I recently had my final call with my mentor Pat Stedman. He’s a dating/relationship coach like I used to be, except actually successful at it, married with children, and in my opinion, the best in the world at what he does.
And of course, I only want the best for myself. That’s why I chose him, out of anyone.
But I haven’t always consciously known what “the best” is for ME. I had a lot of questions for him about exactly that.
Why can’t I find a girl who wants me for more than my sex?
What sorts of girls do you think I’m compatible with, who’ll want me for ME?
What in my psychology is STILL stopping me from getting the girl of my dreams?
And there’s times we’ve talked about my purpose in life. What about my own (now-defunct) coaching business can I improve on? If not this, then what career can I be a success in? What did my soul come to this Earth for?
We never got any definite answers to those questions.
This depressed me.
Even if his coaching changed my life for the better. We did inner work that got me conscious of some deep emotional wounds I’d been burying all my life, and allowed me to make major progress on healing them. He recommended Boulder to me as a place to live, which I actually like, unlike fucking NASHVILLE.
And I was happy I finally had someone I could vent all my trauma to, who’d listen compassionately and understand it rather than judge it or trivialize it, and not interrupt me with advice before the end of it.
On our final call together, I gave him my answers. Which were basically what I talked about in my last blog post.
Considering my individual psychological profile + level of self-development + past life experiences and values, the pool of girls I’m compatible with for more than a one-time hookup is extremely small. Since I’m objectively a weird guy no matter how good my game and social skills are, I should set my sights on a girl who’s also extremely weird and polarizing and doesn’t “fit in” at all.
Career-wise, I’m not built to make it as a normie employee nor a cool online entrepreneur. I’ll see how I do as a fiction author in that market, and if I “make it” doing that, awesome. If not, I’ll still keep writing these stories for fun, but try new professional edges until I find one that values me right.
I understand why Pat’s girl advice didn’t really work for me, but has worked wonders for the rest of his clients.
I’m a special case.
I’m weird, as he’s called me. Though the politically correct term for this is “built different”.
I’m neurodivergent.
If I was neurotypical, I imagine I would be a successful dating coach with a girlfriend. I wouldn’t have spent 2022-2023 so far in a deep existential depression, unsure if I’m destined to go the rest of my life without love or purpose.
I could get a normal job and be able to thrive under its social demands, rather than being near-unable to get one due to my social difficulties.
I wouldn’t have been silently breaking under that hopefulness + the demands of a world that seemingly didn’t have a place for me.
No matter how well I’d mask it and attempt to appear normal, everyone always saw right through it.
Neurodivergence is a life-defining thing. I was stupid to attempt to hide it from people my entire adulthood so far. This is now one of my biggest regrets. EVERYONE SAW THROUGH IT.
Neurodivergence ruins my “relationships”.
For most people, neurotypical people, socializing comes easy.
Is this person comfortable around me or not? Does this person want to stay in the conversation or leave it? What behavior is socially acceptable with this person, or not? Neurotypical people innately, automatically pick up on social cues and behave “properly” socially. All the time.
To me, this is a conscious process. Every time I have a conversation with someone, I have to consciously work through it, and be like Sherlock Holmes attempting to deduce what their social cues and behaviors actually mean. I’m good at this. I usually make people feel comfortable around me. I usually navigate social situations smoothly. I have game, and back in college, my social skills even got me kissing or reading the Bible together with the occasional girl.
I don’t always get it right though.
I had a traumatic experience recently because of exactly this, but I won’t give any details here. Let’s just say I had some false social life-related assumptions that backfired horribly onto me.
It’s not like I waltz into social situations thinking “oh boy, I get to make people UNCOMFORTABLE today! This’ll be so fun! Making people uncomfortable is my favorite hobby!”
Yet some people who had no empathy for me probably thought that’s exactly what was going through my head. Instead of you know, being good people and trying to understand my perspective instead of blindly judging me.
In reality, I worry constantly about how I come off around other people. I do anything I can to make them feel safe and welcome around me, and for once, I actually wish nothing but pain and misery upon those people who wished the same upon me. I don’t wish them any physical harm, nor any external difficulties. I wish them long lives full of wins. I just hope they’re never happy ever again. I hope they live with the pain of nearly driving me to suicide for the rest of their life, and never find someone who loves them until the next one. Fuck you.
