The High-Low Functioning Roller Coaster

I was recently reading an article which explained why experts in the field of autism are moving away from the term "high functioning autism" to describe autists who are able to achieve excellently academically and in other areas like arts and music. 

It explained that many autistic people have high functioning and low functioning days dependent on any triggers, stresses, biological changes etc that may have impacted them.

This has been quite impactful for me to consider as I always felt like I was going stir crazy when Peter's personality would completely change when he was on annual leave from work. The difference was so astounding that when I first noticed this in the early months of dating Peter, I thought that he was going on and off me. I'd often wonder what I might have done to upset him, then he'd be off work again a few weeks later and we'd be loved up again. However, as it turned out, Peter could not actually function in an intimate relationship and go to work at the same time. Too much demand. Emotional overload.

I am finding this in other areas of our lives too: he can't go to work and make parental decisions; he can't go to work and empathise with our child's emotional needs in school; he can't go to work and make plans for the future; he can't go to work and keep track of any family events at all.

When Peter is working he forcefully functions all day and he returns home a shell of himself. He sits in the quiet, scrolling mindlessly through his phone. He does not want to speak, he does not want to cook, he can't read, he can't have sex, he can just about exist. He returns home and stares a lot, his body is sluggish, he can not hold a conversation, he will keep falling asleep for a few minutes at a time as he sits with the children. At meal times, he eats and stares whilst his family connect all around him. He will eat dry foods mindlessly like crisps and crackers late into the evening, not realising how much he's eaten. He is completely unaware. He often can't remember his journey home from work.

Contrastingly, when he is not working, Peter is full of lively energy. He can not sit still. He has ideas of places to go and things to do. He has packed a family picnic before everyone else is dressed. He's impulsive. He wants to plan.  Of course, he ignores vital, important details and his time management is still crazy, yet he functions. He listens to our daughter's problems although still prioritises solutions over empathy, he chats at the dinner table, he cooks. He's a different person in the same skin.

It made me ask myself, could I actually consider Peter to be high functioning after a hard day's work? Absolutely not. He is a zombie.

Peter and I no longer live together of course, but the article made me reflect on the times of low functioning and on my own self doubts at what I was seeing and experiencing with him. 

 From the reliable, dependable, chatty, friendly personality that I'd come to know, that his work colleagues know, who was this vacant man who used to sit at the dinner table with us at the end of each day? I know now that he was functioning on his basic settings because he was depleted and burnt out. 

So many Cassandras are confused by the cognitive dissonance of their partners, unable to fathom how they can switch between two distinct personas. It's another layer to the cassandra syndrome- feeling like we're seeing and imagining things. But, we're not. 

Peter used to describe me as an emotional roller coaster and he was right, I was. But I now find myself wondering if this was a side effect of his roller coaster- as I had to sit next to him in his carriage day after day, functioning at his best one minute, to barely functioning at all, up and down, around and around. Yet, he was too mind-blind to even notice. And as often our men don't look inward, they only see that we are to blame. 

It's sad that he can not recognise his own limitations, get the support that he so clearly needs to enable him to be a better partner and parent. Autism isn't to blame for that, pride and ignorance is. I'd like to think that one day, he'll look back and wish he'd have committed to helping himself, but I'm not sure that he'll ever truly remember how much he needed help in the first place. 

Will I Ever Be Free?

Having two children with a man like Peter makes life difficult. He is emotionally detached, highly dysfunctional, neglectful, disinterested and yet possessive of all of us. 

We belong to him.

I've had to implement some harder boundaries over the last two weeks following a sharp decline in my mental health. Having his practical support which is so useful when I have no family support, comes at a price. I've had to explain to Peter that it is not ok for him to climb into my bed to watch the football after he's come to the house to put the children to bed, that he can't just stay over in the spare room when the feeling takes him and not inform me. 

It's been soul destroying to have to explain all of this to him because when you're separated, surely it's obvious? But they don't see or understand humane boundaries unless it's in black and white. 

I've driven myself crazy wondering if it's asking too much for him to continue walking our family dog a couple of times a week. Do I need to be more black and white? Should I pay someone, can I afford to? Because already, I'm paying for domestic help so that I can work and become financially independent of Peter eventually. 

Mostly, after 18 months, I long to feel loved and wanted. I am at a point in my life where I would like to find love again or even just date, but how do I do so when Peter is still so prevalent in my own life? How do I let go fully of the children when in his care? Will another man actually understand why we still holiday all together? When will it be safe for me to entrust Peter with care of the children on holidays? Will I ever? 

