31^st of May 2020

Dear reader

This week I have felt how difficult for me it is to be there for friends who are at a different stage in working with themselves. I hate that. I want to be good at it and I think I was good at it. And that has lead me to think that being good at it is somehow important to who I am and who I want to be. And that is something I’ll need to work on, because the way I used to define that isn’t working for me.
I’m beginning to feel resentful at the people who are not working on the things that are absolutely necessary for my own growing. Like stopping negative self-talk. I’m never going to get better at accepting myself and liking myself, if I allow myself to think and say bad things about myself. And like most people I know I can say things to myself that I would never allow anyone else to say or that I wouldn’t even think about others. So the last few years I have been making an effort to not allow that kind of thinking. And I feel better. It’s not over and done. But it’s an amazing work in progress that makes a real difference.
And then it gets tough to listen to my friends saying awful things to themselves. Like calling their feelings and reactions stupid. Instead of owning whatever it is they think is stupid. I still haven’t heard it them do, say or express something stupid, they are just being human and having feelings.
The problem for me is that when I hear it I have two reactions. Reaction one is to do the same I do with my own negative self-talk and that is banishing it. Calling out and making it clear that that kind of talk isn’t allowed. But that isn’t what my friends want to hear. They are not working on this the same way I am, and I do not feel like that response will be seen as helpful. And I have to remember that. I have to remember their mindset and how I used to have it too. And that is hard to do, because in a way it puts me right back where I started, I am so strongly reminded of all the things I am working hard to get away from. And in a way it hurts. It peels back all my progress and asks me to throw it a way just for a moment, so I won’t have an overreaction to my friend calling herself stupid.

Another friend once compared it to trying to quit an addiction but only having friends who are also addicts. I have no such experience and don’t know if it’s an acceptable comparison. But it feels so true. And it’s not just negative self-talk. It’s being in abusive relationships, having bad or no boundaries, problems with parents and so on.
I know we are all doing things on our own terms and that none of us can be expected to grow and make progress on someone else’s timetable. But I feel lonely and lost in my own experience. I feel like I cannot share the good experiences I have and I worry asking my friends to completely stop their negative self-talk in front of me is too much to ask. Even if my boundary really is there and I think it would help all of us.

It’s hard watching people care about not having good boundaries and getting hurt over and over again, it’s hard trying to give advice and be kind and patient with them (and I know they need kindness and patience, and a few pointers about where to start), when every time this comes up I get a huge emotional setback.

I know how much I cannot push them or force anything. This is growth. It happens when they are ready and when there is room in their life to work on this. I can point them in the right direction, but I cannot do any more. And trying to do anything else will very likely backfire and make things worse. I know this. I’ve been there. And it wasn’t even that long ago.
I just don’t know how to empathise and care and meet them where they are, without (temporarily) erasing all my own progress to stop myself from shouting at them. And me wanting to shout at them isn’t about them. It’s because I feel like I just did this, and just found the right path, and just got away from that mindset that was killing me. And here they are, bringing it all back, asking me to look back, and all I want to do is move forward.

I probably need a boundary about helping people in this situation. Because I might be a few steps ahead of my friends in this, but I have not reached any kind of destination. And I also feel too much when I talk to them about their problems. I get to invested. It’s like I have no off switch, no boundaries. I feel like a sponge, absorbing all the pain and worry. And I’ve always had a saviour complex, I want to save everyone, I want to heal all the hurting, I feel the need to fix everything, apparently especially the things that aren’t mine to fix. And it takes an active effort to disengage and not take on everything in the world as my problem. That’s the main reason I don’t watch the news. I can’t handle knowing how broken the world is and how little I can do to fix it.

