I’ve been trying to find the words for a feeling I’ve had for most of my life. I’ve tried to describe it to Karmalynn, to myself. It’s a “fog of unknown darkness.” It’s not just “tired.” It’s a deep, heavy unease. It’s the feeling of a child who is exhausted but is scared to go to sleep, who feels the need to cry but can’t.
And in that state, I shut down. It’s noticeable.
For decades, I used alcohol to try and muzzle that feeling. And for years, I’ve had a prescription for Restless Leg Syndrome. That medication is a daily reminder of a different kind of pain, a different fight. It’s a catalyst. It’s a reminder of potential suffering, but it’s also, thankfully, a source of great relief.
But recently, I learned a name for this feeling. It’s called Autistic Dread.
It’s not “anxiety” in the way most people think of it. Anxiety is a fear of a future bad thing. Dread is a profound discomfort with the present, a feeling that your system is overloaded, that your capacity to cope is just… gone.
Because this dread isn’t “magical.” It’s mechanical. It’s the result of a system under stress. It has triggers.
Let me give you a schematic. Yesterday, I had a simple task: get an oil change for our car, a Jaguar. I called a shop. They said to “pull up to a bay.” I get there, there are no signs, just “Do Not Block Door.” I’m frustrated. I go inside. I’m told to go to bay 5. I wait. A guy comes out, disappears. I’m finally pulled in.
And then, he hands me a piece of paper, a worksheet with other people’s names and info on it, and asks me to write down my personal, private information. My PII. I looked at him and I asked him what he was going to do with this paper after. He said, “I don’t know what you mean.” I had to explain the Privacy Act to him.
He gave me the paper back, which was good. And then, after all that, he tells me… they don’t have the filter. It’ll be a 30-minute wait. I left.
I drove home in a “spirited manner.” I was feeling agitated. I was in that state many of us know—that hyper-vigilant, “waiting for the other shoe to drop” state. But I was fine. It happens. The problem wasn’t that moment, it’s what happens when those moments compound. We all know that overwhelming feeling of ‘why can’t shit just work?’
Later that day, my alarm for my medication went off. I was busy, and I forgot to take it. And then, the fog rolled in. The dread. The exhaustion. The “kid-who-can’t-sleep” feeling.
Now, here is an important part. For years, when I would hit that wall, I would force myself to push through it. And people around me would see that and they would mislabel it. They’d say I was “driven, motivated, had not eaten, or just an asshole.”
But it wasn’t a drive for success. Not motivated to be the best. It was a drive born from a deep, profound fear of failure. And that fear would keep me from succeeding, or even trying at times.
And I’m telling you this because that is the connection. That is the “why” behind so much of my own struggle. That’s the perfectionism. That’s the reason I sit here, in this chair, and hesitate to hit the “record” button for my videos. It is the dread of “fucking up.”
And I realized that this internal, personal paralysis is a perfect, small-scale version of the larger struggle we are all in. Our world is on fire. Not with a real fire, but with a fire of rage, of dogma, of “salesmen” who are actively trying to set the world alight for their own profit.
And we are the “firefighters.” But we are a different kind. We are not the ones just spraying water on the flames, which is a temporary fix. We are the ones who have to do the difficult, unglamorous, and often dangerous work of going after the source. To stop the people who are selling the matches and the gasoline.
To do that, you have to be able to control your own internal chaos. You have to be able to deconstruct your own dread, your own fear, so you can see the battlefield with clarity. That battlefield, like all battlefields, contains a small war in which there is no distinct exact knowledge of who is friend or foe. It’s firing in the direction the bullets are coming from and to where your known friendlies are not.
But this dread, it is the battlefield in this war. And it is internal. It is something that can be pushed through. And while you may not know what the fog is, you will see it for what it is.
This is the work, it is what must be done. It is not about “getting over it.” It is about understanding the schematic. It’s about knowing why the fog rolls in, so that when it does, you can be the calm, resilient leader your own internal “troops” need you to be. It’s about recognizing the triggers, respecting its limits, and having the courage to get back up, every single time.
Then, and only then, will it be time for the troops to rearm, regroup, and start marching back out of hell. That is the only way we win any fight.
As a smart man I was never privileged to meet best characterized the necessary attitude one must find in all matters and manners, “This doesn’t suck enough“.
Let me state, this is not a possibility for everyone, especially for those struggling on their own, not without outside help. There is a lack of understanding by those even with a doctorate in a specified skillset, and the help needed isn’t out there. Again, it’s not an ability for each individual. But it may be a necessary attitude for those who care for them.
This is for you too. This is about your own personal battles. You are stronger than you realize, no matter what you think your limitations are.
I am not a specialist. I am not a mental health professional nor even amateur, for that matter.
What I am, the who of what I am, is a guy with a lot to say, a lot to share, and a lot of stories. And a guy with an ability to put these into a form of words to share what we all know, just need to hear again.
This isn’t about ‘coping’ with Autism…
This is about learning to be the driver of the high-performance engine one contains. It’s not about ‘taming’ that engine, but learning to handle it. It’s about learning to unleash that power in a measured manner, on a ‘track’ where it’s appropriate, not just letting it redline in everyday traffic.
I am here to share how I am learning to drive mine. Never ‘taming’ it. Only learning to respect its power, and reframing my own limits.