Functional or not functional, for what?

[4na11]

I don't have a lot of hope for things turning around any time soon. I think at some point a lot of us switch over to pure survival. Seems we are very good at that.

All tribes are stronger. Ours too.
It is not only our aggressors who are more powerful.
We are understanding ourselves better, we are gathering within our tribe, we are finding our space.
Survival mood is the only option when we are unconscious, alone and in a hostile place. This is my present situation, but I am working on the 3 things: becoming more aware of who I am, gathering within my tribes (we have many), and getting the hell out of the hostile place that put me in this situation.

 

[zozie]

All tribes are stronger. Ours too.
It is not only our aggressors who are more powerful.
We are understanding ourselves better, we are gathering within our tribe, we are finding our space.
Survival mood is the only option when we are unconscious, alone and in a hostile place. This is my present situation, but I am working on the 3 things: becoming more aware of who I am, gathering within my tribes (we have many), and getting the hell out of the hostile place that put me in this situation.

Welcome, then. We're glad you're here.

 

[4na11]

First of all, @Neonatal RRT , thank you so much for this wonderful and clear presentation. It feels we are completing each others thoughts, and that is what makes the experience in this forum so gratifying.

I have said this before on other threads. Neurotypical humans are very tribal. They tend to gather in groups (for safety and security) because they are generally weak (physically and mentally),...and then get considerably uncomfortable at anyone different than themselves (mentally insecure) and feel they have to act out (emotionally, verbally, physically). We see this behavior all the time. It is the root of all discrimination,...whether it be racism, anti-LGTB behavior, religious discrimination, political discrimination, anti-immigrant policies,...and even against folks with autism. It is all a form of human "fear aggression", just like a dog that bites out of fear, for example. It's also the reason for their insistence upon "sameness" and "standardization" whether it be every policy, procedure, and law,...or something trivial like the "right" hairstyle or clothing,...or their "self reaffirming" social media, political, and religious "bubbles" they live in. It also holds them back in every aspect of their lives,...usually anything that might alter their current condition,...finances, weight loss, buying an electric car, putting solar on the roof, moving in order to get a different job, not pursuing or presenting new ideas to the company,...anything. Boy,...they have got an excuse for everything they can't do,...and why you can't do, either.

We humans in general want to group. This is why we are here, trying to find our tribe.
The point is that we belong to many tribes, not just to one. As you said, there are tribes grouping people because of different reasons. Neurotypicals is one type of tribe. You could have several cross tribes between all of them. So, in fact we are all unique because you wouldn't be able to find 2 people belonging to the exact same tribes. This is the beauty of autism. It helps to see us all as different people. That is what we have in common - differences.

Narcissism alert: As an autistic, I am constantly reminded of how I am different. Two survival techniques I have. One, be very aware of what I said above regarding neurotypical "fear aggression" behaviors. Protect oneself. It could be little emotional and verbal "pokes",...or it could lead to something physical, especially if one makes attempts to confront the individual. Some degree of avoidance behavior is needed with certain individuals. You know they are acting this way because they are actually very weak,...but picking on you makes them feel better about themselves. As long as you know what this is, you can be "Teflon" and let some of this slide off and not let it affect your self-esteem. I now find myself with just a little bit of a narcissistic smile every time this happens. Two, being different is exactly what is needed to push the world forward in all aspects of society,...especially the sciences and the arts. Being neurodivergent may result in funny looks and silence towards your comments and ideas,...and it used to bother me, but now I know it means I actually have a good idea sometimes. It's my way of intellectually "poking" neurotypicals. I have named this technique "seed dropping". Here is how it goes: Bring up an idea,...immediately get "shot down",...give it a few days,...it morphs into someone else's idea,...and finally gets implemented. I got what I wanted,...albeit without the credit,...and with a bit of delay. If it was for the greater good, that's OK with me. The bottom line,...use your neurodivergence,...use your skills and ideas for the greater good.

You say some degree of avoidance behavior is needed, which would mean, I suppose, limiting contact with those who ‘attack you’. That is not that possible in my case. You also say the ‘teflon’ thing, that seems some kind of move Keanu Reeves must have performed in Matrix, I really don’t know how I can’t diverge, from it, even being neurodivergent. You seem to be more in control of those arts, and I suppose it gives you strength.
The ‘seed dropping’ thing I found out by not insisting that much in the first time, then ‘abandoning the seed’, but as it was a great idea it grew. And you are right, I don’t care about the credit, we are very goal oriented, we just want things to move on.

