Tuesday 15 July 2014
Tuesday 6 May 2014
There's a great irony in having your name be "Pride", but having quite literally nothing to be proud of.
"Nothing to be proud of", in its true and techincal meaning, means a lack of any meritable behaviour. Your average bloke who likes going to Greggs for his lunchtime sandwich and plays a mean game of beer-pong can be said to have "nothing to be proud of". He may be quite the happiest chap alive. He may simply enjoy getting out of bed in the morning. Not having something to hold above your head and look at in fond remembrance of trials overcome does not in any way mean that this man isn't just happy to be here.
It's quite another to be ashamed of something you do.
In fact, for me, the word is too soft. "Shame". I'm reminded of a brush with too-forgiving bristles. "Humiliation" is a closer term; it means you were brought to your knees and made to feel the failure you deserve in the public eye. But that still implies that your flaws were brought to bear before an unforgiving trial - shame, however, does not. I prefer to combine the word with something more vile and violent, like "crippling" or "horrendous".
With that explained, I hope that I convey my feelings by saying that much of what I do, or, more accurately, do not do, brings me an undeniable, festering, rancid shame. I am 25, at time of writing. I cannot be relied on to take proper daily showers, keep good time, concentrate at work, brush my teeth, keep obligations, be honest, plan and stick to budgets or uphold my word. I am obese beyond belief, and fit perfectly with most people's definition of a neckbeard, sans the awful personality and fedora.
I am not pleased with myself. In fact, I am not pleased with anything about myself. There is, factually, nothing going right. Perhaps my standards are too high. I need to acknowledge the possibility, even if it is utterly ridiculous. There's nothing "high-standards" about wanting to consistently wash, arrive on time and do solid work. Nobody could say that's asking too much of someone.
Another question I have to face, and would vastly rather not, is: is it asking too much of an aspie?
Personally, my answer is a flat no, because I do not under any circumstances want special treatment of any kind. But it still exists as a possibility. It's there, and needs consideration. No factors must lay beneath the floorboards, permeating everything and turning your search into a fruitless waste of time. It's there, and needs an answer.
So we turn to the All-Mind of humanity's knowledge in the modern day and age. We plug in various words into Google and see what comes out. As it turns out, what comes out is a hell of a lot on children with autism, but not much on adult males with autism. It's difficult to find an answer. So I succumb to personal temptation and I search the Asperger's subreddit.
Suprisingly, there's not much there. Generally not directly linked to laziness.This I find actually quite surprising. There's enough of a body of thought to say that it's possible, but not as strong as I expected.
What about the depression subreddit?
Boom. In particular, this hits home.
I still don't have an answer. I don't feel like I'm worth being able to say "I'm not getting this done because I'm depressed". It's not that simple, it doesn't feel right and I wouldn't deserve such a simple, cop-out answer anyway. It's simple - when I have things I need to be doing, I just default to something mindless. Nearly always some game. I don't even particularly enjoy it. Not really. Not like I used to. I become a voice in the back of my head, pulling every lever and pushing every button, but the console's been turned off and all I can do is watch.
To be even more frank, I didn't want to deal with continued depression. I had said that I had beaten it. And now I pause, and wonder: what happened? I said to my GP that I was quite pleased with things (admittedly I had eaten some cashews prior to the appointment, which I later learned is a handy substitute for prozac). Was I depressed without even knowing? Or did I merely kill my enjoyment of gaming alone in favour of the far more worthy hobby of reading? Am I not depressed, but just lazy? Is it mixed in with Asperger's and the trait of developing strange fatigue patterns (e.g. working very well in the morning, but flagging badly in the afternoon)?
So we end where we started; I'm not getting things done, I'm not juicing every day, I'm not showering every day, I'm turning up late for work infrequently. And I still don't believe for a moment that it's because I'm depressed. I want to think that it's simply because I have enormous character defects that everyone goes to ridiculous, unacknowledged lengths to forgive time and again despite the frequency and severity of them. Even if I prefer this, I still need to then question it with "Or am I actually seeing things the wrong way", that being the final brush stroke on a picture of the vicious circle.
