Spiritual work while having autism

[Denial]

I had a conversation about my psychologist about the fact that I have some autistic traits and I will further investigate if I have aspergers or not. Made me think about the spiritual work I have been doing for the past year. Does any people here with autism/aspergers felt their spiritual journey has been made difficult because of some autistic traits that you can't let go of? For example every time something significant happens to me, I have a deep urge to explain why that happen so that I get a sense of control on life, or maybe increase the likelihood I will get that experience again when I feel like I have understood it, and many other things that hinder me to wake up, or just becoming more developed at all. I have always blamed my problems because of OCD or ADD, but now I'm starting to think I need to address my issues from another angle. What do you think? I know I'm overthinking this Im just curious about your guys's thoughts. 

[Denial]

I also have a dilemma because I have a deep interest in spirituality, but it has brought a lot of danger to my life, like suicide attempts, detachment from friends and family. Its hard to give this up, or take a break when its literally the only interest I have left. Im obsessive about it. Tried to make music again but I have no joy anymore. I only live to distract myself from suicide with stimuli like watching youtube videos. I'm getting help, might get antidepressants, but that's not gonna fix it all, and might make it worse from what I've heard about it.

Edited April 8, 2021 by Denial

[Moksha]

Being human means being obsessively attached to things, to experiences, and to states that make us feel special. Do get help, but also realize that all of us are in the same condition, in some way or another. We are in this together. We are all working through letting go of our attachments, and learning to love being.

If I may suggest, as a step in your spiritual journey, let go of your need to control life, and simply enjoy the beauty of this relative world, and your place within it. I took my dog for a walk to the park today. I noticed the lilies, blue, white, and yellow...the clover and the honey bees...the squirrels chased by my dog, and taunting her from their perches high in the trees. I smiled.

[mandyjw]

If you were blissful, infinity and you decided that in order to create you were going to seemingly (but not really) incarnate as a bodymind, what is the ONE thing you could do to ensure that you wouldn't totally lose yourself in the thinking process? You'd make something seemingly go "wrong" with your thinking process so you'd have to look back at it, question it and realize that that's all it's made of, and all you are... a thought. 

[Denial]

@MokshaWhy am I not able to do that?

[Moksha]

5 minutes ago, Denial said:

@MokshaWhy am I not able to do that?

You are. If you don't have a dog, find a tree. They are beautiful.  It's all about realizing the sameness in life, and the resonance with who you are. I have always hated snakes, but somehow, even there, I have seen the sameness. There is a resonance in every thing, and that resonance is your true identity.

The ego wants to control. The real YOU is already free. Open your eyes and see the beauty in your backyard, and in yourself.

[Denial]

@MokshaEven if I detach myself from thinking I still don't feel any sense of joy. All this spiritual work seems to be something to be just realized individually. I can understand what you are saying, yet I havent realized it. I have gotten temporary states of bliss, but they never last that long. I'm getting really tired of this mindfuck of a game I play with myself.

Edited April 8, 2021 by Denial

[Moksha]

@Denial Let go of the spiritual work. If it feels like work, it isn't what it pretends to be. Just let go, and be. The ego will fight you every step of the way, but don't listen to it. Its lies always lead to suffering. Call it out. The path to freedom is so simple, that most of us miss it in our search for "meaning", rather than simply being. We are already free, if we would just see it.

Take a moment, stand with a tree, let go of your conceptualization of the tree, and resonate with the sameness in the tree and in yourself. Effortless.

[Denial]

@MokshaOk I'll stop treating it as work. Thanks.  The sole reason I was interested in spirituality was because I wanted to avoid work lol. 

[BipolarGrowth]

I have a friend whose autism/aspergers was helped a lot by psychedelics — particularly mescaline. 

[Moksha]

13 hours ago, Denial said:

@MokshaOk I'll stop treating it as work. Thanks.  The sole reason I was interested in spirituality was because I wanted to avoid work lol. 

