The Autism Overwhelm/Burnout Won't Ease & Will I be Alone Forever?

Today go too much and I did a terrible thing and I hid in the toilet for two minutes, just to get away from everyone, to try to calm down. I sat on the toilet lid, I took my glasses off and pressed the balls of my palms into my eyes. As I sat there for about a minute, my mind somehow thought, for a split second, that you were hugging me. I instantly burst into tears. I wanted that to be real so much. I miss your hugs. I miss feeling loved and safe in your arms. I wish that I knew my last hug from you was my last hug, because I would have held on even longer and squeezed you even tighter. It would never have fixed things. It would never have made you communicate with me like I’m your partner. It never would have made the anxiety inducing silence punishments any easier. It never would have made being pushed lower and lower on your priority list feel any less lonely. Maybe it would have helped me to endure the pain and emotional suffering even longer. Maybe it would have helped me to shrink myself even more. Maybe it would have helped me to get used to expecting and accepting less and less, and getting used to being a lower and lower down priority. I should have tried harder to cope with feeling that low. I shouldn’t have wanted to be treated like your partner. I should have accepted the breadcrumbs, the anxiety and the heartache of meaning less than everyone else. I should never have thought that I deserved to be someone’s partner. I should know that everyone else in the world comes before me. I’m sorry for wanting more. I’m so sorry. If I was better at feeling so low, and if I never had scary thoughts when people made me feel this low, then maybe I could have still been with you. I never care what everyone else thinks, but when you dismiss my feelings and say that they are wrong and I shouldn’t want what everyone else thinks, but it’s what I want from a relationship, it hurts too much. Why is wrong for me to want to be a priority in my partner’s life? Why is it wrong for me to want to become closer and closer with my partner, not further and further away? Why is it wrong for me to live with my partner, but it is okay for everyone else to? Why is it wrong for me to need someone to help me to do the things that I don’t like and/or hate, but for everyone else in my situation, it’s just what a good friend or a loving partner does? Why is it wrong for me to want to get married, but it is okay for everyone else? Why is it wrong for me to want to be treated like a partner, and not like a situationship by every person, man or woman, that I date? Why are other people allowed to be in committed relationships, but I am told that is being crazy, needing to seek help or that I am living in a fairytale? I just want someone to explain to me what I am doing wrong, because I have been making the same mistake over and over for eleven years. Why is there one rule of Josette and one rule for everyone else? I just want to know what I am doing wrong. Why does everyone I date say that relationship things are wrong, but they can do them all three weeks later with someone else? It must be something I am doing. I need to understand what it is. I just want the basic, everyday things in a small, healthy relationship. I’m not asking for constant attention or gifts or to have money spent on me or to go places or to do things. I just want to be treated maturely, with respect, to have my feelings thought about, to be included in life changing decisions that will affect me just as much as them. I just want to be treated fairly and to matter to someone. Over the weekend, I watched a video from an artist that I have followed for over ten years. He spoke about his wife’s cancer diagnosis, and how he wanted to attend every appointment with her, because she is his wife, and he loves her and cares about her. There is no leaving her to attend an appointment alone. They are two independent people, but that doesn’t mean that he makes her fend for herself. The way that he spoke about how much she means to him really made me feel like I will be alone forever. Everyone who is genuine has to already be married. I must be the one who is always doing something wrong. When I was 17 years old, a girl in my English class said to me, “What is wrong with you, then?” when I told her that I didn’t have a boyfriend. That has always stuck with me and she was right. I don’t know what it is that is wrong with me, but it must be something, for everyone I date to pull away around the six month marker, to become more distant, instead of closer, to want to see me less, or change jobs to one that means they only ever want to see their friends and never their partner, to change jobs and tell me that they don’t want to date anyone only for me to see them with someone else a few weeks later, to have them be able to discuss their day with everyone else in the world, including strangers online, but not me, for them to not care that they asked how my day was and never heard the answer and it never occurred to them to check in, to have them not even realise that they have not connected with me, let me know if they are okay and find out if I am okay. Why am I so worthless to everyone I date? What am I doing wrong every single time? Why is it wrong to want a basic, mature, adult, emotional, communicative relationship? I just want my favourite person to be the person that they portrayed themselves to be at the beginning and to turn up just to cuddle me and I will hold onto them very tightly and cry and cry and cry.

I figured it out. Deep down, I always knew. I am the person that people date when they are still changing their minds on what they want in life. I am the person that you date while you are still looking for the one, but don’t want to be alone. I am the person people date and figure out what not to do, and realise what they should have done differently, then they move on instantly and do all of those things with the new person that they meet three weeks later. I am the person that you learn from, so that you can live happily ever after with the person you are supposed to be with.

My last partner was my last chance. I can’t do that again. Relationships, no, situationships are too mentally abusive for me to cope with. Someone with a different type of autism to me once said that they didn’t think ti was possible for someone like them to be in a relationship. I think they were right. I want one, I really, really, really want to be with someone to be loved and feel safe and know that they are never going to change after a few months and want something different or treat me differently. I don’t think I can be with anyone, because I must have a personality type that people are only interested in having a situationship with… I don’t think I can blame the autism for this one, but I’m not loveable. I’m not someone that anyone wants to treat like their lifelong partner. I’m not someone that anyone wants to love, to care about, to marry, to grow old with. They want that the second they see someone else. It just isn’t me.