I didn’t post yesterday, but this was only because I was giving my website a bit of a break from me, after those emotional 3 days. It’s Sunday today, almost 1pm (when I was writing the first draftof this post). John visited me but he’s already gone! I did notice that he talks differently to me about my blogging and sounds really supportive recently but he is still leaving a bit early when he comes over, therefore it seems to me he is still uncomfortable on some level, and it’s only natural to think it’s due to me blogging. But then, when I told him on Friday I’m considering quitting he encouraged me to keep going.

I am now wondering if it’s possible that he wants me to keep blogging so that I have something to hold on to in case he wants to end this relationship.

Anyway, today post (and I try to only post once, lol) is going to be about me asking if we, autistics, should aim to just be ourselves. I can see loads of opinions on Instagram that it’s society that is making us disabled and if not other people expectations we would be totally fine. And the thing is, I’m not convinced this is actually true. Being autistic is not only about not understanding how to make a small talk, it’s also about the fact that we’re not very good at planning where social situations are involved and our own instinct can lead us astray.

Let’s take my first partner: I really didn’t understand why our relationship is not working and that was the exact reason I didn’t finish it any earlier. I didn’t understand that the fact I am not accepted by his family is going to make everything difficult, but I also didn’t understand why we were still able to laugh together when nothing else was working between us. I remember reading an article that stated that if a couple can still laugh even though they’re going through crisis they’re most likely to be fine and I used it to explain to myself it’s all good, even though I didn’t even want that relationship to last. I didn’t understand what was happening around me and it was like if I was constantly performing a psychological experiment on myself to find that out.

Now, although I can’t say there is anything wrong between me and John, I again feel like I don’t know what is happening, and we only just got back together a few weeks ago. I don’t want to sound silly but it seems to me like I had a better control when we broke up. Initially he wanted to be back together but I said no, then I changed my mind but he needed convincing – but that made sense to me, he needed convincing because I rejected him. Now we are back into the mundane and I suddenly don’t know what is going on. What is not helping is that there’s no one that I could talk about that, even the people who know that I’m autistic don’t understand what it really means, and that possibly we need more time to spend separately. From how people comment on our relationship I take it that they think the fact that I’m autistic means I want to spend even more time with John than a neurotypical female would, because I have no one else who understands me.

Ok, the post was meant to discuss whether we should just be ourselves, while autism is not only an inability to keep a social chat. But the thing is, I am not able to answer this question – I am just saying that there seem to be so many autistic people out there who believe we would be absolutely fine if we were only allowed to play by our own rules, while I’m not so sure and I don’t even know what my rules are.

It seems like, if I felt I had more control over my emotional state when I broke up with John, I should break up with him again. But that’s not what I want to do and I now know, being 44, that would only create drama as a result. But when I was in my 20s I wasn’t able to understand that, I only understood the immediate consequences. At least now, when I know that I’m autistic, I am aware this type of confusion is not unusual for us. But then I read the posts about how it’s the society that is disabling us and I feel really sad. It seems to me again that I’m the only one who’s not sorted.

The other type of situations where my question applies is pursuing pretty much any goals. Let’s go back to the radio show from a couple of days ago: I really felt at the beginning that I should just get up and run. It was really strong, instinctive reaction. Should I be allowed to do that? Of course, no one was forcing me to perform. But what would be the consequences if I did that? I’d appear like someone who can’t cope not only for other people but also for myself. And I really wanted to change my career and become lived experience speaker, remember? (Not sure if I still want it now but I did want it at the time).

It’s not just society that is disabling us, it’s our instinct that is disabling us too. I mean I wrote about instinct in my posts about sexuality a couple of months ago and I was advising to follow it. But that was different – I believe instinct is what controls sexual desire, although I’m not actually aware of any research on that. But I guess we can all agree sexual desire is not controlled by social rules and other people opinion, while those are important if we want to accomplish any long term goal.

Anyway, what is with checkout operators laughing at me? It happened to me the second time today, in Lidl this time. As the cashier said ‘7.19’ she bursted into laughter. It didn’t make any sense to me. Is that a new rule in customer service to randomly laugh at clients? Maybe it came to us from Ticktock and, as with all the new trends, I’m blissfully unaware of it.