I don’t know what to write here. Words on a screen are too thin and ephemeral to fitly describe the weight and depth of what I feel inside. My loneliness, barely managed under the best of circumstances, has been flushed to the surface once again and refuses to budge. The recent diagnosis of ASD, which should have been a relief, and is, in some ways, has also exacerbated my fear that I am too broken to ever be whole.

It’s also finally, completely torn to shreds any hope I held out of ever being normal. I’m simply not. My body is not normal. My mind is not normal. I am always going to need to make accommodations for myself, physically, mentally, emotionally. I am never going to be able to engage the cruise control when it comes to my thoughts, speech, and behavior. I’m always going to have to watch myself; I will never be able to completely relax unless I am alone.

And so I’m more frightened than ever that finding a life partner for someone as strange and messed up as I am is impossible. I know that thought is unreasonable, or at the very least, unhelpful, but it is supple and resilient, and springs back each time I try to pin it down or bury it.

I know the best way to address a fear is to acknowledge it, accept that the worst case scenario will occur, and get comfortable with it. But when it comes to this, the worst case scenario is so upsetting that each time I contemplate it, it overwhelms me. Each time I try to get comfortable with it, a wound opens inside me and that pain that is too deep and wide to describe pours out into my consciousness.

The wound is so tender and remains so unhealed that it bleeds whenever anything brushes up against it, even things that I don’t expect to touch it. Even though I don’t want to feel this way. I don’t want to feel as though the universe has given me too much to handle, that my life has been any more unfair than anyone else’s.

But how can I not? I mean, who wouldn’t? As hard as this all has been, and as difficult as it is for me to connect, I still find myself thinking that if only I had someone to share the burden with, to lean on, to help hold me together when I fall apart, it wouldn’t be so bad. But with this latest discovery, that possibility now seems even more unlikely than it ever has.

I mean, how could I possibly explain this to someone? Who would sign on for this? Not just the physical disability, but an emotional one, as well? It’s too much.

Just like this, what’s happened to me. It’s too much. It’s too much for any one person to handle. I don’t know how to do this. I pray, I meditate, I spend time with my friends, I try so hard to let go of needing to understand why this is so hard. I try so hard to let go of needing to know when it will end, or if it will end. I try so hard to cling to any sort of hope about it at all, that it will work out, that there must be something good waiting for me somewhere, at some point in the future.  But it’s too much; the wave is too big, and it swallows me up.

It’s not that good things aren’t happening. I graduate in two weeks. I start lab work, albeit in a limited capacity, the week after that. Despite everything, I’m still OK, at least on the outside. But on the inside I’m just completely wrecked. I cry every day. And not just get choked up, with a few tears slipping out, but crumpled in a ball on the floor, sobbing uncontrollably, because the pain inside me hurts so much I can’t do anything else.

I know I have every reason to be depressed. I suppose anyone would be. But that doesn’t help. I just want to not be this, to not be me, not be this great ape. Not any of it, not disabled, not autistic, not broken. I want to escape, but there’s nowhere I can go and not be all of those things.

After my last exam this week, I’m supposed to leave to go to the beach by myself for five days. Normally, I’d be looking forward to it, but not this time. I don’t even really want to go, because there doesn’t seem to be much point. It’s not like I can park this pain in the garage of my apartment building, leave it here and travel without it. And if it’s going to hurt this much no matter where I go, what’s the point in spending the money and energy arranging and taking the trip in the first place?

I want a vacation, yes, but what I want a vacation from is me. And there’s nowhere on this planet I can go for that.