and filled the empty building with enough dyke and poofter art to startle any nervous nellies who entered at their own risk. Setting up the shebang, I got excited, you got excited, we all got excited as a queer-queer mixture of the dedicated banged down thousands of carpet nails and organised spaces ready to hang artworks. Once a bank branch complete with a jumbo safe, rented to us by the Townsville Pacific Festival, the building had good lighting, a kitchen, public loos, a warren of spacious rooms—a tatty TARDIS on a Stonewall mission. I curated a conversation about Queerness, how every day and ordinary it all was, a mirror of our existence. On show for sale were about 150 artworks, not so much incendiary as come here kitty-kitty, although a couple of male-bum drawings did upset a pair of silly Christians who had apparently never seen an image of Michelangelo’s David. The local drag queen court reprimanded me for cataloguing their display of over-the-top frocks as dresses, oh Mary!

My short-lived fling with Scorcher burned intensely as the blaze his wonderful coiffure represented. He was hot and I was not. I scrubbed up well, he was a natural beauty. I sacrificed to causes, Scorcher lived for glamour. An age difference did not help.

Heterosoc offered us born-again Christians pleading for our souls; plaintive letters-to-the-editor saw recriminations about visible gays, always finding ugly meanings in beautiful things. With hurt expressions they would march into the exhibition venue demanding we remove those disgusting nude drawings now! More bizarre were their explanations of how I failed to mind-read their good intentions, after-all did I not realise they were reformed lesbians? Which apparently granted them the right to judge others? I told them to come back when they had released their inner dykes. I used my best poofter-voice, informing them we had the backing of the Townsville City Council and police support and returned fire.

            ‘Excuuuuuse me! Are you wishing that homosexuals would remain invisible? Or that there was no information or news about AIDS? Neither attitude is real. Your narrow and suspect views of sexuality are killing a generation of people because you cannot handle your fear.’ I stood firm—the ghosts of millions of AIDS related deaths and injustices by organised religion gave me solid ground.

Queers must tell their stories, even if they are not pretty. Our lives are richer because of our experiences, which is sorrow’s paradoxical gift. Buddies remembered, friendships lost, listening for names at the AIDS memorial services, all those transient friends who had become a source of hope for all the misfits, because they were us and we were them. What was all the hate and spite for? Heterosoc singled us out then resented our specialness and the queer community had no cure for old scars. No-one considers the lost legacy that might make for a better future when they are bitching for some little power play; loneliness is no reward. 

After the Pacific Festival burnout and with the announcement in late 1994 that the retrovirus cocktail was having positive effects, GALRIN became entropic and fell into the cracks of history. Townsville was not fabulous anymore. Queers went back to the suburbs where they have always lived, or got on the first flight out to more fabulous scenes, a slow drip-drip-dripping away from an organised scene. These days, few people remember me as a younger man so my past is never really past, it stays with me all the time as there is no support group to age with. As a result, I have become rather tetchy socially and react to others’ sense that all is supposedly well and fair because we who have survived HIV/AIDS have learned to live in and understand loss.  My skin sits uncomfortably on me now. I am a little prickly.

The Alien Effect (2016)

by Robert John Burton

My garden is scratchy dry; the seasonal rains have abandoned us again. Mr Readings—wonder cat—and I are on our undisturbed watering vigil trying our best to grow some useful company. Unfortunately, we only replenish nosey Mabs from next door looking for gossip and sabotage in the guise of needing an onion.

‘Hey, did ya knock out the taillight over the road when you went out earlier?’ She’s licking her lips.

‘Do you mind Mabs? I’m not like that thanks.’ She tumbles away onion-less. What’s she on about? Always looking for a put-down, I know about her attitudes, one time from her little grandson passing on the family mouthing of dumb awareness, grinning and pointing:

‘You play with your bum!’

He is snatched away and told to shut it, my feelings ignored. Mabs is the type to hurl hurt and accusations about, waddling here and grazing over there, filling the street’s empty rain-gauges up on slander and poison instead. Gossip is her craft, her local fame, her small change like the poor rain we get living in a rain-shadow, drying out the friendliness and frankly my goodwill sprinkler seized up ages ago. So without thoughts of prangs—although I do see the offended vehicle over the road—I go out for my afternoon stroll full of difficult thoughts. This is not a good place now with my uncertain health and few friends long-distance. So, it’s me, Mr Readings, and a bleak future with all the advantages of no luck. I may as well be from another planet, isolated and too strange in this haven of heterosexuality.

‘Poofter!’ claims the charming anonymous shout. There’s hostility about me, such an old-fashioned word, these people have been prejudiced for decades. I hear chatter-stuff through walls, fences, lawn mowers, and in shops. So I go on my walk around the suburb by myself, always by myself, in the same track forming a furrow of memory without change, without others, listening to my iPod of favourites, just me moving through atmosphere and time; sustaining the groove.

‘Don’t leave me this way. I can’t survive, I can’t stay alive. Without your love, no baby. Don’t leave me this way. I can’t exist, I will surely miss your tender kiss.’

‘How did my life come to this?’ I kick some loose gravel.

            Four, I can’t believe it. Four fully uniformed coppers! I get back from my wanders to meet this at my front gate. I saw a pair of paddy wagons from the corner first and immediately felt anxious. I stride quickly to meet their leader, a woman in her late twenties, big, flat-faced, and backed-up by her blue heelers.

‘We’ve come to inspect your car, there’s been an incident reported.’ Instant knowledge, my reptilian brain screams silently. Bloody Mabs! Look at them! Anxiety: queerbashers-flashbacks-man-oh-man-can you take a belting-what are you staring at-punishment-beatings-mean sons of bitches-storm troopers! Talk about over-kill, all here for me. Mabs has been bitching, or is it this neighbourhood? The police come in numbers here expecting trouble, wrong socioeconomic profile, either way, this is ugly.

