just a word

If I try to explain my theory of mind theories in person, it's a challenge to keep it succinct enough to be worth saying at all. Is it a form of masking that I'm conscientious about this? I'm always abridging what I want to say, because if I go into adequate detail, I'm just going to confuse and bore people. I have trouble thinking clearly enough in the moment, anyhow. 

Sometimes I am motivated to write precisely the things no one wants to hear. One might say my blog is intentionally unappealing. It is the discarded remnants of conversations I've had where I was less than genuine, because to be genuine would be problematic. I want to get the gist across, to express the basic angle I'm coming from, without getting into any lectures of extended implications and supporting evidence. 

I find it interesting to think about what's going on in the brain at a lower level, before it manifests into the behaviors people ascribe all their understanding to. Maybe this is what they call top-down thinking. We start from a premise and then explain it, using what we already know. 

In neurotypical theory of mind, we start from the premise that others are similar to ourselves. This streamlines the process of relating and empathizing, by glossing over any need for facts. It tends to work most of the time, as humans do share a lot of similarities more often than not. 

Oxytocin may play a key role in this, and that also produces in-groups and out-groups. We relate and empathize in this streamlined way, with those we consider our own kind. We can learn to define that more broadly or narrowly, but it is neurotypical to be averse to those who are different. To be deemed somehow different is to get the ugly side of oxytocin.

It is not difficult to understand the direct impact a person might experience, if they struggle to trust or relate to anyone, but if this is rooted in neurologic dysfunction, it likely goes all the way back to infancy, before we have any cognitive framework to make sense of it. Some of the more severe manifestations of autism may be the consequence of lacking a basic sense of affinity for caregivers. Development occurs without emulating or learning from them. Facial expressions, language, even how to eat.

Apparently some in the autistic community oppose talking about autism in different degrees of severity. It's a spectrum, they argue. We're all different, but nobody is more or less autistic. I don't know why that would be the case, or know of any evidence that is the case. So I'm left to wonder what would motivate  such a bias.

We're not supposed to consider it a disability but what does it mean to have higher support needs? What does it mean to be more severely impacted by all the ways autism has made life so difficult? What if the degree to which we lack trust and affinity varies, such that developmental consequences are more or less profound? Mental health is rarely binary, but we want to frame things a certain way, we want to feel good about them. 

Bottom-up thinking is when we look at all the information we have, and build towards an interpretation. Whether or not that makes us feel good falls to the other side of the equation; a consequence, not a premise. We learn to mask how harsh that can be. How is it a disability when we're right and it's neurotypical to be happily wrong about everything? Well, look at my life. That's how.

Tonight, I am depressed despite getting to the gym. It seems worst of all to be depressed after doing the one thing that allegedly makes me happy. Sometimes it just goes all wrong. I wasn't feeling great beforehand and going anyhow didn't help. I come home just wanting to do whatever it takes to insulate myself from the pain, but nothing works anymore. 

This idea that I am autistic could be liberating. Maybe I should stop trying to hide it and follow my impulses. Maybe I'm destroying myself, hopelessly trying to be what I'm not. What, someone who can afford a place to live, someone that other people might actually like? Maybe there are reasons I never get there. 

No wonder my life has been so difficult, but I don't feel relieved. I feel my hopes that it will ever change have been dashed, and everyone who's ever doubted me has turned out to be right. I've spent my life failing to prove them wrong. I will end my life before accepting this.