Venting Autism stripped me of my humanity

[amyrel]

I truly despise the whole "sillyfication" of all mental illnesses that is currently happening online. Especially with autism, since it's done nothing but ruin my life. Of course there are people who say it is simply apart of them and no big of a deal, I am happy those people are able to live like that. However for me it truly is an illness, something alienating me from all of humanity.

I used to be a huge people pleaser starting from elementary school, or as long as I can remember. I would mask and be a completely different person depending on who I'm talking to. Back then I used to also study the personalities of anime characters I liked and would build parts of it into my own mannerisms. This all lead to me having my first existential crisis around the age of 9. I did not know who I truly was, what thing I liked, what things I forced myself to like, what my actual dislikes are etc. I knew nothing about myself, and to this day I believe I still haven't figured myself out.

I struggle a lot with heavy memory loss, however I feel that back then I used to be pretty close to an actual human, like everyone else. I don't know what the trigger was for change, if it is related to the constant act I would play, or if it is something else entirely. Either way, I am no longer able to feel empathy. I've tried mentioning this to multiple people, but I always get the same response. "It is simply because of your autism, you feel things different compared to other people." But I am no fool. I know the difference between viewing the world a different way and simply missing something. This lack of empathy makes me feel like an asshole, I know how to comfort people, however I can only offer logical solutions to people, which comes with it's own set of problems.


Pretending to be human, a normal person like everyone, gets more exhausting day by day. I laugh at jokes I feel nothing about, I talk about my "likes" and "dislikes" I truly do not care about. And everyday I feel this act is coming closer to it's end. I've stopped pretending with a lot of things, but that has only made me realize I'm getting closer to "living" as a walking corpse day by day. Wouldn't it be better to just die at this point? It's the easiest solution. Unfortunately, I have a very close bond to my mother though. And supplies are hard to get where I am.

I just don't know what to do. I wish I had someone who simply told me how to live my life, so I would not have to engage with such thoughts. At the end I think the mindless day routine with no social interaction is most comfortable for me.

Sorry if this is a bit incoherent.

 

[Scythe]

Personally as an autist I just never fit in, don't know how to with normies and at this point I don't want to because I don't like them. They never really liked me either. I used to have empathy but I willingly discarded it because humans just suck a lot of times. Most ppl in real life never cared for me, so I do not care for them.

And I don't interact with people on a day to day basis aside from family small talk that I auto pilot. But I suppose it might be different for you if you kept contact with friends.

It was nice to finally find some sense of community for the first time online on a gaming server on Discord. They are the ones that ended up making me discover that I'm likely on the spectrum since they discussed mental disorders openly.
But in the end, SS is where I belong. The mentally ills will support each other. No need to pretend here, most of us don't give a shit. I've voiced seeing myself as something other than human and hating being human multiple times to ppl from the site and they didn't care.

Idk about the identity crisis though, it wasn't something that troubled me. What if u faked it till you made it? Just stick to one persona and try to be that?

 

[rainw3rld4ngel]

when you mentioned the part about lack of / lower empathy i was just like going along with your words and thinking it made sense & like different people have different experiences, of course..
but with the examples you gave it did remind me of some ways i did or didnt relate / saw it differently

i have heard it described lots that most autistic people often aren't like deficient in empathy, despite in some cases it appearing that way to others, or being stereotyped as such (some r even hyper-empathetic)
(for example someone may be empathetic, but not be able to express it properly / not have it show externally leading to others to assume they're not.
plus, some autistic people may have a difficulty in knowing (in the first place), or being able to articulate what they feel. so i imagine that could also influence someone's perception & description of themselves....but I'm not suggesting anything about you, i don't know you at all. cause theres definitely a range of possible experiences (& things like autism could probably influence that)

