The Autistic Truman Show

  I often browse YouTube for videos pertaining to Aspergers and Autism.  I do this to the point that at least one or two of the videos that are tagged as "Recommended for You" are related to Autism.  Curiosity gets the better of me sometimes and I watch them.  Occasionally they are good, like this.

  More often I get links to pure crap, like the Autism Speaks channel or something having to do with Simon Baron-Cohen and his male-brain theory, which I have past commented on here. 

  Most disturbingly of all, I will see a thumbnail of a small child, and the word Autism in the video title.  I know what it is.  Sadly, it's another episode of the Autistic Truman Show, starring an unfortunate child that does not know that his life is being shared with the global public for "educational purposes".

  For those that don't get my metaphor here.  The Truman Show is a movie about a man whose life is being recorded for a reality TV show, except he is not aware of it.

  I am not going to share any links to these videos.  I respect the privacy of these children much more than the parents posting them apparantly.  I am going to describe the offensive content I have seen in the videos and comment boxes.

  One of the first of these I have seen had a boy about 30 months old playing alone in a playground.  The video poster explains that the video was taken weeks before his diagnosis.  Very somber music is played in the background as he plays alone.  The uploader comments instructs the viewer to watch the video at the end for signs of stimming.   At least the uploader did not identify the name of her child. 

 One uploader shared a video of a toddlers birthday party, and invites the viewer to play a game of "which one of these is not like the other" when she challenges you to identify her Autistic daughter from the other children.

  A series of videos exploits a child growing up from ages 2-5.  It starts with the child happily dancing and twirling as he discovers a dishwasher, and covers his math interests through school.  The parent repeatedly questions the child in one video as to why he is counting, which after several interruptions he replies "because I feel like it" (highlight of the series).  In another video, the parent calls to attention the child's unusual body movements.  He is doing math in Spanish on an educational toy.  He flaps and rocks excitedly as he gets the answers right.  The point of the video, according to the uploader is to bring to attention the signs of autism to other parents so that they may get their children in therapy and diet modification if they show these signs.  Not that a child of age 5 is showing extreme enthusiasm towards learning and has advanced skills for his age.

  The sickest one I saw was one of a 2 year old girl building towers with blocks.  The parent knocks her tower over purposefully to incite a meltdown.  There are a lot of videos of kids having a meltdown, incited or otherwise.  Do yourself a favor and don't watch them.

  Commentary in the videos varies of sympathy for the poster and gaslighting, with a good deal of trolling thrown in for good measure.  NT parents often discuss exchanging videos of their own child with the poster of the diagnosed child, seeking their advice for a diagnosis.

   Someday these children are going to discover that they were involuntary social media stars, and their life, their play and their meltdowns were submitted to the worldwide public for a case study performed by Soccer Mom M.D.  They are going to figure out that they are a tool for soliciting public sympathy and empathy by their parents.  They are going to have further proof that both the real world and the internet views them as an "other", and most sadly their own parents if they have not already.

  Your Autistic child deserves the same privacy that everyone deserves.  Especially in the most intimate location, their home and from the most trusted people, their parents.  They are people, not living Public Service Announcements.       

Art of Internal Gaslighting

Trigger Warnings: Extreme gaslighting, autism, abuse, bullying, unpleasant medical problems

I am smart, and I could do great things if only I had common sense.  So I've been told.  

Absent Minded Professor, Idiot Savant, Rain Man.  I've heard all of that.

I am a jerk.  I don't socialize much.  That is my fault.  If I would try I would find it easy just like everyone else.  But I don't try.  I choose not to, my choice, my failing.  Its because I'm a jerk. 

I am clumsy.  That is because I didn't play with other kids.  If I went out and played baseball I would learn to catch it.  If I would keep my eye on the fucking ball I would hit it and you wouldn't have to give up.  If I wanted to make those free throws, I could.  I wouldn't lose my balance if I would stand still.  If only I got off my fat ass.  If I did some push ups I could climb that rope.  If I lost weight I wouldn't tip my bike over.

I am a hypochondriac.  I overreact to minor illnesses and make things up.  Its my excuse to fail, which I have openly chose to do from birth.  I have been sick approximately zero times in my childhood.  If..  if, by some off chance I really was sick it was minor and I should have sucked it up.

I am a wimp, or sissy or wuss or any other ableist, sexist or homophobic slur you want to toss at me.  I get anxious in social encounters because I am a wimp.  I sweat profusely when it is over 70 degrees because I am a wimp.  I gag on food because I am a wimp, ( and also because I am a jerk for not eating something that someone made for me).  When mom died, you shamed me for seeing a counselor because I was a wimp.  I jump at loud sounds because I am cowardly wimp.

I am forgetful.  When I forget something relating to someone it is personal.  I personally choose to do it because I am a jerk.  If I forget to do something I was supposed to do, its because I am lazy. 

I am lazy.  If I would use my intelligence, my gift buried under my landfill of self created shortcomings, I would still be ok.  But I don't, therefore I am not.

I am naive.  You moved me away from the city, because I was too naive to go to school here.  I "would not have survived with the street kids".  Too trusting, too gullible.  If only I would wisen up and pay attention. .

I am an astute learner, and having mastered this craft, the art of gaslighting, I set forth into this world on my own at the age of 18 with hypocritical disdain not only for myself  but the world around me.  I saw my shortcomings and those of others as voluntary.

I tried to become a party animal in college.  I had many meltdowns, which I was able to pass off by claiming I had drank more beer than I really had, or claiming I had a massive hangover from all of the beer the night before.  I told myself I was just immature from lack of socializing.  I would figure it out.