Lots of coppers on TV mean someone is being rescued from some disaster. Here I suspect they are more into beating someone up; summoning bad-old memories of intimidation from clumsy pre-Queer days, forty-odd years ago and refusing to fade. Me, pushed up against the back wall of Brisbane’s Hacienda Hotel winter 1974 and being slapped hard by an outraged copper, ‘Poofter what are you after here?’ Slap, slap, my ear is bleeding. Next day, I packed up my dignity, emptied my furnished bedsitter, quit my job, burnt my conservative family bridge, and, fool that I was, escaped to Sydney, trying to survive the times. Later in 1977, I would be stabbed, targeted in a hit-and-run robbery causing major surgery and three months hospitalisation. My gay body and life was ruined—wounding memories coming back as a mosaic of experience made up of shards of police brutality, state-owned homophobia, bad luck, and a diminished life.

‘Down the back, this way.’ I must be calm. Stay calm, I am only shouting in my head, they can’t hear, can they? No, empathetic they are not! ‘What’s this about?’ I ask a question I clearly know the answer to as I lead them to the carport where my plum Fiesta is all shiny, smooth, and undamaged—only an audacious escaped leaf decorates the vehicle.

            ‘We’re looking into a report of a damaged vehicle, no harm done, you’re in the clear,’ all said from flat face and a retreating back, four retreating backs, suddenly small.

            ‘No, excuse me, that’s not good enough.’ I am looking for soft ground to hoe out meaning. ‘Please explain, my neighbour made a comment this morning about a broken rear light on a car over the road, which I noticed going out earlier.’ I know where this has come from, that bloody Mabs.

            ‘Over-the-road has made a complaint?’ Rreally, I had to ask, ‘If they had a complaint, why didn’t they knock on my front-door?’

            ‘You have to wear that,’ says flat face. I notice one of the blues is picking his nose. I quickly look away before he swallows.

           ‘That’s the way people are today…and well… they don’t care about neighbours,’ she rolls her shoulders, corrals her pack out of my front gate across the road to report and then away in their patterned-lock-ups. I feel slimmed upon. I stare hard across the street. My laser-eye turns to the offended vehicle with its sore backside wanting smash repairs and levitates me out directly through my gate to concentrate on the injured fender-bender. My gaze notes there are no shards of red plastic on the ground, ‘Hey, what is this?’

            ‘Thought ya might have knock’d it turn’n out this morn’n,’ sneaks Mabs coming unwelcome up my rear. Suffused with frustration, I have transmogrified into the great robot Gort of The Day the Earth Stood Still, and I’m going to burn this bitch into witch’s cinders, but I can only rant at her.

‘What has your mouth done here? Making up stuff to make life interesting; it’s dangerous. Why do you hate me so much? Run in to report to the neighbour, point the finger, blame me,’ I snarl with exasperation.

I’m shooting out dot-points like a berserk blogger.

‘Did you have a good look, no bits of red plastic,’ I point and add, ‘Maybe it happened elsewhere? They’re drinkers, in there. I’m your neighbour too. But that…doesn’t… matter, does it?’

I shudder to an out-of-warp stop. It’s so easy to forget how to be nice.

‘Oh go home, Mabs’ I want her gone. For a such a round shape she moves quickly.

            ‘Bloody hell!’ Why am I so uptight? Just because of four stupid coppers in their tight blue skins. Obscene and no room to grow anything in, no thoughts, and no cares about intruding; no way has yet been invented to say goodbye to them, as a breed do they ever change? Like these unfriendly neighbours, ugly lot, no nice gardens out front just bigotry, stupidity, alcoholism on display set off by fenced and parched yards. I’m not my neighbour’s keeper; no I have to sort this record of hate. I shunt the angry machine I have become up to the neighbour’s gate. 

‘Oi! You in there, who owns the car out front?’ I yell over the chained gate. I match the heat and want answers from this house of piss-drunk. Two dogs are barking to the insanity of their house. A huge garbage bag of tinnies rattles and the consumer appears, beer-handed, skinny-liver-diseased, and walking both backwards and forwards. He stays out of reach, behind the gate with the two biters growling between us, and a million kilometres of intoxication.

‘Got a problem with me, what’s this about the car, a knock on the door would have sorted this,’ I am articulating so precisely that the dogs are listening too. They know the truth.

‘Ah well, Mabs said… sorry abou’ that, um, no problem caused,’ he grins.

‘There were four policemen, it was ugly, and why did you listen to Mabs?’ I ask.

‘Look it had noh-fun ta do wit’ me, no harm done, they told me it was alright.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean? The police reported back to you. Listen to me.’ The dogs sit down. I continue, ‘Mabs exaggerates and gets things wrong; I don’t give a damn what people think of me, don’t listen to her.’ I shunt backwards to my gate, as a drunken response is no response. Later, Mabs who has no memory for a conscience would have more gossip hoping I would be part of her scorched earth policy. I just turned off. ‘Go away, Mabs.’ I can’t talk to her, we live on different worlds. She has become invisible.

 I have caught the dirty looks, the gestures meant to be missed by my back and the gossip, the smutty innuendo, anything to diminish my humanity. My anxiety churns my guts. My hurt shimmers in front of me; the past like old bark expands into now.

 ‘Bloody dry, rain won’t you,’ I am angry with everything. A dried out place where delicate plants struggle against the heat, as my sun-ruined skin shows.

‘Mr Readings, some people are not nice and so ugly, suggest Dalek invasion, exterminate.’ Cats have such contacts, extra-dimensions and all that. Mr Readings has my back behind our gate; we track into my wild garden. The struggle is here; the weeds dominate with a cruel common insistence that they are best. My precious plants, like my best thoughts, have been shrivelled by the overbearing heat. My wounded dahlias and cracker jacks grown for cutting wait for a watery relief; they know they are going to die, something we share, what’s not to like.

  The police invasion has set off my emotional sprinkler; bloody memories tangle my present bringing tough feelings for the miserable state of things. I remember everything: deceased friends, my scarred body, a changed life, my old life, so many disappointments. So now to tend to this garden, my toughened-shag-pile-garden where we both feel so alien—time to drench.