If I meet a man who accepts our co-parenting situation will it be because he's actually incapable of deep commitment and so I'll end up eventually with another Peter?

So many questions. 

So many worries and uncertainties.

Every time I've explored my values "freedom" is always my number 1. Freedom of expression, the freedrom to be me, the freedom to enjoy my life. I'm not free to enjoy my life whilst Peter plays such a major part in it and I don't see how he will stop playing a major part until the children are older. Then I foresee myself having to undo the consequences of his reactive parenting and his control over our lives. 

I am trapped.

So many women are. Because we prioritise the health, safety and well-being of our children above all else and so we live half lives until our time comes, hoping and praying that we'll make it to then. 

The Inquisitions

As many of our men are not engaged fully in the dynamics and workings of family life, they also rely on us as fountains of information which they will endeavour to suck from us whenever the feeling suddenly takes them.

They also seem to think that by asking us streams of questions, they are showing to be "taking an interest" and then, when we complain about the onslaught of questions, we're told defeatedly "I can't win."

This morning, I was running late, having been awake with a poorly child for much of the night and we overslept. He arrived to walk the dog (we still live separately thankfully) and he decided to help me pack the children's school bags. I was rushing around and trying to think all at the same time, which is tough as I seem to be the only adult who appears to really know what's going on. 

Perhaps, out of his own guilt, I was met by:

"How did you sleep?"

"How did she sleep?"

"What was her temperature during the night?"

"Are you sending her to school?"

"What is her temperature now?"

"What time are you working until today?" 

All of these things, he would know if he was engaged with family life in the first place. Maybe if he hadn't have had to move out of the family home because his loyalties and priorities remained with his family of origin rather than with us. Although, recollections tell me that he was never really very mentally and emotionally engaged before he left and even less so now. I'm already mentally exhausted as a result and so having to explain all of this to him on top of doing all the things is yet another chore.

I remember as a child, my mother becoming frustrated at my Dad's onslaught of mundane questions. One after the other in a monotone voice, him cornering her with his eyes as he demanded immediate responses. I remember her anxiety, her looking away from him trying not to catch his eyes as he worked to pin her down. It was his way of taking charge: his tone, his defiance, the grilling he was giving her all a rouse to cover up that actually, he didn't have a clue what was going on. She was managing everything whilst he ironically tried to assert his authority over her with his endless interrogations. 

Peter's questioning makes me whince. 

He's not aggressive like my father was, but he's there, extracting all of this information from me because he can't engage in the first place. And by the time I've finished answering his verbal questionnaire, I just know that I'll be met with an opinion or judgement, a demeaning sentence to demonstrate that he would have responded to or dealt with something differently- better. And I'll tense up because he doesn't have the right to judge, complain or criticise when he's so far removed from family life in the first place. And when I'm tired, I might snap at him and he'll wonder why I'm so horrible to him.

I find myself wishing that he is either involved or he isn't and thinking about how much I'd prefer him not to expect me to educate him on the ins and outs of our lives, because there's always a hope that he'll be interested, that he'll suddenly engage and care, but he doesn't. He takes his information, gives an opinion and makes his mental exit again, taking a bit of my hope with him every time. 

Beans On Toast Men

In England, we have a staple meal that is baked beans, out of a tin, on toast. Sometimes we might spruce it up with a bit of grated cheese, some barbeque sauce perhaps, or even a bit of bacon. It's a pretty bland meal, yet it's a dependable one. It offers the basics of what the body needs to survive: protein, carbohydrate, a little fat from the butter, fibre, a few vitamins and minerals, but you couldn't live on it because the body would likely be lacking in calcium (if you left out the cheese), vitamin B12, omega 3, potentially iron too amongst other nutrients. 

One evening a week, I make beans on toast for dinner. It's one of my favourite meals of the week because it' easy: it takes little time, little prep and leaves few dishes to wash up afterwards. But I wouldn't want beans on toast every night. 

Emotionally unavailable men are often beans on toast. They offer the very basics of a relationship, the nutrients that we require purely for survival, yet for most of us, the body and our minds can not thrive on beans on toast. 

There will be women out there who prefer only beans on toast, who shy away from anything spicy, adventurous, sweet or rich. Many of us are not these women. 