When a friend calls and need help, advice, a listening ear, I want to be there. And I don’t want to do that by halves. So I do. I listen and I care and I am in this with them (as much as possible). But when I put down the phone, or send them home, those feelings are stuck in my body for days. Sometimes weeks or months. Worry and pain. And I walk around with the situation on my mind trying to problems solve it all. I have to remind myself this isn’t mine to carry. I am not helping anyone by not letting it go. And I can push the thought away. With force and by intentionally letting them go when they pop up. But the way my body holds on to the feelings is harder to work on. I just feel too much. Too much that isn’t mine to feel and that makes my life harder. I have to remind myself over and over that these feelings, this thing that happens in my body, it’s not about me, it’s not mine to carry. I’ve gotten better at doing other things right after such a call. So I release the things I feel as soon as possible. But I need better boundaries about that kind of calls. I need better boundaries in general.

I want to be there for my friends. I want to support them. I want to make sure they have what I didn’t have and don’t have, the things that would have helped me or the things I still feel I need. I try to be that for them. But for a few of them I feel like the on-call therapist, the only life line. And as much as I cannot stop myself from being the supportive advisor, I need a change. This isn’t working for me. Especially because the people who do this the most cannot offer me what I need in return. It feels one-sided and like I am giving more than I have. None of my needs are being met, except my need to be needed, and at this point in my life I would prefer to that to go both ways. And I would prefer to not drain myself and to not have to undo my own progress again and again to have that.

For some reason I feel like I am ungrateful and like I am being unfair and unkind to these people. They are caring and kind and it’s not their fault that what they have to give doesn’t fit with what I need. And I feel lonely and expendable. And here are people who I care about, who care about me, who want to spend time with me and who needs something I can provide and they ask me for it. So why do I still walk away feeling like none of my needs are being met? Why do I feel so fundamentally incompatible with people this warm and kind and who want to give? What is it I am looking for?

My first priority about this is figuring out how to not absorb all those feelings from others. Then I probably need some conversations about what I need and how to make room for that too. I know I have really bad boundaries, but I am working on it.

I am not entirely sure how to finish this letter. Except to say thank you for your time.

Jace.

24^th of May 2020

To whoever reads this

I don’t think I have a point today. I’m just writing because it feels important to keep writing these letters. Or maybe important is the wrong word. I feel commited to writing them. And not writing them feels like defeat, like failure, like letting someone down (probably just myself).

At the moment I am hoping any writing is better than no writing. I’m not sure that is true, but I think I need to keep going even though I m not sure I matters.

Mostly nothing matters at the moment. Depression is back in full (more or less). I manage to hold myself up when someone asks something of me. But collapse the second I return home and there is no one demanding anything.

I think slot about having choices. I believe I have more of them than I usually think and feel. I believe I am not as trapped as I feel. And I can try to focus on what I can choose and not hold that over the times in my life I didn’t have the options I have now. A lot of the things that felt and feels out of my control is because of trauma and fear. And those things are real. I just don’t want to be controlled my my trauma or my fear anymore. And I am not sure how to do that. But I am trying. And for me a big part of that is reminding myself of all the options that are there, behind the trauma or on the other side of fear.

I want a nuances take on this. On choices and options and what we can control. And that is difficult. I feel like always slip into either there is no limits only the ones we believe or I am powerless and limited because of reasons. And I don’t think any of these are really true. The things that holds us back are real and true. But so much of it can be overcome if we are able to see the way through fear, trauma, or if we are able to build new ways. So often I have been surprised to realise there was always options I didn’t know about, because I had been conditioned to see the world and myself a certain way. And now I am fighting to free myself from the restraints that in the grand scheme of things doesn’t seem that significant or real. So I can keep finding more options and be more free.

But it’s not just that easy. It’s not as simple as I would have liked. So many barriers are more real than most people would like to admit. And often it can be hard do look at other people’s lives and understand the way they a limited by things we cannot see. But the limits are still a reality in their lives.

I don’t under my depression’s power over me. The way I crumple and all the good seeps out of the world when I need it most. But it is so real. And I have to admit that willpower and stubbornness will not overpower it. Not even with a world of patience.

I used to think that I could do anything. In part because I am so stubborn. It always felt like such a beautiful gift I had been given. And on top of that I am also incredibly patient. And I used to believe that combination could do anything. The stubbornness to keep going and keep fighting and the patience to wait for a result. Now I am beginning to understand there are things no amount of stubbornness will ever let me achieve.