I hear you 

[trenton]

On 4/8/2021 at 1:02 PM, Denial said:

I had a conversation about my psychologist about the fact that I have some autistic traits and I will further investigate if I have aspergers or not. Made me think about the spiritual work I have been doing for the past year. Does any people here with autism/aspergers felt their spiritual journey has been made difficult because of some autistic traits that you can't let go of? For example every time something significant happens to me, I have a deep urge to explain why that happen so that I get a sense of control on life, or maybe increase the likelihood I will get that experience again when I feel like I have understood it, and many other things that hinder me to wake up, or just becoming more developed at all. I have always blamed my problems because of OCD or ADD, but now I'm starting to think I need to address my issues from another angle. What do you think? I know I'm overthinking this Im just curious about your guys's thoughts. 

I have autism.

I have a mix of strengths and weaknesses in spirituality because of this condition.  Starting with some strengths, people with autism often have narrow interests.  Narrow interests can be good for developing excellence in a given field.  If spirituality is one of your interests, it can make you persistent in growing your consciousness.  This is also one of the biggest weaknesses of autism because you can't always find people who appreciate your niche abilities.

One of my narrow interests is chess.  I enjoy the state of flow created when I am absorbed in what I am doing.  This is potentially a strength in that chess is a form of meditation.  It is potentially a weakness if my hobby becomes a distraction.

I have some autistic traits that I often try to hide from other people.  Sometimes I like to turn on music on my tablet and bounce up and down clapping while laughing.  This makes me look like the child my grandma takes care of who also has autism.  This could be a strength in that I am very playful in which case I have nothing to be ashamed of.

One of my traits is that I am a perfectionist.  This makes me very critical of myself because I want to grow as much as I can.  Perfectionism is common in autism and it can lead to turning self help into something neurotic.  This leads to me shoulding myself a lot.  This become an obstacle if it is not helping me to excel.

So far I have found the most help out of emotional mastery.  Although the problems you describe are similar to other people, I think there are different degrees.  For example guilt can be more intense and autism can be related to other mood disorders like anxiety which leads to racing thoughts.  In this way I am able to let go hyper rationalism for personal development.  I can still use logic as a tool in other areas of life.  This is a good example of autistic traits I let go of. 

I wish there were some courses on emotional mastery because my personality is very neurotic.  I become full of negative values when trying to become acceptable other people and it clouds my most genuine values.  This has made the life purpose course more difficult.

I would like to point out that you think you blame your problems on health conditions.  You are trying to be good by not using autism as an excuse to gain some kind of social advantage of to excuse for devilry.  The term "blame" indicates that you have a defense mechanism against this potential to exploit other people.  Make sure that you don't use this to deny immutable differences because the defense mechanism could come with guilt to replace things which could be explained with autism.  There is a balance in this case, so don't swing the pendulum too far in one direction.  I swing the pendulum a lot.

I'm sure there is more I can add, but this is a start.  I hope it helps.

[Denial]

@trentonThanks. I actually want to take a break from spirituality because I haven't developed a healthy ego yet. If I have that it would be easier to let it go. I only get glimpses of peace and quiet (which is my only goal in life) and then I come back to my normal, neurotic self. I have lost all interests other than spirituality to be honest. I used to like make music, now I sometimes do to distract myself, but thats about it. A distraction. All I seek is peace, which has led to me attempt suicide. Now I can't even do that either because I am being watched, which is fair enough. People don't wan't me to die, but I desperately want that. Not even being dramatic about it, I just have had enough. Things that I'm trying to do everyday is to challenge my eating problems so that I can start to feel better. Exercise of course/ going for walks. But it all feels pointless at the end of the day, and just hoping that I get a heart-attack at some point, or my ego dissolves. It is very torturous when I obsess about spirituality all day long, but have such a neurotic, anal approach at it that it seems super hopeless. I only truly relax when the suffering has had its peak and I surrender, but thats only temporary and the cycle continues. 

[trenton]

5 hours ago, Denial said:

@trentonThanks. I actually want to take a break from spirituality because I haven't developed a healthy ego yet. If I have that it would be easier to let it go. I only get glimpses of peace and quiet (which is my only goal in life) and then I come back to my normal, neurotic self. I have lost all interests other than spirituality to be honest. I used to like make music, now I sometimes do to distract myself, but thats about it. A distraction. All I seek is peace, which has led to me attempt suicide. Now I can't even do that either because I am being watched, which is fair enough. People don't wan't me to die, but I desperately want that. Not even being dramatic about it, I just have had enough. Things that I'm trying to do everyday is to challenge my eating problems so that I can start to feel better. Exercise of course/ going for walks. But it all feels pointless at the end of the day, and just hoping that I get a heart-attack at some point, or my ego dissolves. It is very torturous when I obsess about spirituality all day long, but have such a neurotic, anal approach at it that it seems super hopeless. I only truly relax when the suffering has had its peak and I surrender, but thats only temporary and the cycle continues. 

