14^th of July 2019

Hi A.

So I missed the first deadline on this blog. And I feel terrible about it. The week was just so busy. Lots of phone calls and I’m still getting settled in to the new apartment. But I’m committed to starting this up. Even if it is a few days late.

I hope you are doing well. I hope the upcoming vacation with your family will be a success. I look forward to hearing about it when you get back home.

I wrote something last week. It might not be the best first letter for this site, but I needed to write it, and I still feel like sharing it.

The last month has been hard. As you know I just moved into this great new apartment.
Weeks of packing, of getting rid of the things I don’t need or won’t have room for. The weekend of moving and the last two weeks of getting settled into the new place have been tough. The good kind. The kind where you work hard and accomplish something. Also bad hard, where all my symptoms has acted up and my mom had a meltdown and took it out on me. She apologised but still left me with a lot of bad feelings.
But mostly I am writing to tell you about a thing I don’t even know if I am allowed to call a problem. A thing that has been a different kind of hard.

I have felt so lonely.
And before you start blaming yourself and all that stuff, let me just cut you off and call you out on that bullshit and tell you that it is not your fault and not your responsibility. It is my thing and it has nothing to do with you. Let me have my feelings in peace and stop trying to make it about your own failings. You did not let me down. You took care of your health. And that is very important to me.
But if this writing thing with us have to work I have to be allowed to tell you the truth. I have to be allowed to write what I feel. And I know you. I know how you have been programmed to think and internalise everything around you, especially other people’s pain. And I cannot do this writing thing with you if I have to worry about that. So I’m gonna call you out. I’m gonna be hard. And I am listening to the times you told me that you hate when people treat you like you are fragile. You are not. And getting called out on the wrong thought patterns is important to breaking the cycle. And now I’m gonna write as unapologetic as I can about my loneliness, fully expecting you to not take it personal and not blaming yourself.

I feel lonely.
Not because no one is there for me. Not because no one cares. But because no one has the time to share the good news of this new apartment, the good energy and the good days that comes along with it.

There were mice in the old apartment. And something that I hope was mice and not rats, made noice in the walls. Mostly at night. And it made it impossible to sleep sometimes. And too many bad things happened in that old apartment. Too many bad memories. And I can’t even remember if it ever felt like home.

I had given up on moving and finding a nice place to live. I know that was the depression talking, but still. I felt like it didn’t matter. I didn’t really feel like I deserved better. And that was hard. And I didn’t know how to tell anyone I felt like that. I didn’t believe I would get better, my depression and anxiety and PTSD takes up so much space and there is no help to get. And I lost hope. All hope. Of a better future and of ever being able to live the life I want. And then I started thinking why bother. I’ll always be a burden to everyone. Maybe I deserve to live with the mice (I so hope i was mice and not rats)

But this week I moved out of a terrible apartment. An apartment where I was raped multiple times and exposed to a lot of emotional and sexual abuse, an apartment where I have not felt safe or at home in so long. Where I have not been able to sleep because of the mice in the walls (and the nightmares) To a smaller but nicer apartment. It has a great balcony. The bathroom and kitchen are nice. Sloping walls that make it nice and cozy (even if it isn’t ideal for someone who has a lot of books and now have very little wall space for book shelves). My bedroom/living room is beginning to feel like home. By now I have found room for my books. All of this is good. And it makes me happy.

There has been a lot of good energy in moving. In the getting out of the old place. Getting rid of things I no longer need was also good, even though it was hard and made harder by the fact that I moved to something smaller and had to say goodbye to things I really like.

It was also stressfull and overwhelming. It was a big change and a lot of smaller changes and adjustments and a lot of doing things on a tight schedule. All of which is difficult as an autistic person. But I did it.

And then I was left with all this great new energy, in this new place, being just a little proud of the work I had done to get there. And all I wanted to do was share it. With my amazing friends. I wanted to invite someone over for dinner in my new kitchen. I wanted to drink sodas on the balcony with someone. I wanted to show off the bookcase and coffee table my brother build for me. When I decided to move, having guests were an important part of how I envisioned my new home.

Most of all I just wanted to share the good energy I was feeling. In part to make it last longer. But also because I know how much I rely on the people around me to get through the bad days. And I have so many bad days. And that is hard. For all of us. So I wanted to share that for once I had good news and a few good days and no one is there to share it with me. No one has time to talk to me, no one can come by and see this new place that I am hoping will soon feel like home. No one is there to have dinner I my new kitchen, or drink sodas on the balcony. No one is there to call and tell how happy I am to not live with mice or rats in the walls keeping me up at night.

I know every one of my amazing friends would pick up their phone and talk to me. I have some amazing friends (you included). Friends who never hesitate to tell me to call if I need it. Friends who show up for me in so many ways when I feel like everything is collapsing around me. Everyone of my friends will be there when I have a crisis. Everyone of my friends know what it means to be in that kind of situation and all of them care about me and all of them will be there is I need it.

And all of my friends either have problems of their own or work or education that takes up all their energy and I know they take out valuable time in order to be there for me. And I know how much they give and how great it is of them to always be there when I need it.

Please know that I am so grateful to all of you for everything you do for me.

And I am grateful and aware of how privileged and lucky I am. I really do have amazing friends who are there for me when I need it. And everyone of you always tells me to always reach out when it gets bad. And it is bad a lot. And you are all there a lot.

I know. Any problem that has to do with a good day is a luxury problem in our line of living. But still. This loneliness hurt so much. Because it’s not like I am alone. My great amazing friends are all there. If it all falls apart. If I really need it. If it’s life or death.

But what if it’s just life? What if it’s just… living? What if I just need someone here to help me make a few good days into a lot of good days? What if I am not on the verge of suicide, but just really want to share that today I’m not hurting?

I don’t want a life of knowing everyone is there for me only when it is bad. I want someone to share the good days with too.

I want someone in my life who is just as willing to show up for the good days and help make them great as they are to show up on the bad days and make them suck a little less.

And I always knew that the good days fuelled by moving and the newness of this would die out. But it’s died out a little too soon. I couldn’t run on that forever. And the feeling of loneliness burned that fuel a lot quicker than I expected. Because I somehow forgot to calculate this loneliness into the equation. I felt so sad and lonely and unable to ask for any more. Most people barely even answer. Not that any of these people wouldn’t drop everything and call me if I was in crises. It’s just that this isn’t a crisis, this isn’t an emergency. This is just me being lonely and wishing I had someone to share this with.

As I write this I realise that I have no one listed in my phone as my emergency contact. I don’t think my mom is the person I would want to call in an emergency and I don’t know who else to put. Maybe my brother, but he has his own family to take care of.
But more than the lack of an emergency contact I realise I also need the opposite. A non-emergency contact. Someone I can call without it being an emergency or crisis and who is willing to step up and be present for that.

Since I wrote this last week, I’ve had some contact with friends. And it helped a lot. Reading it through now I wanted to acknowledge that I am not totally isolated even when I am in not crisis. But the overall theme is still relevant. This is not the first time in my life I have felt lonely in the middle of good things happening, because I feel like a lot of people around make me feel like if it isn’t an emergency it isn’t that important or a priority. And that makes me feel like I am not am priority. I know you all are there. I know you want to be. I know that this piece of writing isn’t the objective truth. But it was how I felt at the time. And I think this is the kind of space I want us to have in out letters.

I care about you a lot A. You matter to me. And I miss talking to you. I’ve also wanted to share this good news in my life with you. Please take that with you from this letter. That you have been missed and that there are good days worth sharing, And I want to share my good days with you. If you can. If you have the energy and the time. And if you want to.

Looking forward to hear from you
Jace