This I have heard often in life. It is right though, you’ll hear me having thoughts about much ‘deep’ stuff, without having had any active interest in philosophy itself.

‘With Oli, no thing has ever been just simple.’, dad reflects. And yes, even my apprenticeship as a software developer was anything but a walk in the park.
Many of my gifts of perception, noticing patterns and rules I could make use of, but with the pressing question of ‘Why?’ I seemed not to pursue the right direction.

I have always wanted to get to the bottom of things, wanted to know how it works, which rules really apply, where I can be absolutely sure. Books, role models and patient, trustworthy people and a sound image of the world always were of aid in the process.

The Why of it all

We all love it, not to have to think about everything from scratch.
To accomplish that, we make use of premade solutions and concepts. Language constructs, ethic convention, also laws and tradition tend to ease everyday life.

While humans mostly wander the level of ‘taking the things as they are’, I find myself on another platform entirely per default:
The deeper meanings hold the most value for me, only after those I can think about all the more obvious things.
When the others went out partying, I was thinking about why you should even go party and why everybody behaved how they behaved and why I should take part in it or if I should even be able to do it. While others just watch movies for the fun of it, I much rather like to dive into the making of them. While in primary school simple sentences had to be read, I was pondering what that should do. When the others were finding mates, I was just trying to figure out how that whole thing actually works. Others practice sports, while I just think about what would be the most effective and universally applicable physical activity for me. The same with nutrition, for the household, with family.

Curse or Blessing?

The answer of why I do something decides over how I feel about that thing and how much strength of will is involved. Moreover, the soul crushing uneasiness will be unbearable, when I would get into something without a good Why at hand.

Without the realisation of what is behind the thing, I can’t really live well. Without a plausible narrative – mind you, that one can change far too quickly – I feel like my world will end.

This approach and talking about it (to ‘philosophise’) made many things possible for me and has brought me quite far, but ever so often it divides me and my fellow humans.

But be at ease: I am very lucky to have raised a sound philosophy or at least a personal explanation for most areas. Especially for the supreme discipline of human communication. My answers are at times so well put, that my way of life may inspire and enrich others. For that I am deeply thankful and that is the greatest reward!

Further more: Thanks to my gift of being able to master verbal expression, I may share this multitude of philosophies, theories, algorithms and visible-to-me underlying concepts and write them down.

So, the heft of philosophy is one that might be wholesome and helpful for the human, but will also leave significant traces when perceived constantly…

My life feels like a whirlwind on many days, which I have to fight to prevail.

Many people with autism use their masks, scripting and ways to design their encounters and daily businesses to reduce the whirl and in the best of cases even make the wind work for them.

Some of us, like me, have always felt a certain yearning. When watching shows or movies, when listening to music or looking at a theatre performance.
I then feel longing to feel those feelings too, to be able to be all overcome by one state of emotion and cry out, rejoice, sob or laugh with a clear intent that the scene provides.

Only daily life rarely, if never, gives such distinct opportunities. We are never facing a green lit box to feel to our heart’s content.
There is many objectives, rules, conventions inside the given space, other interfering feelings, connections to the people around us and if we can’t even make out those elements: A whirlwind of confusion.

One thing that I think is gotten wrong by many who look at an autistic person: We do feel so so so much. We feel so strongly, so all-embracing, so bare and hard, that our life’s purpose seems to be to contain this ever-lasting Tsunami of stimuli.
We take on our armour of many layers from an early age, to be able to fit in or at least to protect ourselves and others from the consequences of those crazy intense feels inside.

In the time when I wore all of my well-forged armour, I got into amateur stage play.
I was part of a number of small-scale productions, with a wonderful director, a loving ensemble and a constantly amazed audience.

It is fun and a nice hobby to follow, a challenge and an outlet for the own gifts to explore.

But little did I realize, that a stage play is not without reason a place of comfort for my inner workings:

• There is a script

• Someone tells you exatly how to behave

• There are no random surprises to be expected

• Each scene is rehearsed many times

• You slip out of your armour and take on another person’s mask

• There is a safe space to feel any given thing inside a closed environment

• Every aspect of your surrounding is then fixed and has a purpose

• For a short time it can be just like you would like your own story to progress every day

Of all the contradictory traits I witness myself exhibiting, my relation towards change fascinates me in a most consistent matter.

If autism refers to a state of mind that is clinically recognised to be different from the world outside of it, any influence towards it is greatly significant and an inherently sensitive act.

Disrupted routines, sudden alterations to a planned out day, added factors, an accident or an unforseen dip in the energy level can set of unfortunate series of events which can rarely be handled gracefully.

On the other hand, I am known to be different for a reason: Because I do many things differently and I like to invent new ways and happily challenge the rules and barriers I learn about.

