14 november 2021
Kind of an off day. We pushed ourselves a bit too hard last night and that always has consequences. Luckily, there's nothing super important that needs to be done today, so it's okay to be kind of out of it and overly sensory-sensitive. Sometimes there are just days like that and all we can do is ride it out.
Watched an interesting video about 4D and 5D regular polygons (the word wasn't polygons, but we can't remember the actual word) and how they're discovered and modeled. Hard to wrap our brain around but interesting nonetheless. A bit sad about it though because we were rambling excitedly about it to someone last night only for it to turn out that they weren't at all interested and only listened because we started talking at them. That hurt. It's tiring when people don't say up front that they don't want to hear something or don't care about it. It would save everyone pain if people just said they didn't want to listen and everyone moved on. It still hurts, but less than finding out after 5-10 minutes that they were only humoring you and didn't actually care about any of what you were saying, that they were pretending to be interested. That makes us feel like we were being annoying and bothering them, and that no one actually cares about what we say. I know at least some of that reaction is thought distortion and that people do care about at least some of what we have to say, but it's like a gut punch in the moment and hard to really believe it until later. It's at least easier to move on when they get it over with right away since no one's time was wasted.
Bit of a vent ahead, reminder that there's absolutely no obligation to read any of it. Prioritize your own mental health, okay?
I'm more upset about all that than I should be, probably because 1) we don't really have anyone we can talk about complex interests with and it's lonely, and 2) it's an ongoing pattern of social failure where we think we're doing well and engaging people, only for them to turn around and make it clear that we're actually being annoying, weird, or otherwise not doing well in holding expected conversation. It's exhausting and isolating when every attempt to reach out to neurotypical people (so, you know, the vast majority) ends like this, where we're treated like we're intentionally trying to annoy or bore them, or like we're children being humored instead of adults doing our absolute best. All of our energy goes into trying to blend in and appease people, and in the end it doesn't make any difference. Sometimes I think we should just stop trying. It's a waste of limited social energy and doesn't make a significant difference in how we come off to others no matter how strictly we monitor everything we think and do. We can puppet our face and body to look normal, talk about things we don't give a shit about because it's expected, struggle to keep up with group conversations without being overwhelmed or accidentally interrupting, never talk about things we care about because it seems to bore or annoy people, etc. and it gets us nowhere. We're still not socially acceptable and come off as weird, creepy, obsessive, childish, rude, or other various faults. Sometimes I think we should just stop trying and let everyone else put up with it, seeing as they apparently already do. All of this isn't a problem with other neurodivergent people, which is a relief since that's the vast majority of our friends and the only people we actually feel safe talking to. But with neurotypical folks, there's no rest or relief from trying and failing to please them and meet expectations that make no sense. So why are we bothering? Maybe we'd be better off shutting up around most people, or not bothering to try to please them and mask everything about us just to feel like maybe we belong somewhere. It's so tiring and I hate it. But stopping feels dangerous and scary because we've been hurt for not masking many times before. There's no winning here. We get hurt or rejected or told we're not doing enough either way. I guess if it's going to happen either way, it would be better to stop trying and let whatever happens happen.
Sorry for the vent. Had to get that out somewhere. We've been thinking about social interaction issues and friends a lot lately. We're... not exactly in a good position there, and we don't know how to fix it. People are scary and the ones we trust turn out to be hurting us half the time. I just want to feel safe around people for once in our life, like we don't have to force ourselves to appeal to everyone or else we'll be hurt and rejected. I'm sick of it. It makes me angry and upset that nothing we try seems to make a difference, and that a healthy social life seems almost unreachable. There are a few rare gems we know, but even then we don't have nearly enough contact and they're busy with their own lives. It feels selfish to want to be around them more when they're so busy. And it feels selfish to realize that we don't seem to see social interactions and friendships like other people do, that as usual we don't understand the construct of various types of relationships. We're aliens stuck with a species we don't understand and it's isolating.
Ha, I apologize for the vent and then I proceed to vent more. Whoops. I'll stop now. We'll be okay. This happens a lot and we always make it through one way or another.