I want to tell you that you are not alone.  Suicide rates are high for people with autism.  The disorder is misunderstood and people can feel like outsiders to the neuro typical world.

I work with a psychologist because of my suicidal thoughts.  I have a cycle of feeling happy before it crashes into a depressing outlook on life.  I am on anxiety medication, but it is becoming less effective as I use meditation because this is more effective.  Sometimes the cycle gets repetitive to the point that it can seem hopeless when there is no obvious cause of me hating life. 

Do you mind me asking how long this has been going on?  There could be all kinds of trauma for you to work through, but it may not be the case that any particular event caused you to be this way.  At least your ego could be a little bit healthier if there is obvious trauma you could work through.

I have a very neurotic personality as well, and it demonstrates clearly the importance of emotional mastery.  Your school did not reach you this so you should buy the book list if you have not already.  Emotional mastery is the highest priority which can be helped if you read the right books.  I'm reading one of these books right now.  These have been more helpful to me than anything else.  If you have autism, then the high suicide rate makes it that much more critical that you study this.

I want to tell you that I think I am overly critical of myself.  I criticize myself for my obsessive mind when it is over anything.  This is not really a problem If you frame it as you are passionate about something and eager to learn more.  Recognize the strengths in the apparent weaknesses.  If you think of yourself as a bad person for any of this, then that is not true.  People with autism are doing the best they can, but the way we act does not make sense to most people.  We can still be very effective in any field of interest.  Narrow interests can make you obsessive, but it can help you become excellent.  Excellence can only come about when we are passionate about what we do.

The goal of our self criticism is to improve ourselves.  This can be used to tear ourselves down again and again.  I would like a different approach to this.  I have told others on this forum about this before and they said that if we realize we are already enough of can stop us from turning personal development into something neurotic.  One thing I noticed is that improvement can be chased forever and it can be used to manipulate myself forever if I think I am not good enough.  There is no point at which I would be good enough of self improvement becomes chasing.  This might be the reason why harsh self criticism does not work for me.

I will mention that I find going for walks helpful.  I also enjoy writing music and poetry just for fun.  I wrote a song called "you have been to the bar.". I will be your friend and we can give each other more information on how we could approach these cycles of depression.  

[Denial]

9 hours ago, trenton said:

Do you mind me asking how long this has been going on?

Started when I was 13 I think, but it was more moderate. I could still enjoy stuff and my fear of death was stronger. The reason why spirituality has been dangerous for me is because it has lowered my fear of death. And I always to some extent wanted it. Had pretty bad OCD. It affected my school life, family life and relationships with friends. My inability to stop thinking is probably the cause of it becoming worse. I have a problem with letting go control. When I become happy, I get super paranoid that I might lose it somehow so try to hold on for as long as I can. Then I inevitably come crashing down to the same baseline. It usually happens when I become aware that I'm feeling better and then I become a control freak about it and can't flow with it. When I get the biggest sense of control is when I become apathetic about life. Because then I don't need to stress about anything anymore. It doesn't matter what happens. The problem is of course that everything loses it's meaning and I lose a drive to continue living. But for some reason I find that easier then to let go of it and become emotionally vulnerable again. To really feel everything. The reason why I ended up like this is because I have a lot of thinking compulsions. I was told to overcome OCD you have to confront the feelings that you get from not doing the action. And I have to some extent, but I end up just suppressing so that I don't have to do anything anymore. It's the ultimate form of control. My brain doesn't care that I'm miserable. It only cares about safety. That's why I ended up like this. If I'm gonna be happy again I have to accept that everything is out of control. I kind of feel like lying to people to convince them I'm a lot better, then just jumping off a mountain and be done with it all. 

