How do you know you’re enjoying yourself? What if you’re doing what everyone else thinks is fun but hating it? Or you’re doing something you love but everyone else thinks you’re a total sad act? If you’re not particularly psychologically robust – which might be because you’ve spent most of your life undiagnosed autistic – then you might struggle not to make comparisons between what the world considers “right” and what you actually do. Which leads on nicely to the fear of failure and not being a “proper” person that can come so easily to an autistic. I’ve wrote about this yesterday in relation to birthdays – do you do what society thinks you should or make your own life easy but fear what you’re missing? Or do you lament not what you’re missing but the fact that you don’t actually miss it? In iambic pentameter shamelessly ripping off Shakespeare?
Shall I compare myself to thee? I may,
I fear, find you fit in and I do not.
You do the things we “should” and fill your day
With socialising, being quite a lot
Like human beings “ought” to be, I know.
I try to fit in but I act a part.
When shall autistic traits all go?
And leave me in the whirl and not apart
From markers of success in life like friends
And parties, extraversion all that’s good?
Alas I can’t – I’m me – there’s no amends
Will make me live my life as people “should”.
So long as people live and eyes can see
I’ll feel that you are better far than me.
Sorry for the slight downer there but it really is a phenomenon that people like me can try to make ourselves happy with what works for “normal” people, find it doesn’t work, yet regret not being the kind of person who would enjoy such things…
Autistic Civil Servant 