Aspergers Blues

It's hard to write about depression. The symptoms keep getting in the way of my words, and for somebody who loves words as I do that is disheartening.

Where to start? Well, I've been suffering bouts of depression for years. It can last for a few hours or several days but it is not usually an unrelenting pit of despair. I have spells when I'm feeling, if not exactly "up" then at least neutral. But then I'm back down again.

These days I don't become inclined to harm myself, although in the past I've cut myself and taken handfuls of pills (my body didn't go along with the plan and I just vomited). Instead I usually seek solitude, which can be easier said than done.

I want to cry but my eyes remain stubbornly dry. I want to curl up in a dark corner and hide from the world. I want to be left alone and I want somebody to just hold me and make me feel safe and protected. I get so tense that I feel as if my muscles are locked in place, yet I have so little energy that I can't bring myself to stir. I detest the sensations, feeling a lack of sensation. It's a complex, contradictory, utterly confusing state of mind.

It's getting to the point where I'm reluctant to relax and enjoy myself because I know that sooner or later I'll come crashing down again, and the shock of the contrast is like jumping into a cold plunge pool from a sauna. I'm forever waiting, anticipating and expecting the next low point.

Of course there are triggers. Rocky patches in relationships. Anything that causes stress and exhausts me leaves me vulnerable. It's a common aspect of Aspergers that we have limited physical and mental resources: we tire easily, and that state of exhaustion means that problems quickly become overwhelming.

What can be done about it? The obvious answer would be to avoid becoming so worn out - I might even say burned out - that I can barely function let alone stave off the blues. My particular problem lately is that as the sole carer for my wife, who's not in good health, I have no respite. There's no break from it, even if my strong sense of duty and responsibility would allow it.

I missed a couple days of work last week because the depression hit again after becoming exhausted dealing with my wife, who is also feeling great frustration and low spirits because of illness. It doesn't help that I pick up the echoes of her feelings - who says Aspies don't have empathy? - but I don't have the mechanisms to cope with these reflected emotions.

In fact, the night before I had spent two hours or so in the company of a friend and left feeling happy... until I got home and returned to the stressful overload. I'm not coping well at all lately: it's all getting to be too much of a strain but I'm stubborn as an old mule and I won't give in until my mind and body call an involuntary time out. Unfortunately that's exactly what happened and a week later I'm still not really over it, still depressed.

There are no silver bullets. There is nobody who can wave a magic wand and fix the problems. Miracles don't happen (even if, like my wife, you have strong religious beliefs). I don't believe there is any higher purpose to suffering: adversity doesn't make you strong. It just grinds you down until you haven't the strength to even lift your head from the dirt.

The funny thing is that now I'm back at work I can get focused on the job and function normally on the whole, although I'm feeling more tired than usual and it's taking me longer to get ready in the mornings - I'm not moving so quick. A case of special interest to the rescue, possibly.

Time flows like molasses in winter;
I am caught in its viscous embrace.
Struggling to break free
As a fly in a web,
Waiting for the poisonous attack.

I am a cornered mouse,
Teeth and claws no threat
To the predator stalking me.
The black cat, Nemesis,
Will not be driven off.

To fight an invincible foe,
To cast the die, burn the bridge
And cross the Rubicon; a dream
Wherein I cast off the fetters
And rise, Prometheus unbound.

Bah Humbug!, or What Christmas Means To Me

I dread this time of year - the Christmas holiday. An endless all-you-can-eat buffet of bright, shiny, colorful, twinkly, saccharine, plastic, superficial, empty-hearted, compulsory frivolity and joy to all. The cracks of the rest of the year are papered over, temporary patches to support the pretense that we are all getting along famously and having a good time. It's all over the TV commercials - smiling families gather around the dinner table to share the feast, seasonal bonhomie ramped up to the max.

Amid the repeated-ad-nauseam Christmas songs, the wall-to-wall sparkling lights and baubles and the commercial brands lashed tightly to old traditional symbols I can't help feeling that the whole experience is empty, devoid of meaning. Christmas has become its own parody, a cheap, mass-produced knock-off that has smothered the original beneath its glittering red and white, snow-carpeted facade.

Christmas died long ago: its dried husk is buried deep beneath strata of tinsel and fairy gold. With a wonky plastic angel stuck on top.

For me this time of year is not about giving or receiving gifts. It is not about parties and feasting. It is not about excessive consumption - gluttony if you will - of any kind. It is not about decorated trees, homes or streets. It is not even about the Christian religious festival.