Light in the Darkness (2018)

by Robert John Burton

Since self-awareness, I have pushed uphill the rock of sadness. It started when I was preschool age, with my failures to make friends with the kids around me. At that stage, I was a boy who played with dolls, invented plasticine cities, and a dangerous screamer who leashed out in frustration. The anxiety I felt with others overwhelmed me. I was bullied by kids, teachers, my parents, and strangers. As the years passed, the bullying slowed a pace, to be replaced by something else. I became the boy no one wanted. Other kids were picked for play time, sports teams, and the jealous friendship circles. I watched it all through a dream state, a nebulous member of nothing; a silent observer of it all. My family deserted me for long hours by myself which left me in danger, but they did not care. Something was not right with me; others saw it, my parents were blind to it. People made demeaning comments about my shyness, my inability to say things, my so uninteresting topics to them, my constant illnesses, my aloneness, my blank face, and any other things that adults like to say—all for my own good? Something they still like to do; messing with my Zen.

Most children suffer social setbacks, but for those of us with neurological differences like Asperger’s or High-functioning Autism, social failure often proves to be the norm. I did not pay too close attention to understand the cause of my social failure, that came later. For a long time, I learned to look aloof, and set myself apart, and I made myself safe from my violent parents and a world hellbent on hurting me. High school was a social waste land for me. It was designed to humiliate me, where my failures and disabilities were obvious. My talents were worthless, especially as my mother was jealous of her children and sabotaged any chance I had to be part of something. She demanded I stop studying for exams and decided schooling would be worthless and left her children to have an affair with some idiot leaving my siblings and me to deal with a bully of a father. Dad hated me. I couldn’t wait to leave, and I did so at the first possible opportunity. Dad died of a stroke; his heart just wasn’t into humiliation. Later, I learned enough social skills to get along, though I never understood other people. I did not understand what I was supposed to do unless the work was structured and regular, then I did reasonably well. For a longtime after life was a continuing puzzle that was to include some bloody pieces. A bashing or more, getting raped, a proper back knife-stabbing needing a thoracotomy, intrusive scarring surgery for melanoma, and general awful harassment. What can I say? It was the late 70s, a time of change, a time of violence, a time not best for me. Some Baby boomers were not the liberating all inclusive generation of hope and expecting such a miracle on one demographic cohort only proves how limited all humans are.  

Some of us are fortunate enough to develop gifts among our various traits, and as the years flow, those gifts can lead to some degree of academic or material success. That is what happened to me, as I achieved some local success in Fine Arts in the little part of the world I would find myself in. A degree of social acceptance often follows success at work. It did for me, and I found myself possessed of a few friends as an adult. I’ve observed the same thing in others with Asperger’s. To some extent, success breeds success. My colleagues gave me confidence and allowed me to improve my social skills which led to more friends. I was fairly successful in study too with honours, medals and prizes for academic achievement. So, when the good times roll, they are very good. I could derive security from my work, and enjoyment from the interests I could follow. High-functioning adults are obsessive about interests; so, collections grew, stuff coalesced, and writing did what I could not directly articulate. There have been times when life seemed reasonable. However, for the likes of me it’s all an illusion, as the economic crashes of past years brought home in a most nasty way. As well, the bloody-mindedness of the vicious fights in little pools because of the small rewards in the arts slammed me down. Humans are sometimes not very nice. You know what it means, you keep doing the same crazy stuff until the rug is pulled from under you. Then the friends go too? Toxic employment can mean that if a manager, colleague, or work expectation is toxic by being disorganized, judgemental, passive-aggressive, or manipulative, I will likely meltdown or shut down. So, I have become the subject of abuse, layoffs, or other workplace consequences that I have not necessarily deserved.

I realized that my positive self-image was founded on the things I have done. I am a creation of my work and my accomplishments. My self-image was not founded on who or what I was, because the worthlessness of that was made brutally clear to me from the very beginning. Intellectually, I understand things, but I do not get people, it has always eluded me. People attack most viciously when their victim is wounded. While other people are full of good intentions, but useless advice. It is suggested I must learn to accept myself unconditionally? Happiness is a trap, it exists of beliefs in fairness and a just world. Tell me what love is? I wonder. How does an Aspie, as the common term is, learn to love himself? It is a mystery. My parents did not love me, my siblings never did, past art associates used me, some even told awful lies to plough the path of promotion for themselves. Once, I held a small foundling kitten and felt wonder of how he could exist. At sixty-odd no one tells me they love me with any sincerity. Kissy, kissy, kiss, love-hearts, and other inane emoticons on a phone app does not cut it. Loud overbearing cheerfulness causes my blood sugar to go into Diabetes territory.  

Some advice is not Aspie friendly, for example, you are more than what you do at work? I hate advice like that, as it is the doing, where I have been most useful in life. The being part places me back fending for myself as a young man growing up—I don’t want to suffer that again. Lately, I have thought and researched a lot about the reasons for this, and I think the evidence is founded in the noted differences found in the Aspie brain: fewer white brain cells, constant hypervigilance, different neuron connections, and other brain anatomy. Thanks to my ASD, I have an insight into design. I can see what I do with a few art materials, and I know it is real and it can divert or sooth me from anxiety. I feel a sense of accomplishment from a painted canvas or work on paper. Years ago, I worked as a ceramicist, but the downturn in the economy ruined that. As did, the back biting, small-talk, and social engagement I have no time for. I know some people thrive on causing trouble and dissention, my mother did; she smiled while snarling at me, and eye-balled me when fighting with one of her colleagues—poisoned me for life! Life has a way of moving you past what one needs.

