Expository Exhaustion

One of the biggest reoccurring problems in my life having to do with my disorder, is directly related to having to talk about it.

If your similar to  most any sort of person at all, chances are you have run into the problem of having to explain something to someone that just does not understand. I feel like it's a relatively ubiquitous experience. 

Most of the time, when it comes to social things ("You shouldn't say that.") That guy is me.  But all the other times, for ME, that guy/girl is YOU.

It happens to everyone. You try to explain your political position to someone who inquires, but they really only asked to be polite and wish you would shut up. You get dragged into a discussion about finances, or politics, or pop culture, or *sigh* RELIGION, and feel sweat beading and rolling down your forehead and that familiar warmth in your throat that reminds you of your growing exasperation. 

No manner of explanation seems to be good enough. Be it carefully thought out and rigorously fact checked, or emotional and profoundly felt, or hastily babbled out over too much caffeine in one of many government approved meth dens (starbucks) dotting the landscape.  

I hate the cliche' of it all. I HATE that the incredibly STUPID cliche' comes back around here and dominates.

"You just don't understand."

The statement is a non statement, a non sequitur. By itself, it means nothing. It is tendering your resignation to the futility of trying to codify the ineffable.   It is a face contorted by depth of emotion and words reaching it's finale via burst blood vessels in the temple and both eyes, achieving nothing, before the curtain falls, and the audience shuffles out, irretrievably vexed, and there is nothing either of you could have done to achieve a better result.

Imagine my side of this. Try to empathize with someone who has an obscenely heightened grasp of language, trying to explain WHY that does not mean i am a NORMAL person who is slightly smart with words and what it means to be on the autism spectrum to a person who has a one dimensional understanding  (or no understanding at all) of what autism means.

You would be welled served to walk away from that conversation 10 times out of 10.  It's valueless for both parties.  However social convention dictates i at least try, otherwise it is perceived that i am being some condescending holier then thou asshole, even if i already know the end result.  If you know nothing good can come of it, the logical course is to abstain from the conversation is it not?  I am trapped within illogical precepts that bind me up.

A lose-lose situation for me.  How can this be remedied?  How can i hope to make lemonade from this particular cart of lemons?  I have not yet come to a conclusion. Thus far it seems as though i have two equally unappealing choices:

Disengage utterly. Avoid interaction that leads me into having to have this conversation (lie) to achieve that end (which i am exceedingly bad at, almost completely unable to do) which leaves me feeling sad, lonely, hopeless,and burned out.

Ram my head into a brick wall. Which leads me to this end...  "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result." -Albert Einstein  (note this quote is widely attributed to Einstein, but that is controversial) So. I can keep trying. As my perseverate nature tends to favor, knowing that there is no appreciable end in store for me.  If the numbers are right, then i am .1% and i cannot reasonable expect, as a scientifically minded man, to run into that in my daily travels. It is far more reasonable to assert that i will NEVER run into like minded people, ensuring my two equally unfavorable options remain as my only options. 

This is the difference between someone on the spectrum, and let's say just an antisocial personality.  I WANT friends. Honestly. I enjoy good conversation, it's one of my favorite things in the world. To be challenged, to be stimulated, to have an open and unfettered dialogue and peer into the minds of others.  I don't WANT to be alone, don't strive to be cooped up in my apt and have no friends (which at 31, i still have no lasting friends.) but my condition seems to impart some odd characteristics that disallow these kinds of relationships to form for me.  Of course i have tried my hand at faking, many, MANY times, but those relationships are unfulfilling and ultimately fail.  Eventually the real me coming beaming through the cracks in my expressionless mask and then it always comes back to "I don't like that guy.."   why?   "I don't know."

While having tried a dizzying variety of masks and techniques over my life, when the faking gambits work, they only allow me safe passage so long as i keep my mouth mostly shut.  When i'm honest, and i TRY to explain, well...  it gets old for me is all. The hope, the effort, the disappointing conclusion.  Being fired from every job, being dumped by every date.  All the while just reciting a memorized catalog of what you need to know about me before you know me. Exhausting. For others too, i'm quite certain. It's not as if i'm completely unaware after all this time. I know i have that effect on people.  The word they always used to describe me was "Intense." Which is to say, a catch-all for quite a few veiled negatives.  More accurately i surmise the words they meant were "Overbearing. Frighting. Intimidating. Condescending (i get that a lot), talks to much, asks too many questions, relentless."   To name a few. 

I don't mean to be, "intense." very little of personality is intentional. My mind is ME, there is no separating them. I AM my brain, and i don't believe otherwise. I don't  believe in free-will these days, i believe your conscious mind is a tiny pinhole of light poked into black shades over your eyes and the rest of what you do, want, say, feel, is already decided for you.  I could write 10 pages on the illusion of free-will, but that is another topic. My girlfriend said to me outright "Can you be a little less "You"?"   

The philosophical implications of that request are staggering! Well.. "If you consider the teaching of.,,,"  but seriously, I don't think i can.  I am 1, and i cannot subtract from that. I cannot compartmentalize or meter my personality. I can not be, 80% me or 45% me. I cannot even wrap my head around such a question.  She of course wanted me to be less "Intense" but alas, i am who i am, and i have already spent my entire life having to defend that, having to defend my brain, my personality, things i never had control over or asked for. I can't keep apologizing for what i had no hand in creating, and i'm not sure i can keep explaining.

I know that to stop, is to give up all hope. Admit defeat once and for all, and cut my losses from the human race. How much longer can i make it in this marathon before falling on my face and being dragged until it's finally over?

..........