Perhaps,...instead of allowing oneself to wallow in self pity and doubt,...instead of allowing others to bring oneself down,...ignore them, stop trying to fit in, stop trying to conform,...and be your own boss. Allow a bit of "weaponized autism" and narcissism to creep into your life, get out there, and be successful.

Well, what to say? You are so very right. I am just coming to my senses after being knocked out, but as I said, there is no other way. I would say I am a warrior waiting to recover before going back to battlefield, because she knows that if she enters in it too weak, she won’t last.
I also see in myself that last moment of weakness, when I try to deny the inevitable war. As if I am waiting to see if something miraculously change. It is a denial thing. I think it is part of this process of acceptance before going to the battlefields.

Do something no one else has done.

This phrase teases the hell out of me. It entices me, it makes me want to live. In fact, it is the only reason one would consider leaving. Yeah, I must remember that there are a bunch of things that only I can do. Once more, @Neonatal RRT , thank you so much!

 

[Pats]

I was talking to my NT daughter in law yesterday about hugging. I was trying to explain to her how some things NT's want out of us is just not going to be something we can do easily. I used hugging as an example and asked her: This person I know that thinks we are friends is a hugger and kisser and if she's been drinking will not stop. I asked her if it would be fair for her to keep doing that to me knowing how much I hate it. I used that example because this person recently posted something about struggling over not being able to hug and that it's a real thing. I responded that us no huggers were finally protected from the hugging others feel they can inflict on us. (She may not still think we're friends after that. lol) Anyhow - it all boils down to respect, I think.

 

[4na11]

Yes @Pats it all depends of the value we give to things. For some hugging is demonstration of affection, and being denied that is rejection. For some hugging is invasion and imposing it is aggression.
Love is like a language that must be translated if we want to be understood. We need to know in the world of the other person what our gestures mean. Otherwise misunderstandings can happen.
It is plain stupidity to impose our meanings to others, it won't work.
In this sense, we need to be some kind of a polyglots when dealing with people, we need to understand their emotional language. This is respect.

 

[Derp]

Functioning means being able to live like a normal independent adult which most autistic people can not

 

[4na11]

Functioning means being able to live like a normal independent adult which most autistic people can not

I am trying to find something wrong with what you said but can't. It doesn't sound good but I can't quite contest.
Every point I try to build doesn't stand.
You were short but clear.
I still don't like what you said but I think you are right. I wish I could find something wrong. Maybe somebody else here could.

 

[SliverOfSand]

To me, the functioning label is relative. I feel like it depends on the situation a person is in. For example, if I am working on a typewriter, or drawing, then there is nothing wrong with me. I can function exceptionally well in my ideal situation. I cannot function when I am in a loud area full of other people who expect me to keep up with their social games, because they quickly realize that I can’t. Other people on the spectrum might be able to deal with that situation better than I can. They can seem ‘functioning’ in that particular situation, but may not be able to cope with other things. I know that I cannot function with a lot of things that other people don’t realize.

Your point with the sewing machine is a good illustration, but not all of us are just sewing machines. Some of us are typewriters, or lamps, or even washing machines. We all have different ‘functions’, or situations where we preform our best, and situations where we can’t. That’s why within the autism spectrum, to me there are many different forms of functioning, not just ‘high functioning’ or ‘low functioning’. I think that these labels can be damaging for some people. If labeled ‘high functioning’, your struggles might be minimized; and if labeled ‘low functioning’, then people might think it applies to every aspect of your life. I’m not saying this is the case for everyone, but that is how I see it. I’m not sure if this makes much sense, I’m just trying to find the right words to describe it.

 

[4na11]

 

[Deepthought]

A sewing machine can’t wash clothes. It doesn’t matter if you put in it soap and water, the only thing you will get is to destroy its ability of functioning as a machine that sews. That is its functionality.

So it is quite offensive to say we are functional autistics. It would mean that, despite being sewing machines, we do wash clothes, so you are allowed to put soap and water over us, and we will be able to get your clothes clean, and still keep our capacity to sew.

Social functioning means the ability to interact easily and successfully with other people ~ which people on the autistic spectrum cannot do easily due to social interaction, imagination and communication difficulties ~ as requires low, medium or high levels of personal and or professional support.

