2024-05-27 Raised to comply

The speaker talks about their upbringing and how they were taught to rely on their mother and family for guidance and perspective. They mention being kicked out by their mother's sister at 21 or 22 and entering the world without realizing they were autistic. They discuss how being easily swayed by others' perspectives led them down a path of engaging in illegal activities in their job. They share their experiences with substance use and the thrill they felt when getting away with something. They reflect on their need for attachment and how they have struggled to maintain long-lasting relationships. They express contentment in being alone and the freedom it brings. They discuss rejecting religious indoctrination at a young age and realizing they couldn't rely on their family for support. They mention having a difficult conversation with their mother before she passed away, where they tried to explain who they truly were. I was brought up to be reliant on my mum. I was brought up to be so aware of what she thought and felt, and the others, the rest of the family, to take on board their perspective, irrespective of whether or not I agreed, that when I was 21 or 22, as a result of her sister telling her that she needed to kick me out so that I could go into the world, without them knowing I was autistic, had Asperger's and wouldn't function, wasn't prepared to have to function in the world without the support, even though I didn't really get on with my mum because of the control, I knew that she was still always having my best interest at heart or what she thought were my best interests, so that when I went into the world, and I was now around other adults, I was easily swayed into accepting their perspective because that's what I've been taught to do. And the world that I was in were around people who had already figured out how to take advantage, how to manipulate, how to get things for themselves, how to steal some things from the company, take things from the company, so that by the time I moved into the job that I did most, which was used in new car sales, I was already susceptible to alternate ways of working that weren't legal. Sure, I did the legal stuff, I did the usual working thing, I was pretty good at it, very good at it in fact. I learned quickly and became successful, competent, I always had money, more money than I needed, and yet there was nothing exciting about it. Once something is too easy for me, then I start to lose interest. I need some other kind of excitement. Now I wasn't a drinker, not really. I used to drink, but that was as a result of peer pressure and the perspective of those I was around who only drank. Once I got into smoking cannabis, I much preferred that, but was never really into anything harder. I only tried cocaine a couple of times. I liked it, it gave me a sense of confidence that I could understand why people liked it, but it wasn't something I needed to have. But when I got away with something, when I acquired something I wasn't supposed to have or I got more of something, I felt a buzz, an energy that work wasn't able to reproduce in any way. I mean, okay, there were moments when I'd been talking to a customer and there was a sale about to happen. Yes, there was a certain excitement about that. I'd be making money, one more towards the target. If I sold enough cars that month, I might even be top of the leaderboard. All of those things seemed to matter back then, but the feeling didn't last very long. It needed another fix and then another fix and another fix, and in between there might be quite long periods where there wasn't anything to give me that feeling. Whereas if I was doing something shady, dodgy, which almost everybody was in their own way, on their own level, right up to the bosses, if I was doing something and getting away with it, that gave me a greater sense of excitement and more of it. Now, I'm not blaming my mum or my family for what subsequently took place, because on the one hand, while being kicked out and told to just get on with it, go into the world, and then somehow not think that I would be affected by that negatively towards the relationship I had, I wouldn't have wanted, I didn't want to be so attached to, so reliant on my mother, but being unaware of the autistic aspect of my nature that somehow needed and has always needed, not exactly a mother, but in all my relationships, the women have essentially kind of mothered me. There's been a maternal aspect to them. I've allowed that, wanted that, needed that, and for a while it seems to be something I'm missing, until in a similar way to how it was with my actual mother, I realised that actually this is now limiting me and I need to be free of it. And I suppose while I grew up and had relationships and they worked and they failed and they worked and they failed, I never really felt able to or wanted to look after myself, really take care of myself for decades. I had to have decades of adult experience before it was okay for me to not have anyone to rely on, not have a partner, not have someone, whether it was a girlfriend, a wife or a best friend, a bloke, which has often been a better relationship, a better connection, a better friendship for the period of time that I had it. None of them lasted for one reason or another and yet the experience for a while was sublime until it was no longer possible or practical or wanted or needed. And I would then for a long time have to go round the same circle again because it was very rare for me to actually find a friend to be like that with, whether it was male or female. And the female friendship was more complicated because it involved a much more physical intimate experience than the male friendship, which was always a brother. And I loved having a brother that was found three times, two or three times in the course of my life where in the circumstances it just worked. And then the last real brother was Lou who died eight years ago and since then there was still some female connecting experiences but they were then, they no longer exist, no connection, no family, mother died, nothing to do with the past, everything from the past is gone. I only experience what's in this moment, in the present than the people that I meet, primarily Kay and Eliza but Kay is the one that ensures that