For me it is the time of year when the darkness is closest at hand. When the long, cold nights harbor age-old fears of loneliness and hunger. When people used to gather round their fires to share warmth and protection, and to pray that the winter would end; that the sun would soon return to warm the land.

For me it is a time for thinking of the people I care about, those I love. This has become a season of unrealistic expectations, unattainable goals, impossible dreams. A season when so many people will fall short of the targets they set themselves, whether they didn't manage to lose that weight to fit into the new party dress, or they saw Dad get drunk Christmas Day and fight with Mum, or they didn't get that one special present they'd set their heart on. A season when people feel disappointed, hurt, alone.

I will not buy presents; I will not send cards. I will find my pleasure in what I can do for those I am close to. If I can make somebody smile, or help them feel that they are not alone, help them feel that they are appreciated and valued... then I believe that would be a worthwhile gift.

Breakdown Timebomb

Handling strong emotions is extraordinarily difficult. Trying to keep them under control - rein them in - is like trying to close a suitcase packed with so many clothes that they threaten to burst out from every side.

I am caught in the currents of my feelings, one minute floating calmly and the next being pulled under by the rip tide or whirled around in a maelstrom of despair before sinking down in darkness. The illusion of control lies shattered around me as I huddle fetus-like in the middle of an barren landscape, no feature to break the monotonous emptiness fading to the horizon in every direction. Out here there is only loneliness. No sound. No breeze. Nothing moves, not even me. Yet within my mind nothing is still: huge, demanding thoughts and emotions slug it out in a battle for my attention while I struggle to avoid being overwhelmed.

And then, as softly sudden as the bursting of a soap bubble, the turmoil subsides and I experience a period of relative calm.

I feel the need to escape - a basic animal instinct to flee from threat. But there is no path to the place that draws me because it exists only in my memories, in the past. An illusory golden history, a carefree time of happiness. An amalgam of times and places synthesized into idyllic fantasy. Such a temptation!... to slip away into this perfect dream world.

A number of factors have likely contributed to my current state of mind but they all boil down to one thing: change. Too much has changed and is changing in too short a space of time and it all pushes me out of my comfortable routine existence into an unstable, unpredictable, disorientating state of uncertainty and confusion. I've not been sleeping well as a result, compounding the problem with tiredness - I feel tattered, ragged, frayed, worn out.

Please, somebody stop the world. I want to get off - I've had enough of this ride.

Loneliness Redux

It was John Donne who wrote in 1624, "No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe". Can't say I disagree with this - the more I build protective walls around me, insulating myself from the world at large, the more lonely I feel. Humans are social animals and merely going through the motions, only interacting superficially, does not involve any connexion with others. I find I need some contact but I'm shut away.

The keep stands fast, ringed by its moat,
Secure, yet isolated.
Defending me from close approach;
Connexions subjugated.

All who try to find a portal,
Some water-gate unguarded,
Can only beat against stone walls
With which my self's surrounded.

Fear builds these walls, fear of getting hurt, fear of censure or ridicule. These fears seem to feed on depression, growing stronger until they overwhelm me, forcing me to withdraw and take refuge behind the reinforced barriers of my mental "panic room".

The trouble is that once those doors are closed, once the shutters come down, there is a coldness as my links to those around me are severed. Feelings are dulled and remote, like outside sounds heard through a closed door. In here I am safe from danger but also disconnected from positive influence - a dilemma.

Perfect isolation
Brings a deathlike stillness.
Colorless desert; expanse
Of infinite emptiness.

How to resolve this? It is paradoxical that in my loneliness I feel a need to be alone, to get away and be by myself for a while. To regain my balance, rebuild my strength and, hopefully, recover my happiness. Because at the moment I am down. Have been for some days or weeks now - not quite sure how long.

The blighted trees were once so green
But now stand gray and twisted.
My woodland haven, tranquil scene,
Destroyed, demolished, blasted.

I feel exhausted. There are reasons - I know what they are but not how to resolve them.

Solitary inmate; my prison
Is of my own making, no less
Secure for that. I hold no keys
That will unlock these cold steel bars.

Outside my cell the corridors
Are silent, no guards to patrol.
My small cell lost in this fastness.
I cry out; echoes fade to naught.

Trying to find some inner peace is difficult right now. I try to recall times of happiness and comfort such as walks in the countryside, views across lakes to distant hills and forests - but instead I find I am transported to exposed rocky slopes with the cold wind howling around me as the rain lashes down and thunder rumbles ominously in the distance. I am a long way from shelter and the day is rapidly drawing to an end to leave me on my own in the stormy night.

