James Deane
I am autistic.
I wrote this piece as part of an exploration in a 'Work that Reconnects' workshop - that honours our grief, what pains me and what I find grievous in the world. It goes on with the next stage being - valuing what we love, then seeing with new and ancient eyes, then going forward. This is part of a process to find my power and will to continue. From that place that I care about in the world and the context of activity that regenerates me.
What I find painful about how I live at the moment is lack of good choices, difficulty in finding others to work with, the lack of good eldering, good examples.
The plastic of everyday life, air pollution, Micro plastics, transport equalling climate chaos, poisoned rivers, species extinction, the lack of holding, polluted water, lack of community, not being heard.
Sense of foreboding for the future.
No space to grieve, to talk about death.
Disability and autism discrimination, foreclosure of our future, insouciance.
Lack of meaning and purpose, distance to family, being alienated from neighbours and local community, climate crisis denial, hate and division.
Expectations of and demands to be independent, capable, successful, working, switched on, talking, responsive, to have a good sense of humour, to be good at something, to have achievement, be financially independent, an entrepreneur, wealthy, emotionally fluent, mentally well, without trauma, absence of trustworthy news, people not trusting me.
Cynical prejudice, not feeling seen.
Lack of consideration of my needs.
Difficult to find a meaningful connection and celebration, seriousness conditioning, feeling that being adult means being unable to play.
Brutalist built environment, design, and vehicles.
Challenge to retain and maintain self-connection, driving guilt.
Challenge and feeling stressed and anxious about finding food I can eat, not thriving in my life.
Destructive irony.
Sense of loss of the world.
Sense of lack of safety, doing things that feel out of touch with myself.
Lack of supportive culture.
Inability to feel okay to go to sleep to be relaxed enough to go to sleep.
Pain of empathy of prejudiced people against black people and travellers.
Grief of not being able to recycle or put things into a reuse or beyond use.
Lack of company.
Being unable to reassure myself.
Sense of place and value socially.