Most of my life I thought I had autism or something, since everyone weird (especially in the fandom) seems to have that these days. I've been struggling with antisocial tendencies, lack of enthusiasm, and chronic depression for my whole life. Last year, shortly before I started the Kinktober 2024 challenge, I finally concluded that this is no longer an inconvenience, but a real problem, and I started taking measures to do something about it.
You know, I was under the impression that knowing was half the battle, and getting a diagnosis would be a starting point to recovery. If anything, it's made things worse. It's not what I thought it was. Now I'm even more miserable than before.
So, here I am on vacation visiting my family at the beach, and I'm having a hell of a time coping with my family. It's not them, though... it's me. I can't talk to anyone and I just don't want to be here. This is the first time I've really been away from my home in a year and all I can think about is getting the week over with so I can just be alone again. I know it's wrong, but it's how I feel, and I just can't control that. I've brought some books so I can look busy and hope that nobody talks to me. Most of my family members, especially my dad, will talk your ear off for hours on end about nothing important. I'm insanely envious of people who can do that. Let alone do it myself, I can't listen to others who can. I can't even deal with people talking about things that genuinely are important. It can get to the point where it is seriously uncomfortable and my brain just shuts off to block out the noise. I mean that quite literally. My mind goes into daydream overdrive and I can't follow conversations.
The worst part about small talk is that most conversations start with how you are doing, which almost always implies how things are going at work and/or what you do for a living. Well, the truth is that I do nothing. I saved all my money from when I was working, invested in the market, and now I live off my nest egg. I don't have to work if I don't feel like it, and I don't feel like it. Let me tell you, retired life isn't all it's cracked up to be, and it's not healthy if you have my kind of problem. I can't stand doing nothing, and that's all I seem to do now. I hate myself for it.
For a while, I was fooling myself into thinking I could work on freelance projects to keep busy, but other than contributions to some open-source projects, I haven't accomplished much. I'm not interested in the things other people like, and nobody cares about the kinds of things I do. There's no ethics in the professional tech industry, and free open-source is a clusterfuck of bad design and management with no hope of change any time soon. Realistically, you can't accomplish anything in the tech industry unless you're part of a team. I can't do that. Nobody seems to think like I do and doesn't care about what I have to offer. I'm not politically savvy enough to work my way into a team, and when I ask people to work with me, I always get ghosted.
Within the last few years, I've just lost all motivation to do anything. Art is the least of my problems. I've just given up.
In the last 6 months, I think the only time I've left my property was to go grocery shopping and see the eye doctor. I do jog around the neighborhood every day, but I don't think that counts if I don't socialize or do anything new. I'm the spitting example of the weirdo hermit who stays locked up in his house all night and sleeps during the day (I've always worked night jobs). "Sleeps" is a stretch, since I average less than 5 hours of sleep a day, for various reasons, mostly due to my aphantasia and my turbocharged absent-mindedness that just won't shut off.
When I was a kid, my usual routine was to come home from school, lock myself in my room and pace back and forth talking to myself until dinner. After dinner and washing the dishes, I went back to my room and talked to myself some more. At the time, I wanted to be an artist and cartoonist, so I convinced myself that fantasizing and method acting all day was just part of the creative process to come up with ideas. It never occurred to me that I had a problem. All that time thinking, and I never wrote down any notes or actually produced anything of value.
I've wasted my life living in a fantasy world in my head, and I don't even remember most of it.
I'm quickly approaching 50, and I'm still doing this. It's depressing and disturbing, but it's one of those things that's just hard to break out of. It's more complicated than being addicted to social media or video games, since I don't use social media at all, and I was like this even before I had a personal computer, let alone had a phone, let alone access to the Internet. Hell, as a kid, I barely even watched TV.