Trudging endlessly through the long night, the search for a place to rest seems a Sisyphean task. But I cling to the hope that the storm will abate, a new day will dawn and I will at last find a place to lay my head. To cast off my weariness and return to the light.

Let's Talk About Me

Writing can only achieve so much. There are times when I feel I am holding in so many silent thoughts, so much unexpressed emotion that I get mentally exhausted. It's difficult - if not impossible - to let go, to let it out. Like a locked door to which I do not possess the key. The pressure builds up behind the barriers and the strain makes me fractious.

Mental tension leads to physical tension, that characteristic tightening across the shoulders causing muscular discomfort, aches and pains. How can I relieve this stress? Get things off my mind?

It doesn't help that I subconsciously avoid analyzing the causes of my feelings. As if afraid to confront them head-on I avoid letting my inner eye gaze long upon them. Must avoid eye contact, even in here. So these nebulous concerns accumulate while I refuse to reify them, to give them substance, because that would require that I acknowledge their presence and admit that I cannot handle them.

But admit to whom? To speak of such things to another would need such a degree of candor - such openness - that I would feel too exposed and vulnerable, succumbing in that instant to overwhelming fear, and hastily slam the shutters closed.

To what kind of person could I reveal the detailed depths of my inner turmoil? Whom could I trust implicitly to keep the secrets of my soul safe from the sight of others? It's a puzzle, to be sure - I would have to know somebody well to feel comfortable enough to consider opening up, but having done so I could not subsequently feel comfortable around them. It would be as if I were laid bare. So I end up believing that exploiting such a level of trust would destroy it.

The end result is that I continue to accumulate the hurt and pain, trying to keep it locked away from my day-to-day thoughts. Trying to appear carefree, chasing distractions and amusements that will occupy my mind for a while and give me some respite. Until the darkness returns, as it inevitably will, since I cannot open my mind's doors and let in the light. I am simply not able to talk about me.

Weathering the Storm

Looking back from where I sit alone,
Thinking how it all was meant to be,
Sunny days and laughter in the home,
Not a care to trouble you or me.

Gathering dark storm clouds: trouble looms
On the far horizon, distant fear.
Thunder rolls and hints of pending doom,
Presages the trouble drawing near.

Suddenly the tempest rages round,
Unexpected fury a surprise,
Trying hard to keep feet on the ground,
Lashing rain brings vengeance from the skies.

Feeling such oppression I withdraw,
Cower in the shelter of my mind.
Memories of happiness are straws.
Desolation creeps up from behind.

Crash Landing

Soaring high in clear blue sky,
Lifted on wings of pure joy:
Perfect day. Come out to play,
Join in the game, don't be coy.

Troubled times kept out of mind,
Pleasure has hid them from sight.
Shadows loom and threaten doom:
Even such days end in night.

Falling fast, it ends at last:
Broken wings tattered and torn.
Hello pain, we meet again.
I pray hope rides in at dawn.

Empathy and Selfishness

I fear I've been behaving selfishly recently. I don't want to make excuses - just try to explain. As I wrote recently, my wife is very ill at the moment and her physical pain, exhaustion and isolation are causing severe depression.

I find that I resonate with how she is feeling. I feel her depression like a deep, black pit; like a hundred hooks in my insides drawing them down into the depths, leaving a void yearning to be filled with anything other than the aching emptiness. I find it very difficult to function in the face of such intense emotion - and I am only feeling it second-hand, picking up the echoes of what my wife is experiencing!

I just don't know how to handle the situation; these feelings. I don't know what to do for my wife to help her with her depression. I feel lost. So, selfishly, I have been withdrawing and taking refuge in familiar routines. I've been alternately detached and irascible with her instead of being supportive. I know that's wrong and I want to be supportive - it's proving to be a big challenge.

My reaction to strong emotions is not at a conscious level - it is sheer gut instinct. Such feelings push the buttons of my primitive fight-or-flight response and my conscious mind has to fight hard against the tide to overcome these basic instincts. It doesn't always succeed and that is when I overload.

Imagine, if you can, how a pet dog would react to its owners having a row in front of it. The dog can't understand what is causing the situation but can pick up the emotional overtones and becomes distressed. Perhaps it slinks off, tail between its legs, and cowers in a corner, whining. And over time the dog will become more wary and it will take time and effort to overcome its reluctance to approach, its fear of being in that situation again.

Neurotypical people don't react like that dog, and so don't expect that other people would either. But some autistic people don't have the ability to handle these emotionally-charged situations. We can't rationalize the causes when we're experiencing such distress. All we can do is react instinctively. There's a very good article on this subject on the Autism and Empathy blog.