Depression is one of those things that I cannot fight with stubbornness and patience alone. And I am sort of out of patience with it anyway.

I’ve been allowed to se my family more. Which is good. My niece has grown so much. She is 7 months old and I haven’t seen her in almost 4 of them. I got to help my brother in his garden. He gave (and the kids) his wife a greenhouse for mother’s Day and he had tried to make the garden very nice. He also started construction on a treehouse for his kids. It’s not much more than a platform right now, but it’s still amazing.

Last time I was there I spend some time on that platform. Wishing I had brought a book. The weather was nice that day. And my nephew was playing with the kids next door, my parents were having s conversation with my brother and sister-in-law and I got tired of just sitting there waiting for nothing to happen. So I chose to spend some time in treehouse.

I lay down and look up. The sky was so blue. And somewhere high above me a bird of prey was circling, gliding. I tried to figure out what kind of bird it was but failed. It was to far away.

The sun was so warm on my black pants. Almost unbearable. The wind was so soft. A I could hear birds and quite conversation. And for a while everything was ok. Not great or wonderful. But a calm quiet ok. There is no joy there, just a kind lifting of the pain. It’s the kind of ok that would be easy to overlook. The kind that saves your life when you are depressed, because it reminds you what it’s like to look at the world without the lense of depression colouring everything.

I had time there. But I wasn’t done drinking all the calm in before my mom called and asked me if I wanted to go home. I needed the ride. And as I got in the car something felt not right. And on the short (10-15 minute) car ride home all the calm and peace I felt in the unfinished treehouse slipped away. It crumpled and collapsed. And I felt I happen in real time. Something that usually happens over weeks and months. The calm and quiet “I’m ok” giving way to unbearable pain.

And then I was back at the apartment. The apartment that still feels new and amazing. I still really like living in it and am still so happy about all the great solutions I found to make it feel more like home. And it does feel a little like home. And yet, in this time where staying home is so important I find myself hating being there. I cannot stand sitting there having nothing to do and being alone for this much time. And there is nowhere to go and even if there were I really shouldn’t go anywhere. I just sit there and wonder what to do to make my life in any way meaningful, and fail and fail and fail. There is no meaning. I find myself avoiding the balcony, it became hard to take good care of myself. I don’t want to eat and my sleep has been bad for a few weeks now too. The apartment doesn’t feel like a place I relax and feel calm and home and recharge. It feels like the place I am forced to be where there is nothing to do (except stare into a screen and that just makes my mental health worth at the moment). And still I remember how privileged I am in this time. To have this great a home, to be able to see my family a little, to go or walks and get out a little here and there. And in that perspective I’m doing ok. My depression just doesn’t care about the reasons, it just found a new hold on me and isn’t letting go.

I didn’t tell my parents how bad I felt on the car ride back. They would listen or understand. And no one talks in that car. My parents never really talk. They exchange information. But no one in my family has real deep meaningful conversations.

If I am in the car with my mom (even if it’s for hours) and try to have a conversation shell shut it down. Not directly. But by not engaging. Giving short one word answer and seeming indifferent. If I don’t drop it after an attempt or two she will actually reach out and turn the radio up. The ultimate sign that talking isn’t tolerated. I find the action hilarious. It would be sad or hurtful in any other context I think. But with her in this situation, I find it funny. She can’t bear to have a conversation, to sit with something, to risk an emotion. So she flees from it by creating noice between us so we can’t hear each other. I want so desperately to connect. She is so desperately afraid of that connection. And it’s all summed up and communicated clearly in that one small action, turning up the radio.

I wrote last that I might write something about emotions at some point. Thinking of my mom and her inability to accept emotions makes me think that it might be worth doing at some point.

I felt like I said good things today. Maybe not great. Maybe not what anyone needed. But I felt like writing it wasnt waisted or stupid.

I hope wherever you are that you are ok. I hope you find good ways to take care of yourself. Thank you for your time.