I prayed last night asking God to give them exactly that. I’m done being unconditionally loving towards people who don’t deserve this from me.
Last night, I felt probably the worst I’ve ever felt. I was even on the phone with 988 venting my bullshit to the crisis worker, then after I hung up, I took some ashwagandha and drank a 375ml bottle of whiskey in one go to calm my nerves. She was completely correct about my situation. I whore my heart out to people who deserve 0 chances with it. I give toxic and selfish people too much compassion and too many opportunities to turn around how they treat me.
No more of this.
I’ve decided to own the uncanny valley that is my social skills, and never attempt to pursue a girl or build up a social life ever again.
I have a 100% disaster rate with these things. But I’m not here to vent every detail of my past.
I’m here to tell you how this is serving me exactly as it is.
Overdose
Helene Ouellette attempts suicide in Chapter/Episode 12 of my in-progress book, Starlight. By overdose. Same way I’ve done it. Same way I’ve planned to do it earlier this year when I was deep into suicidal ideation.
I would never have been able to write this story (and cry my fucking eyes out while typing every word) if I didn’t experience the exact same thing she did.
Like me, Helene is autistic. She has a genius IQ. She puts up a hard-drinking, extroverted party girl persona as a mask because she thinks that’s who she needs to be to get people to like her and think she’s normal instead of a basket case weirdo, not because that’s who she truly is. She’s obsessed with spirituality, physics, and ontology (the study of consciousness). She adopts a cat from literal Hell (it makes much more sense in context) and considers it her baby. She’s basically me if I was a girl.
And Tom Holroyd loves her.
Before him, no man ever wanted her for more than her body, and she never even kissed a man who didn’t love her.
Tom (a character whose personality quirks I largely based on mine, so I accidentally wrote him as autistic too) loves Helene more than anything. He gives her constant affection. Amazing sex. He’s as protective as a guy should be about his girl. The only time he ever loses his cool during the book is when someone near Helene dies and he freaks out, worrying that could have been her instead.
So when Tom goes missing for a week, and Helene and all her coworkers receive a pre-recorded video will from Tom, talking about how he’s certainly dead, and Helene now has his old job, as the boss of their team…
Helene decides to pull a Romeo And Juliet and kill herself.
She figures, she’s useless without Tom in this life. She can’t cope with the demands of her new job. She had it all, and will certainly never have it again.
She feels like suicide is an act of love towards herself. She considers herself and Tom soulmates, and expects to reunite with him in the Celestial Realm, then incarnate together into new lives, bound to each other and fated to meet each other from birth.
A life where she hopes she won’t be autistic anymore.
Now whose suicidal ideation does this remind you of?
Easy answer. Mine.
I wanted to kill myself because I’m autistic. I thought the same things Helene did, minus the soulmate part of it.
My reasoning was exactly like hers.
I should cut this life short, then reincarnate as someone else. Start a new life. One where the parts of my brain responsible for social things aren’t broken and defective. One where I’m perfectly capable of getting the girl, the lifestyle, and the career. Like a normal person should.
I considered this an act of love towards myself.
I’m not intellectually or emotionally disabled (if that’s a thing). I have no problem taking care of myself, nor with any physical or intellectual tasks. I feel the same range of emotion a neurotypical person does.
Mentally disabled, I technically am. Socially disabled is more like it. Even after a decade of constant self-improvement and putting myself out there, people still consider me weird and uncanny as soon as I open my mouth. They can intuitively tell I’m faking all the normal social behavior instead of having it on automatic, and they wonder if there’s something off about me.
I would have been much happier if I was homeschooled in elementary and middle school. I actually liked high school though.
Elementary and middle school were harmful environments to me, and I never enjoyed them. High school was good to me, and barring a rough start in 9th grade, my social difficulties didn’t cause me any problems. Everyone was too worried about their own to care about mine. Yet mine were constantly there anyway.
Ever since then, my depression and feelings of worthlessness and uselessness have slowly grown year by year. As I’ve gotten more and more life experience, I’ve realized that I don’t need to find a market to fit into. I don’t even have a market in the first place.
I was fighting that all my life so far.