But no matter the case, it doesn't change the fact that there are those who call me by the very odd name of "Pride", but I am the last person on earth to stand up and claim it.
"Nothing to be proud of", in its true and techincal meaning, means a lack of any meritable behaviour. Your average bloke who likes going to Greggs for his lunchtime sandwich and plays a mean game of beer-pong can be said to have "nothing to be proud of". He may be quite the happiest chap alive. He may simply enjoy getting out of bed in the morning. Not having something to hold above your head and look at in fond remembrance of trials overcome does not in any way mean that this man isn't just happy to be here.
It's quite another to be ashamed of something you do.
In fact, for me, the word is too soft. "Shame". I'm reminded of a brush with too-forgiving bristles. "Humiliation" is a closer term; it means you were brought to your knees and made to feel the failure you deserve in the public eye. But that still implies that your flaws were brought to bear before an unforgiving trial - shame, however, does not. I prefer to combine the word with something more vile and violent, like "crippling" or "horrendous".
With that explained, I hope that I convey my feelings by saying that much of what I do, or, more accurately, do not do, brings me an undeniable, festering, rancid shame. I am 25, at time of writing. I cannot be relied on to take proper daily showers, keep good time, concentrate at work, brush my teeth, keep obligations, be honest, plan and stick to budgets or uphold my word. I am obese beyond belief, and fit perfectly with most people's definition of a neckbeard, sans the awful personality and fedora.
I am not pleased with myself. In fact, I am not pleased with anything about myself. There is, factually, nothing going right. Perhaps my standards are too high. I need to acknowledge the possibility, even if it is utterly ridiculous. There's nothing "high-standards" about wanting to consistently wash, arrive on time and do solid work. Nobody could say that's asking too much of someone.
Another question I have to face, and would vastly rather not, is: is it asking too much of an aspie?
Personally, my answer is a flat no, because I do not under any circumstances want special treatment of any kind. But it still exists as a possibility. It's there, and needs consideration. No factors must lay beneath the floorboards, permeating everything and turning your search into a fruitless waste of time. It's there, and needs an answer.
So we turn to the All-Mind of humanity's knowledge in the modern day and age. We plug in various words into Google and see what comes out. As it turns out, what comes out is a hell of a lot on children with autism, but not much on adult males with autism. It's difficult to find an answer. So I succumb to personal temptation and I search the Asperger's subreddit.
Suprisingly, there's not much there. Generally not directly linked to laziness.This I find actually quite surprising. There's enough of a body of thought to say that it's possible, but not as strong as I expected.
What about the depression subreddit?
Boom. In particular, this hits home.
I still don't have an answer. I don't feel like I'm worth being able to say "I'm not getting this done because I'm depressed". It's not that simple, it doesn't feel right and I wouldn't deserve such a simple, cop-out answer anyway. It's simple - when I have things I need to be doing, I just default to something mindless. Nearly always some game. I don't even particularly enjoy it. Not really. Not like I used to. I become a voice in the back of my head, pulling every lever and pushing every button, but the console's been turned off and all I can do is watch.
To be even more frank, I didn't want to deal with continued depression. I had said that I had beaten it. And now I pause, and wonder: what happened? I said to my GP that I was quite pleased with things (admittedly I had eaten some cashews prior to the appointment, which I later learned is a handy substitute for prozac). Was I depressed without even knowing? Or did I merely kill my enjoyment of gaming alone in favour of the far more worthy hobby of reading? Am I not depressed, but just lazy? Is it mixed in with Asperger's and the trait of developing strange fatigue patterns (e.g. working very well in the morning, but flagging badly in the afternoon)?
So we end where we started; I'm not getting things done, I'm not juicing every day, I'm not showering every day, I'm turning up late for work infrequently. And I still don't believe for a moment that it's because I'm depressed. I want to think that it's simply because I have enormous character defects that everyone goes to ridiculous, unacknowledged lengths to forgive time and again despite the frequency and severity of them. Even if I prefer this, I still need to then question it with "Or am I actually seeing things the wrong way", that being the final brush stroke on a picture of the vicious circle.
But no matter the case, it doesn't change the fact that there are those who call me by the very odd name of "Pride", but I am the last person on earth to stand up and claim it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)