My views on depression and other
mental health issues were (and to a degree are) very largely affected by the
views of the environment I grew up in and I believe that, to an extent, that’s
why it never even occurred to me to ask for help for neither the depression or
the anxiety I had in the past. I mean where I come from, when you have any sort
of mental health problem, no matter why or how you got it you just “suck it up
and grow a pair” because it’s your fault, obviously, for being a weak cry-baby that
can’t do what other people can. Or at least that’s the impression that was
created to me at the time. I now know that this is not the case and do believe
that having a mental breakdown doesn’t mean that you are weak, it means that
you have been too strong for too long. The attitude “once a mental health
patient, always a mental health patient” of the medical system does piss me off
and I find doctors so confusing and frustrating, that I believe I would be on
the verge of taking out all my clothes and running up and down the street
screaming “I am Napoleon!” before I sought any sort of help through the medical
system for any such issues in the future. Doctors do not understand AS and I
don’t see them understanding it any time soon. I do not like to have to explain
who I am to people on my good days anyway but on my bad, you just see a blank
expression on my face and tears pouring down my eyes “for no reason”.
When I was at my worst, I was
writing novels in which the people fought and fought with their demons or for
what they wanted and in the end the only catharsis they got was death, often by
their own hand. When I showed those novels to my mum she told me that they were
very well written, but she prefers characters that stay strong and are strong
females that overpower their environment. That was one of the reasons that I
believe I needed to grow a pair. I thought I wasn’t allowed to be weak, I had
to, HAD TO be strong and prove myself to everybody. To this day I watch anime (e.g.
like Naruto) where a character always does things because he/she needs to prove
him/herself to others and my heart goes out so much to that imaginary person,
more often than not tears come to my eyes and/or I scream on the screen “You
don’t have to prove yourself to anybody damn it, just live your freaking life
already!!!!” It’s like I am not screaming at the character, I am screaming it
at me. Well, past me.
I am always amazed when people
say things like “oh, but you are so successful now!” to me. I mean don’t get me
wrong, I do give credit to myself for my accomplishments, but that is just such
a superficial observation to my ears… My mum does that a lot. She is
unbelievably proud of me and I am very happy for that, but she only focuses on
the positives of my life, the things that I’ve overcome, the accomplishments I
did. Understandably, that makes a pretty good parent given the number of other
parents who, willingly or not, constantly put their children down and do not
push them to achieve according to their potential. I like to call my mum “a
crazy coach”, because even at my lowest she was always, ALWAYS there to shout “get
up, stand up, you are strong, you can DO THIS!!!” and it to this day it’s the
main reason I am where I am and I have done what I have done. She always
believed in me, even when I didn’t believe in myself and I will always be grateful
to her for that… The lesson that we both had to learn though (because she makes
that mistake in her own life as well) is that not being ok from time to time is
ok. It’s ok to not be able to do something, to have had enough, to feel
overwhelmed, to feel like there’s no tomorrow. I am an aspie and when things
get bad they were never good to begin with, whereas when things are good they
were never bad anyway. My mind is that black and white and I have learned now
that I need to let it do its thing for a while. I do give time to the “end of
the world” moments to unravel, but I don’t give them space in my mind, if that
makes any sense. I know now, that this darkness I face, when I face it, is just
what it is. A passing darkness and the world is going to be better tomorrow. I
don’t usually believe myself when I have these thoughts at my worst, but at
least I have them. Darkness is not the bigger picture anymore. Or, to put it
better, I am able to SEE the bigger picture, see beyond the darkness…
Let me give you an analogy of how
life felt between the ages of 13-23 just so you understand why the “oh but you
are so successful” observation sounds so silly to me. Imagine that you are
running down the street and a crazy clown with a knife is chasing after you.
Imagine that you fall and scratch your knee. Are you going to stop running and
start crying about the knee or start taking care of it? Of course not! You are
going to get up and continue running, because if you don’t the clown is going
to get you and then you are dead. Quite literally so. Imagine that you sprain
your ankle. Do you stop and wrap it up or do you scream “oh shit!!!” and
continue running like a crazy person? Probably the latter.
That’s how life was for me during
this decade. Running away from a scary clown with a knife. I had to, HAD TO
finish school because otherwise, like in video games, it would mean that the
clown got me and I got “k. o.” and I have to play the level again, which was so
hard and so emotionally frustrating in the first place. I had to finish
university for the same reason, it felt like a very difficult video game level
that I absolutely had to pass not necessarily because I wanted to, but because
if I didn’t the scary clown would chase me forever. And I didn’t even like the
game I was playing. I just felt like I HAD to play it. This is what everyone
expected me to do.
Now if you say “well, yeah, but did
you still beat the clown and passed the level” well, yes I did. But then again,
imagine that at the end of that road where the scary clown is chasing you is
the police station, where you know that you are going to be safe. Aren’t you
going to run like a maniac to get to that police station? Of course you are.
