Tagged With: aspergers

I’m not a people person and i often find myself alone. It takes effort for me to be in a crowd, I struggle with small talk. I think a LOT, about EVERYTHING, and ALL the time yet common sense is something I’ve never grasped. Sometimes I label myself with Asperger’s, but everyone is different and a single label feels like a straight jacket.

I think sometimes being alone is a spiral. You do not see anyone for a day, for two days, for three and it becomes a week. You don’t talk to family for one week then two weeks. When you realize how longs it been it feels an unnerving challenge to “make the effort”. Its easy to spiral down into a cocoon where the world is something you can ignore and switch off with a tv remote.

The thing is we are social animals. I believe there are two things that define us and set us above other animals. Firstly we communicate, more than any other species. We communicate With speech and music, and art and sculpture , with food and even scent. Secondly, we build tools to change and control our world, we see what others have done and create better tools, we combine what we learn from others to make new discoveries and creations. Even when we are alone we may keep a diary to communicate with future selves. Our need to communicate, to share, to give is what makes us human.

Depression and doubt are traps that can effect all of us to greater or lesser degrees at different points in our lives. Medications can help some but I honestly believe that the best medicine is to communicate. It is painful at first like starting to exercise, it may never become easy, but I believe communication is as important as eating and breathing. Communication is about both listening and talking, it is about sharing. Its tempting to push things down, to carry on alone and just “pull ourselves together grow a pair”. I believe that keeping everything pushed down inside ourselves feeds a time bomb that stealthy waits until we cannot contain it any more. You cant force somebody communicate, but you can show them that they can do so safely, bit by bit, day by day.

I keep this blog, to say what i think of the world, to the world. Maybe people will read it, maybe they will agree or maybe they will disagree. Writing this blog it is good for me, it is a release and so much better than letting the thoughts and opinions race around as a storm in my mind. I do not write it to garner sympathy nor praise. I write it to share.

Once or twice in my life I have found people I can fully relax with. I treasure those people. Those people inspire me to try and be that person for somebody else, to let somebody know they are not alone. I still do not like crowds, I still find it relaxing to be alone. I doubt that is ever going to change. But so long as I communicate, as long as I share, then even when I am alone, I am not.