Understanding Autism and Loneliness

Autism and Loneliness: A New Generation

It’s been a tough few weeks. The loneliness comes not in waves but tsunamis. The feeling not unlike being swamped by a tall wave of water. As it knocks you over and sucks you under you cant breathe. It tosses and rolls your body, crashing into the sharp debris of life’s memories. As the first wave hits with a thunderous force, your knees give way as blood drains from your heart, leaving you weak and listless. Then thoughts of death as the only relief start to invade your mind.

I question if it is loneliness. It’s more than that. Like a person with an addiction who can’t get a fix. Driven to do anything to get the substance they crave. Anything.  Like thirst in a desert. Like Hunger in a famine.

And if it’s an addiction, what am I addicted to? Isn’t it what all humans need? Isn’t it a fundamental human right? Why am I made to feel inadequate and foolish for wanting it so much? Why am I treated as too needy? Surely it’s normal?

If I am thirsty, water will keep me alive; if I am hungry, food will give me energy to keep going, so why is it not reasonable to need love?

I’m told I need to get past this, to stop wanting everything. I am old now, and the chances of love have passed me by. The hopelessness is cruel. It’s in the silence when I open my front door and walk into my empty house. It’s in the space on the beach as I walk alone, looking for glass. It’s in the people I see pass me by,  hand in hand with their partner in life, with a look of pity directed at me. Or the group of girls laughing and having fun who glance my way and half smile. The smile that knows I am alone and no one cares about me. I try to be brave, I tell myself that the answer to the intense emptiness is to believe I don’t care. To assume a stoic attitude, to suck it up. Enjoy life.

But my brain doesn’t work that way. There is no enjoyment if no one sees me enjoy it. There is no meaning to life that is not shared with another human or two. There is only a futility of existence. And the thoughts of ending my suffering wash over me again, another tsunami.

I only have a few years left on this planet. If it’s always going to be like this, I don’t want to play. I’m tired of swimming against the tide. I’m tired of being knocked over by the tsunamis of grief that burden most days. I’m tired of feeling like I’m choking on my emotions, like my heart is in a vice, and I can’t move for the paralysis that the weakness brings.

I have so many questions. First, who am I? They tell me I am autistic, but no one else believes it. Whenever I mention my autism to anyone, they say with confidence, “ Oh, you aren’t autistic, ” like they know what’s in my head. Hilarious. Their confidence is ignorance. They don’t know. Not the first idea of what autism even is, but they announce with authority.” You are not Autistic, you don’t look autistic, you don’t behave autistic, as if they are suddenly the world’s authority on autism. It does make me angry, would I dare to say to them “ you are not neurotypical” as if I would know what their inner world looks like. Why do they think they know mine?

Does it boil down to ignorance? Or fear of the unknown? Do we, autistic people, make them feel fear? Fear that they are inadequate? That they do not understand and like anything humans do not understand, they just want to bash it with a big stick, kill it before it changes them. Like the white settlers destroying the Indigenous cultures, or the Spanish killing the Incas? Or the British Empire subjugating everything that wasn’t British?

Autism is fast becoming a new culture, a new way of thinking and being that, from my point of view, is a good way.

Honest and direct. Unfiltered and real. Not always easy, but often true. We don’t hide behind masks very well. We say the things people pretend they don’t feel. We feel the things others spend their lives avoiding. We sit in truth, even when it’s uncomfortable. Especially then. And yes, that can be unsettling. But maybe what unsettles them is not us — maybe it’s the mirror we hold up.

We’re not broken. We’re not wrong. We’re not failed neurotypicals. We are something else entirely, and maybe that scares people. Maybe they fear we’re the canaries in the coal mine, sensing something deeper, something they can’t bear to acknowledge in themselves. Like how most people aren’t really living — they’re performing. And we don’t always perform well. That makes us dangerous. It makes us free.

But being free is lonely. Because the world still revolves around the mask. Around fitting in. Around small talk and social rules, and knowing when to laugh, even when nothing’s funny. And I’m here, heart open, waiting for someone who sees behind all that. Waiting for a connection that isn’t built on pretending.

And yeah, I still want it. All of it. Love, companionship, someone to share the view with. Someone who doesn’t flinch at my intensity or try to fix me or tell me to be less. Someone who just gets it — or at least tries. Is that so much to ask? Maybe. But I’ll keep asking anyway.

This isn’t self-pity. It’s a plea for recognition. For understanding. For the world to stop telling me I’m too much and too little in the same breath. I am who I am. And even when I feel like I’m drowning, even when the loneliness chokes me, I know there’s strength in the truth. And the truth is all I’ve ever had.

So I keep writing. I keep speaking. I keep walking that beach and picking up the sea glass — little shards of broken beauty made smooth by time and tide. Maybe that’s what I am. Not flawless. Not polished. But weathered into something kind of beautiful.

If you see me, really see me, say something. I’m here.