Your metaphorical analogy of sewing machines and washing machines involves though two completely different machines that perform entirely different functions, which are not socially representative as comparable operations.

I often use for instance the two basic differences involved with how cars operate to analogise social functioning ~ by likening the body-mind relationship of allistic people to automatically-geared cars, and that of autistic people's to manually-geared cars.

Allistic people for instance don’t have to think or even know about how to manage cognitive gear changes socially ~ as that occurs automatically for them without much effort, whilst we as autistic people have to think and learn about managing psychological gear changes with cognitive ones socially ~ which we have to do pragmatically with more and more effort required with increasing numbers of people. Obviously social 'driving' lessons as such for autistic people from allistic people do tend to get a bit baffling and frustrating!

Recently I came across the term ego depletion. The ego becomes exhausted when it has been spanked constantly.

Firstly the Ego is a projection of our personalities as a focal point for the pitch, tone and volume of our voice. Using the Ego for any other purpose is a major energy drain and super inefficient.

Secondly, the depletion of the Ego involves Ego-state re-characterisations that have converted the dynamic flexibilities of our personality embodiments into mechanistically fixed systems of assumed behaviourisms (Personae) ~ as which are mimicked from and adapted with others ~ in accordance with societal ‘non-autistic’ conventions, as tends generally to inhibit and debilitate our individual reality.

Every time we try and we are not good enough we lose energy. So, next time we try, we have less and less energy to try, which makes us less and less likely to succeed. And why we never learn, why there is no improvement? Because we are sewing machines. If people asked us to make beautiful couture dresses, we would make them better than washing machines, which usually tear apart fine fabrics.

In that sewing machines do not wash clothes, and washing machines do not make or repair them either ~ neither can do the work of the other in any way, manner, fashion or form better or worse! And if we do not make or obtain reasonable adjustments in respect of how we deal with things professionally or otherwise, we may be as sure to fail as a seamstress or tailor trying to make fine silk attire with a sewing machine that is only set-up for making tough leather attire ~ as involves a thicker thread, a broader needle and a longer stitch length.

But as we are asked to do things we are not built for, our ego keeps being depleted, and from that depletion comes the loss of will power, the worse loss one can have.

In that will-power is more often used to project behavioural intentions via the ego ~ rather than vocalisations and verbalisations, and that it re-characterises the dynamic constitutions of ourselves to become mechanical ego-states ~ which in excess beyond our adolescence restricts our vitality and obstructs our mobility ~ it is generally found that nurturing aspiration is more relevant than will-power in terms of strengthening our self-development.

Without will power one is unable to do even the things they were built for. Because now ones ego is depleted, is jaded, it believes it won’t matter what I do, they will spank me.

Regarding the path of self-development, my favourite metaphysical witticism about will-power is, "Where there is a will ~ there is a stray!" in that will power is derived from a social pretence requiring an enforced behavioural attitude, and the more one fails in respect of socially enforced pretences ~ the less vitalised our actual aptitudes can be, hence the thing with feeling depleted and jaded and all that.

It is a shame that brilliant people like ourselves come to such a point where we lose our self-confidence.

If we apply ourselves according to the constructs of a socially shared and enforced inferiority complex (involving blame and shame) it is hardly surprising we do not learn to appreciate what we truly are in ‘awe’, and what we are truly capable of in ‘wonder’ ~ remembering that each and every living thing is an indefatigable mystery; characteristically embodied.

We are constantly accused of not having empathy, when in fact it is the other way around.

Not quite, in that different wavelengths of empathy are involved ~ with autistic people generally being more in tune with and having empathy for the neurologically divergent, and allistic people generally being more in tune with and having empathy for the neurologically typical ~ on the basis of social similarities and therefore personal identifications.

We need to understand them all the time, we need to understand ourselves all the time, but the world haven’t done much to understand us, to listen to us, and to understand the way they’ve been treating us.

We as autistics are but a tiny number of people amongst massive numerations more of allistics that treat us in the same way they have themselves been treated ~ on the basis of sharing in and enforcing societal compliance, and like them we have learnt the abusively normalised ‘ways-and-means’ of society ~ so that we may as ‘outsiders’ better recognise this along with others and raise awareness by exemplifying instead a healthier way of life.

We are such peaceful people who could help this world to be a better place, if only they treated us kindly.