[trenton]

4 hours ago, Denial said:

Started when I was 13 I think, but it was more moderate. I could still enjoy stuff and my fear of death was stronger. The reason why spirituality has been dangerous for me is because it has lowered my fear of death. And I always to some extent wanted it. Had pretty bad OCD. It affected my school life, family life and relationships with friends. My inability to stop thinking is probably the cause of it becoming worse. I have a problem with letting go control. When I become happy, I get super paranoid that I might lose it somehow so try to hold on for as long as I can. Then I inevitably come crashing down to the same baseline. It usually happens when I become aware that I'm feeling better and then I become a control freak about it and can't flow with it. When I get the biggest sense of control is when I become apathetic about life. Because then I don't need to stress about anything anymore. It doesn't matter what happens. The problem is of course that everything loses it's meaning and I lose a drive to continue living. But for some reason I find that easier then to let go of it and become emotionally vulnerable again. To really feel everything. The reason why I ended up like this is because I have a lot of thinking compulsions. I was told to overcome OCD you have to confront the feelings that you get from not doing the action. And I have to some extent, but I end up just suppressing so that I don't have to do anything anymore. It's the ultimate form of control. My brain doesn't care that I'm miserable. It only cares about safety. That's why I ended up like this. If I'm gonna be happy again I have to accept that everything is out of control. I kind of feel like lying to people to convince them I'm a lot better, then just jumping off a mountain and be done with it all. 

@Denial I can relate to this.

I started getting waves of depression around the time I was in late middle school and early high school.  It was around that time that I started having more suicidal thoughts and I felt that I was unable to control my emotional suffering.

I first want to steer you away from your attitude toward death in spirituality.  It is easy for the ego mind to twist these things in a selfish way.  In this case, death is being twisted in a way that it leads you toward harming the body.  This does not come from self love, it comes from hatred and apathy.  This is not what spirituality is meant to teach us.

One the topic of OCD, I am curious about your locker situation.  When I had a locker at school, I never left it unlocked.  I still would double check and sometimes even triple check, but then I walk away thinking "did I lock my locker?".  I often had the same attitude toward my backpack.  I would look in my backpack repeatedly to make sure I was not missing something.  There was only one or two times I actually forgot something ever.  If I thought I was missing something, I would start panicking only to realize I had what I needed in another pocket.  I was never told that I needed to face the emotions from not doing the action.  

As for being a control freak, I think focusing on meditation is a good way to ease anxiety and paranoia.  My mental health has improved because of consciousness work.  Because emotional mastery is critical for us, we should run through the emotional mastery play list on actualized to see if it helps unsure your neurotic personality.  Childhood vows is one of the most practical episodes in the site.  This may not cure your entire condition, but at least it will makes many small but significant improvements to your psyche.  All of these small issues could be contributing to suicidal thoughts.

I want to tell you that I feared going insane for a long time.  When we don't socialize with people enough, our minds can tell us anything even if it is depressing.  People with autism don't socialize as much as most people, and my psychologist is trying to get me to do this more.  I have a younger brother in high school and we are studying emotional mastery together.

I try to cope with my inner conflicts by keeping myself productive.  My mind could be focusing on a chess game for example.  Once I get into a state of flow and analyze the complexity of a tough game, my life becomes much more enjoyable.  If you could find ways to stay productive, it can help you avoid these situations in which you get paranoid because you are busy doing something else you enjoy.  There is no need to be a control freak in these cases.

One of my observations for my thoughts was that if I am thinking of my thoughts as bad and I get afraid of them, this will make the thoughts worse.  This can contribute to racing thoughts and over thinking.  Consciousness work helped me to recognize this.  In your case the fear of losing control is doing this to you.  In my experience I called this an inner devil's advocate.  There are ways to ease this.

I can expand upon this with shoulds and should nots.  Sometimes I have destructive curiosity.  This can include pulling the fire alarm.  If you recognize that there is a line between your thoughts and behaviors, it can ease your fears of acting on these thoughts that contribute to moral anxiety.  Acknowledging curiosity is a more effective way to deal with certain kinds of thoughts when compared to fearing your thoughts about doing something stupid.  This includes thoughts about randomly breaking things, morbid curiosity that contributes to suicidal thoughts, or even sexual fantasies that we could get paranoid about.

I am currently at the part where you feel in control of life when apathetic.  I can expand on this after my appointment with my psychologist.  I hope you find parts of this useful so far.