In a nutshell, I have something called schizoid personality disorder. Well, that's what I'll tell you since it's not well understood and even some medical professionals can't agree on how to classify it. My emotions are just broken, and I have to rely on logic to get though life. That's not as easy as it sounds. People are emotional beings and most things they do are driven by emotion, gut feelings, and instinct. That's why prices are rounded down by a penny and stores put bubble gum next to the cash registers. People act on impulse. That's normal. Without emotions, most social constructs would just break down and cease to function. Sort of like me.
Most of the writing in my comics is based on what I've read in books, seen on TV, and experienced in school or at work. I don't feel that kind of stuff myself. If I don't fake my demeanor, based on what I think people expect of me, you'd easily confuse me with a block of wood. A block of wood that spends most of his time staring into space like he's on another planet.
There's no pill for this. Hardly anyone understands it, let alone knows how to treat it.
SzPD places on the schizophrenic spectrum, but on the "odd" end rather than the "psychotic" end. Thankfully, I don't have psychotic episodes, so I'm fully aware of the passage of time and what I'm doing (before I end up forgetting). Zoning out is just one of those habits that keeps me in my comfort zone. I don't feel anxious or paranoid being around other people. I just don't give a damn. I want the whole world to just go the hell away and leave me alone. I'd rather file taxes all day than have to respond to, "How are you doing?"
People get really mad at me, and I don't know what to tell them. Here's the thing... most people are extroverted and find socializing easy. They can't relate to how difficult it is, and get genuinely upset when I don't give them the attention they want. It's not as simple as, "You gotta get out of the house!" or "Why don't you just talk to some people?" There's a big difference between engaging in an activity that's uninteresting and a chore, and something that is outright frustrating and upsetting. After decades of practice, it just never gets easier.
I tried having a few friends when I was younger, and it didn't work well. Early in life, most kids tried to take advantage of me, like the guy who pretended to be friendly until he became abusive. Or the guy who asked to borrow all of my Nintendo games the day before he moved away without telling me (I only let him have one game, thank goodness). I worked with a few people in college, but they were colleagues, not friends. Chris was the closest thing I had to a friend, but we didn't hang out that often other that to try collaborating on an art project. Sam lived in a different state, and we worked on some fanzines together via the mail. He used to call me on the phone and we'd just kind of say nothing for 10-15 minutes. I hated it when he called, and he just kept doing it. Eventually, we met while going to a furry con, and once he got first-hand experience with how boring I was, he and his friends ditched me. Thankfully I managed to find them before they left home, otherwise I'd have no way to get back to his place to pick up my car. I was so pissed about what happened at the con I never talked to him again, though he tried to blame me for the whole thing.
Yes, socialization is a skill that has to be learned, but most people easily figure this stuff out by the time they are 10 or so. I think I was 35 by the time I could understand emotional responses at the same level as a 10-year-old. In college I had a really hard time understanding human behavior, and against all sensible logic, I thought everyone else in the world was just an asshole. So, I took a sociology course. It didn't help me talk to people, but it did help be better understand how people think and what motivates them. That was when I really began to understand that I was the one who was abnormal, and possibly an "asshole" in other peoples' eyes. I never felt I was in the wrong, but since everyone treated me that way, there comes a point where you have to accept it whether you like it or not. Normal people can't understand. They have no idea that I'm not trying to be a jerk or indifferent. I've been like this my whole life. To me, it's normal. I can't practice being more normal, you know. I can get better, but I'll never be at everyone else's level.
It's like my aphantasia. I can't sleep at night because I can't see anything in my head. There's no use in trying to tell me to count sheep or something, because I'm literally incapable of doing that. I've had decades of my life to "practice" having visions, so if I can't do it now, it's just never going to happen. Even when I'm asleep, I dream blind. I'm aware of things going on around me and I can hear stuff just fine, but I never see a damn thing. I think that's why I daydream so much. My brain can't get any satisfaction when my eyes are shut, so I dream while I'm wide awake. I dunno. Concentration and sleep are just problems. I can only assume they are related.