Autistic people are though proportionally just as much peaceful, wrathful and everything else in between as allistic people are, what with the peaceful gravitating with the peaceful and the wrathful gravitating with the wrathful ~ and so on and so forth all ‘birds of feather flock together’ and ‘different strokes for different folks’ with every other variety and admixture of social or tribal grouping.

But force is the weapon of those who lack intelligence. And with force they deplete our egos. And we lose our will power. And we end up weak as I am right now.

And yet ‘will-power’ is force, as is used to project an imagined state of affairs in place of an actual state of affairs ~ all ‘mind over matter’ and all that ~ which when not befitting depletes ourselves in terms of them having been obstructed and disassociated from our true sense of self, which is our conscious vitality ~ or personal power consisting of unconditional love and intuitive wisdom.

The only hope is to keep using this intelligence of mine, even though my will power at present is so low. But with this light, the knowledge, the understanding of this process, I can come out of this catatonic like existential state, and come back to real life, where I will be facing them again.

The less will-power is used to project imagined behavioural ego-states via the ego beyond the current reality of ourselves; the more sensibly we can associate with the conscious vitality of our self within and through our experiential selves ~ generating thus a more balanced state of vitalised and attentive awareness.

It took time to get me so low. It will take some time to recover, but there is no other way.

Most of my problem used to be continually recovering ego-state identities that served only to fragment and shatter, leaving my mind burnt out with addled confusion and my body shut down with aching exhaustion. I mean it was difficult enough just being me in the first place ~ so pretending to be other versions of myself just made things increasing more difficult, and then impossible. Since though having given up social camouflaging and personal masking ~ things have very much improved.

 

[4na11]

Dear @Deepthought I don't know how many times I read your so well written long post and fought with it, trying to destroy each of your points. But you are right when you say will power is a force. I myself am committing this mistake of not letting things just be and use what is here. I could read and try to bring different arguments to all of what you said, but in your last paragraph you say:

Most of my problem used to be continually recovering ego-state identities that served only to fragment and shatter, leaving my mind burnt out with addled confusion and my body shut down with aching exhaustion. I mean it was difficult enough just being me in the first place ~ so pretending to be other versions of myself just made things increasing more difficult, and then impossible. Since though having given up social camouflaging and personal masking ~ things have very much improved.

This took me by surprise, because I could recognize here the cause of my present state and the mistake I am trying to avoid. This is what is causing the exhaustion, the burn out: those identities.
I am so very lost right now, I am trying to find who I am, when in fact it really doesn't matter, and it is better not to be anyone, not to establish someone for me to be.
I am very thankful @Deepthought that you reminded me that this is what I wanted. This freedom of being fluid, of not being. Maybe it wasn't your intention, you just described your experience. But you reminded me of mine.

 

[Deepthought]

Dear @Deepthought I don't know how many times I read your so well written long post and fought with it, trying to destroy each of your points.

The post was actually much longer in it’s original form, but as I discovered on this website of forums there is a 10,000 character limit here on posts, so it needed yet another abridge and edit job as I have to do quite a few to stop my posts being too long and multifaceted and all that.

Aside from that ~ thankyou for your very complimentary response.

But you are right when you say will power is a force. I myself am committing this mistake of not letting things just be and use what is here. I could read and try to bring different arguments to all of what you said, but in your last paragraph you say:

Most of my problem used to be continually recovering ego-state identities that served only to fragment and shatter, leaving my mind burnt out with addled confusion and my body shut down with aching exhaustion. I mean it was difficult enough just being me in the first place ~ so pretending to be other versions of myself just made things increasing more difficult, and then impossible. Since though having given up social camouflaging and personal masking ~ things have very much improved.

This took me by surprise, because I could recognize here the cause of my present state and the mistake I am trying to avoid. This is what is causing the exhaustion, the burn out: those identities.

Maybe do not so much avoid the ‘mistakes’ of social camouflaging and masking but treat them as being particularly important ‘retakes’ for requisite observation and learning, in that our socially fostered and personally adopted identities have been habitually engrained in our day to day living involving ourselves, other people and things in general for decades.

Thus just as the spoken lines and bodily moves of our social pretences were incrementally learnt through and since childhood, they need to be incrementally deprogrammed and reconditioned, keeping in mind that they were incorporated involving sometimes quite considerable trauma and distress, so reintegrating those overwhelmed and overwritten sensibilities is worth doing considerably slowly and carefully ~ step by step; little by little.

