Too Much

It’s not very often that I get time on my own, there is always someone with me and although I love them dearly, there are times I need quiet and time by self. The weird thing is, despite having people around me constantly, I quite often feel alone. Feeling alone is not the same as being alone though, it stems from not being heard, and not being understood, among other things.

You know, I have wanted to run away more times as an adult then I ever did as a child, to go somewhere that no one knows me. I don’t fit-in here at all, in all honesty I never realy have, if only I could leave earth and travel to a distant planet to find our “tribe”. I have spent the last few months searching for something that I am not entirely sure exists. I am not even sure what that something is, I am trying to leave the house a bit more, trying to connect with people and to do that I need some support. I need someone to understand, to understand me and to understand how difficult being autistic can be. I need someone that I can talk these things through with.

There are times when the world is just too much, too loud, too bright, too smelly, too fast, too rushed, and with too many expectations. There are many unwritten rules telling us who we should be and what our lives should like, if you don’t meet them by a certain age, well, then you are failing. Get a job, Fall in love, buy a house, get married, have a child, have another child; my life is far from conventional. So many people kept telling me what I should be doing and what my life should look like. I have spent most of it feeling a failure. The funny thing is, I have only just realised, most people stopped telling me once I received my autism diagnosis.

I am at the point I need to think of looking for a new job, but that terrifies me, none of my previous jobs have ever been successful. Although, they have mainly been noise factory jobs, where I spent the day highly anxious. Being in a high state of anxiety all day everyday had an impact, I would make a mistake or struggle to communicate with other people. After so long I would become overwhelmed or burntout, I would either be signed off or I would have the strong need to escape. And I would run, I would walk out and not return because it was all just to much for me to cope with. There was one occasion when I experienced a very public meltdown, its not often I have meltdowns (I normally have shutdowns), but this day had been building for many many months. I had locked everything inside and it had to release in one way or another.

Every year I pray for snow, but that doesn’t happen much now, not in the part of the UK that I live in. I love it when it snows, it brings a muffled silence to our little part of the earth, oh how I yearn for that silence. The world feels as though it has slowed down, a sense of calm bestows us like a comfort blanket. When it snows, I like to get up early and be one of the first to walk through it, the only sound being the footsteps I make.

There is a constant battle fighting away inside, wanting to go outside to meet others and to be a part of somiething. At the same time I don’t want too want too, being at home is safe, my anxiety is less when I am at home. I am scared.

The world out there is just too much