I also know I am part of this world, and that is another bitter pill I swallow every day. I  cannot see people like I see into the natural world where I paint; like a neurotypical person, perhaps like you reading this. I do not sense another person’s joy or acceptance and I do not celebrate my own victories because the audience is so few. Instead, I copy other people’s movements or actions: smile when with others, try to look at people’s eyes, be nice to small talk—things I would rather not do. I have often been misdirected. Work makes my life, without it I am lost. My opportunities to reason such feelings with respect to me are in the context of my work. Work is not necessarily employment; it is something that requires planning, action and completion. Unfortunately, other people’s responses and emotional states are unknowable to me. Knowing them is not relevant to me now, I am too old; I have learned to dislike people. Helpful folk like the neutrino are elusive. Particularly, in the phenomenon of public outrage where it becomes so easy to upset anyone, anyplace, anytime, and ensure the bewildered offenders are put into their place. However, it only suggests to me the outraged are putting themselves into their place: powerlessness through stupidity. Someone who thought thinking that being a liar was too harsh. Someone who thought crazymaker was too emotional. The same person who thought that their bad behaviour deserved support, while I was to be judged for all time. Aspies are often the targets of this type of stupid condemnation leaving them frustrated and more isolated.

The planet is sharing an Aspie meltdown. Ecological degradation, economic collapses, social upheavals, machines and technology are replacing jobs, and humans and I turn ugly. I’m fairly blind, even intolerant of other’s feelings especially if they push me. I find myself irritated and anxious in response. Neurotypicals seem blind to the societal collapse coming. Many self-medicate, take drugs legal or experimental, including binge drinking and eating, but such antidepressants do not change the issues for me. Rendering me or others blank will not create acceptance and it will not fix this poor, old suffering world. Many of us are alone. I do not know how to read others to support them; what do people want from me? It seems unfair at times, because some people tell me that my calm and logical demeanour is comforting to them, some people find the opposite as I do not share in their disgruntlement over some petty hurt feeling. Either way there is no solace for me. Hoping that people like and support me is not the same as feeling it especially when times are tough and there have been some very unreliable people in my life.

            High-functioning Autism is a puzzle—not because diagnosed individuals are so puzzling, but because the ever-changing definitions of autism mean we cannot come to a final conclusion; someone else keeps hiding the pieces. There is a lot of misunderstanding from neurotypicals, but the important thing for them to understand is that Aspie people are not to blame for every behaviour that make life so challenging for them. I am not merely shy, I don’t understand why you think I can mindread your every move and strange thoughts. Mucking up my schedule doesn’t make me flexible, it creates anxiety. Still now, face-to-face communication remains the key to personal success presenting social challenges with an ASD personality. Intertextuality, social competency, the culturally competent are transferable skills that have a hit and miss for Aspies. These skills do not occur naturally for many on the autism spectrum, rather they have to be modelled, taught and exampled—I did a lot of it alone in my tiny rooms—I did it because other people did not want me around, unless I was some use to them. As well, I feel safest in a small place; big empty houses feel threatening ready to swallow me up.

So, I am a Queer for the Millennium, digitally literate and smoke-free; multiculturally sensitive or even intelligent, work diversified, post-colonial, post-modern and deconstructed, politically autonomous and ecologically balanced. Ready to chat online, uplink and download, I’ll show you mine if you scan me yours, have an input, put it in, to expound tactfully a point of view or not, is outsourced, ready to know the downside of upgrading. Interestingly, that considering I was abused as a child, physically mutilated as a young adult, bullied as a mature gay male, denied filial and sibling connections, lived as a cancer survivor, hated for being male and a male on the autism spectrum with the intuition of an earthworm then I have hit a jackpot; surviving is a lousy prize.   

            When I act my biological age I’m old school, a mean yard brawler, my skin thin but my inner-child is outward bound hotwired, heat-seeking, a ballbuster, voice activated and bio-degradable, medicated, ready to interface from a database in cyberspace, so let’s play. I’m so interactive that I’m hyperactive and from time to time I’m toxically radioactive and definitely poisonous to the touch. A hands-on, footloose, knee-jerk head case permanently enjoying post-traumatic flashbacks and I have the scars, the pain parties, and all the bruises I need. Well now, you might think you understand what the Aspie gay man really is about; and also, what it is about you I hate? I hate having to fight against your hate, your oppression and your deception that is the common currency in society. I hate trying to be like you, heterosexual and normal, because I must survive. As a gay man I am in the only group in the history of humanity that must fight for its own existence against virtually all religions and exposes the true brutality and banality of the heterosexual lifestyle. The worst of heterosexuality is governed by power, violence and oppression. As well, women are both victims and perpetrators of this fall into something that will be so terrible before it ends.

The Queer movement is supposedly led by acceptance, love and freedom. No, it is not! This movement was going to be based on profound principles: acceptance, tolerance, love, letting people be who they want to be without oppressing them, letting them believe what they choose to believe without forcing them into any ideas. It is something that I remember when I was young, or had the innocence of a new kid on the block when I thought that this acceptance already existed. To my surprise, and I also believe that to your surprise, we are finding out that the more we try to share with other people, the more opposition there is? The more resistance there is to us and there is so much violence still out there in the world; here we still are. I endure to survive the constant manipulating homophobia, queer sell outs, and neoliberal assaults, but the persistent tiredness I feel from living as a person with ASD who is constantly challenged to understand you. Settle down will you, your noisy intrusive ways are wearing me down to bitterness. You won, fine! I hope the prize was worth it? Tell me it will matter in a world stretched thin with bone showing. What do you think is happening? Seventy bullet wounds to the head proves it was suicide?  

Light needs darkness to show off. My ASD diagnosis is fairly recent, although obviously I have known something was wrong a long time ago. There were missed opportunities for an earlier diagnosis caused by all those issues that made me a fighter for too long; even soldiers drop or die. It took a major set of traumas to force me into an unfathomable darkness with the tiniest firefly as my guide. I tried hard to prove my life was worth something. But, I do not understand yet if this diagnosis will take me to a better place or as we hear often of ASD impacting the young or adults, it does not diminish for the old. Men with ASD in their sunset years still exhibit all of the same characteristics or phenotypes, and may have a reputation for being difficult and standoffish. Unqualified people around them assume that these grey lone wolves are best left to their own devices, rather when they are confronted daily by the difficulties of interpersonal relationships. Or worse, continue the barrage of blame for attitudes that describe ASD. We need understanding. I belong on another planet, any will do, as long as I am doing something—perfect for a one-way trip to Mars. Sadness is baggage that goes everywhere in my travels, and darkness with a little light, has the advantage of making everyone beautiful, especially if there is no one around for comparisons.