Jace

18^th of May 2020

Dear reader

I’m very intelligent. I do not say this as anything fact. I have been told this for as long as I can remember. I learned the word intelligent when I was very young. I remember asking my mom what it meant because people used it about me all the time. I suppose I wanted to know what they were saying about me, and it wasn’t fair they used words I hadn’t learned yet. My mom told me it means clever and I asked her why people didn’t just say clever then. But I never got an answer.

I’ve always asked too many questions. Always wondered too much about how the world and people work. My parents gave me this collection of kids encyclopaedias when I was little. Each one had a different subject. The first one I got was about the weather. I was in kinder garden and was unafraid of thunder. So after my parents had read that particular book to me, the adults at the kindergarden realised I could calm the scared kids. So when ever there was thunder they bought me around to the scared children and I explained calmly and scientifically that thunder is just hot air and cold air colliding up in the sky and that creates a lot of energy.
My favourite of those books were the one about the dinosaurs. It’s the most worn or whenever I open it I still find little paper pieces I put inside to show my parents what pages to read next ( it was all of them, I wanted to know everything). I knew all the names and when they lived and was so fascinated by these extinct creatures. The only thing that managed to push this interest aside was when my dad (who after his accident when back to school) came home and started telling me about the universe and the stars and planets. I was seven at the time and in absolute awe of the solar system, the Milky Way and galaxies.

In school I loved math. It was the only subject the just made sense to me. I understood it immediately and I still find it fun. I know a lot of people has a very different experience with math, but for me it was the best. I wasn’t challenged enough and that I find very sad. I have a feeling of lost potential, because all the teaching was standardised and my teacher had to teach 20 kids who needed different approaches and different challenges. And I often think this is how we lose some kids and waste others.

Later in school I loved physics and chemistry. But I never got biology. It didn’t really make sense. I had a hard time with the starting premise for everything in biology, which seems to be that everything wants to be alive. And no one could tell me why. Physics and chemistry made so much more sense. They were more logical and simple and a lot more like math. I know that physics gets a lot less logical and simple if you learn more than I did at the levels I learned it on, and I wonder how I would have coped with that. And I wonder if I would have liked biology if someone had tried to teach me about it from a starting point of dinosaurs, evolution and skeletons, and not all the other stuff that never made any real sense to me and never caught my interest.

I promise I have a point to all this. I just have a few more things before I get to it.

At 14 a friend and I look the mensa IQ test online and had fun with analysing and talking about the questions. I wanted the real test someday so bad. But you couldn’t get it till you were 18 unless a special psychologist did it, and there wasn’t really a reason for that. I just wanted to know what my IQ was. So back then I wrote it on my 18^th birthday wishlist for my parents. Who ignored it. My dad later told me he thought I would be sad if my IQ wasn’t high enough, but he never asked me how I felt or why. If he had I would have told him I just wanted to know. In part because being call intelligent and clever all the time got a little tiring. Especially when it was used by everyone around me to tell me I could do anything they wanted me to and that I was never allowed to have subjects that were difficult or didn’t make sense to my very logical mind. So I kind of just wanted to know if I was as clever as people told me and if I wasn’t I had the papers to prove it when I was tired of hearing it.

I realise now what a privileged it is to grow up being told you are intelligent till you get tired of hearing it. Just like I now understand that I was very very privileged to be told I was beautiful so much. Back then I just felt it was a useless thing to be told over and over again. What was I supposed to do with beautiful? How was beautiful going to help me accomplish anything? Intelligent was something I could use and do something with, and I think I feel this great big feeling of loss and wasted potential because it was such a big part of how I defined myself.
I was called nice a lot too. A lot. A little, pretty, blond girl who always did what she was told, always acted nicely and talked politely. I was a teachers dream. And the even the other kids at school (who I wasn’t friends with because I was too weird and didn’t understand the social rules) called me nice very often. It never felt like a compliment. It felt like another useless label I didn’t know what to do with. Treating other people with dignity and respect, listening to teachers who were just trying to do their job of helping us learn, those things seemed to me to be ordinary things we should all do. And here is was getting the word nice thrown at me like a gold star for good behaviour all the time. It didn’t make sense and somehow that word felt very limiting. I’m not sure why, but it did. Maybe again because it was a word that didn’t leave room for mistakes, being human or having feelings of my own.
But mostly people thought I was intelligent. And then I started to think so too.