I am so very lost right now, I am trying to find who I am, when in fact it really doesn't matter, and it is better not to be anyone, not to establish someone for me to be.

There is a saying I rather like in this respect regarding the indefatigable mystery of being oneself, “When one is lost; one is found!” In an I for an I and a wisdom for an wisdom sort of way.

I am very thankful @Deepthought that you reminded me that this is what I wanted. This freedom of being fluid, of not being.

Well I am very glad to have been of some assistance recollection wise, and ‘This freedom of being fluid, of not being’ ~ the Buddhist or Taoist path of ‘selflessness’ (otherwise called ‘the middle way’ so as to experientially understand and sensibly comprehend the difference between the conscious self and the ego-state awareness ~ in order to prevent the unconscious, subconscious or preconscious ego-state awarenesses being mistaken for and developed in place of the conscious self) perhaps?

Maybe it wasn't your intention, you just described your experience. But you reminded me of mine.

My aspiration (rather than as being an intention) was that the information might prove to be of some assistance in respect of where many like ourselves have found themselves, and as such your description of how you were feeling and thinking reminded me of my experience of things and other people’s as well ~ which I did go into originally but had to abridge and edit those out in order to post the post under 10,000 characters.
.

 

[4na11]

The post was actually much longer in it’s original form, but as I discovered on this website of forums there is a 10,000 character limit here on posts, so it needed yet another abridge and edit job as I have to do quite a few to stop my posts being too long and multifaceted and all that.

Please, in that case, make more than one post. I myself hate when I have to edit out a text to make it fit character limits.

Maybe do not so much avoid the ‘mistakes’ of social camouflaging and masking but treat them as being particularly important ‘retakes’ for requisite observation and learning, in that our socially fostered and personally adopted identities have been habitually engrained in our day to day living involving ourselves, other people and things in general for decades.

Thus just as the spoken lines and bodily moves of our social pretences were incrementally learnt through and since childhood, they need to be incrementally deprogrammed and reconditioned, keeping in mind that they were incorporated involving sometimes quite considerable trauma and distress, so reintegrating those overwhelmed and overwritten sensibilities is worth doing considerably slowly and carefully ~ step by step; little by little.

"Important retakes for requisite observation and learning", that is how we should see all our failures or lack of ability to camouflage. And at the same time, by being conscious, we incrementally "deprogram and recondition", in a very slow fashion, since the conditioning and traumatic experiences also happened in a slow pace, we almost couldn't notice it.
Both things being done at the same time: learning how to play well the character; knowing you are not the character.

There is a saying I rather like in this respect regarding the indefatigable mystery of being oneself, “When one is lost; one is found!” In an I for an I and a wisdom for an wisdom sort of way.

I am reading a lot about "the dark night of the soul". I think I am going through this kind of big change, in which I really forget who I am, and this gives me chance to reinvent myself completely. Mostly likely much of what I was will still keep being, even though I can't access those parts of me right now. I also can't see the new me coming, I am not born yet. So, I am no where, I am in between, it seems a very interesting state for detachment.

Well I am very glad to have been of some assistance recollection wise, and ‘This freedom of being fluid, of not being’ ~ the Buddhist or Taoist path of ‘selflessness’ (otherwise called ‘the middle way’ so as to experientially understand and sensibly comprehend the difference between the conscious self and the ego-state awareness ~ in order to prevent the unconscious, subconscious or preconscious ego-state awarenesses being mistaken for and developed in place of the conscious self) perhaps?

Today I was trying to explain to a friend why it was hard for me to talk to people in the new neighborhood I moved in. It is not just the neurodiverse social thing. It is this moment of mine. I told my friend I can't talk to anyone because there is no one here. There is no one inside of me now. I don't have a person inside of me to communicate to other people. I used to have, but this person suffered some abuse, material and spiritual life destroyed whatever person existed inside of me, and now I am awaiting myself to come back.
I feel as if I were a character from a video game and my player left. Every body is playing, all the other characters are moving, but I am frozen, because my player is not commanding me.
Hopefully this consciousness-player will be back soon and help me to play the game of life. My character used to have lots of powers.