I noticed two types of change, which are as far apart from each other as represented on my scale of likeability:

• I fear, despise, loathe and avoid change

• I love, enjoy, thrive on and sometimes more or less quirkily impose upon others changing things up

So, what sets them apart so distinctly?

It is the source of the change and how it is being introduced into my own world.

There are always rules and boundaries and goals and reasoning. So everything I do must have a reason, naturally.
This need for a reason is something I have always been extremely sensitive about. If I can not see a reason for something, I would react in unsuitable ways. Luckily, my parents shaped a world for me that provided tangible reasons and an explanation for practically everything.

So if my day or a certain period of time is all set up, it means that my reasons and all the contributing factors are aligned and balanced out to enable myself to be functional.

Enter a change: This one comes from the outside and if I have no prepared way to deal with this change (filtering out the entirety of the impact, having thought out the possibility of this exact scenario, having allowed for unforseen events already), I will have to realign from the top.

I will have to evaluate the nature and the size of the change against my whole stack of reasons, beliefs, goals great and small, my relation to every factor involved (living or no) and I will try to rebalance all those as quickly as possible, in order to be functional again.
And I better have a good reason WHY I would like to be functional..!

Examples for this: A spontaneous change of seats at the office, more people than anticipated come for a visit, the Deutsche Bahn crumples the itinerary, the chosen beforehand foods are not available at the restaurant, someone offers and makes you select a drink when you didn’t expect it.

On to the nicer side: If I see a good reason to do something differently, of course according to all current beliefs, known rules and ideas that are inside my mind, I just love to change it up and make life somewhat easier, funnier, more meaningful.

As much as I am thinking inside boundaries and search for fixed things, as much I am able to notice what is outside those borders and where the rule has no backing at all.

One thing wants to hold me back plenty of times, which is my routines. Those play a HUGE role in making myself functional to begin with.
To change up a routine, even in a small way and for the better, there has to be a certain buffer in the energy levels, beside all the reasoning.

A good reason can also be someone we trust. As long as we are convinced that they do have good reasons themselves. This gets harder when you become an adult. Who will tell you what to do in a world that spins uncontrollably?
You will tell yourself. Only the seperation of powers inside oneself is naturally weak, which then reflects onto the executive functionality…

I would love to clone myself into another being that tells me the right things and I just do those and live a happy life. But that has to be done all inside. Maybe noone knows how it is done, really.
It is like those psycholological tricks, where you are made believe that something is your own decision, so you feel good about making it. That is what must be happening inside our head at all times.

Without the vast amount of energy I am saving by my new way of working and the many solved questions over the past year, I would have never been able to change up my living situation with all the fun little changed up things inside. Yet I still fear any change that comes at me that I could not control.

I might appear courageous, but it is only the sufficient amount of known things and enough excess energy that lets me do greatly. If those are not present, I stick to my routines and live the old life, where there wasn’t much chance for change by choice.

The feeling of remorse of not having met expectations because of my own shortcomings.

So I fled the scene. I couldn’t function properly and there were 1000 reasons why. But I couldn’t articulate but one of them, as none of those were the real reason. It might have started with a single reason, but I could not put my finger on it, as every other reason gets more complicated with more entering the mix and chasing off all safeguards.

I had the wish to be my best self, to meet all the criteria of a good time with me.
But then, something changes, some factors go cross, I am not fully prepared anymore, and now I have to put in extra energy to be aware of the new situation.

Guilt is an ugly thing, but can be cured.

Remorse

Shame.

You couldn’t make it! You failed! You are not fit. You do not fit in. Where is your place?

So why are you not able to make it? A good time with people, what is so hard? Other times you can do it, but why not now?

Why do you not function at will? What is so big, so hard, so cruel that it doesn’t let you be your best self?

What is your play, what makes sense here? How can you build good relationships when you suddenly don’t talk much? Where are you going with your behaviour?

What about your good days, can you not be like you are then?

Expectations

What DO you want?

It depends, as always. My life does consist of the external circumstances and what I bring to the table.
Some things can be changed, some things can’t be changed, some things are not easy to change.

We all like certain things and we should be prepared to make sure others can experience them. Starting with basic human warmth, up to selfless acts of kindness.

There are always expectations, hidden, implied, clearly stated, but sometimes only projected onto myself, by myself. It takes extreme measures of self-reflexion to be aware of the latter.

As much as these expectations depend on the situation, they are either met or not met.

Meeting expectations is often seen as the default, but when I can’t meet one, up rises a gap waiting to be filled with interpretation:
What was the reason? Am I okay with not meeting the expectation? Do I learn something from the situation? Does the situation affect my wellbeing?

Aha!
In order to answer those questions, I need to know my values, aka what’s important to me.

