Content Warning: Deeply triggering for those with mental illness. Contains content that talks about suicide.
Since yesterday I felt severely hopeless. Today I did something I have done before. I took my rope, tightened it round my neck and then attached the other end to the bar above my shower screen. Unfortunately I am too tall to kill myself instantly from hanging. So as I have done before I just choke myself for a little while. This seems to help. It lets some of the frustration out and seeing myself in the mirror suffering brings the pain to the surface. A more final way to end it would be to tie a rope to the balcony and just drop. I haven’t yet got to the point of making a final leap. I’m concerned the decking might break causing me to get into problems with my landlord or the children below seeing my hanging corpse.
The fundamental challenge for me is the worsening Neoliberal philosophy. Everyone has become a market, even the human mind and soul. Autistic people like myself are medicated to deep levels to the point we can’t really do much because of the medication. We are then blamed for being lazy. Yet even if we stop the medication we are then considered to have no issues. The problem is most of the economy is a service sector now. You have to be capable of modifying the emotional state of others. Something autistic people aren’t usually good at. Autistic people don’t make the required eye contact, body language, voice tones and choose the correct words that most neurotypicals expect. Increasingly it’s about networking not what you know. Their is a big invisible sign that says autistic people are not welcome. Yet at the same time a strong pressure (and for some of us at times, persecution) to conform.
I could go on about Nihilism, the rejection of moral principles and the belief life is meaningless. This combines well with the idea that their is only value where the market decides. Therefore autistic people like me are considered unworthy and no value as human beings. We cannot work in this neoliberal capitalist economy that mainly creates people oriented jobs. It is a constant battle to prove our worthiness to a home and access to social security (now called benefits).
So please don’t dismiss me as mentally ill but in despair in a society motivated by an ideology that doesn’t care and doesn’t want to listen to people like me.