Are you going to reach it? Hopefully. Is it going to be considered an
achievement? Yes, in the sense that your survival instinct is just so strong
and you are brave and courageous enough to get there with a crazy clown chasing
you, a bleeding knee and a sprained ankle. But people are not going to tell you
“you are so awesome, you did something few people do!” No, I did something
everyone in my situation would try desperately to do and I was lucky enough to
achieve it. And yes. I do not think that most of it was because of my ability,
because my whole mind was focusing on SURVIVING, not SUCCEEDING. “Success”, if
you will, was just a happy coincidence. And then it all comes down to “why is
it success anyway? Why am I considered more successful than someone without a
university or a master’s degree or whatever else I have done?”. The reason lies
purely on the structure of the society, which sadly adores classing people in
categories according to their achievements, for a reason that I never have and
will never fully understand. And I doubt that many people have gotten the full
grasp of it, they just do it and it my eyes it is completely stupid.
So then, to go back to our story,
what happens when you finally reach the police station? You go in, you shout “heeeeeeeeelp,
a crazy clown is chasing after meeeeeee!!!” and the policemen go out and take
care of the clown. Did you solve the problem in the end? No, the policemen did.
Are you considered as a person that has solved the problem? Yes, because in the
common mind the one responsible to take care of the criminals is the police and
not the civilians, and you are a civilian. If you HAD taken care of the clown
by yourself, you would have perhaps done something that you weren’t supposed to
do (like threaten the clown with a knife in return) and potentially get into
even more trouble because of it. Because, one way or another, in today’s
society we are not often considered either able to find or responsible for
applying the solution to our own problems. You are supposed to tell someone. You
are supposed to ask for help. Even if you can’t, even if nobody will offer. Because
if you don’t, the problem doesn’t exist and by the time others realize it does
all you get was “well, you were not SUPPOSED TO solve it like this”. Therefore,
much like some video games, life often has ONE solution. ONE way to go through
it. Some people realise it, some people don’t. Some people conform with it,
some people don’t because they see the stupidity in it.
Generally, people revolve a great
deal of their personality around the social amount and form of the social norms
they confrom to, as well as the reasons behind their choice. Personally, I
think I did a bit of both. Because my concern at the moment was not forming an
identity. I didn’t even realise I was supposed to do that. My main concern was
TO SURVIVE. To get away from the scary clown. I did get a number of identities
during that process, mainly because I thought that adapting to some
environments will help me beat the clown, but they were never substantial, no
matter how passionate I may have seemed about them for a certain period of
time. The only identity that was very important to me and had a lot of
substance in it as it was my way of telling people “help me, a scary clown is
chasing me!!!” was that of the metalhead. To this day I am ever so grateful to this music and the bands
that I used to listen to at the time, simply because they managed to put words
to things I couldn’t and it made me feel like there are other people on this
planet that struggle with the same issues as I did. Metal was my therapy for
many years. And it stopped being my therapy when I finally started to have less
need of a therapy. (The “problem” is that, in my eyes at the time, the people
who struggle with issues, don’t talk to professionals. They sit in their room
all day long and listen to other people spelling out their problems to them
through song. And from time to time, they meet with other song listeners and
talk about those said songs when, in reality, they talk about their problems. If
they need to talk about their problems more, they write lyrics themselves. But
that’s another story altogether, haha!)
So why the hell didn’t people
realise that a scary clown was chasing me all these years, why don’t they
realise it for so many people around the world that are chased by scary clowns
every day of their lives? The answer is simple, as it is sad: THEY DON’T SEE
THE F***ING CLOWN. Yes. We are the crazy people that are chased by imaginary
clowns that don’t exist, because the rest of the world doesn’t see them. Or even
worse, they UNDERESTIMATE THEM. They perhaps see the clown but go like “it’s
just a clown, it’s not gonna hurt ya, clowns are nice and funny, everybody
knows that!” and if you scream to their faces “BUT IT’S HOLDING A KNIFE AND
RUNNING TOWARDS ME, THAT IS THE VERY DEFINITION OF DANGEROUS!!!!” they are
going to tell you that you are overreacting, taking everything personally, are
actually quite selfish to think that the clown would even bother chasing you
because you are not important anyway and that you are not the centre of the
world. And leave you utterly baffled and frustrated, because in your eyes it is
only rational that when a freaking scary clown is running after you with a
knife you go ask for freaking help because it a very, very, very, very scary
situation. See how easily NT observations can be utterly frustrating for
someone on the autism spectrum? We look crazy to you and you look stupid to us.
Don’t you think it’s high time we found other ways of seeing each other?
So what if you do see the clown
and is not indeed as scary as I make him out to be? You see that what
frustrates me is my own fear, thought patterns and way of processing
information, what do you do? Go.
Well, obviously to me it doesn’t
really matter if the clown is scary or not, all it matters is that I SEE HIM AS
SCARY AND THAT FEAR CRIPPLES ME. It is not even close to helpful for you to
come to me and tell me “Oh come on, you are overreacting, grow a pair, it’s just
a clown.” No. This is not going to help me realise that the clown is in fact
not scary. All this is going to do is a) externalise the problem and go like “Everybody
is stupid, why don’t they freaking see that the clown is really scary and that
I am in a very real danger?” and hence not want to cooperate with you or have
anything to do with you in any other way, or b) internalise the problem and go
like “Oh sh*t, I am seeing things again, I am stupid, I am crazy, nobody
understands me, I am the weirdest person on earth, LEAVE ME ALONE AND GO
AWAY!!!!” and hence not want to cooperate with you or have anything to do with
you in any other way. Which one solved the problem? I may be presumptuous here
and jump to conclusions, but I’ll go ahead and say it anyway: NEITHER ONE DID.