My aspiration (rather than as being an intention) was that the information might prove to be of some assistance in respect of where many like ourselves have found themselves, and as such your description of how you were feeling and thinking reminded me of my experience of things and other people’s as well ~ which I did go into originally but had to abridge and edit those out in order to post the post under 10,000 characters.

Have you ever felt this way? I mean, this feeling of death of the soul. How it revived?

 

[Derp]

People always say that autistic people are just "different" from everyone else and that the world is built around "neurotypicals" and that's why they don't fit in/do as well.

I disagree.

Literally everyone is different. Your Grouping over like 98% of humanity under one box. there's more diversity outside of autism than within Everyone is different but the one thing they (mostly) have in common is that most adults are not functionally retarded like many autistic people. Everyone is "Different"

do you know how many different Philosophy's, types of people and learning styles there are ? That mentality clearly is held by people who truly don't understand people in general.

 

[4na11]

People always say that autistic people are just "different" from everyone else and that the world is built around "neurotypicals" and that's why they don't fit in/do as well.

That's BullSh!T
Literally everyone is different. Your Grouping over like 98% of humanity under one box. there's more diversity outside of autism than within Everyone is different but the one thing they (mostly) have in common is that most adults are not functionally retarded like many autistic people. Everyone is "Different"
do you know how many different Philosophy's, types of people and learning styles there are ? That mentality clearly is held by people who truly don't understand people in general.

Neuro diversity is as a fact as bio diversity is. In fact, neuro diversity is part of bio diversity. Nature is diverse. Nothing is the same in Nature.
Functionality is not all we need to achieve, no matter if we are typical or diverse.
Happiness in being ourselves is what matters.
Being our functional selves is happiness.
In that kind of functionality lies all success and prosperity, all glory and recognition.
We don't need to function as other people. If we try that we are bound to fail.
We need to find a way to function as ourselves. If we find that space, that chance, then we are the best.
Otherwise it is only shame, humiliation, disability, all kinds of loss of one's self.
At present I feel like that, but I still remember the times I was able to function as myself.
I recall how great it felt, how fortunate it made me, how many opportunities it gave me.
When I opened this thread and compared the washing machine to a sewing machine that is what I meant.
Lately I am being asked to do things I was not built for, and I am not doing the things I enjoy and do well.
It doesn't matter the label you receive, neuro typical or diverse, no one can feel happy living like that.
I need to make a shift on this life style, on this life I am living.
This feeling of shame, humiliation, disability, it is not mine. I could be feeling successful, bright, creative, intelligent, so many great things if I were engaged in the things I was built for.
I was reading an article recently that helped me to see things that way. If you take a person you admire and think of them doing something you are having a hard time doing, some kind of domestic chore, for instance, but you know this person is a bright brain, then you see there is nothing wrong with you.
And I did it. I imagined songwriters I admire, I imagined Bill Gates, Einsten, I imagine a bunch of bright brains in my position and I could see them having a hard time as well. I could see it would bother them, it would interfere with their creative work to have to deal with these chores.
So, yes, I just have to focus in what I am good at, and the rest will have to be done by those who know how to do it. Hopefully these people will come and will be most valued.

 

[Deepthought]

Please, in that case, make more than one post. I myself hate when I have to edit out a text to make it fit character limits.

I had never experienced character limits on internet forums before, but the main reason I started to use the internet back in November 2016, was to learn to write in much simpler terms and to much shorter extents. I will as requested in this thread make more than one post though.

"Important retakes for requisite observation and learning", that is how we should see all our failures or lack of ability to camouflage. And at the same time, by being conscious, we incrementally "deprogram and recondition", in a very slow fashion, since the conditioning and traumatic experiences also happened in a slow pace, we almost couldn't notice it.

Rather than just the programmed conditionings and traumatic experiences happening at a slow pace, it is also the intermediate and fast paced repetitions of which that disassociates us from not only our sense of self, but also our sensibilities.

The go-slow approach is therefore fundamentally important ~ given that our seven interwoven embodiments of sensibility (Personalities) operate in parallel through different dimensional plains, and that re-characterising them under duress to become instead three-dimensionally integrated behaviourisms (Personae) ~ does rather tend to produce complex integrations of conflicting sensory sequences and thought pattens (such as the delusions of inferiority, mediocrity and superiority involved with Inferiority Complexes), which can be somewhat confusing and bewildering if one does not go slowly when coming to terms with them, as being anything from long slow paced traumatic and depressive compressions etcetera to short paced ones, and of course anything inbetween.