Only that is quite impossible without knowing myself, at least for a little bit.

Shortcomings

We are all short of perfection. No doubt, all fail.

Though the individual and ultimate difference lies in handling those shortcomings, which is tightly related to the way we explain those to ourselves.

For the majority of people, failing to navigate the world leads to similar sounding explanations and thus, to similar ways to handle those.

But there are people who, at their core, work differently, which sparks differences in behaviour and handling of external factors. This affects people with autism, like myself.

A Cure?

Guilt plays a major role in the lives of autistic people.
All of the above I have written well aware of being affected by the phenomenon.

And that is the very fact that makes the relentless experience of guilt mostly a thing of the past for me.
I know about my needs now, I can set expectations for myself correctly and I can work with others, who to me always seemed to just make the rules, to discuss those expectations.

Many times I have sat down and couldn’t quite make sense out of my feelings, when I had been overwhelmed by a situation of humanly acceptable expectations.
I felt guilt, without allowing myself to call it that and act accordingly. It is a dangerous power to think that something is how it is supposed to be, while not questioning it against your values.

But the realisation of how you work and who you are is a very hard-to-acquire one. Also, a whole new topic, what your aim in life is.

Nevertheless, it is just that thing, that undestanding of my own nature, which made my life immensly better. Not without help and not without tears and not without pain that was achieved.

One can go quite the mile in the know which painful change is for the better and which discomfort not to tolerate.

I still have to care about expectations, as everyone does, I still can’t meet them all, as noone does, but I know much better why.
And that is a pretty good cure for all those pressing questions that want to inject guilt into my life.

There they are, and here I am.
May I join them? I don’t know. What business do I have with them?

Is just ‘I would like their company right now’ enough? Is it weird to just stand next to their conversation and make them acknowledge my presence?
What reason do I really have to join people, to intrude into their bubble?

Sometimes it feels like I am a vampire, who have to be invited in specifically, before they are physically able to enter a house.
Because then there is no doubt about the justification of my intrusion.

There are only several situations when I feel confident to join other people:

• Being specifically invited

• Being in an established relation (closer friends or family) where I would feel weird NOT joining

• Having a certain objective or at least a good reason, which I can communicate openly, so the others know why I am here now

In my stack of values, preserving others’ privacy and current flow (which is almost impossible to guess at) outweighs the desire to join other people who I might be interested in being with.

I like to design my own bubble and change it in the ways I like, letting certain people in and keeping other elements out.
I assume (dangerous, I know) that all other persons have the inclination to take care of their bubble as well: That they like to be conscious about who and what enters their sanctum.
So, naturally, I like to be extra respectful when I feel like getting close to another bubble. Wouldn’t want to disturb the peace.

Although, I admit not always to have judged rightly and sometimes I feel like having gone too far up someone’s bu..bble. Joke aside, this dreaded feeling, of having taken some space that wasn’t meant for me, made me even more cautious and hesitant to approach again, time and time again.

Cue a flirt, which is the very dance of intruding into another’s life, and I am divided: Am I actually welcome inside their bubble or am I only welcome to TRY to intrude (which seems to be a goal in flirting) and only then I will be welcome or am I most possibly not welcome at all from the beginning, which is hard to deduce in absence of the signs of a clear invitation.

On the other hand, I am rather happy with my friendships, which are rooted deeply and I can be confident in the ways I act and feel safe to be welcome in their company, which, thankfully, is expressed regularly and authentically.
Worth mentioning: Most of my friendships are with a single person, not a group. Of those I have but little.

At work, where social bubbles are more complex, given professional relations, scattered projects and parallel to that work-related bonds or feuds, fitting in can be a mystery.
Since I discovered the reasons for the great imbalance of my energy, which revolved around pumping it all out at work and then having measly amounts left for the rest of my daily life, my situation changed for the better: I have my own space now and a clear-as-day task and that makes me happy in many ways.

As much as I need and enjoy being inside a regulated bubble (more on that and all the sensory things at another time), living inside a world made out of the people and relations around us makes concentrating on these very social things a top priority.

Meaningful relations I don’t take for granted and I am aware of most of the efforts to pour into those, but many times I get lost inside the world of you others and the many invisible-to-me circles and bubbles and tend to feel guilty for not being able to just be a part of them. Guilt is also a great topic to shed a light on.
Then I like to retract to the bubble I am most welcome in:
My own.

I think I also speak for many non-autistic people in this:
If you would like my company or just get me out of my comfy bubble for some time, please, do invite me.
Give me the reason to join you, tell me when I am welcome.
Because I might very well not know that.

I can’t promise I will stay long or give a grand human performance, but I will be ever so grateful to be included and being welcome in your midst.