in my case, in so many situations where i may not "feel" something i dont view that as a lack of empathy.
if someone else is disturbed by me having issues, they may feel hurt, or wonder whether i truly thought about them (im not a social person, im just making something up). but im the one trapped on the precipice between life and death. of course something different is taking up the other 99% of whats on my mind. i see rail suicides in that light, like maybe not morally 'ok',' but understandable, i wouldn't assume the victim as lacking empathy because of it.
i did relate to what you said about 'masking' and how it feels (even though i dont get to do that much in the first place).
so many things its like... imagine if you were telling a homeless person about your breakup. why would they feel anything ? theyre too preoccupied with being homeless. maybe their moral compass, or the logical side of their brain, or their actions prefers the better outcome for other people, but their feelings may be too preoccupied with their own circumstance of homelessness. they're sitting in a circle of hell below u and cant relate / too preoccupied to 'feel' that empathy, rather than that meaning they fundamentally lack it or anything.
i attribute that feeling in myself mostly to differing life experience, which could partly be attributed to autism, rather than a fundamental psychological symptom at all.

you do seem to be pretty certain about it being the latter for you. describing masking and things like that from a young age leaving u feeling empty inside and burnt out. but mention that it didn't used to feel quite this bad.
in my case i do relate to both of those. but i still attribute some things differently.
like other people seem to be accepted Unconditionally, it looks shocking, they say things, (or don't say things of substance ever), like things, dress wrong, make mistakes that i would never get away with cause everything is catastrophic for me, sometimes for reasons i do or don't understand or could prepare for or didn't expect, live unexamined lives cause they never needed to. i don't really judge, more that its always so strange to notice all of the above when i know people always judge me yet others seem to fit in in their respective places unconditionally.

so things like masking, which might include maybe forcing extroversion (sometimes atrociously, sometimes better) comes as a response to living with a certain life and responding to certain conditions - cause i was never on even footing.
i do background research on anything, everyone, and if i get into something new i have to understand it completely in case i was to ever bring it up and explain it & have it understood, understandable & justified, & the best decision among many others (tho oviously not going to get a chance to talk about anything in the first place). and then get frustrated that ive never met anyone else whos ever had more than random casual interests in popular things. maybe trying too hard might not be most obvious form of 'masking' (like ill never pretend to listen to Sabrina Carpenter). but its also necessary, because socially, with a disadvantage, where other people with connections got to pick things up thru osmosis i have to learn everything by myself every time & if i can avoid an uninformed impression that way, well its inevitably going to give me warped, weird impression due to the above (which could be an improvement still).
sorry i think im on a rant that has nothing to do with you or your thread at all.
its 2:30am here

oh & i dont have as much of a problem with trivialized 'sillyfication' especially if it comes from other autistics. cause while some us end up Here, somebody else posting that may have a completely different life where they do perfectly fine being silly & carefree, so its not like theyre misrepresenting their own personal experience of the same condition. & what does my life have to do with them at all. good for some other people i guess.
i have a bit of a harder edge than that, so instead i might find something like this funny, whatever happens in the end it can sometimes feel better to make light of something than not

 

[rainw3rld4ngel]

Most ppl in real life never cared for me, so I do not care for them.

i relate to this part a lot as well.
i mean it sounds like u kind of hate people whereas i might hope others do fine with whatever without my feelings being able to stretch much towards others who dont care about me in turn, but yeah as far as feelings r concerned i relate.

something contrary to that is that despite having zero insight into others' lives, the fact that i can infer that something of value is sometimes going on elsewhere does make me feel better. sometimes it felt like if i died, 'everything' died with me, cause everything ive ever seen or felt outside around me was dead, like life for some of us feels like a factory farm or concentration camp. but i can infer that most other people usually have something else going on for them, like after work there might be people they care about who care about them, places they can go, activities they can fit in.
and sometimes it felt better to me to be able to at least infer that and know something in the world would continue to turn without me.