Image: Unknown graffiti artist, local skateboard park, Annandale TSV, 2018.

REJECTED (2018)

by Robert John Burton

A person who has Autism Spectrum Disorder has a difficult life, if not downright painful. Rejection is the most difficult area for me to handle. Human attachment is a snakes and ladders game for most people with High-functioning Autism, formerly called Asperger’s, where my chalk mark sits. The reality for many of us is to want human connection very much, but struggle to achieve it. The longer the struggle, the more rejection accumulated, eventually makes for a boring game—I’ve given up. This autistic aloneness is a difficulty to connect with others. To survive, I have learned to mimic particular social behaviour well enough to get along in most places. The problem comes when things get beyond superficial. When the very coping mechanisms that get us through surface interactions, not only fail, but cause additional problems. These are our lives and my life broke down; the people like family and work colleagues did not listen, they did not know how. Their rejection killed something, and they killed it when my back was turned.

Intimacy can be a very difficult thing for a person on the spectrum. Everyday interactions have to be learnt in a way neurotypicals take for granted. ASD has noticeable phenotypes that marks out the many neurological differences along the spectrum. For me, social interactions can be very challenging. By default, I have trouble reading others, and predicting how they will react to things. To make it a shakier ride I am blind to other’s distress and have had a lot of trouble navigating the path with both feet in my mouth. Relationships can become very anxious affairs. Not being able to read other people’s subtle body and facial expressions do not show me the problems coming down the path, until there is a  collision. How can a life be planned? Of course, life for most is unpredictable and getting more so as the urgent issues of a planet in distress adds challenges.

However, an aspect missed by many, especially those that mean well—the do-gooders who do the most damage—is while those on the autism spectrum have trouble reading neurotypicals, the reverse is true as well. The way our minds work can be habitually misinterpreted, leading us to have difficulties in relationships and relatedness to others. For example, I am very methodical in how I approach my work, and I need certain conditions to deal with uncomfortable barriers I could encounter, in advance thank you. Too many times in my life I have gone into circumstances and badly failed because I was unprepared. I can meltdown or freeze. Especially when important social factors are involved, like a job interview or an art exhibition, dealing with challenging colleagues, I feel very anxious, even sick with panic. Worse still, are the vindictive, waiting for a victory to bring another down, especially those who believe in unvetted personal and public outrage. My social encounters are often clumsy; I may be too soft or very prickly. My success depends on having seen others model or demonstrate the behaviour preferred. Perhaps reading about how such situations should be handled, acted out, especially when the crazymakers are out feeding. You know the ones who like to be offended about people they do not know. As well, do not suddenly appear from nowhere, I jump and miss a heartbeat or two.

I do not show this side to many people, but to those who do see it, they can find it very tiring—or useful? It is very tiring for me, but the alternative is falling flat on my face, my instincts in these areas are inadequate, or absent. For many decades, I existed in this self-mutilating state, even making a joke of it for others. Eventually, I realised that people were rejecting me as a person although they may have accepted my work, especially during my artisan years. I created a saleable asset, but the person behind it was avoided or bullied. People who bully others are never doing it for friendship or my own good, never. I just wanted to tear the whole bloody lot down and start again; I used to have a future. So, I tried by returning to university and guess what? There I was again! The same horrible anxious social failures, the users and abusers flying into their new flesh meal, the bullies, the misdirected misdirecting, the easily outraged, the jealous, and all the same awful blots that could not be removed: phenotypes of High-functioning Autism. My planning led me to academic success with academic awards and prizes: a phenotype of a High-functioning Autism. Unfortunately, at the time, my immune system was compromised with another melanoma removed, further skin cancer surgery for every week spent at university, eye-watering hay fever, and a shocking case of pneumonia that had me hit the ground so hard I broke skin and bled over my due essays: a phenotype of High-functioning Autism. My older half-sister Lynette died of Multiple sclerosis and a year later my mad mother (schizophrenia) died of a brain tumour; I did not attend the funerals. Make of that what you will, your unwelcome judgements need to include the rejection I have endured from family.

Everyone gets aggravated when they encounter difficulties in social relationships with those they love, but for people on the spectrum, coping mechanisms can destroy those relationships. It is very painful for me to be estranged from the relationships, groups, and associations I value, as they become frustrated with their general misunderstandings of me. For neurotypicals, many of these types of coping mechanisms are misinterpreted. When I ask for a clarification on a recommendation, especially those made in a group at a meeting, or command from administration, others view this as a rejection of their recommendation, and the roof caves in. Instead, I may have accepted the recommendation unequivocally, and am asking the way forward to execute the suggestion, to see how others will act. But, others think I am either being difficult and negative, or stupid. They assume because I am intelligent in one way I must be emotionally intelligent too. Neurotypicals take too much for granted as they were born with a shield wall supported by interested families and societal values. Even if they missed out on those the world is still navigable because they are not limited by misunderstanding the facial expressions, body signals, and eyes of others. I am like the lamb brought for slaughter. My father beat me till I could not breathe; my mother treated me like her personal listener screaming I did not love her when I did not understand what she wanted; strangers berate me for not mind-reading some situation affecting a nameless friend of theirs; so-called professionals take my social naivety to insult me; and colleagues always see me coming and have their shopping lists of gifts they will receive before dumping me?

