I would like to be different. I would like to FEEL different. I am tired. so tired of all of these patterns that funnel downward. Each time i briefly think, "well, i tried everything i could. i was honest, i was sincere, i can't control how other people respond to that."
And that might be true a few times, for a few people in your life. Everyone has conflicts, if you don't, your a pushover or a people pleaser and likely spent much of your life being taken advantage of by others you want the approval of.
I understand that. I've struggled as an autistic man to know what the right road to travel is, should i mask, keep all my connections to others very shallow and surface depth, or should i unmask, and be my sincere entire self and hope it does kill them?
see, i knew in my 20's for certain i was not like others, and came to think of myself as radioactive. People would ask me for my insight and i would warn them not to ask me. If they kept it up i would tell them. I would tell them all i saw about them, about the issue they had, answer their questions. Most of the time that would just cause them to break. I was a mirrored surface reflecting the deepest fears and insecurities they had, and now they knew that i saw them. Tears usually followed, or brash flailing attempts at strength, a defensive reaction, "Who the fuck are you anyways? What the fuck do you know?!" I'd heard that response so many times it became a running joke for me. Not a funny one mind you, just another dagger sticking out of the flesh. I'd become accustomed to being abused, being kicked, being bullied, being shit on. I walked through my landscapes like something scarred and mangled survivor protagonist from mad max. There's so much more to tell but you get the jist.
Radioactive. Or gravity warping. Those in my presence for too long tended to get poisoned or crushed. They had to flee for their own safety.
It's still the same today.
I meet people, get invited into a group briefly, get comfortable, keep the mask up, and underneath it's disguise i am cool, confident, charming, interesting, a sparkling stone and gifted conversationalist, a gem, and standout, i breath life into things. When the mask slips, things turn. I can't really explain to you in a way that does it justice, honestly. It's happened so many times and in the same way that i can't even really understand it anymore. I've come through the entire thing and out the other side in such a way that the data stream makes perfect sense and then becomes gibberish again.
They love the mask. The Thing that lurks underneath, not so much.
You see eventually, this creature that i keep in writing, infinite lives in millions of lines of text have poured out of me like endless rains for decades. The man i AM comes out in these words, but remains a glinting shadow behind my heterochromic eyes. Perhaps one hides my self, the other projects my mask outward. Sometimes that man breaks free, and speaks. He speaks his feeling in run on sentences that baffle and confuse. He casually says things like: "It's as if the 3 fates decreed "whatever suspicions you harbor towards people will always come to pass" and I must sit alone for eternity under Cassandra's curse."
and people grow still. The entire chat thread ends and never resumes. People leave and start a new one with him. The calls stop coming. No one knows what happened, or why, but they are upset, they are disquieted. They want it to stop. My honesty, my vulnerability, causes unease, and confusion.
Confused at the notion that THIS is what i really am.
Not cool. Not superhuman. Not confident. Not charming.
I am desperate. Lonely. Alien. Spilling out over the sides and scrambling to keep it all in. Sadly, i am earnest.
I always imagine some idealized scenario, wherein i am embraced, that the others will show empathy and find my honesty and vulnerability brave. They simple find it tiresome. They didn't want a feeling, breathing, living, thing,
they wanted a bright shiny toy to impress them and their friends.
Watch him astound with language and stories and singing and light, enjoy the show and go home to your comfortable life.
No one understands what it is like to be dehumanized quite as well as someone who can't only PASS as human for a few moments. For someone who lives such a singular and strange life that no one can seem to muster the effort to attempt to relate. They just take what they can, and move on.
"All eyes turned up to the heroWorn out self-abusive circus freak
There's one thing that you might not know:
There'll be another messiah right here next week"
I'm finally there everyone.
I just want to be normal.