I finally got the mensa test in my 20’s. It was a gift from a friend. We took the official test together. And I was sick and on antibiotics, so I was told I could reschedule if I wanted. But I felt well enough to take the test (I decided I could always redo it if it went bad). It was so fun. It was an amazing challenge and whatever the result would be I walked away having had a good experience. When the letter finally arrived I really didn’t care about the result. And yet there was a thrill of happiness to discover my IQ is high enough to join mensa (I haven’t had the money for it yet, but it’s something I hope to prioritise when I get a job).
I was so happy with the result. I was happy to have taken the test. I felt once again like I finally had words that described a part of me I had always had and always known, but didn’t understand or know how to get to know better till that moment. I wanted to talk about it and share my happiness and tell the world I finally understood myself better, but I didn’t. Because I kept worrying it would be wrong and that I was somehow being unkind or rude by saying that. I didn’t want to be those things so I didn’t.

I don’t walk around thinking other people are stupid. I know that IQ measures one kind of intelligence and that there are many other kinds as well (if the model I learned about is still relevant). I recognise that everyone has skills, perspectives and experiences that are very worthwhile and that differs greatly from my own. And that is amazing. I am often in awe of the skills I see people have that I know I don’t and that I would never be great at even if I put lots of effort into learning it. And maybe that appreciation of other abilities comes from being in a family I don’t have a lot in common with. My brother and I are as different as we can be. He would never pick up a book, but he is very good at talking to people. He is great at using his body, he likes exercise. I am the reader who doesn’t know how to talk to people and feel like a foreigner in my own body. My mom is the most practical human being I have ever met. The way she approaches the world and tasks is so strange to me, and I try to learn everything I can from her. She folds fitted sheets and can always pack all the groceries perfectly in one shopping bag no matter how much we have bought, seemingly making it bigger on the inside, like some kind of weird time lord technology, I can never replicate, simply by the way she organises it. These are the incredible abilities. Things I value and appreciate and don’t take for granted. I’ve always believed the world had need of different things and that is why we as people are so different and have s different abilities and outlooks on the world. These perspectives are needed.

And I promised there was a point and I’m getting to it now. I know it took a while.

I’ve always been this intelligent, logical, not very good at emotions person. I was always interested in science and math and things that made logical sense and had a right answer. And this week I have been thinking about how my life has taken me down a very different path. A path of emotional intelligence, of making sense of my own and other peoples feelings. A path of kindness and caring (in my friendships). In my work I am doing something linked to science, but it’s biology. How did I end up working with biology? And what happened to my beloved math and chemistry and physics? I’m doing no math at all. I’m actually hoping my future job will contain some communicating. I am talking to friends about their big emotions like depression and trauma and helping them figure out how to cope. And I’m getting good at the emotional intelligence needed to do that kind of thing. And I always work from a place of both kindness and logic. But I am still at a loss. When did this become the thing I used my logic to figure out? How did I end up here? Too many years in therapy? Not enough challenges in math? Too much trauma of my own?

I miss the more pure logic and science and math parts of me. I am confused about when my life became this labyrinth of emotions and making sense of them. Which I am doing very well. But I can’t remember choosing this path. I don’t even think I would have chosen it.

I’m on a good path. And I know there is no turning back. I’m not even sure turning back is what I want to do. I’m not really sure what I want to do. But I’m allowing myself room and time to be confused and a little sad that I am a very different person than I thought I wanted to be.