I find the social world of others confusing; they say one thing and do another. They do fun? They own boats, motorcycles, and jet-skis? Cultural competence is described as having the possession of the knowledge and skills required to manage cross-cultural relationships effectively. Cultural incompetence in hospital staff can seriously prejudice clinical management of people on the spectrum. As a young inpatient at a mental health ward I was abused by nurses for not being cooperative; I was anxious and frightened. While in the broader context as example, it can compromise a business with a careless racial or sexist slur. Within my participation of the social world, I try to reach out to others, care about others, and model the best person that I can be, but there are times that I feel that I have missed the boat; there is no common ground. My approaches to express friendship burst like an escaped balloon, so much air and flimsy fragments of rubber. Well now, I am not bitter, I am not hateful, and I am not unforgiving. I have just stopped bothering to like people. I am angry. Angry at the misunderstandings, frustrated at the judgments imposed upon me by those whose blind interpretations of my behaviour aggravates the perseverance of those misunderstandings spreading them into malicious gossip. Despite my repeated attempts to make myself understood I have been rejected. Apparently, we all have to be the same to be accepted in this society; apparently, cultural competence is only for the politically correct. Having autism at any place on the spectrum can mean a lifetime of aloneness. Others may realise there is a problem, but it is not theirs; it is always my fault. It takes me longer to process conversations. It takes me longer to process the hurt. I takes me longer to move past this betrayal of humanity. Everyone else has a problem, everyone else is more important. Fuck you for rejecting me. Fuck you for reducing autistic to a word of abuse. I hate people. People make me want global catastrophe. People make me want a global pandemic of Ebola. People literally make me sick.

            History is awash with remarkable people who had High-functioning Autism. Alan Turing, brilliant but had absolutely no people skills at all. And because of ASD and his mind, we now have computers. Never mind, he was persecuted till he committed suicide. Charles Darwin, naturalist, geologist, and biologist sorted out evolution in 1859, and is still ridiculed by religious fanatics? Albert Einstein, scientist and mathematician, with an obsessive ASD mind who rocked the world of physics. Bill Gates, co-founder of the Microsoft Corporation is still used as a joke archetype to describe the many brilliant minds of Silicon Valley; those people with Asperger’s? As was Steve Jobs, former CEO of Apple, another computer crazy. Professor Temple Grandin, animal scientist and ASD advocate who has more intelligence in her small finger than the idiots who criticise her on YouTube for being so Aspie. James Joyce, author of Ulysses (1922) was one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century whose obsessive passion for his craft would challenge the hypocrisy of the church and state. Stanley Kubrick, ground-breaking film director of films like 2001 (1968), A Clockwork Orange (1971), The Shining (1980) and many more classic films who regardless was disliked by many because of his obsessive and ASD phenotypes. Michelangelo, High Renaissance sculptor, painter, architect, and poet displayed all the social problems a person on the spectrum deals with, brilliant and tormented. As was Mozart, Warhol, Yeats in the arts and Tesla, Wittgenstein, Newton in the sciences which displays a phenotype of the high intelligence of High-functioning Autism to be in either discipline. But, the scandals that make for such good reading all accompanied by cruel innuendoes are typical of neurotypical’s response to their lack of sensitivities to brilliant people on the spectrum. So, you get nasty and I experience berating comments regularly. I say again I hate you, rejection is mutual. You are rejected!

Image: Section of canvas painting by Robert Burton, 1986.

Aspie Rant (2019)

by Robert John Burton

No friends can or could help, enemies probably are and were better. I shall never be good enough, wise enough, or caring enough. Enemies let me know I am less than perfect in the way enemies do by destroying one’s living landscape or burning your house down. While, friends miss the point and tell me I will be alright—then disappear and leave me to it? There has always been a gap between the reality and a usual life’s timetable. The ways of the neurotypical aren’t my way. My autistic isolation is evident throughout the rooms of my mental home; even in my dreams I am alone—unless I am being bullied. I had for decades of my life sought out priests, psychologists, spiritual healers, astrologists, teachers, mentors, needy others, and the like. They inevitably saw in me what they wanted to see, and nothing more. No one could penetrate me and get through me. No one could truly see me; there are no frames of reference for friendship. In the end, my search accentuated my isolation, only added to my need for connection and knowledge on why every piece of the puzzle was out of shape or torn. Like trying to fit together jigsaws from several sets thrown into the same box. As an adult with high-functioning autism I have a strong interest in fairness or justice, sometimes to an extreme degree; so, if you have a wicked side, you are a prick or a bitch. Your inappropriateness knows no boundaries. My opinions tend to black and white in a miserably grey world.

 Belief systems, religions, rituals, magic, or what have you, do not work. Such temporary sedatives, opiate of the masses, considering their nonsensical sources serve manipulative masters. The ancient deities did nothing to stop the volcanoes, tsunamis, diseases, and other mishaps of the natural world and had nothing to offer me either. I analysed them and their happenings to dissect, annihilate, recondition  every thought, all misunderstandings, every cruel jibe, to no end, and found instead the gaping loop holes, the misdirection, the huge empty spaces between elements of our existence. There are no definitive answers. There are no good reasons. Stuff happens, or not? I wish I believed there was a something out there in which to seek refuge: aliens, human common sense, reasonable behaviour, poisonous bottles of pills, or a time portal. I live my life questioning the truth of everything. I live my life questioning the manipulation of everything. I cannot stand being me. Everywhere, is judgment, unspoken rules, a running commentary from people demanding I be like them. I am plundered by their ways, by their demands for friendship which turns out to be anything but? I have decided to be alone. I try to be nowhere and be no thing, but then they come hunting. Telling other people who they should be or could be and crushing them—for what? What is the prize? Do they win anything forever? History is awash with failed dogmas, lost certainty in ideas, arrogant theses on racism, sexism, and any other foolish desire to kill, mutilate, obliterate, and  exterminate difference. Challenging people to just believe the world would be better their way, and only their way? They enter other people’s worlds only on their own terms, which stops them from seeing anything else. For example, millions of gods have been buried in the human archaeological record and so-called civilized people forget their common, nasty, brutal primitive pasts—Rule, Britannia!

