I’ve given up too much control of my life to others. Ironically, even when I’ve found myself to be (or told that I am) controlling, I’m aware it’s coming from another, external, location.

A person can be a conduit, not the source of something negative (or positive), and I think I’ve been a conduit many more times in my life than I realize. Strangely, the old sage just mentioned being a conduit yesterday (after I’d started writing this article). She meant it in good sense, to be willing to do that for another. I believe that’s the crux of the problem. Many autistics want to be helpful, and a “willing conduit” seems like a suitable option. It can be, but only if you are conducting positive energy that you can handle.

That makes sense. Autistics make great conduits for neurotypicals. It’s easy to manipulate us into believing we are being manipulative, and so forth. Or, we can become controlling due to what others told us we mustor must notdo.

I’m convinced some people (ASD or not) are controlled by parents who have been dead for decades. One of the last things I said to a person at my last job was, “I don’t care about what your mother would have thought. What do you think?” As crazy as it sounds, I concluded that this woman’s dead mother caused me countless problems, and quite possibly even cost me my job. Since she was so relentless in threatening to confront my friend (the one whom I had encouraged her to support) at the worst possible time, I panicked and my “intervention” was a disaster. I was protecting one hurt person from another hurt person, and I ended up getting hurt badly. That seems like an obvious outcome, in hindsight . . . a year later.

With an overabundance of “marching orders” coming from one or more people, of course I’m going to be going in circles! So, what then is the choice? What about now?

I will go in the direction I choose, so long as it doesn’t harm others, especially those closest to me. (That clause is the part my wife doesn’t always seem to understand or believe.)

It may be with old friends, new friends, or a combination. We’ll see. I’m reaching out to people now, and some of them have been reconnecting to me. I’m doing a reset, and they can too, if they wish.

Can I trust my own intuition? What choice do I have?

Can I trust others? That’s more tricky.

I won’t always get it right, but I will get it right or wrong by my own choosing, and not under the influence of others.

That has been a substantial part of the challenges in my life. I’ve not been left alone to make decisions for myself, and it’s no wonder I don’t know what to do.

It’s time to be done with the old shackles and find a new path forward, even if it looks almost the same. I’m done with being controlled and finished with trying to get control back. (My autistic therapists has expressed concern that I’m being controlling in some ways. This is namely pushing back against my wife, I think, but that’s not the point.)

Struggle for control leaves me exhausted. I will live my life and not the life anyone else wanted, wants, or will want for me. I’ve given too many years of my life to satisfy everyone else’s wishes to, on many days, feel only confusion and loneliness as a “reward.”

I’m not going to keep defending people who are not interested into including me into their definition of a perfect life or willing to hurt others out of their envy, ignorance, apathy, or desire for control. I will also not allow myself to make those same mistakes, in an attempt to “fit in” to a world that isn’t really the one I want to be in.

I create new “worlds.” That’s kind of my thing, my special interest. Mostly, they stay in my mind. Occasionally, this world—or a few people—gets to experience glimpses of the new sounds, sights, feelings, and ideas my brain constantly generates. Who will keep being a part of that? I don’t know. Hopefully, it’s the people who really love me and do what is reasonable to forge a mutual understanding between us.

Regarding pointless misunderstandings and hate, I’m done with that. There is not enough time left or emotional energy in my system to keep entertaining those who lead me “down a dark hole,” as my autism therapist once put it. I’m going to find out who and what are the sources of my light, and those will lead me away from the dark places. Maybe they have always been there, but I’ve not always been able to see them.

My former boss encouraged me to “take back the narrative” when I left my job. While I may not be thinking of it exactly like he was, it’s been a wonderful phrase to ponder. I think he meant to take it back from other people, but, in reality, I’m taking it back from myself. It’s my own brain that has taken the narrative hostage.

“It’s all in your head!” as a friend once told me. Obviously, it is. But, fixing it, that’s not so easy. Those bits of advice are valuable in dark times, tiny bits of light, until you can get to a better place.

Whether from others or from myself, I’m taking back—no, I have already taken back—the narrative. And, I’m going to keep writing, in one way or another.