In case anyone is reading and wondering, I found a way for emotions to make sense. For real. I found a way to understand them and I realised they are not irrational, they are not crazy. They are in fact very logical and very useful. Sometimes they overreact and sometimes they misunderstand things and situations and sometimes they get the time, date, occasion wrong. But I think we all do that sometimes. And honestly emotions are really caring and kind and well-intentioned.´

Maybe I should write something about the function of emotions, but if any reader is curious I’m sure there are plenty of resources online to look up. Or just watch Disney’s Inside Out. It’s a great place to start and a very good movie.
The last thing for today. The thing that really made the emotion thing click for me is this: Emotions are a data set. They tell you something. Being in touch with your feelings gives you access to a lot more date. And making good decisions require a lot of information. And people who shut themselves off from their emotions shuts themselves off from a lot of important information. You don’t need to react to everything the emotions tell you. You don’t need to let them control everything. But having them as a dataset, ready and at hand, is so useful. And that to me is very different from burying them or denying them or being detach from them. I feel like I am more in contact with them than ever before. Because I have finally learned how to listen to what they tell me and let me tell you they are very smart. They can only react to the information they have, and sometimes they get stuff wrong. But that’s why listing to them is so important. You lose nothing by listening. And they usually aren’t mad at you for not doing what they want if they know you listened.
I don’t know if that approach will work for anyone but me. But for me it was a revelation to realise that this is a possibility. And my world feels so much bigger and better and more whole when I don’t shut myself off from my emotions (which never actually worked, they just got louder and more difficult and then they seemed scary instead of helpful).

I hope whoever you are out there that you are safe and healthy and taking good care of yourself and your emotions.  I hope you feel you are in a good path even if it’s not the one you thought you’d be on. Thank you for reading and thank you for your time.

Jace

9th of May 2020

To whoever reads this

My depression is gaining a strong hold on me again. It was never anywhere near gone, but the last week it has been sneaking its way back. It was a slow thing. Almost unnoticeable. I do the work and fight to keep it a bay and yet here I am again. Not knowing why I should get out of bed, why I should cook dinner, why I should do anything. Which is the kind of thoughts that leads me down a path to thoughts like why should I be alive. And suddenly living looks like the worst idea ever. And taking care of myself feels like the opposite of what I should be doing.

And I keep doing the work. I get out of bed and cook dinner, I take a shower, I reach out to the people I can reach out to, I get out of the door and go for walks, I read, I read at the ruin. And none of I brings me any joy or meaning. I am a passenger in my own life, waiting for it to be over. Distracting myself, because being Here feels to painful and impossible.
And that is the problem. I do not want to be distracted. I refuse to be a passenger in my own life. I want to live this life I have been given, and be present in it. I want to do the things I can to make it worth living. But somehow I can’t seem to do that. I feel like getting Here is such a fight, and the moment I relax too much, the moment I lose concentration I snap right back to my baseline which happens to be depressed and in pain. And this is no way to live. At least for me. I would rather not live than live like this.
I feel like I am doing the work. I am doing the good things for myself, I am trying to take care of myself. But I keep failing to actually get better. Like real better.

Last year I read “Lost Connections” by Johann Hari. It confirmed everything I had been thinking about depression and helped me find words for the things I instinctively knew but had no words for. Johann Hari describes depression as being disconnected. And that is truly how I feel. Disconnected. He describes 7 different ways to be disconnected and I was surprised that almost all of them described some aspect of what I have been trying to tell the doctors for the last 1.5 decade.
I feel so disconnected. But there is only so much I can do to reconnect. I am doing the things I can, and maybe it just needs more time and more consistency. But I also feel like I need a helping hand. Feeling disconnected from other people means I need to find more people and communities. But I cannot do that on my own. I need other people to like me and want to invite me to be part of their lives, I need communities that have room for me and that is a good fit. Both of these things are partly out of my hands.
I feel disconnected from trauma, and I am doing what I can to face my traumas and relieve shame. But no one can do that entirely on their own,
I am disconnected for nature and luckily that is one I can do something about on my own. It takes work since I live in the middle of this town and have to walk or take the bus to places where I can be in nature, but I am planning to find ways to make it happen more and I have made it a bigger priority.
I am disconnected from meaningful work and a hopeful meaningful future. But for now those thing are out of my hands. In part because of the pandemic, but more because of my mental health situation (my doctor calls it a chronic illness and tried hard to help me cope with the fact that I’ll never be able to have a full time job or get the education I dreamed of). I’ll need a part time job and because of the autism I’ll need a few accommodations and some support. And I can’t just take any job, again because of the autism. And the hardest part of this one, is that when I tell people that not having a hopeful future with meaningful work is affecting my depression and making it worse I am told that is irrelevant and just to take medication.
But we can’t medicate hopelessness away. We can’t medicate me into being not autistic and being able to handle any job. And even if we could I wouldn’t agree to it.

