Be warned, this is going to be a very long read.
Twice in my life I have experienced being part of a community. Genuinely part of the community, accepted as I am with all my weirdness and still loved and respected. That’s twice more than many of you will ever experience. To explain what I mean is a long story though, it’s difficult to explain real life in a few short words.
I’m a high function ASD2 empath with no other comorbities. I managed to have a very successful life but I was always a bit out there, a bit left field, weird. As a teenager, I started work at 16, I was born in to a golden era. It didn’t last very long but in Australia we had finally smashed the grip of religion over our society and anyone that was a bit weird and different was flavour of the month.
I was very popular during this short period, I was weird without being black or gay or a new age hippy. I was also very fit and good looking and the women loved me, I had a great time. That only lasted a few years and then our society started becoming more conservative again. Life settled down.
When I was in my mid 20s I met a girl and fell in love. We were living together for 18 months before we got engaged, but once she had that ring on her finger everything changed. A year after that we split up. By this time my parents were living in Darwin and this is the only time I can remember my father ever showing me any compassion, probably only at my mother’s prompting, he bought me return air tickets to Darwin for a 3 week holiday.
I got to Darwin and I met a few people and for the very first time in my life I discovered what the word Home means. I didn’t take that return flight back to Adelaide, I slotted myself nicely in to the wonderful community that I’d discovered and had a great time.
Back then Darwin was still a fairly lawless and reckless place mostly populated by functioning alcoholics. They all had their own funny little quirks and habits and hangups and they accepted me as normal. For the first time in my life I was able to truly just be myself and people loved me.
I fell in love with Darwin because of that community and I decided that I wanted to buy a house there, but that would need more money than I was able to earn in Darwin so I jumped on a plane down to Melbourne. I had every intention of only being gone for 2 years, just enough to get a good home deposit together.
I got good work in Melbourne, I was well paid and well looked after, and I developed a very heavy social life too. Living in Darwin had changed my outlook on life and the way in which I related to people and I became a very busy man with more friends than I knew what to do with. It was never as relaxed as Darwin though and I had to wear the masks pretty much full time.
I didn’t know anything about autism back then, very few people did. I had such a great time in Melbourne that I ended up living there for 7 years until I burnt out. I earnt good money but I spent all of it, when I returned to Darwin I had less than $1000 in the bank.
When I burnt out I had no idea what was going wrong with me or what to do about it but on a subconscious level I understood that it was to do with social issues. I decided that what I really needed was the laid back and easy going attitudes of the people in Darwin and so I moved back there.
But when I got back to Darwin it had changed, community attitudes had changed and the people that I used to know had all moved away. Darwin was no longer such a nice place, in fact I had quite a few fruitier phrases for it than that. It had been invaded by people from the east coast all seeing great business opportunities and chasing get rich quick schemes and the entire character of the city had changed forever. It was much more hard nosed and uncaring.
I still didn’t know anything about autism and burnout but I knew I had mental problems. I told myself things like if it seems that everyone is mean and nasty then it can’t be everyone else and it must be something to do with me instead. I worked at sorting myself out but I kept getting worse.
(Aussie men don’t do therapists)
Don’t get me wrong, I still had many great times while I was there and I had quite a few very good friends as well, but in some ways that made my situation much more difficult for me to understand. I wasn’t antisocial at all. But depression and angst settled in for the long term.
I was in my 40s and most of my friends kept telling me that I was going through a mid life crisis and if I was normal I’d go out and buy a Ferrari. I did buy a still and started making my own Scotch. I persevered for 6 years until the burnout became extreme.
Many of you will have the idle daydream of escaping to a tropical paradise somewhere, a wish to be able to get away from it all. I had those same dreams but now I was living in the tropics and paradise was just down the road. In the end I broke and I walked out of my life. Literally, left the front door open and told neighbours to help themselves before the landlady claimed it all and I walked away.
I kept my favourite slr camera and lenses and a spare pair of jeans and very little else. I have no photos or memorabilia from before 2008, I left that life behind and started again. A few years later I got to recover quite a few files from my old computer, a mate had claimed it and saved them all for me, but I have nothing else.
Living like a wild man didn’t work out so well but living in the bush and getting in to wildlife photography gave me the peace and the time alone that I needed in order to recover. It was probably on of the best things I could have done for myself. Then I ended up caretaking on a mate’s 20 acre property at Dundee, and while I was living there I once again found that community inclusion that had been lacking in so much of the rest of my life.
It was a remote area, the dirt roads were rough and rugged and there were no bridges over the creeks. Power lines from the state grid were just being erected for the first time and most of the people living out there couldn’t afford to get it connected to their homes. No phone service, no internet. No town, just a pub, no shops. No street lights, no rubbish collection, no police or ambulance.
Everyone that lived out there had to be fairly self reliant. Most of the people that lived there did so because in some form or another they suffered social anxiety and preferred to live without too much human interference. Everyone came together and helped each other when it was needed but none of them felt the need to live in each other’s back pockets.
I earnt a lot of respect from those people because I’m not the sort of person that will go asking others for help but I pitch in and help others whenever I see the need. Now that they were starting to get electricity and the government gave everyone satellite dishes for internet connections they found having a computer geek in their midst very handy.
I lived in that area for 10 years and I really loved it. I was technically homeless the whole time, I’d live on a corner of someone’s property until I had a falling out with them then someone else would say “Come and live on my block for a while.”. The bush equivalent of couch surfing I suppose.
The last time I had a falling out with the owner of the property I was living on I decided that it was time to look at my old age, I wanted a pension and proper housing and I wasn’t going to get that up in the Northern Territory so now I’m back to living in a city. People are friendly here too but it’s not the same.
