I’m alone, and no one will see me cry. I still hold back tears, and I don’t know why.

I just signed off on the purchase and sales agreement to get rid of the place where my ex and I lived for 10 years, and have fought bitterly over for 5. He’ll still fight with me about the money, which he thoroughly doesn’t deserve after doing nothing but sitting on the couch and glaring at me, yelling at me, attacking me almost every waking moment while I went out and nearly gutted myself trying to make the mortgage payments.

Why did I ever think so highly of him? I believed he loved me, *I* felt guilty about hurting *him* collecting money from strange men so that he didn’t have to move, injured from the same accident I had been in with him, and I figured that even though I couldn’t move my left arm that it wouldn’t show in pictures, and because I could hide my pain well enough (I am an excellent actress) I could still earn a living.

It’s gone. He’s gone. I hope he dies. <=== I both do and I don’t.

I feel so raw, so numb. Why am I holding back tears, even here, alone. No one will know, no one will care. No one ever cared. I don’t think anyone ever will. The only person who ever had potential to care, reason to care, said they would care, never cared. How could I believe that anyone ever would.

Right behind my neck, it feels like there is a bubble inside of my body, pushing out the C3 vertebrae. There probably is, I had trouble with my breathing exercises last night. I wonder if it will get better (long pause) now that it’s all gone. Now that he’s gone.

Dread rolls in like a wave against My left ear, rolling down the side of my neck to my shoulder, the one that used to hurt. He’s not gone, he’ll have more reason to yell at me as we split the money.

I considered pausing to send off an email to my lawyer, but I’ve decided that I can wait until this is done. Even though I have nothing else really to say, and I can feel this post is rhythmless and empty.

Why do I hold back tears, even though I’m alone here?

Imposter syndrome is real. I’ve been listening to a book on autism, and while I know the tendency for a person to feel that they fit any diagnosis that is explained to them, I can’t help but see the similarities between my life and the environmental correlates, and my behavior. I mean I don’t walk funny, but I do have a tendency to toe-walk at times (I incorporate daily calf stretches to alleviate this but they’re always so tight – my mother noted that from x-rays she has seen that my Father, myself, and my Brother all have funny shaped hips, I have also seen this, but I was more interested in the slight deformation of the lower 4 vertebrae which have short wings, making it difficult to innervate properly and also put stress on the oblique muscles, as well as possibly the organs that receive signals from these levels of the spine) and I clearly calm myself down by examining intricate anatomic cause and effect scenarios.

I’m not crying. My whole body is tight, holding back tears for no reason. My chiropractor had told me about this, I need to find a new one.

My chest feels hollow, I feel like a weight has been lifted. <=== this sounds like it would be a positive feeling, but consider the fact that weighted blankets are becoming quite popular.

Imposter syndrome is real. I have never felt like the person that does any of the things I have done – I don’t know how to explain it. I don’t feel like I am me, I am alienated from myself. I don’t even feel like these are my tears. I don’t even feel like these are my emotions. I describe my body, and I don’t feel like it is mine. I’m surprised by everything it does, and I’m surprised that I somehow managed to do any of the things that I have done. I’m constantly trying new things, just to see if, surprise surprise, I can do those things to.

It occurs to me that my Father is like that.

Morally, I don’t feel like these are my morals, I never have. I feel like I am trying to be a good person, like in a video game where we try to achieve the objectives and earn levels.

Writing song tags, I feel surprised that some of these songs are already in there. I wonder when, maybe I’ll go back and look after I get through this cup on coffee. I wonder if it’s the same time of year.

Clearly, this exercise in and of itself demonstrates the depth of my imposter syndrome. I can’t even use my real name, to talk to myself. I feel like a stranger to me, and I write here trying to uncover a code of keywords that I have hidden from myself <=== even now I’m lying to myself, I know that I don’t do anything with the data except giggle, cry, and click click click.

Self actualization, the lofty goal in so much of the philosophy that I’ve read, how can a person like me ever become actualized? How would I know? A rain of real anxiety and confusion falls on me as my brows furrow more tightly than they usually do, and I can feel it in my scalp. I wonder if I have wrinkles under my hair. I want to shave my head to find out, but then that would be terrible. So much of my identity is tied to my hair, I wear it for others more than myself. I actually like being bald, but I didn’t like how people saw me being bald.

And I suppose that’s what differentiates me from the autistic – I both know and care about what other people think. Is imposter syndrome an extension of autism, where the autistic difficulties are present, but masked by a coping mechanism? <=== it’s a loose idea now, as I am terribly rusty and don’t really have an understanding of the neural basis for autism to the same degree that I do the other disorders, or at least many other disorders. But it bears questioning, and I should get back into that book because maybe they’ll discuss neuroanatomy, right now it’s all case studies and some brief genetic references. And from the looks of it everyone is Jewish or something.

My parents are also engineers, and my mother is highly educated and socially awkward to the point of absolute wtf. My brother is as cold and emotionless as I am, moreso perhaps, and we speak to each other with a rhythm that most people can not follow. He had amazing echolalia as a child, I exhibited a similar behavior where I would parrot the intonations of entire conversations around me, with no words, just the sound pattern, breaks, and pitch of voice. For hours, my cousins tell me.

When I went over my father’s house, he had a copy of Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet on his coffee table. I remember making a vhs tape of my brother reciting this book when he was two, as he would repeat whatever was said to him with intense accuracy. It was hilarious. Was it autism lol. I remember being asked to draw myself at 4 – museum quality drawings ensued. I can, in fact, or at least I could, flawlessly copy any painting, and I particularly loved French surrealism. I became interested in Egyptology and can read fluent 4th and 5th era hieroglyph at 6 years old, and had an obsession with codes and obviously here still do. I became interested in neuroanatomy after drawing out systems for brains and admiring them as artwork, the spark flying around. I still do. I have to get back to work or I’m just going talk about brains forever.

It calms me. As does recounting this past, all this past that is a part of me and will never belong to my ex. There, he was not there for everything it’s not like my whole life is ending. He never knew me. There was so much he never knew, and I am still all of that. My collarbones hurt, pinching in towards my throat on that place that I love so much on a man, and yes on him. On the place that I know, from my previous studies, autistic and aspergers patients focus on instead of the face in social interactions. On the place where animals focus, on the place where you must be sure to control when you’re facing down dogs so that they know that you are dominant, and you have orders for them.

Everyone in my family loves dogs, and we are excellent dog trainers. Maybe that’s what helped us. Some things don’t make sense with this theory, but psychology is always tripping over itself anyway, with all these egos involved. They came up with the idea of the ego and haven’t been able to get off it since. Biology tried to go around as not to insult them, and now the whole thing is a mess basically. Maybe Descartes was just trying to be nice, but I think he was trying to sound smart when he actually knew nothing and didn’t want to admit it.

I’ve scrolled back twice today, I had been making real progress in not doing that. I know my writing has probably suffered because of that, but that’s not the point of this. What is the point of this? I’ve been writing, a lot today, and there is no rhythm because I have not been taking regular sips of my coffee, and it is now cold. I care, but I don’t.

Maybe autism can also look like depression. I have fought to make myself enjoy things all of my life, but in truth, I don’t really enjoy any of it. Or at least I’m going with that today, I don’t want to succumb to absolutist thinking.

Sometimes absolutist thinking is just accepting that there is a pattern, and eliminating the outliers.

I struggle to find the last sentence, but I know I can just take the last sip of this cold coffee.

I’m still fighting back tears, for absolutely no reason.

I don’t even want to see myself cry.