I was (mostly) alone this week.
I know that, especially for the last six months, that isn’t a rarity for a lot of people, but other than for the occasional work trip, Karl and I have spent most nights together for almost two years now. I think a lot about my own relationship to being alone, mostly because it’s tended to be something I crave, something I seek even within the confines of living with someone I actually like.
As an autistic person, there’s only so much human interaction that I need, and a pretty hard limit to what I can take. Since I was a toddler I’ve been prone to wandering off whenever I feel like it, taking a few minutes (or days) alone to try and feel less overstimulated. Previously, I’ve lived or spent a lot of time around people who don’t respect my boundaries and needs. It’s hard, I guess, for people to not take it personally when they’re hanging out with someone who disappears to sit in a corner for a bit. The only reason I can live with another person without going completely insane is because he understands that I need an extended amount of time alone, every single day, and it has nothing to do with him.
It’s hard to explain what happens to an autistic brain after extended time around other people: the constant performance, worrying about what we’re saying and doing, and being away from things that nurture us tends to push us to a point of a meltdown or burnout. In the past, I’ve underestimated just how much I’ve needed to be on my own and forced myself into social situations day in day out, pushing myself to live up to other people’s expectations of facetime. My health suffers, my mental health suffers, and I just feel...misaligned somehow.
The only things I am bad at doing alone are sleeping and eating. Without someone else around, my diet is scurvy-inducing: plain, beige, for lack of a better word, British food. It takes 15 minutes to cook, and any more hardly feels worth it. As far as sleep goes, without someone nearby, I sleep fitfully and frightened, thrashing through nightmares after finally falling asleep after 3am. When I lived completely alone, I would call Karl at the end of the day, asking him to crawl into bed as I fell asleep. I am terrible at taking care of myself, and being around someone who actually checks in is good for me. Without another person around, I drift around on my own schedule, sleeping late and hyperfixating on random projects all night long. That’s good, for a while.
What did I do this week? I stayed up late working on zine stuff, I ate like shit, I both under and overestimated how long things would take, I walked away from tasks, I did an interview, I worked, I went to the gym, I saw a friend, I enjoyed the little notes Karl had left all over the house. I struggled a bit without structure, but having the space to indulge myself for better and for worse is my favourite time. Looking through my diaries, reading, working on zines and other projects, watching documentaries only I love – being alone reconnects me to myself.
I also got a chance to do some of the things that scare me. Being autistic and also just very anxious, I shy away from things like going to the shops or driving or answering the door to strangers or walking Bowie late at night. Especially right now, those things make me feel so overstimulated and anxious and weird that I just let someone else do them. Having to do them puts me in a painful position, but it also makes me feel somewhat proud.
Needing so much time to myself doesn’t make me a bad friend or partner: in fact, it’s what makes me a better one. The more time I have to focus on my own work, on my own self, on recharging, the more patient and easy to be around I can be. The less overstimulated I feel, the nicer I am. A couple of years ago I had, I think, two or three of my best friends staying in my studio flat in LA for an entire weekend. I was so fucking fried from not even having bath times in real peace that I could feel myself being impatient at bowling or at a bar despite how grateful I was to have them around me. I hate feeling like that, so I try to avoid it.
My alone time is over, now, and maybe it’s for the best: being exhausted or getting scurvy maybe isn’t the best end result, but at least I got some work done.
Very good piece i relate to nearly all of it being autistic as well