Until some selfish people accidentally did me a favor.
I’m happy to say that as of today, I don’t have that deep existential depression anymore.
Why?
I was nearly planning another attempt last night before I called 988 and steadied myself.
Then after I drank all that whiskey, I cried on my couch about how it’s all over for me. How I’ll never find my place in the world…
Then I woke up today feeling extremely hopeful about my future. Excited for it, instead of patiently waiting to die as I’ve usually been. I was making an action plan on how to best care for myself, where to go after I leave Boulder, and how to be more in alignment with my God-given purpose than ever before.
That aforementioned traumatic experience cured my depression.
I wasn’t accidentally depressed from 14-25.
My constant depression was serving me exactly as it is.
I learnt recently that depression is my friend, not my enemy.
Feeling mature
How much tension can you hold?
Last night, my answer was – a fuckton.
I’ve had a couple similar experiences in the past. The first time, it took me a year to get out of my rock bottom. The second time, a month.
This time, not even a day.
Even if it’s the most horrible I’ve ever felt.
Truth is, I wanted it to happen, minus the emotional abuse I received from people I used to think liked me. I intuitively knew since the start of the summer that I was going to manifest exactly this, though my conscious mind refused to believe it.
I’m mature. I’m responsible. I know that being a mature adult means being able to hold emotional tension, and I welcome it. I thrive in it.
I was never going to become my best self without learning exactly what I got from this experience. So I have to thank the people who caused this, forget about them, and let fate and Karma give them what they’ve given me.
Nothing makes a smart man stupid like a thirst for vengeance. I speak from experience, and am no longer a fighter in my relationships. I understand that arguments and criticism and fights only ever create more arguments, criticism, and fights. And that if I want a life of rationality and compassion instead, I have to GIVE this energy, not only expect to receive it. Even when doing so is difficult.
WHY I had my depression for over a decade was something I logically figured out recently. It’s an indicator of hazard, as negative feelings are. It’s my body telling me viscerally that certain things, thoughts, beliefs, people, and places will drain my energy instead of raising it.
It wasn’t till today that it emotionally clicked.
The life I used to think I wanted was actually a hazard to me, my spirit, and my mental health.
The last time I had that life was in college. I was a popular party boy, constantly getting invited to parties and other social things. Getting with the occasional girl.
But my entire life was an act. A stage performance. Starring Ben Foth as Dr. Fuckboy. I was doing drugs and drinking regularly to numb myself to the normie reality I’d created for myself. I’d constantly fantasize about getting away from it and having adventures while traveling the world instead.
Because I WASN’T ACTUALLY HAPPY IN COLLEGE.
No wonder I got completely sober for once after I dropped out.
If in my early 20s, I’d gotten the girl, the career, or the lifestyle of my dreams, I would have also gotten the addiction of my dreams. It would have been college all over again.
So what’ll I be doing instead?
If I’ve realized I’m not supposed to find my purpose in this world through a career, a girl, or an environment?
Fuck if I know.
I have some good guesses.
But like anyone, I’m incapable of accurately predicting the future.
I need to have this “fuck if I know” mindset about more things.
Will I ever get the girl of my dreams? A sexy female soulmate I can relate to deeply on every level?
Fuck if I know.
Will I ever succeed professionally instead of banging my head against the wall doing fun shit that doesn’t pay me?
Fuck if I know.
I obsessively figure things out all the time. That’s a strength when I’m doing work, and a hindrance in every other part of my life. I’m impatient, waiting for things to happen for me ASAP, rather than at the perfect time.
I’ve lusted and envied things that truly aren’t mine, thinking I need them to be happy, rather than accepting that they’d truly be harmful to me.
I’m done with these depressing ways of being.
From now on, I’m living a “fuck if I know” sort of life. With no need to have it all figured out. I’ll focus on taking care of myself, and let all else fall into place as it should.
No depression anymore, because I’ve removed all the spiritual hazards from my life. No more whoring my compassionate heart out to toxic people, toxic environments, and toxic beliefs.
And once I finish Starlight Season 1: Extraterrestrial, Supernatural, Unconventional, I’ll find out whether that’ll make me millions, nothing, or anything in between.
I hope you find your truest purpose in this world just like I’m learning to,
– Ben