Twice in my life I have experienced being part of a community. Genuinely part of the community, accepted as I am with all my weirdness and still loved and respected. That’s twice more than many of you will ever experience. To explain what I mean is a long story though, it’s difficult to explain real life in a few short words.
I’m a high function ASD2 empath with no other comorbities. I managed to have a very successful life but I was always a bit out there, a bit left field, weird. As a teenager, I started work at 16, I was born in to a golden era. It didn’t last very long but in Australia we had finally smashed the grip of religion over our society and anyone that was a bit weird and different was flavour of the month.
I was very popular during this short period, I was weird without being black or gay or a new age hippy. I was also very fit and good looking and the women loved me, I had a great time. That only lasted a few years and then our society started becoming more conservative again. Life settled down.
When I was in my mid 20s I met a girl and fell in love. We were living together for 18 months before we got engaged, but once she had that ring on her finger everything changed. A year after that we split up. By this time my parents were living in Darwin and this is the only time I can remember my father ever showing me any compassion, probably only at my mother’s prompting, he bought me return air tickets to Darwin for a 3 week holiday.
I got to Darwin and I met a few people and for the very first time in my life I discovered what the word Home means. I didn’t take that return flight back to Adelaide, I slotted myself nicely in to the wonderful community that I’d discovered and had a great time.
Back then Darwin was still a fairly lawless and reckless place mostly populated by functioning alcoholics. They all had their own funny little quirks and habits and hangups and they accepted me as normal. For the first time in my life I was able to truly just be myself and people loved me.
I fell in love with Darwin because of that community and I decided that I wanted to buy a house there, but that would need more money than I was able to earn in Darwin so I jumped on a plane down to Melbourne. I had every intention of only being gone for 2 years, just enough to get a good home deposit together.
I got good work in Melbourne, I was well paid and well looked after, and I developed a very heavy social life too. Living in Darwin had changed my outlook on life and the way in which I related to people and I became a very busy man with more friends than I knew what to do with. It was never as relaxed as Darwin though and I had to wear the masks pretty much full time.
I didn’t know anything about autism back then, very few people did. I had such a great time in Melbourne that I ended up living there for 7 years until I burnt out. I earnt good money but I spent all of it, when I returned to Darwin I had less than $1000 in the bank.
When I burnt out I had no idea what was going wrong with me or what to do about it but on a subconscious level I understood that it was to do with social issues. I decided that what I really needed was the laid back and easy going attitudes of the people in Darwin and so I moved back there.
But when I got back to Darwin it had changed, community attitudes had changed and the people that I used to know had all moved away. Darwin was no longer such a nice place, in fact I had quite a few fruitier phrases for it than that. It had been invaded by people from the east coast all seeing great business opportunities and chasing get rich quick schemes and the entire character of the city had changed forever. It was much more hard nosed and uncaring.
I still didn’t know anything about autism and burnout but I knew I had mental problems. I told myself things like if it seems that everyone is mean and nasty then it can’t be everyone else and it must be something to do with me instead. I worked at sorting myself out but I kept getting worse.
(Aussie men don’t do therapists)
Don’t get me wrong, I still had many great times while I was there and I had quite a few very good friends as well, but in some ways that made my situation much more difficult for me to understand. I wasn’t antisocial at all. But depression and angst settled in for the long term.
I was in my 40s and most of my friends kept telling me that I was going through a mid life crisis and if I was normal I’d go out and buy a Ferrari. I did buy a still and started making my own Scotch. I persevered for 6 years until the burnout became extreme.
Many of you will have the idle daydream of escaping to a tropical paradise somewhere, a wish to be able to get away from it all. I had those same dreams but now I was living in the tropics and paradise was just down the road. In the end I broke and I walked out of my life. Literally, left the front door open and told neighbours to help themselves before the landlady claimed it all and I walked away.
I kept my favourite slr camera and lenses and a spare pair of jeans and very little else. I have no photos or memorabilia from before 2008, I left that life behind and started again. A few years later I got to recover quite a few files from my old computer, a mate had claimed it and saved them all for me, but I have nothing else.
Living like a wild man didn’t work out so well but living in the bush and getting in to wildlife photography gave me the peace and the time alone that I needed in order to recover. It was probably on of the best things I could have done for myself. Then I ended up caretaking on a mate’s 20 acre property at Dundee, and while I was living there I once again found that community inclusion that had been lacking in so much of the rest of my life.
It was a remote area, the dirt roads were rough and rugged and there were no bridges over the creeks. Power lines from the state grid were just being erected for the first time and most of the people living out there couldn’t afford to get it connected to their homes. No phone service, no internet. No town, just a pub, no shops. No street lights, no rubbish collection, no police or ambulance.
Everyone that lived out there had to be fairly self reliant. Most of the people that lived there did so because in some form or another they suffered social anxiety and preferred to live without too much human interference. Everyone came together and helped each other when it was needed but none of them felt the need to live in each other’s back pockets.
I earnt a lot of respect from those people because I’m not the sort of person that will go asking others for help but I pitch in and help others whenever I see the need. Now that they were starting to get electricity and the government gave everyone satellite dishes for internet connections they found having a computer geek in their midst very handy.
I lived in that area for 10 years and I really loved it. I was technically homeless the whole time, I’d live on a corner of someone’s property until I had a falling out with them then someone else would say “Come and live on my block for a while.”. The bush equivalent of couch surfing I suppose.
The last time I had a falling out with the owner of the property I was living on I decided that it was time to look at my old age, I wanted a pension and proper housing and I wasn’t going to get that up in the Northern Territory so now I’m back to living in a city. People are friendly here too but it’s not the same.