[trenton]

8 hours ago, Denial said:

Started when I was 13 I think, but it was more moderate. I could still enjoy stuff and my fear of death was stronger. The reason why spirituality has been dangerous for me is because it has lowered my fear of death. And I always to some extent wanted it. Had pretty bad OCD. It affected my school life, family life and relationships with friends. My inability to stop thinking is probably the cause of it becoming worse. I have a problem with letting go control. When I become happy, I get super paranoid that I might lose it somehow so try to hold on for as long as I can. Then I inevitably come crashing down to the same baseline. It usually happens when I become aware that I'm feeling better and then I become a control freak about it and can't flow with it. When I get the biggest sense of control is when I become apathetic about life. Because then I don't need to stress about anything anymore. It doesn't matter what happens. The problem is of course that everything loses it's meaning and I lose a drive to continue living. But for some reason I find that easier then to let go of it and become emotionally vulnerable again. To really feel everything. The reason why I ended up like this is because I have a lot of thinking compulsions. I was told to overcome OCD you have to confront the feelings that you get from not doing the action. And I have to some extent, but I end up just suppressing so that I don't have to do anything anymore. It's the ultimate form of control. My brain doesn't care that I'm miserable. It only cares about safety. That's why I ended up like this. If I'm gonna be happy again I have to accept that everything is out of control. I kind of feel like lying to people to convince them I'm a lot better, then just jumping off a mountain and be done with it all. 

I recognized that I felt in control of my life because I have the possibility to commit suicide.  This meant that no matter how bad things got, I would have an out.  This is how apathy makes us feel in control of bad situations.  It got to the point that I threw my belt away at one point.  I don't have a clear solution to this issue.  My best try is to try to escape to something more productive instead.  You could feel in control with a good hobby instead of being depressed.  I end up laying in bed defeated for hours and I could lose the whole day because of this.

I think you gave me some helpful insight.  This attitude could be responsible for any I feel like so many things I do see meaningless and empty.  This defense mechanism is supposed to make things feel empty so that we are not hurt by them.  In this way our suicidal thoughts are a consequence of us being in denial that we have been hurt.  This is a dangerous self deception that founds our self hatred and depression.

This denial comes from the fact that we are afraid of being hurt through being emotionally vulnerable.  This leads to me isolating myself from other people and being non confrontational.  By isolating myself it leads to a lack of socializing which leads to anxiety which leads to suicidal thoughts.  The way out is to allow ourselves to be emotionally vulnerable.  At least recognize that the current way of being is much more difficult in the long run.  It is not easier at all.

I don't know who told you to face the emotions you get from not doing something to stop OCD.  How many people did this work for?  I guess we could try this in the topic of dealing with strong negative emotions in another actualized video on emotional mastery.

There are two things you need to recognize.  First, your brain cares about your safety.  It is using defense mechanisms like apathy to deny that you have been hurt.  Meanwhile if you did not act on your suicidal thoughts, then it demonstrates that you still do care about life.  There is not a lost hope for you.

Secondly, you do not have to accept that everything is out of control.  You are allowed to deny whatever you want until the end of time.  By acknowledging this, you can become less neurotic in your approach o truth or personal development.

As for convincing people that I am better than I actually am, I did have some thoughts like those.  I tried to compensate for it with a fighter attitude, but it only worked in the short term.  At the very least we can start with self honesty.

There are still a couple of problems I have not fully resolved, but I hope we can still help each other.  Good luck.

[Denial]

@trentonBeautifully written. I have decided to let my self feel more even though it leads to chaos. Even though it leads to people hating me. Even though it leads to death. Living an apathetic life is just not worth it anymore. I get no joy out of it. The whole idea that you should be cold, and emotionless as a "man" is so fucking moronic. It leads to no worth, only egoic pursuits. Ive had enough of hiding. I wanna feel everything. 

[trenton]

@Denial I'm glad it helped.

One of the problems with our social conditioning is that men are split from their emotions.  There is no scientific or psychological basis for this image of a cold macho man.  This is a complete utter fantasy because in reality men are still very emotional creatures.  Our society fails to recognize the significance of emotional mastery and it can worsen people's depression, anxiety, and even the likelihood of suicide.  The stereo type that only women are allowed to be emotional is insane and it worsens EQ in men.

A real man can recognize the strength and courage in vulnerability and self honesty.  Good luck.

[Denial]

@trentonGood luck to you too