I am intense. I am obsessive. I am hypervigilant. I am often misunderstood, misinterpreted, and misjudged. So many of my past events have been awful, it is difficult to sort out the feelings from what I am. There is always someone who is outraged at me because they have no moral fortitude of their own; they have given it away to another. An Aspie diagnosis is one of the unkind disorders that can happen to a person. My only saving grace is in having exhausted myself, I start over again. My tender sensitive skin literally peels off like a snake and as the scales leave my eyes, I look for a new thing to gaze hard at. I often have restricted, repetitive, and studied patterns of behaviour, comforts, and activities. They can be intensely involved as I focus on things that grab my attention, but that most people would see as rather narrow and restricted. Presently I am collecting Alocasia species of big-leaved plants because their growth reminds me that to regenerate quickly requires constant feeding and water. I write every day and illustrate it to remind me I am my own creation. Often, I do not think meeting my daily needs is coming to terms with accepting myself or knowing myself completely. Often, I don’t think about anything at all. Often, I am so uncomfortable and want to die. My online research shows most children with Asperger’s want to be social, but fail to socialize successfully, which can lead to later withdrawal and being asocial, beginning in adolescence, then onwards. We risk being drawn into unsuitable and inappropriate friendships and social groups surviving by mimicking unhealthy mannerisms. I never found relations with people around my own age. Those that I have had always have some agender with a use-by-date, or have developmental issues of their own. I found poverty and homelessness because of my difficulty in finding employment. Eventually, my obsessions start to create an intense space where others cannot bother me too much. Or if, after having been exposed to someone’s presence, I feel exhausted, I try to avoid that presence. I need it like a dog bite. Some people, like my mother, I avoided for years.

If I do become employed, I will be misunderstood, taken advantage of, paid less than those not on the spectrum, and be subject to bullying and discrimination, which eventually soured my art career. My communication style may mean people at work have difficulty considering this odd person as they do not understand high-functioning autism. Problems with authority figures grow like weeds, tense relations with bosses and supervisors become prevalent; they misread my attitudes and decide on my intentions—they never ask me? I shut down with anxiety and detach from the world around me. I procrastinate. My poor social skills and poverty creates problems with acquaintances and close personal relationships deteriorate as people tire of my frustrations. Like school bullying, I am vulnerable to problems in my neighbourhood, such as anti-social behaviour and harassment. Due to this social isolation, I am seen and judged, seen as dangerous in the community and have been placed at risk of wrongful suspicions and allegations from others. Therefore, I have become a positioned workaholic with a range of ideas flashing like a threatened signalling cuttlefish; are you ready? You can never shut me up, close me down, shut me off, you cannot dumb me down because I’m a tireless, mean son of a bitch—apparently? I’m a non-believer, an alchemist, an overachiever never laid back. I have the awards and photographs to prove it.

I make enemies from a distance; people like to gossip, most times I do not know the attacker. The person on the spectrum may sometimes be baffled by complex social situations because of difficulty in perceiving subtle social non-verbal cues such as facial expressions and body postures in particular. There may be a tendency to take verbal communications too literally or concretely and, hence missing the underlying subtle meaning; some jokes pass over me and requests are misunderstood. This can interrupt the usual smooth flow of conversation; it has on occasions killed it. As a result of these problems as an Aspie person I may avoid complex social situations such as parties, reunions, meetings, and I hate officialdom. So, I have failed to develop the usual number of close friendships with others, family was a disaster, and it is a form of torture meeting art colleagues. Therefore, I may be perceived as aloof and not reciprocating emotionally, not showing empathy, which I have always found unfair. Many people are overly emotional, crying too easily, or have expected me to mind-read their confused states. Angry states can make a person dumb; I do not like loud demanding people. Of course, my distress is unreal to them—I do not matter! It is though they have thought I had a news conduit into their lives. Why? Are they so interesting?

I can have an unusually strong need for routine and consistency; frustration and upset builds by unexpected changes in timetables, appointments, things breaking, and surprising visitors or a missing pet. A disordered house is chaos and my mind will not calm until the order is remade. There will be unique sensory problems with intense sensitivities, from rough or new clothing that make it uncomfortable to wear, food choices (cooking show advertisements drive me crazy), certain odours can give me an intense headache, and skin cancer treatments irritate my whole body. My skin has never fitted me. Young people make fun of my subtle idiosyncrasies in the way I move; I stride with a military step rather than walk. My voice has an unusual quality to speech which others describe as English or gay; I was always thought of as a girl when younger. Psychologists differentiate Asperger’s or High functioning autism on the spectrum by stipulating that there be no clinically significant delays in language, general cognitive development in age-appropriate self-help skills concurrent with the disruption in adaptive behaviour with social interaction. Nasty stuff like intrusive thoughts, insomnia, immune problems happen as unwelcome side effects. Nevertheless, I can cook, sew, clean, fuss, bother something to death, coax life out of nothing, read, write, paint, sculpt, walk, decorate, dream away cares, take chances, hide from the world, mow lawns, grow gardens, and curse the sky flat. I love pretty things, all cats, friendly dogs, lonely places, running water, clean houses, hidden spaces, noisy storms, and sparse woodlands. I can make do, do without, walk the extra kilometre, bite my tongue, mind my own business, steer clear, run away, stay, stand my ground, whip it, work hard, fall in a heap, weep, and like to think deeply. When I’m alone I can do all sorts of things.

My baby-boomer generation do not like people to be apathetic. Be content. Be angry. Be full of ennui. Just be something. Don’t be nothing. Create a life out of random things. But intelligence does not make us better. I have suffered with anxiety and self-destructive behaviour for a long time. These were mostly suppressed and ignored until a few years ago. I can remember having some kind of anxiety breakdown leading to giving up pottery. The mean focus of others was part of it, and my inability to respond—social blindness and autistic aloneness. My feeling of ennui, of you can do all of it, was part of it. Your youth is a blip on the timeline of your life, was part of it. I was also still angry over the way people reacted to me being gay, was definitely part of it. I was stunned over how much my sexuality had affected my mental health, especially when demeaned by angry women who never guessed I was gay? What! Ignored by family (some despicable acts there), despised by neighbours, and used as an abuse outlet by art colleagues. Art as a profession, is the refuge for some of the most cloistered, narrow-minded people. They do not all work to change expectations into devoted commitment free of expectations and attachment; art has always been an affluent-class activity, or a way into it. However, to envision ourselves as part of a larger process of healing and creativity, even if, at times, it seems that we have no allies, art practice still is valuable. To accept that devotion and commitment with freedom of an emotional need to achieve particular goals is even more powerful than expectations of unattainable generic egalitarian success. There is something that you know deep down but cannot admit. A thought way in the back of your mind. Artists are the most likely to do this.

