Quote from The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky:
“I didn’t come, out of vanity, out of egoistical vanity and a beastly desire to lord it over people, which I can never get rid of, thoughI’ve been doing my bst all my life to be different. I can see now that I’ve been a cad in lots of ways,. . . !”
Dear Sister,
After breaking down, but not giving in, I am trying to figure out my blind spots.
I came across this on Quora:
Self-pity is considered a kind of unhappiness for which one is culpable, while depression is considered "caused" by phenomena. Self-pity does not feature real self-interrogation or a sense of "ownership" of one's pain or problems, which depressed persons often feel responsible for way more than they should.
cf the Willow Remedy (for pity) following.
I must now admit, that I consider your negativity to stem from self-pity, which by my account is a dominant chord for autism,anyway. I remain non-plussed about your depression, which you claim to be your main obstacle to living and loving. I still believe that if we all attributed your misery to your autism better, we would be able to help you better. There is only one way to live with autism and that is to embrace it like any syndrome ought to be. Then build up your personality from there.
I can see how this would be hard and relentless work, without respite. But I cannot say you ever did much consistent work in this regard. You are very good at suffering hard, but that is because you are stuck in a rut (that is depression).
So, true enough, I am not so successful at making allowances for your official diagnosis for dysphoria. I have been blunt and probably will continue to be so, in stating that I don’t think there is any way forward for you, any longer, other than through medication to moderate your mind programmes and lift your vile self-hatred and scathing criticism of everybody else.
There was a little girl, / Who had a little curl, / Right in the middle of her forehead. / When she was good,/ She was very good indeed, / But when she was bad she was horrid. (Never knew it was by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.)
All I ever meant to do was win your trust. There are good people out there who inspire new and lighter takes on life I wanted to introduce you too. They weren’t going to invade your space, knock on your door, for they live on-line, or in books, or in art and music. But this already prooved overwhelming. I plucked from all over the place to give you a wide selection. Big mistake. Too much - too late, it also now turns out.
I wanted to put depression on a back burner for you, like I had managed to do for myself. Then we might see what you might see. It would be like breaking a habit, ending an addiction. Depression is addictive.
True, for depression there is no point trying to get through to anyone with good cheer. However autism does well on positive reinforcement. I ascribe it to a character flaw that you are unable to commit and dedicate yourself to a form of rehabilitation. I suppose this is the Catch 22 of hells: where never a glimmer of self-love can reach.
You say you have no self, but that cannot be. Take some Holly and know better! Autism tragically encages the self in a closed circuit of over-thinking, that is permanent neurosis. Most of the time this feels to you as a numbness: but that’s how nerves become with overstimulation. Your brain gets tennis elbow and pins and needles and carpal tunnel syndrome all in one.
You are a morbidly sensitive girl, who imagines you make yourself ridiculous to everyone. In Kolya Krasotkin’s day it was a generational thing, much like autism is today. I would love to quote Alyosha from The Brothers Karamazov to you and cry: “Don’t think about it, don’t think about it at all!” But then you would have to learn to confess that you are wrong to feel so paranoid, ashamed and unloveable. “It’s almost a kind of insanity. It’s the devil who has taken the form of this vanity and entered into the whole generation.”
In actual fact, sneakily, your feeling yourself an inconvenience and a burden to anyone you meet is nothing other than projection. You are the epitomy of pride crystalised.It’s a malady of the Age of Individualisation. Your aspiration to be different, authentic and unique as fits an individual has become leggy in the dark night of our collective Human Soul. As on a Christmas Day, we must all learn to light the candle within and pledge to resow our seeds of hope come spring, so that we can build a new City or Home for the Heart with what grows from them. We need a warm and soft light to guide us the way.
You won’t ourtightly ridicule this gentle promise of redemption, but intellectually it won’t hold water (or your hand). So what next?