Both things being done at the same time: learning how to play well the character; knowing you are not the character.

It is not so much about learning to play the character well ~ as that involves raising the functional levels of the sensational and reproductional embodiments above normal in order to ‘perform’ the re-characterisation of ourselves through the imaginal embodiment, which involves the emotional, communicational, sentimental and rational embodiments functional levels of our sensibilities having to be reduced to below that of normal (i.e., putting them in support or slumber mode) in order to do so.

So rather than learning to play them well, it is though more about learning to observe one’s character roles by way way of their socially enforced drivers, of which there are five:

(1.) Be Perfect

(2.) Be Strong

(3.) Try Hard

(4.) Please Others

(5.) Hurry Up

Which displace our personal needs and replace them with other people’s social desires, as results in compulsive-addictive behaviours involving dependent relationships which are developmentally restrictive and irrational spending which is environmentally unsustainable, especially considering the adversarial re-characterisation of society involving excessive competition and regressive cooperation and all that.

I am reading a lot about "the dark night of the soul".

The more we max-up the functional empowerments of our sensational and reproductional embodiments to re-characterise ourselves through the imaginal embodiment; the more our conscious self’s embodying soul must ‘polarise’ (darken) in order to reduce psychical vitalisation and disempower our emotional, communicational, sentimental and rational embodiments ~ which serves to protect both the actual and the virtual embodiments of one’s selves, at least to a degree and up to point.

I think I am going through this kind of big change, in which I really forget who I am, and this gives me chance to reinvent myself completely.

In that invention involves making or creating something that has never been made or created before, reinventing one’s self involves re-characterising our selves as being dynamic sensibilities (Personalities) to become instead fixed mechanistic behaviourisms (Personae), that ultimately as sensational, reproductional and imaginal energetic undertakings become more and more exhausting and debilitating.

It is healthier therefore not to “reinvent” one’s conscious self as that only involves re-characterising and depleting the functions and capacities of one’s experiential selves, so it is better instead to experientially facilitate and “discover” or “rediscover” that which you truly are ~ in terms of being an indefatigable and vitalising mystery that can never wholly be known, and only ever be partially revealed ~ little by little, bit by bit.

Mostly likely much of what I was will still keep being, even though I can't access those parts of me right now.

You have been using an allistic three-dimensional cognitive process ~ that has as such been incrementally reconfiguring and progressively inhibiting the seven-dimensional interweavings of your autistic physiological and psychological operating system.

I also can't see the new me coming, I am not born yet.

It is healthier not to envision what will be the case but rather instead to care for what is. Focus more upon the gestation of your rebirth or if you have gotten there the labour of which ~ rather than imagining and as such causing the much more exhausting versions of them.

So, I am no where, I am in between, it seems a very interesting state for detachment.

In terms of being “in between” you are experientially ‘there’ as such where you are rather than being nowhere, and that which seems very interesting is the indefatigable mystery of you that vitalises your sensibilities. Hence the three Delphic Temple maxims as being “Know thyself!”, “Nothing to excess!” and “Surety brings ruin!” and thence the expression, "The more you know, the more you realize you don't know!"

Today I was trying to explain to a friend why it was hard for me to talk to people in the new neighborhood I moved in. It is not just the neurodiverse social thing. It is this moment of mine. I told my friend I can't talk to anyone because there is no one here. There is no one inside of me now. I don't have a person inside of me to communicate to other people. I used to have, but this person suffered some abuse, material and spiritual life destroyed whatever person existed inside of me, and now I am awaiting myself to come back.

Either the indefatigable mystery of your conscious self never left and it is only the incompatible ego-state awareness obscuring it that has, or else the ego-state awareness obscuring it was socially and environmentally incorporated with the old neighbourhood ~ and has yet to become so with the people and places of the new one.

If though your ego-state awareness as fixed re-characterisations of Personae has become incompatible and can no longer be embodied by the sensational, reproductional and imaginal sensibilities (involving what is called a behavioural extinction) ~ the remaining fluid characteristics of the emotional, communicational, sentimental and rational sensibilities will embody the characteristics of the lower three, as according to the vitalising facilitation of your conscious (or higher) self, via the depolarisation of the soul.

I feel as if I were a character from a video game and my player left. Every body is playing, all the other characters are moving, but I am frozen, because my player is not commanding me.