I became depressed my second year.  I isolated myself, and mostly only attended quizzes and exams.  I passed the courses using only the books and the syllabus.  I actually got through that year, but this strategy began to fail me in my 3rd year as I began to fail showing up for even the mandatory.  I viewed this as personal failure.  I turned to no one for help because I didn't believe I needed it.

I also failed to keep up with my financial aid and ran out of money, so I had to quit.  I told my friends I was taking a semester off then never spoke to them again.  Told myself I would go back someday.  Told myself I did it because I was lazy.

I didn't dare ask for help at home.  I was grateful my family tolerated me.  I felt that they tolerated me out of loyalty to my deceased mother.  I felt that I reminded them of my abusive father (I am named after him).  They told me so on occasion.  I kind of look like a much taller version of him too.  If they loved me, they did it despite the fact that I was an immature, naive, lazy, forgetful, clumsy, wimpy idiot savant with an antisocial personality  (Their words which became mine).   Upon learning that I was not going to attend college next semester, they threw me out.

I survived in direct defiance of my supposed naivety.  Made it to the age of 27.  By this point I was starting to isolate myself again as I had 7 years before.  I felt sick and had crippling anxiety every day.  I quit my job, cut off my friends and lived off saved money for 6 months, doing nothing but playing Warcraft.  After washing those funds up, I moved out west into the home of my guild leader that had invited me to move out there.

I figured that I would finally learn to socialize out there and build a new life as far away as possible from the one I was currently living.  The social anxieties I experienced from college soon returned.  As did the workplace anxiety I was experiencing as I searched for and bounced around a few menial jobs.

I also began to feel increasingly weak and short of breath every day, as well as a lot of leg pain.  I chalked it up to being out of shape, anxious and not acclimated to the new climate.  It became more and more extreme, as I struggled to walk moderate distances, then walk up hills, then get out of bed and get dressed.  Yet I still pressed on because I did not want to be anymore of a disappointment than I already was.  And also, by nature, I was a wimp and a hypochondriac, it was probably a molehill that my weak mind contorted into the planet Jupiter.  

I learned I had a pulmonary embolism, generated from a Deep Vein Thrombosis (technical word for big blood clot)in my left leg that I likely occurred from my trip to California (I took the scenic bus route).  I learned this after taking myself to the emergency room.  I accepted that I could possibly be sick when I no longer had the strength to make the 20 foot walk to my bathroom  (I had to crawl), and that condition did not alleviate for over a week. I was told by doctors that I had lost 80% of my breathing capacity and odds of me not surviving another night were 66%. 

It was my fault of course.  A nurse even told me so.  I made poor lifestyle choices.  I was fat, and I play video games.  I was not a hypochondriac this time, but I was lazy.  And I got what I deserved.  I got what I asked for out of life.  I didn't need the nurse to tell me that, I already believed it.  I didn't need my family to tell me that either, I had proven it.

I had to return home, to the place I was cast out of 7 years previously for being too lazy and a weakling because I was too lazy and a weakling.  At this point, I am not sure who emotionally tormented me more, myself or them.  The opposite of being a wimp is being strong, so thats what I had to be.

I tolerated the pain of walking.  My left leg was permanently damaged from the clot.  It swells easily, and I get pressure sores.  Sores that grow and grow and grow when untreated.  I had to take 2 weeks off a few years ago to let it heal a bit after it got infected.  I saw the doctor a few times, found out where I could buy the medicated bandages he used, then began self treating it and went back to work.

I only took OTC painkillers for this, because I saw a prescription as a sign of weakness.  A few days after I transferred to a new store closer to where I currently live, a sore broke open and I lost about a half pint of blood.  Ambulanced off to the ER, I was kept in the hospital for 3 days, where my clotting and circulatory problems were Exhibit A for interns and med students who saw no problem in poking my wound at 4:30 am.  Upon release I vowed to keep my bandage tighter so it would not happen again and went back to work the next day.

In addition to a 50+ hour work week, I took up weightlifting and distance running in this condition, in part to fix myself.  A girlfriend broke up with me because I did not have the energy to keep up with her physically.  I got strong, I got in shape and I shredded my leg to pieces.  The skin had peeled off of about 40 percent of my lower left leg between my knee and foot, and off most of my ankle.  The pain was no longer hideable.  I took 2 weeks vacation to heal, but did not get signficantly better.  I worked another month before I was directed by my boss to take medical leave.

At this point I was of the belief that I was going to lose the leg, and that did not frighten me.  At least I would be visibly disabled.  At least no one could look at me in a wheelchair or on crutches and say  "He's just a lazy ass crybaby".  At least I could say I lost my leg being tough.  At least I could say, I am a typical person doing typical things in life and I had the scars to prove it (to myself).

The practitioner that treated me called my recovery a "Christmas Miracle" 10 weeks later.  Unfortunately from being sedentary for 10 weeks, I noticed a familiar stiffness and shortness of breath the day I had the bandages removed for the final time.  They said it was probably just a cold but I should have it checked out.  I was supposed to return to work the next day so I was stressed  It was in fact the beginnings of another pulmonary embolism.  Nowhere near life threatening because I reacted early this time.

This is how the bullies, the abusers, the gaslighters and the haters win.  They don't have to spend their lives abusing you, you will do it to yourself far more efficiently.  The people who taught me how to hate myself are either long gone from my life, or I keep a safe distance from them. 

They don't tell you "You are different...here this is what you are, be proud".  They tell you "You are different....become same or die!".  Even now, I wonder.  Am I autistic, or am I making an excuse for not being same?