I know my current situation is being made worse because of the pandemic. I can’t go to work and I can’t see my friends. And that has a big impact on my mental health. Like it has for so many (I’m not special or an exception in this). I think the thing that is hitting me extra hard is how much of this isn’t the pandemic but just my regular baseline. That I now can’t distract myself from with work.  And knowing there is no help. I won’t get better. Not because better isn’t a realistic thing that I could achieve. But because I don’t have the money to pay for treatment and support, and because the health care system here, doesn’t have any idea how to help autistic people. It’s not a physical illness and it’s not a mental illness so no one know what to do with me. And the support system that should kick in to help me instead is impossible to figure out and keeps referring me back to the health care system that keeps telling me they are not responsible for me.
Society and systems I live within are telling me there is no one to help me, that help is impossible, and somewhere under all that is a message about not being worth helping. And that hurts. Because I truly believe that I could get better if I could just get the right help. Not as in I would no longer be autistic. Not as in I would suddenly be able to take any job at full time. But as in I would no longer be in this pain and I would be able to live and take care of a job part time and build a life that has meaning and is full of both challenges and good time. Not just full of pain, depression and suicide thoughts.

I am trying really hard to be Here. On the balcony, at the ruin. But every time I try I find myself wanting to escape. But I still try again. I am not sure I am being kind to myself these days, but I am trying. My thoughts spiral into dark, angry, hurt places I don’t want to go. So I pull myself back and call someone and talk and distract my thoughts. And then I am disappointed in myself for letting those thoughts take over, and even more disappointed that I needed to talk to someone to get away from them, because I expect that I should be more independent and self reliant than that.

I wrote last week that I was doing better. I am not sure that was the truth. It doesn’t feel like a lie. And I don’t like that I can’t place it neatly in one of those two categories. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe things can be more complicated than that. Maybe it so subjective that truth or lie are the wrong categories. Maybe I don’t need to worry that someone calls me out on saying one thing last week and another this week. Maybe having weeks I am able to focus more on the good days and less on the bad, doesn’t erase that the bad is still there underneath. Maybe I am allowed to be thankful and focus in the good days when I can, without putting the disclaimer that I am still autistic, depressed and full of unresolved trauma that cause me pain. Maybe there are good reasons I feel the need to clarify and maybe those reasons are more important than whether saying last week was better, is a lie or not.

I am sad that this post got so depressing. But it fit’s how I feel these days. I just have to keep doing the work of keeping myself going. I am determined not to apologise for being depressed. Apologising is one of the things I am actively doing a lot less of. If I keep apologising for existing I am going to keep feeling like I am not allowed to exist. And that’s not helpful. So I am expressing that I am sad about the depression expressed in this letter. But I am not apologising for it.

Whoever is out there I hope you are doing well. I hope you are having better days and thoughts than me. If not know you are not alone. Thank you for sitting with me through this. I don’t even know if anyone is out there reading. But that’s ok. I imagine someone is keeping me company as I type and I wish whoever that might be well. Thank you for your time.