It sucks. I'm always tired. I feel awful. The stupid thing is that aphantasia is even less understood than SzPD. Hell, it wasn't even known to be a thing until about a decade ago.
Lucky me. Even when it comes to a clinical condition or a personality type, nobody seems to know it exists.
I am so fucking lost. I haven't felt this bad since my panic attacks in my 20's. But now, it's not panic. It's just chronic, endless depression and pessimism about the future. Age is catching up with me, and now, there's real reason for me to believe things genuinely won't get better. My mind isn't wired right, and at this point there's no way to re-wire it. I'll just have to make do until I'm dead, and then... there probably isn't anything after that.
I'd like people to please understand... even though socialization is a skill that has to be learned, not everybody can learn it. Some people, like me, try their entire life and never quite get it. It's not laziness, it's not due to disinterest or lack of trying. I'm just not capable socializing or behaving at the same level as everyone else and it really is a chronic disability in its own right.
It's also not the same thing as introversion. People who are introverted are fully capable of socializing and having friends, but they can only tolerate so much in one day before they need their quiet time to recharge. I'm on the absolute extreme end of introversion. Never mind recharging -- my social battery is just defective.
The worst part is that you just can't talk about this kind of stuff. There's too much risk for being blacklisted. It's probably the same the world over, not just in the USA, but... nobody takes kindly to mental or behavioral disorders. I can't even tell my family I'm a furry. I'm not sure how to tell them my feelings are broken, especially since there's really nothing I can do about it.
I'm nothing like Waccoon the character. Wac is on the anxious/insecure part of the spectrum, and his wife knows how to help him overcome his limitations. Wac and Tawny have opposite personalities that help them fulfill each others' needs, with Wac being the practical one, and Tawny being the socialite. In real life, I'd hate to live with Tawny. She'd just annoy the hell out of me. Also, as much as I enjoy thinking about sex, I can't see doing it myself. The idea of touching another person just makes me feel so uncomfortable. I really hate it when people hug me.
Really, all my comics and writings are based on works from other people, and my attempts to logically understand how emotions work. If I had to work with what I know and what I've experienced, nobody would want to read my comics -- not even me. I have a large pile of rejected works and ideas that I could never bear to draw. Lately, all my efforts to make comic books (the Whisper the Wolf minicomic, how Wac and Noicha met, Tangle's dream, Talia and Giraud), have stalled since I'm just not happy with the stories and how the characters are depicted. I just have no confidence in my ability to write an original story that emotionally appeals to "normal" people. I overthink things. I write too much expositional dialog. I tell, not show. Comic strips are hard. Comic books are a nightmare.
Me, I don't have a personality. I don't feel love or attraction. I don't get bored being by myself. Nobody can stand being around me, and that feeling is mutual, even though I don't really want that to be true. I really do want to be normal. I'm just not capable of being that way. I can't control how I feel, and I can't force myself to be interested in other people. Apparently, I can't fake it well enough to stop people from getting mad or weirded out at me, either.
So... I don't know what to do. I enjoy being alone, and that was fine when I was young. But now, I'm starting to get old. I know there will come a day when I'll have a hard time getting around by myself and there will be no one around to check on me. I could keel over and it might be months before the utility companies realize I'm not paying my bills. Both my parents are in their 80's and it's clear that I don't have much time left with them. When they're gone, I will truly be alone. Emotionally, I like it that way, but despite what my feelings tell me, the logical part of my brain knows that's unacceptable.
For now, I'm thinking the best course of action is for me to get a part-time job or do some volunteer work, and I really need to avoid getting a night job where I work alone. I like having free time, but that's pretty worthless if all I'm doing is wasting away thinking up ideas that never go anywhere.
I do want to work on my Talia and Giraud comic, though. I think I'm finally just going to go with my original idea, even though I don't like it, because I can't sit on this forever. I'll talk about that in another journal.
Cherish your friends, folks. Not having any is no way to live.