When I fail to react to somebody in the way that they expect, when I react in a way that appears unfeeling, irrational, selfish - that is often the result of all too much feeling on my part. Feeling - emotion - so strong that I can't rationally cope with it and my mind regresses to a more primitive mode of operation: instinct, the primitive drive for self-preservation.

Playing My Part

You use your words as weapons,
Cut me deeper than a knife.
Though my blood remains unspilt
Still I feel the cuts as life
Spills out from my veins. I built
Such castles of hope this time,
But I built them on the sand.
Your attack will undermine
Them. No hope that they can stand
Against onslaught of that kind.
I will nurse my bleeding heart,
Lick my wounds and try to find
The resolve to play my part
On the stage within your mind.

Worst of Times; Best of Times

The last few days have been a time of striking contrast. I have plumbed the cold, dark depths of sadness and soared high on bright waves of euphoria. Both Friday and Saturday nights were very low points - it was so difficult just to carry on. I don't know how I'd have got through without the distraction of work - for those hours I could just do the job and not think about my problems. But outside of work I had nothing to occupy my mind - no persona to adopt, no mask to hide behind. And so I felt the full impact of my negative feelings.

There were a number of reasons for my unhappiness - being in situations I did not want to be in and feeling trapped, picking up strong negative feelings from somebody close to me and being unable to handle the empathic pain, shutting down in public and attracting unwanted attention when I just needed to be left in peace - it all combined into a destructive overload where I was fighting against myself to avoid a meltdown, to avoid lashing out. I was sleeping badly, not eating well and - although I didn't realise it - becoming physically and mentally exhausted. Even watching my team (Wigan Warriors) win the Rugby League Challenge Cup on Saturday afternoon didn't affect my mood to any great degree.

Sunday didn't start well. However I had a busy shift that afternoon at the pub - the time flew by and I got a buzz from it. I also had some supportive feedback from the couple of "down" posts I'd published the previous nights which lifted me. So I was feeling somewhat better by the evening and, even better, relations with this person I'm very close to were considerably less frosty - this is somebody I love very much but we have communication issues from time to time when she gets very openly emotional and I overload and become uncommunicative. I know it doesn't help the situation but it's the only way I can handle the emotion I feel as a result.

But anyway, there were signs that things were getting back on track so that helped. And that evening I had organised an event in the pub - a darts and quiz night. It's a measure of how comfortable I feel in that environment that I felt able to put myself forward for such an event - organising and hosting something lasting two and a half hours. I had ten teams of two competing and I was nervous as anything starting out even though I knew all the people taking part. I managed to round them all up, explain how it was going to work and get things started. After three rounds of questions I was feeling under pressure and took a short break. My legs were shaking and - I found out later - I was exhibiting a couple of tics that my wife could easily identify as signs of my nerves. I was wondering what the heck I had got myself into - why I had put myself in this situation. I felt it might be slipping out of my control. I hadn't been able to plan the event in detail because I'd not known how many entrants there would be on the night - I was out of my comfort zone and - to a degree - making it up as I went along.

It was about ten minutes later that I got things going again with the next round. The break had calmed me enough and I felt I was getting on top of things - I felt that it was running more smoothly. Nobody had complained yet - in fact a couple had told me it was going well, and that gave me a bit more confidence. By the time we finished two people had made speeches thanking me and called for a round of applause as appreciation for an enjoyable night. Everybody there told me they had had a good time and that I had done a good job of running it. I felt pleased - but more than that I was utterly exhausted. I slept well - over ten hours - and it was Monday morning when I was feeling more refreshed that it sank in and the elation hit me. I found myself flapping my hands in the shower! I feel a real sense of achievement for carrying the evening off successfully, and I know that even a year ago I would never have been able to stand up and speak in front of a group like that - let alone direct the proceedings.

I'm not in any hurry to repeat the experience - it was nerve-wracking and exhausting - but I feel proud of myself for doing a difficult job competently and managing to handle my anxiety. Thanks are also due to the people who took part on that night and were so supportive towards me - I couldn't have got through it without certain people telling me early on that I was doing well and giving me a well-needed confidence boost.

I Can't Cry Any More

My tears won't come. I feel so close to breaking down in tears lately but for some reason I just can't do it - my eyes remain resolutely dry. Although inside I might be despairing, on the outside there are no cracks in my mask.

Only the people reading this have any idea of the pain I carry inside. I am not able to show it or speak out about it. So I write instead and expose my feelings in this way.