Unfortunately, we were served fillet steak with all the trimmings at the beginning of our relationships which has created confusion and dependency, only to be fed toast and baked beans once we committed to our men. Then they accuse us of having high expectations, of expecting too much. The irony of course is that we would have been quite satisfied with something less luxurious in the first place, like lasagne or perhaps thai curry. 

Nobody can be lasagne and thai curry everyday, we all need a baked beans on toast meal once in a while and we would of course have accepted this. Steak with all the trimmings would have been perfectly acceptable for special occasions only, but even on these occasions, we are now served the same old bland meal of beans on toast. So we are left craving more nourishment, because in the long term, baked beans and bread just isn't enough for our bodies to thrive. 

We continue adding our own pepper, frying off a bit of bacon now and then, sprinkling the same meal with cheese, in a bid to provide ourselves with the nourishment that we deserve. Yet when you strip it all back, the meal is essentially the same: baked beans on toast. 

And our men all say the same things:

"But I've always been beans on toast!"

"I like beans on toast!"

"You once liked beans on toast!" 

And they can not fathom that we have had more beans on toast than we can stomach. So now and then, when we turn our noses at beans on toast for long enough, they give us something fancier: spaghetti bolognese or maybe spicy paella. Our bodies devour the nutrients that we have so missed and plates empty, we hungrily return for more the following day and the meal we are given? 

Yes, beans on toast. 

Eventually, many of us become intolerant to baked beans on toast. We begin making our own meals from scratch, adding our own spice and nourishment in a bid to stay healthy and alive. We find ways and means of colouring our lives in other ways, whilst they continue to sit with their baked beans, wondering why they aren't being served fillet steak. So in our healing, we begin to keep the best ingredients for ourselves because they never appreciated them anyway. He perhaps now sees us as a selfish. 

In protest, our men may say:

"I don't have time for more than beans on toast!" 

"I'm too tired to give you anything more than baked beans." 

But together, as a team, creating lamb tagine or spaghetti bolognese isn't much extra work. Yet, he's frustrated because he can't be bothered to chop the vegetables and he doesn't see why he should have to because afterall, he quite likes beans on toast (unless you're eating something nicer of course!)

We are left wishing that we had never settled for beans on toast in the first place, perplexed as to how we accepted such a basic offering. We know that our bodies deserve more nourishment. So we have to nourish it ourselves whilst he continues to routinely load up his own toaster, as he looks over at our plates, resentfully, wondering why his meal still tastes the same as it always has. 

The winds are changing

A little over 15 months ago, Peter left our family home. We've ridden an emotional roller coaster since, from feelings of anger, resentment, guilt and sadness, to regularly returning to a state of functioning acceptance. 

Our separation has been far from conventional. There has been no line drawn in the sand, no divorce, no house sales, no holidays away from my children (yet), infact no long periods away from my children at all. I've kept Peter close in order to keep my children close because the thought of spending half their lives away from them feels wrong. It doesn't matter how many yoga classes I attend, or how many runs I go on, or how much I meet friends for dinner, it does not take away the feeling of emptiness when I return home and the children are with him and their beds at home with me are empty. 

They stay overnight with Peter at his parents' house but never for longer than one night at a time and he often brings them home to me the following morning so that I can walk them to school. But I know that this arrangement is only accepted by Peter because he gets to keep me close too, still residing in the family home which he still has access to. He gets to keep me whilst giving up on us. We are both getting what we want.

The legal system and the general patriachal world we live in will shout from above that fathers deserve 50% custody of their children. Not in our world. In our world when we leave these men, we have to leave our children part of the time, with fathers who are severely emotionally stunted, have very little danger awareness or paternal instincts and are driven only by their own self centred agendas. For me, an unconventional separation has been the only way to manage their safety and wellbeing. Also, to stop my heart breaking any more than it already has; all I ever wanted was to be a mum. A full time mum, not a part-time one. Peter is helping me practically when I need him, such as when I'm poorly, by being here with the children (I've caught flu twice since January!). He can be relied upon for all matters of domesticity, even if the outcome isn't quite as clean or organised as I'd like it to be. Practicals are his super power, so we make the most of it. 

But, something is changing. 

I no longer feel any romantic feelings towards him at all, yet six months ago, I still desired his love and affection. I have come to terms with the man he is and oddly, we have become good friends. 