(i wrote this all out order btw.
i may be just talking bullshit that only slightly relates / no one cares about but i feel better having some record of my thoughts before i go or whatever idk)

in my case if i come up with an example, maybe i like almost exclusively listen to music that is weird or engage with art that is strange or dark or expresses or portrays something like that.
and i find out what someone else who is actually interested in music listens to. and can tell theres just such a massive divide.

other people are fine if something is just catchy, but i cant do that cause it means nothing to me and my place in the world, but maybe i had different standards like that in the past.
The 'sad' songs that others listen to are all fundamentally different. Rather than being marked for death like me, others' emotional understandings of things come from people who have some kind of inherent 'optimism' of an outcome better than suicide (yes the bar is extremely low there, maybe they wouldn't use the word 'optimism' for that lol). they might depict people who have more than zero friends but 'feel' isolated, maybe someone who's anxiety presents as unpleasant experiences that dont ruin their life yet expressed in an implicitly 'optimistic' way where everything is ok once they're back around the people they care about, but most of all i can just hear it in the artist's voice. maybe its artistically all fine and whatever & i would enjoy it if i was a different person, but if that singer is comfortable & expressing themselves & all and u can hear that in their normie voice, i can perceive that they wouldn't feel like that or ever open up or smile or any of that in front of me (without even knowing me, or anything i said).
like the films some people care about, how could i. this part is going to sound crazy, but well it would be impossible for like any normal commercial movie to depict like even the literal holocaust or literally anything without involving characters & plots & dialogue (since most films intended for an audience r gonna need dialogue, i know some lives don't have it) and actual something resembling a life even if they suffer or get cut short, without it being something i could literally feel jealous about, like someone who had a life before losing it, or suffered but ever experienced something wouldn't want to be me instead even if something of my situation might be an improvement. i remember thinking i wouldn't want to literally be mark zuckerberg even if his money could fix so many problems for me. im kinda like the mark zuckerberg in that scenario. i literally almost doubt a holocaust victim on their deathbed with their short life of all the people & things they cared about flashing before their eyes would choose to be me instead with nothing available to care about.
sorry, the subject matter is getting weird, i can understand if this metaphor is like revolting to people, extremely offensive, im aware. i was just trying to talk about fiction originally.

(ok this next part is like whiplash for being way less serious than the above, i wrote it out of order)
if i order food or a coffee, people do the eye contact & friendly customer service voice to the person in front of or behind me in the queue, but not to me.
most therapists or whatever would attribute things like that my facial expressions / impression, (or at least emphasize the side of the interaction that i may be able to do something about). but the cause and effect isnt really that way around. when some people smile or show enthusiasm others react negatively, i guess it looks like u dont 'know ur place' or something, right ? or u cant do so without it looking off or having people read into it (due to a literal social disability)

if someone might blame my social failures on talking about myself / my interests too much (maybe infodumping) compared to showing interest in the other person, well the thing is any time i do that, theres no reason someone would want to talk about whatever they like to me of all people. nobody wants that interest coming from me. the only room ive had to work with is trying to show that im worth something, if only someone could in turn talk to me the way i sometimes have to other people in better times, but thats never happened of course (well at least not since i was much younger if i must be honest).

how could i possibly have made any impact on anyone else's life before dying? someone would have to tolerate me in the first place to for me to ever help someone or support anyone or tell them about something cool.

i may have cared more about music & just signed up for DnD or whatever for social reasons. and im not faking an interest, i can learn about something new & be genuinely interested but theres no room where someone else would want me there interested, rather than just being too polite to restrict it to the real human beings they intended to see.

the cause and effect is the other way around. i don't lack empathy but there's never been an opportunity to show it. if someone was drowning, they wouldn't want to see my hand show up.

 

[notreallybored]

ב''ה,
For OP this is pretty much everyone but they keep scooping more under autism because, y'know, hard drugs that get a surprising number of folks to tweak on whatever they find of themselves in the latest definition of autism as keeps the drugs coming.

Technically there's a definition of autism that says the people who know themselves and know what they like and pursue that regardless of others' pressure are exhibiting stereotypy and missing social cues.

People pleasing is hyperacuity to social cues. Is *that* autism now? Who the fuck knows, they defined it to mean everything and different regions practically reverse it.

Not saying your situation is or isn't, just pointing this out. I kinda figure the 'stress to the point memory sometimes goes' is more PTSD-esque than autism-esque, but who the fuck knows and until brain scans can even supposedly prove anything, who knows.

 

[Archness]

I'm quite similar in regards to childhood and awful memory. I think the memory is a bit related to autism, for me I think it's also connected to this heavy dissociation I experience all the time. It's a bunch of interconnected problems in my brain that's incurable and won't improve.