Few of the people I have seen over the past few days will have garnered any hint of my hurt. I have kept it inside. I can still speak to them, laugh along with them, give every appearance of being my usual self while under the surface I am in turmoil. I actively hide it these days.

One if the factors that makes handling it more difficult is that I can't talk about how I feel to anyone. I don't mean that there is nobody I feel close enough to; what I mean is that I am literally not able to speak about my feelings. When I am under the added pressure of oral communication the words get stuck in my throat and I can't get them out - I become mute.

It is not that the words themselves are blocked. Rather it is that I have a flood of words running through my mind but such is the intensity of emotion accompanying them that I involuntarily shut down. I would not even be able to read what I have written out loud.

Tears, words and other demonstrations of my emotions are not something I merely find difficult: they are mentally and physically almost impossible. Instead I am sitting here into the small hours again, writing these words as my way of dealing with my emotional pain. And by expressing my feelings in this way I am better able to cope with them.

Would I Be Missed?

Would I be missed were I to go?
Or would memories quickly fade
Like ripples on a pond
Diminish? No resurrection
Possible from such faint echoes.

But what about the lives I've touched?
Shallow impressions left behind
Wear away easily.
Connection must run deeper
Than a casual acquaintance.

Living is harder than dying.
Oblivion promises a peace,
Lasting serenity.
Cessation of my suffering,
An end to pain. Ultimate rest.

My masochistic tendencies
Must be the reason I hang on
To a life such as this:
Where the future promises naught
But a monotony of hurt.

Looking forward from the bottom
Of this deep chasm of despair
I see only black walls,
As daunting in front as behind.
My way out: inconceivable.

Here I remain. Intervention
My only hope of climbing back
Up out of depression.
Throw me a line! Desperation
Will have me clutch at any straw.

I remember feeling happy
But my memory is misty,
Occluded by dark clouds,
Muted to the faintest whisper
Of the symphony I once heard.

I will curl up into a ball,
Foetal. Turn my back on the world.
Tune out, turn off, shut down.
Alone in my mind, safe from harm,
I will weather the storm in here.

I Need a Hug

Your words fall like snowflakes:
Softly, silently
Smothering my heart
In their icy blanket.

To you there is only
A superficial
Serenity, while
Underneath I'm bleeding.

Cut deep, I used to feel
Such pain! Now coldness
Has suffused my core
With a creeping numbness.

Springtime seems so distant
From bleak midwinter.
More dead than alive.
Solace in abeyance.

False hope brings quickening:
Green shoots pierce the snow
Only to wither.
A late frost overwhelms.

My hibernating heart,
Its reserves of strength
Exhausted, clings to
Memories of past warmth.

Feeling Down

Depression is a fact of life for many Aspies. I find I go in cycles. I can be fine for months and then things will build up and overwhelm me again. Occasionally the depression is deep enough that I contemplate just killing myself and putting an end to it.

On a couple of occasions over the past 10 years I have attempted to commit suicide by taking a handful (literally a hand full of course: I'm an Aspie) of pills but they just made me vomit and that was their only effect. I wasn't looking for help or attention; I made sure I was alone and wouldn't be missed quickly. And until I wrote about it here only my wife knew.

Depression is emphatically not a shutdown although I find it contributes to them. I can often carry on my day-to-day life despite feeling depressed: it just tends to make me quieter and less inclined to interact with people. At work I will restrict my interactions to the minimum necessary to get the job done. This means I can go through whole weeks without conversing with any of my colleagues except when it's work-related.

I have never suffered from loneliness. I am very comfortable in my own company; in fact I often prefer to be on my own because being around other people can be so stress-inducing. I think sometimes that stress of interacting with other people helps bring me down. It is the mental exhaustion which results from having to maintain such a high level of focus. Just so that I can hold a conversation in a social setting. Is it worth the effort? I sometimes wonder.

Right now I am feeling down but not (yet) depressed. I have worked 8 hours in my main job followed by 6 very busy hours in my second job as a barman so I am physically tired. Yet I am sitting here past 3am, writing this, because I have to deal with my feelings and writing helps.

My incipient depression might be put off for a while or it might hit me tomorrow. I don't know. I know that the main cause this time is a strained relationship with somebody I'm close to. I just can't seem to connect at the moment. They think I don't care because I don't show or express feelings much and have been unintentionally hurtful towards me. They are also not aware how much they are hurting me when they tell me I don't care.

I feel like I should be used to it after experiencing it for so much of my life but I can't help still feeling hurt when I get called cold or unfeeling.