Jace

1^st of May 2020

To whoever reads this

I’m not sure saying that I am doing better is the truth. But I do have the feeling that my body and my mind has settled into this current, hopefully temporary normal. I am calmer about being alone. Going to the ruin last week reminded me that I am not as trapped as I feel. And I focus a lot on what I can control and the choices left to me in this time when I am stuck, unable to go to work and unable to see friends.
I feel as though the worst of my reaction to the new circumstances has left. I am so fortunate that my life is changed this little. But it still feels huge. And change is one of the things autistic people aren’t good at. I am not really an exception to this. I handle it well, but it still feels very overwhelming and sets off a lot of reactions that I have no control over. But I know them well enough now and can act accordingly.
I’ve been doing the work. Reaching out to people I can reach out to. Remind myself of the importance of staying home and not exposing myself to more risk than necessary. I try to keep busy. Fight the depression that still threatens to get worse all the time. It’s not gone. It’s there. Poisoning everything. But I fight it. And that is all I can do at this point.

I’m trying hard to sound hopeful. I am not. But I guess that is how I fight the depression at this time. I feel untruthful when I sound this hopeful. I don’t mean to lie. But I guess I am not sure how to name the things that would give a clear picture of how I am really doing.

About a month ago I think, I don’t really know the date, I had a lot of trouble sleeping. And I was doing a lot worse than I am not dealing with the loneliness and the isolation. And this night I gave up sleeping for a while and went to sit outside on my amazing balcony (that I still love so much). It was past midnight and there was so many stars above me. I love the night and the dark. And the night was cold, but not too cold. I sat out there for a long time and noticed lights in the windows across the courtyard. The building across from the one I live in is made of red bricks and has red balconies.

It’s the kind of building where every part of it is the same and when you look at if you know every apartment has the same floor plan. I don’t think I would like to live in a building like that. Whenever I visit that kind of apartment they always feel unkind, cold and like they are the opposite of a home. Not because of the people living their lives there, or the way they decorate. It’s the way these places are build to store people instead of build to give them warm cosy homes.
But there is something comforting about that building across the courtyard. I’m not sure what it is. I don’t want to live in it. I’ve never been inside it and I have no desire to go there. But there is something about it that feels nice. And not even because it reminds me how different my own home is. Maybe it just feels different and unique because the other buildings around the courtyard are different and unique, with different architecture and different feelings and uses. I’m sure I wouldn’t feel this way about it if had been surrounded by similar buildings.
Last summer I saw how every evening kids came out and played in the carpark that belongs to that building. And I could see people coming home from work and shopping trips or going to their cars to drive to somewhere else. That too made the place feel so alive.

But this night, I noticed all the lights. And it was so amazing to see how many other people were awake at night. I am night time person through and through. But most people around me aren’t. There was something nice in knowing that so many people chose to be up this night. I counted at least seven different apartments with lights on. At 2 am.

I’ve also noticed the light in those windows. None of it is cold white. It’s almost always yellow or orange. Sometimes there is some changing blue or purple lights, from a TV or a computer screen. But mostly it’s just this beautiful golden light. Reminding me that there is life all around me. That although so much is shut down, though I feel so alone and know no one in any of these buildings around me, there is still people, living ordinary lives doing ordinary things. Just there. Across the courtyard. In that golden light they cook dinner and eat and work from home, they watch TV and make phone calls, they are happy and sad and their lives go on.

I don’t know why but that night I felt so moved by that light. By sitting there alone with golden light telling me other people were also awake and alive and right here. I felt connected and so much less lonely, when I have in a long time. And one goal for this month is sitting out there every day for at least 30 minutes. That balcony is the best part of this apartment. And deciding to live here, where I can sit outside at night and still be home is one of the best things I have given to myself. When I sit there (and especially if I leave me phone inside) I feel so Here.
I don’t know why I am grateful for the golden light or for the red brick building that looks like the kind of building that has no personality and no room for humans being humans. Maybe it’s that contrast. Maybe it’s because it feels like it has personality and room for humans, in this setting in a way it could never have if there were only buildings like that around. Maybe it’s just nice to feel small and insignificant and knowing there is life right there, when I can no longer stand to only be able to reach other humans through a screen. All I know is that I am so grateful for those things. And my balcony is one of those places for me, that helps me be Here. And that is after all what I am trying to find.

I hope, whoever you are and wherever you are, dear reader, that you are safe and healthy. I hope you find ways to be Here. Thank you for being here, in these words with me. Thank you for your time.

Jace