happens. Without her I would hardly be around anybody and I'm okay with that. I actually don't feel like there's anything missing. I'm not trying to find a way to not be alone. I actually am happier alone. And in many ways I've always felt the need to be alone. When I was a kid I would always play alone but that was mostly because I didn't have friends, nobody sought me out to be, to do things with me and so I just made up games on my own and was happy to be in my own space which as someone with Asperger's it's very understandable but without knowing that back then that was just what was normal for me. So I don't have the experience of what it's like to be with others, to have close friendships, close connections that have just lasted. Some people are still friends with the people they went to school with and that seems to never change, just they have this long history of familiarity and many experiences have been shared. My love sharing experience, certain experiences are absolutely enhanced by having another and yet I've given that up or I've had to accept that it just doesn't exist for me so that the tendency for attachment for, it's almost addictive in many ways for me that actually I would choose only to share and be very reluctant to do something alone once the addiction has been, has returned. But now while I'm not saying I wouldn't enjoy sharing some particular thing with a particular person I am perfectly okay to be on my own because on my own is the experience I have 95% of the time. It's normal for me to be alone. There's nothing that's wrong with that. I'm perfectly content in the solitude. The freedom to choose spontaneously in any given moment what it is I do next without having to run it past anyone, consider anyone, have to compromise and accept which is nothing, there's nothing wrong in those experiences and I'm quite capable of doing all of that. It's just very nice not to have to and I suppose as time goes on it becomes normal so that actually I don't need to. I'm not looking for it. I may be even reluctant unless it's under very specific circumstances in a very specific way. I probably would always be open to sharing something in the right moment but no longer need it, no longer seek it, no longer look for it and expect it to be there and feel somehow something is missing if it isn't. But I suppose I wanted to explore this idea that came up about how essentially I was brought up not to be independent, not to be alone, to always have to rely on initially family and religion. You're supposed to rely on the religion, the doctrine, the ideology, this is what you do, these are the rules, don't question them, just follow them. But I couldn't do that even at primary school when it was most intense and the indoctrination seemed overwhelming and I was seven, I had to reject it. I remember it very vividly, the decision, I'm not going to do this anymore, I can't play this game anymore, I don't know how I'm going to resist it, I don't know exactly what I'm going to do but I have to do something because I can't allow it to just enter me and mould me, I can't follow these rules unless I understand and believe in them and actually choosing them rather than having to accept that they must be chosen and then since that point without the support of the congregation and seeing the family were hypocritically secular so there was no support there anyway and then realising that actually I can't rely on the family, they never were supportive of me, it wasn't a kind of close family like that and the parents, the father wasn't around, there basically wasn't a father, everything was left to the mother and the mother did her best but she had no way to do that without controlling what was not to be controlled. She didn't understand that her attempt to do right actually in many instances messed with me, messed me up. Just before she died I had the opportunity to explain some of these things when she was a captive audience and in bed and wasn't getting out of it so she had to hear me, she had to listen if I could find a way for her to turn the television off if I could ask her to and she actually did it and she was willing to hear me and sometimes I would just have to do it regardless of the situation because it was the only chance I was going to have she wasn't going to be around much longer and I had to try. I had to have an opportunity, I had to take the opportunity to say to her, to tell her who her son actually was. It wasn't easy for her to hear it but she heard some things and their communication did take place so it wasn't all in vain perhaps if there had been a few more years to do that maybe more would have been achieved but that wasn't the case and that was fine, it was very difficult and for the most part I didn't want to spend any more time with her than I had to even though I had stepped into the role of full time carer just because I had nowhere to live after I came back from America and there was a spare room in her flat but in order to be in that spare room I would have to be the son the support that she had always wanted me to be ever since I was a kid I remember her telling me when I was growing up you will look after me, you will be there for me when I'm old, won't you? She was serious and like how could you ask a kid like that yes mum of course I will for the most part I had no intention of doing that for the most part for at least 30 years of my adult life I had nothing to do with her but as it turned out through circumstances etc that is exactly what happened I was there for her looked after her took her to her hospital appointments drove her here picked up shopping cooked for her did what I could do while at the same time feeling a great deal of resentment for putting myself into a situation like this with someone I didn't get on with but those experiences hard as they are were just really opened things up for me revealed a lot about who I am and it took me several years afterwards to process it all and now having gone through all of that and found myself and have been for the last two years living alone in a van I understand more about myself while I don't think I will ever know myself I do know more about myself about what I am and what I think and how things are and that makes things easier and that's the journey and that's really what I do now and that's OK