As for my childhood, I was definitely also a "People Pleaser", but more in the role of the Class Clown. Not that I was bullied, but more that I was, let's say, "Inherently Funny", and autism leads to some... Interesting situations at times. But in terms of "Real connection & friends", hard no, especially latter on when I needed it the most.

Also, identity problems, and defects with this "Self" property, I guess? I place that cluster of my experience under "Dissociation", I think that work would be useful to express these issues and understand them for you.

From my perspective, we seem eerily similar to each other. We could talk in DMs if you want.

 

[MythicalCreatures]

Autism being seen as the 'trendy' thing, where people who are clearly not autistic are treating it as an outfit is so annoying. Others who are neurotypical I don't think understand how insensitive it is.

 

[cylus46]

I truly despise the whole "sillyfication" of all mental illnesses that is currently happening online. Especially with autism, since it's done nothing but ruin my life. Of course there are people who say it is simply apart of them and no big of a deal, I am happy those people are able to live like that. However for me it truly is an illness, something alienating me from all of humanity.

I used to be a huge people pleaser starting from elementary school, or as long as I can remember. I would mask and be a completely different person depending on who I'm talking to. Back then I used to also study the personalities of anime characters I liked and would build parts of it into my own mannerisms. This all lead to me having my first existential crisis around the age of 9. I did not know who I truly was, what thing I liked, what things I forced myself to like, what my actual dislikes are etc. I knew nothing about myself, and to this day I believe I still haven't figured myself out.

I struggle a lot with heavy memory loss, however I feel that back then I used to be pretty close to an actual human, like everyone else. I don't know what the trigger was for change, if it is related to the constant act I would play, or if it is something else entirely. Either way, I am no longer able to feel empathy. I've tried mentioning this to multiple people, but I always get the same response. "It is simply because of your autism, you feel things different compared to other people." But I am no fool. I know the difference between viewing the world a different way and simply missing something. This lack of empathy makes me feel like an asshole, I know how to comfort people, however I can only offer logical solutions to people, which comes with it's own set of problems.


Pretending to be human, a normal person like everyone, gets more exhausting day by day. I laugh at jokes I feel nothing about, I talk about my "likes" and "dislikes" I truly do not care about. And everyday I feel this act is coming closer to it's end. I've stopped pretending with a lot of things, but that has only made me realize I'm getting closer to "living" as a walking corpse day by day. Wouldn't it be better to just die at this point? It's the easiest solution. Unfortunately, I have a very close bond to my mother though. And supplies are hard to get where I am.

I just don't know what to do. I wish I had someone who simply told me how to live my life, so I would not have to engage with such thoughts. At the end I think the mindless day routine with no social interaction is most comfortable for me.

Sorry if this is a bit incoherent.

I relate to parts of this so hard. Im not autistic Atleast I don't think I am, my siblings are but so far people (therapist, friends, and me based off research) theroizes I might have either cptsd or bpd. I get the "pretending to be human" and I always give logical solutions too! But I feel empathy tho it also feels like I don't care at the same time...like my best friends dog died, i can understand logically that's a bad and sad thing and I can imagine what they feel but at the same time I don't feel like I'm actually feeling it or feeling for them...maybe it's like my brain telling me this is logically how you should feel and so emotionally i try to imagine that feeling into existence instead of actually just feeling it.

It also leading to me only being able to give logical solutions. Even understanding emotions people pride me on being able to do but in reality I just think so logically about things that their problems seem irrational or not factually problems worth blowing out of proportion. I do my best to steer them into a logical sense which fixes most of their problems and they look at me like I'm some emotional wizard when in reality I just make them think logically and i frame it in a way that caters to their emotional response.

Anyways all this logical way of viewing things is my greatest strength in some cases but also my greatest weakness. Because sad thing is im not a robot and I struggle to regulate my emotions and while I can logic my way out of other people's emotions and problems I can't do my own.
Because emotions (especially mine) are inherently illogical and I try to solve my own emotional problems with logic and it just will never work but it's the only way I know how to solve problems. Leading me to feel stuck and frozen, unable to grow or better myself.