I might be much further in the art world at this point had I not quit so many times due to my spectrum disorder. The things that have had me survive so much trauma fails to fix the rejection and heartbreak of work connections because I identified so strongly with it; work is what I understand as love. I am a survivor of so much horrible stuff. The sort of abuse that eats away your guts until there is only disease and dis-ease left. My emotional pain is only going away if I accept that sort of life is not for me. I give myself no hope. Instead I move on. I remember the mean stuff, not to be vengeful instead I do it as a counter that nothing was ever so perfect, especially for someone like me. Too much clutter, too much disorder in this house. Rebuilding my life, filling all the voids that have cleared away my former life. I do not want to feel as ugly and stupid as others describe me. Self-pity? No, otherwise they would stick it out with me. Though it seems my foundations are strong, the structure fails when others try to move in. So, do not bother, you are not welcome. Everything is overwhelming. Lights, sounds, smells, tastes, and emotional experiences are intensified. This person easily feels overpowered, anxious and fearful. I withdraw and create self-soothing behaviour, exactly the sort of repetitive movements and failure to make eye contact that describes those with Asperger’s or High-functioning autism. As behaviour like this interferes with usual every day social contact, other people begin to back off, thereby limiting and leaving me to develop effective social skills. As an artisan I worked virtually alone for twenty-seven years, even when I was involved with others in various art associations or activities, there was a hands-off approach. The resulting cycle of mutual withdrawal leaves a person like me appearing uninterested, and unsympathetic. So, understanding what others are thinking and feeling is difficult for someone with Asperger’s, High-functioning autism, or AS—call it what you want. But, my disorder does not rob me of empathy, it just makes it more difficult to experience and to express. What things have I been missing all these years? Trust is a fragile thing and in my senior years I cannot keep hoping for a more sensitive world.

Image: Computer generated Mandelbrot program

Giving Life Some Meaning (2019)

by Robert John Burton

Some people believe the human brain has evolved for survival, some people give credence to a Devine 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. Therefore, the idea of a singular god or millions of deities is more aligned with local social organisation than giving meaning to a cosmos that is so huge, potentially ever-expanding, and pointless because we are such small, immaterial organisms with empty space in our atoms. 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, and is not relevant to me anymore. It’s a young person’s thing. Frankly, as an Aspie mature-age gay male lots of stuff has been designed to make me feel stupid.

            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. Excluding the eugenics movement which is a term with a strong negative valence and images of gas chambers, and the present public murder of gay men in ugly countries where religion makes the population insane. 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 late-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 in 2011, 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 tumour got her in 2012. 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. As well, as a gay male I have been the target of some stupid judgements from people who require stereotypes for everything; 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, but it is a recognition of conservative standards or stick-in-the-mud attitudes of people unwilling to be uncomfortable.

I have been attacked for being me for as long as I can remember. You cannot cure homosexuality as being almost white is not an acceptable social status to acquire for Australian Aboriginals. The same reasoning means others with neurological differences have civil rights. In 1992, Australian governments were committed to a national approach to supporting people with disability to maximise 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. Many people who embrace the concept of neurodiversity believe that they need help and accommodation. 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 has been diminished with being hurt by stupidity.  

Crazymaking 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 crazymaker. Worse still is when the behaviour is underhanded and confusing, it becomes easy to take on the craziness as your own fault. Chaos is there again, as you are manipulated with nonstop crazymaking strategies. As a mature-aged male with high-functioning autism 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. But, as I have problems connecting or empathising with the feelings of others, their joys or their sorrows and mine too, then communicating and understanding are challenged. 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. The more I was isolated and excluded, the lower I sank. 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 communication impairments exacerbate difficulties in asking for help, and 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 war. Perhaps too, a refusal to give in regardless of what builds and then change happens. Afterall death is certain, success is what you think it is and for me I have no clue. 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.

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 understand or empathize with 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. 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. Also, my skin cancer treatment has made an uncomfortable covering, worse than any itchy clothes. Please assist? There are two ways to go—black and white outcomes; the connotations are obvious. Fortunately, the human brain is capable of nine types of different intelligence, also called the nine domains of intelligence. First theorised by developmental psychologist Howard Gardner, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences (1983). Gardner argues that there is no one true way to measure intelligence and that the human brain is wired with a wide range of cognitive abilities. I score six out of the nine domains. The three unavailable to me describes what Asperger’s defines: repetitive interests, the blindness to other’s temperaments and moods, and a lack of awareness of the wider understanding of the human condition. The others have all attached themselves to my work. Naturalistic Intelligence allows me to paint a landscape, sculpt a creature which includes Spatial Intelligence: always a daydreamer. As well, I can recognise patterns and generate abstract thoughts. I have a strong moral compass as I think in black and white. Bodily-Kinaesthetic Intelligence developed throughout my life through repetitive actions as I was clumsy as a child; I cannot dance, I am unbending wood.

 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 philosopher Kant (1723 1804) 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, 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. Reckless hate from others cannot hurt the loner. I travel to places that are closer than hope ever was. Overall, when I was decades younger, I was happiest to be alone; for it was then I was most aware of what I possessed. Free to work at my pottery. Paint pictures of landscapes that meant carrying my stuff over tracks and up hills. Pleased to be alone in company. It was without thinking too hard and life was reasonably pleasurable. There I was with others, in front of others, and surrounded by others without having to deal with them. I must have had some simple connection and ubiety of what I had in common with them. This is the freedom I want back to give my life meaning.

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