So what do you do then? Well, it’s
quite simple actually. If I say the clown is scary, then the clown is freaking
scary. I know you can’t see that, it doesn’t matter to me one bit BECAUSE I AM
SCARED (not because I don’t care about what you think, despite the common
perceptions about me) and you try to find out why the hell I find that clown so
bloody scary anyway. If you cannot do that, then just try to show me that the
clown is not scary TO YOU, that it’s alright, and maybe then I will realise
that the clown was not so scary to begin with. Maybe I won’t though because
that freaking clown is so freaking crippling to me that I don’t care if you
find it easy to deal with or not. That thing is dead scary for all I care and
is always going to be. If that’s the case, then you need to be UNDERSTANDING
about this. Clearly, I did not choose to spend every day of my life freaking
frustrated over the freaking clown, so judging me for it is not going to help. Assuming
that I can deal with or will deal with it eventually when I CLEARLY SHOWED YOU
THAT I CAN’T, is not going to help. What is going to help, is finding a way to
keep me away from the clown. Then again, it may not be forever and such time
may come that I will be or feel more capable of dealing with said scary clown. Don’t
hold your breath though or place or your hopes on me eventually doing so,
because that is so stressful for me, as I am ALWAYS GOING TO FEEL LESS FOR NOT
BEING ABLE TO DEAL WITH MY WORST FEARS. When you don’t have to deal with your
worst fears, you are not less. You are human. Why are you expecting from me to
be more than that? It really is not fair… I know that you want to HELP me deal
with my fears, but please do accept that in order for that to be successful it’s
going to happen on my own terms and on my own time. It’s very scary and
frustrating for me to deal with scary clowns all day, so please accept it…
And finally, please ask yourself
why do I have to spend my life running away from scary clowns when everybody around
me lives clown-free and happy. Does that seem fair to you? Having to have a
lifetime chased by scary clowns? If not, then remove the freaking clowns and
leave me be. Accept that IT IS ABSOLUTELY OK FOR ME TO BE HAPPY AND CLOWN-FREE,
no matter how much you would have wanted me to beat my fears, chase the clowns
away and not be scared anymore YOUR WAY. Accept that I may need to not be
scared anymore MY WAY, as your way doesn’t lead anywhere…
Having said all that, do I really
need to spell it out for you who those clowns are? Isn’t it obvious already? These
clowns are all the things that I am supposed to be doing but I am not. Being expected
to talk at a certain age. Being expected to be able to eat every food on the
planet without any warning of what my next meal is going to be be made of. Being
expected to be able to accept all sorts of change on my schedule and completely
hand in the control to you, when at the same time I don’t have any knowledge on
what the change is going to consist of. Not being able to hear certain sounds,
to be able to function under certain lights, to be able to do wear any clothe
you choose for me, to be able to do anything and everything the way others do,
when others do or even faster because after all childhood and life is just a
race and I do have to win or else I won’t prove myself to you and as a result
you won’t love me, or you will always be disappointed of who I am. Do you
really sound like a nice person to you under this light? Because I am sorry to
break it to you, you don’t sound a nice person to me and, again, to me, you
sound like you enjoy sending clowns down my way to chase me, because I am never
going to be what you want me to be. And when I tell you I am scared, when I
tell you I have fallen and scratched my knee, when I tell you that I’ve
sprained my ankle, all you do is call me a cry-baby and tell me that I need to
grow a pair. How is that even fair? Why am I always to blame for being
different and not fitting in in a society that is always going to send scary
clowns down my way???
I don’t have all the answers. And
I certainly don’t blame you (it may look that way but I don’t, I really don’t,
I still love you even though it hurts sometimes), because I understand that you
are CONDITIONED to think this way. This is how it’s happened to everybody else,
other people managed to chase their clowns away. Well I’ll have you know that
whilst everybody has to an extent scary clowns chasing down after them, other
people generally don’t have nearly as many as I do. So what you can do is: a)
sit down and curse your damn luck all day that you had to be tied with a person like me who's chased by so many scary clowns but there’s nothing we can do it’s just the way
it is so let’s just be miserable for the rest of our lives, b) take all your
frustration out on me for having all these clowns down my way as if I don’t
have enough problems already by having the clowns chasing me down all day,
threatening my well-being and in more cases that you would like to admit my
life by asking me to do things in a way that is not made for my system and then
always pointing that I am different or c) decide that that’s what it is, it’s
not a comment or your skills as a person who has to deal with me or my
abilities to cope and overcome my struggles, come down to my level, take my
hand and let’s fight those clowns together. Some you, some me, depending on
each person's skills and abilities. And I will love you forever.