It might as if playing a game be time to take your turn now ~ keeping in mind that life is not on the whole a game to be played but rather more a journey to be stayed.

Hopefully this consciousness-player will be back soon and help me to play the game of life. My character used to have lots of powers.

It may be that your character pretence like a childhood game has been outgrown, and by contrast the journey of your self-discovery and -realisation may be beginning anew ~ as in learning to give up on the burdens of social camouflaging and personal masking pretences, perhaps.

Have you ever felt this way?

Yes ~ only from the other perspective of having been as if the computer game player with my characters having gotten glitchy and then having crashed ~ pretty much every couple of years or so with getting glitchy and crashing every four years or so from about the age of twelve in 1983, with the last breakdown having been whilst I was forty during 2011 ~ at which stage I started giving up on the social camouflaging and personal masking state of affairs, and got faithful with myself as being neurologically and behaviourally divergent.

CONTINUED IN NEXT POST:

 

[Deepthought]

CONTINUED FROM LAST POST:

I mean, this feeling of death of the soul. How it revived?

The soul is polarised when we imagine and portray ourselves to be other than is actually the case, and is depolarised when we are beneficially true to ourselves and others. It can also become polarised when we are feeling and being malevolent or destructive towards living things; and depolarised when we are feeling and being benevolent or constructive.

The polarisation of the soul is often analogised in the modern sense with watching a theatrical performance or cinematic movie in the dark, whilst the most historically famous example of this is the ‘Cave Allegory’ from book VII of Plato’s book ‘The Republic’, if you were not aware of it.

In order to depolarise my soul, I learnt to hold a feeling of unconditional love in the centre of my chest more and more until it became constant instead of just a pressurised sense of hollow emptiness or effervescent fullness, which I did in part by recalling heart-lifting experiential moments and listening to heart-felt beautiful music. I also got into singing bowls and tonal chanting which really helped to enhance this practice.

Another practice was learning to keep my ego focused in the centre of my chest, and only using it externally to find my vocal range when communicating with others [~ remembering the ego is a focal point for projecting the voice whilst whispering to, speaking with and shouting to or yelling at others at various distances].

I also learnt to use my peripheral vision more whilst looking at others and things in general, rather than my central focus of vision so much ~ as would normally engage the ego with having been habitually “egotised” and getting compulsively and or vice-versa addictively fixated upon particular people, places and things in the material environment.

I found presence of mind really useful also in terms of having at first no intentions involving anything beyond my immediate surroundings, and kept all my plans of action in strict accordance with my actual needs and my actual energy levels ~ so that I learnt only ever to tire my selves out with fulfilling activities rather than getting them exhausted or burnt out with unfulfilling behavioural drivers.

 

[4na11]

Dear @Deepthought please, forgive me for having taking so long to thank you for your again long and profound answer.

It took me some time to read and reread. I intended to answer bit by bit, it was a hard read. I have the habit of editing texts, whenever I read a text, and yours, for comprehending it properly, demanded that from me.

So I gave up and visited it later, and then I didn’t feel the need to edit, I read it fluently, without bothering for commas, and I can tell you I am in a better place now.

Self-acceptance is always a better place, and also, when things about us become self manifested, it also helps.

I am still in a very unstable place, everything is still so undefined, but I started feeling this recollection about myself, all of me. From going for a walk, to practicing breathing exercises. From waking up in the morning and feeling conscious for the first time in the day, to my intellectual creativity throughout the day, from my singing voice to my appetite. I suppose I was in an existential amnesia and I am slowly remembering the beauty of being alive.

I definitely agree with you that it is not a matter of reinventing myself. We can only observe what comes up and be marveled. I can not really interfere with this person I am. The only thing I can do is not to get in her way.

I will be posting more of my progress in another thread, and my conclusions about the advantage of being autistic. But I think I was wounded and was waiting to recover. I am not completely ready to go back to battle yet, as I said, I am back from that kind of coma just recently, but silence is showing me who I am not. Pretty soon there will be no one here, and I will be ready to be anywhere.

 

[Judge]

Good metaphor- a graphic equalizer.

And that autistic traits and behaviors are anything but equalized. With our reality being that they can be all over the place. And with higher or lower octaves to boot!

That even while many of us live independently, depending on time and circumstances that labeling us "high functioning" could well be a stretch at times.