Robot Rock

Dear friends,

I have been thinking about the way I want to be, I have also been thinking about the way I have been. One of the ways I have been thinking about things, is the way I have been going about things since I first got ill. It has been a struggle, from going from normal to odd to somewhat normal again, to what I am now. Which I like to call me. Back in the day I wanted too much to be normal, and the way I went about it was weird.

One of the ways I went about things was to study people’s behaviour. It was interesting to see, as it was interesting to see what people would do in a situation. They would lie to get out of doing something or would act like they didn’t see something, just to get on with their day. One of the biggest things I noticed is how many people were all about themselves. The in which I found this out with conversation.

I felt like conversation was the best way for me to connect to people to not to feel alone. One of the things I had to learn was the way to speak to people. After watching people, I wasn’t sure how to ask someone questions, and back then a lot of conversation where with text messages and messenger services. I didn’t know how to ask things I wanted to know or how to carry a conversation without a pause or an awkward silence. For me it was a stressful time, as it was something, I thought I needed to do.

I thought I need to do this because a lot of the time I didn’t care about what most people had to say. I felt like I was an alien and I didn’t know what to say to fit in or be a normal human being. Since I spoke about these issues to my therapist, we did some work on it. Which basically told me how to speak to someone and how to continue a conversation. After some practice I finally was able to talk to people. However, there was a downside to this, it made me think of this in a somewhat robotic way. 

I had learned the way to talk to people, and since then it has become my programming. When someone would say, hello how are you, you say generic answer, as most people don’t want to hear the truth. Then continue the conversation on what someone had said, and then keep asking questions or getting someone to explain more about what there are saying. Or if you need to ask something, ask it after the, hi how are you. Still to this day, I still use a lot of these ways to conversation with people.

As time has gone by much of this is still in my mind every time. There has been a lot of things I have learned which used to mess up my programming. When someone wouldn’t ask how I was I didn’t know how to continue. Which alarming because I wasn’t used to, and what to do next. Things had a pattern, and when it was broken, I didn’t know how to pick it up. It made me think why wasn’t this working, then I learned something a very long time later.

What I had learned is as much as I thought people didn’t know how to have a conversation, which is still true for a lot of people. What I recognised was people didn’t care to talk to me. Which took me far too long for me realise and is still true today. Which is why now if someone isn’t returning questions, they don’t have interest in talking to me. Which was something else I took the wrong way. As I thought this rule applied for everyone, even when friends would do this time to me. What I didn’t know, there was exceptions to the rules. Sometimes people are busy, and don’t have the time to chat. A lot of the time some people just don’t want to talk to me because they think I’m weird.

I have now recognised a lot of my programming, and as I’ve said to a lot of people, I realise a lot my actions make me seem like robot. What I realise was the only way I was able to cope with the struggles of being a person. I feel like a lot of my being is based on the ideas of what a situation should be. As I have grown to be a person, I have learned these rules would work in ideal world, but they don’t in our current one. Which has led some people I have met over time to believe I am on spectrum.

I have learned to let up a lot of these ideas, and just be me. Even if this means somewhere deep inside me there is an idea based on a fundamental programming. It Is something I have grown to accept about myself, and even though I might seem like a robot or on the spectrum it’s just the way I coupe with an everyday station. If it works for me, then what’s the harm? Its everyone else’s problem and they need to deal with it.

Xo FabEs