Noise as Reflection

Also, I got to rent a new place, but only want to rent in the same parking zone as my original place. Because I like the zone letter? Because I don't like change?

Landlord just told me to leave because renovations. And sadly, there is no where else to go. Can't go anywhere with this credit and income.

Perhaps the income, but def not the credit number attached to my name.

I kept open a tab that I saw every day for 8 years, about European companies to work with on AI.

That is, of course, now obsolete.

For no particular reason, I am remembering this woman I met 20 years ago.

We liked mostly the same things, we had the same values, and we enjoyed most of our time together.

She was honest about who she was, and how she saw the world, and that was a very cozy feeling, finding that person that also enjoys sitting with to watch a Wong Kar-Wai film and then talk about the feelings that evoked. She enjoyed my weirdness, my very peculiar and idiosyncratic way of looking at the world and finding patterns.

But it was scary, because she was honest, her career was subject to regulation, and therefore the timelines were not subject to change on a whim, and any free time was precious.

So I broke it up.

I broke it up and ended marrying a person that hated my taste in media, hated leaving her small right wing town, enjoyed Sundays at church, but said all the right things that I wanted to hear. We kinda shared some values, but where the most glaring difference was, it was on their approach to the Other.

The one from long ago was respectful of differences, of disabilities, and differences. The one I married was - and is - ableist, disrespectful of those that are not like her, and not surprisingly, unwilling to learn new things that come from those that are not considered as authorities.

People in general were always a random thing, an unknowable void, the reason to read all the books and try to get accepted by someone, the reason I kept beating myself up for not dating the most popular girl in university, and thoroughly complain about it, while unbeknownst to me other 15 women were openly flirting and inviting me to their house at night.

I really thought they wanted to study.

People and their motivations have been a black box, and that’s why I an hypervigilant. And why read all the books about behavior, and all the courses, and listen to the advi9ce of all charlatans.

I want to know why people act the way they do! I can’t understand, a lot of the time, so I observe.

I don’t so much know people as construct a mental database of their emotions, words, actions, and say what I think they need to hear, sometimes to my detriment. But I keep listening.

People, the general absurd mob, is easier to understand; the girl across the cafe furiously flirting with her gay male friend is obvious to me, not so much to themselves. The college guy that is bored with his friend at the cafe is glaringly obvious; the boss sleeping with his subordinate, while shocking, is not really a surprise.

But when people talk to me? I don’t know what to say, or how to feel.

My ex birthday came and went, and I was elated to notice it after the fact, that I am very much not daunted by her absence, and that all things considered, it was better this way.

Until I also noted that I forgot simply because I forgot; i forgot to pay the rent, to take my kid to the doctor, to search for a new job. Things have already overwhelmed me elsewhere, so all things non essential were gone.

I tthink that's what needed right now, not just some "oh you have unresolved trauma" but help getting out of the rut and doing the things I want to do.

Yes, the autistic burnout, the rsd, the paralyzing fear (or whatever you call it), that's all a cause of the inaction, but now, right now, I need to act, to move, to do the ten extremely important tasks to save my loved ones lives, and I can only stare at the wall, drowning in a circle of thoughts and worries.

When I turn tasks into routines they are easy, automatic, needing no thought or agenda, and things get done.

But these ten tasks, projects really, are fucking awful difficult scary, and require doing the same thing day after day after day and that just doesn't happen with me, notwithstanding what I just wrote before.

I had been greyrock with the ex and I for so long that I had forgotten about it.

I hhave known her sociopathic tendencies for a while now, but I didn't realize it was a survival strategy so deeply ingrained that it happened automatically next to her.

My body, though, got tense, and the shoulders started hurting. Which is good: I feel stuff!

A few days ago I saw my reflection in a mirror, and it was not the sharp defined image that I remembered from earlier years.

The photo showed a diffuse cloud where a human was, an outline of my clothes and a shadow where my face would be, eyes dim, three day beard showing, right side of the face melting already, as if by some accident that no one remembers; clothes are either to tight and old, or too big and old, being both gigantic and constricting, with dull colors that blend in a fall scenery, rather smushed into the background and with a distinct limp in my left leg.

The face I remember also had these clothes, both grey asphalt and faded green, like a topiary at a street crossing, yet they fit better, and the face was sharp defined clear inquisitive.

The photos and images see, to move, to take an image of a person almost not here, not moving or going, but disappearing.

My burnout and depression were kicking me, thinking about the ended marriage and wondering about what was that I did or not, and how did I not see the signs and all that rumination. Autistic reaction to trauma is brutal, and the pain has been gnawing at me every day.

However, this weekend my kid had emergency surgery, and his mother didn’t show up for 24 hours, because she was with her boyfriend partying.

Not surprised, but all my rumination has receded now that I have an objective measure of the narcissistic tendencies of that person. Also, it explains the slow process that has been getting to find myself again after years of that.

Why posting here? Be careful of the people you surround yourself with. Her father told me she was bad, I found some online writing of her saying that she could pose as a good girl and deceive people, but I did not want to believe that.

There’s something here that doesn’t make sense. However, I have been so conditioned to accept abuse and drama that I can’t really pick it up.

On nights where I just turn off all the lights and sit all by myself in a corner of this tiny apartment, not doing anything, just living without a distraction or a computer in my face, somehow the sense comes to me that the clear abuse and toxicity of my current job is a signal to run far away, that the long lost love that my ex used to profess was also a cover for her toxic behavior that I didn’t remark about, that the very much painful internalized hate that I repeat to myself every day is something that I have learned and thus can change, and then.

The ex-wife is a toxic person, so I avoid her.

Recently we had to talk, but seeing her and listening to her plans made me tense, armouring, preparing for the next dangerous or expensive idea, the challenge or the damaging proposal.

But suddenly I remembered that it is not my game anymore, and that whatever she has planned does not involve me; the shoulders relaxed, the pain ceased, the breathing was easier.

And the fact that her disdain for neurodiverse people, very much internalized ableism, hurts as well (it hurts?) makes it so much more interesting.

"oh no where is my wedding ring?"

instead of spending on amazon to get the serotonin, i need to get a tehrapist to deal with the trauma.

I know I have autism, and it is not a problem: it is part of who I am and how I interact with the world.

The problem are not the people that over the many decades have told me that I am weird, and that they love me for it.

And I found myself seated at the table with a bunch of mothers, the ones I usually sit with, that are finally acknowledging that all of them have kids in the autistic spectrum, from the gifted one that manages with small meltdowns to the one that is struggling with the school system and lack of support.

And it clicked why is it that I sit with them: they see my behavior and they are probably used to autistic excursions in stories and special interests, and are gentle when suggesting ideas on dealing with my lack social awareness.

This is not the first time. All my life I have been surrounded by the people who have loved relatives in the spectrum, and usually these friends provide a safer space where I can say my most unhinged things, and they are patient and understanding.

At work, I have found out what we all had in common.

At our exploitative workplace, with abusive bosses and horrible practices, and all of us, unable to leave this horrible place. None of us able to defend ourselves with words. All of us aware of the pain.

All of us are neurodivergent, very clearly. And all of us had an emotionally abusive military father.