I recently spoke to our financial advisor who knows our living situation and has advised me that now is the time for me to sell the family home and set up independently of Peter. I can not keep living in this home indefinitely from a financial or practical viewpoint. The house is too large and needs too much work. If I leave now, I will atleast have enough years left on my mortgage to buy a property large enough for me and the children and their needs. 

My therapist of five years, who has supported me throughout the realisation of Peter's challenges, through my own explorations of Cassandra syndrome and has been my rock throughout my separation recently spontaneously retired from her job after a turn in her health. To say this has been destabilising may be an understatement as my biggest emotional support has gone. But, it has made me question if the universe is telling me that perhaps I no longer need her because I finally I have all the answers I've needed. Perhaps it is time to take some steps forward. Our final session ended with her telling me that I had absolutely done the right thing by separating from Peter, perhaps conclusions have been drawn afterall. 

Peter has been the only man I've been in a relationship with where I've not thought of him when listening to love songs. Infact, I've not listened to love songs in around ten years, shortly after starting a relationship with Peter. I've felt uncomfortable and found them cringeworthy- why is that, I ask myself? We certainly don't share an "our" song or have ever danced around the kitchen together like people who are in love might do. So, this week, I've listened to love songs and although I've cringed a little through them, I'd like to think that one day, maybe I'll melt away into the words of a love song whilst in the arms of someone I love and maybe someone who loves me. 

I often wonder if I am even capable of being loved anymore? This relationship has made me harder, wiser, more suspicious of men, a strong feminist who speaks out about ingrained mysoginy. Part of me thinks that any man would run for the hills before falling in love with me. Or maybe just the wrong man would. Where do you find a man that has the deepened emotional understanding that I crave? Who has the type of heart that I could fall in love with? I'm not sure. 

But, one love song I can listen to right now with warmth and comfort is "To Be Loved" by Adele. A song which reminds me that women before me have made the choices I have, in hope and love for themselves, gifting themselves with an opportunity to be loved. Something that continuing situationships with these men can never truly give us. And as Adele sings so beautifully, choosing and believing that we deserve better love does not come without immense sacrifice and huge loss. 

I have prayed and hoped and manifested until it hurts that Peter would realise his loss and make the changes needed over the last 15 months: attend therapy, get a diagnosis, help himself to help us. But no. I see a man who is lost in this world, alone, depressed and hurting and still, he does nothing. How can I ever hope that a man who neglects his own suffering so badly, will ever choose to ease mine? 

So, I'm open to the changes that are taking place around me now, I will allow my life to evolve and grow away from him. I'll put my all into keeping my children as close as I possibly can, but I am open, open to new beginnings, a new friendship with Peter for the sake of our children and maybe one day, a new love for me. 

Misplaced Empathy

I'm writing this post after another member of the Cassandra group pointed out that our men are capable of empathy, just in all the wrong places. It gets misdirected, misunderstood, mismanaged somehow.

 It's often assumed that men like ours can not empathise, that they don't have the ability to put themselves in another's shoes or feel how another feels, but from the stories we share, this often isn't the case. By "men like ours" I mean the men who make us feel the way they do through their repeated neglect of our emotional, spiritual, mental and physical needs as intimate partners. The men who I am still reluctant to diagnose as anything specifically, as I believe that the key to Cassandra Syndrome is how they make us feel and not a definitive condition or disorder that they may or may not have. We can drive ourselves crazy trying to diagnose them, but the key to knowing what's wrong is within us and their affect on us, not in analysing their deficits. 

I remember once watching a documentary with Peter about a man who had criminal and inhumane ideations. He talked of having impulses beyond his own comprehension and disclosed that he had never acted upon them, but wanted professional help in dealing with his thoughts. The impulses he experienced were unnerving to hear, but Peter felt sorry for him- "He can't help it." What sort of person has sympathy for someone with a sadistical, warped mind? I don't think it was empathy, but definitely sympathy and a vibe of... it's not his fault. 

Peter can feel an element of empathy but in all the wrong ways. He feels it for those with no self discipline, those who omit responsibility and accountability, those who get swept along mindlessly in risky behaviours. One of this favourite phrases that he uses for lazy or arsehole behaviour is "he/she can't help it." Contrary to popular belief about our men, Peter is absolutely capable of empathy. He however can not feel it for those who are strong enough to speak out about injustice, or take control of their lives, only for those who "accidentally" get swept up in the wrong-doing. 

He felt empathy for his family of origin when I challenged them about their negative behaviour towards myself and our child.  But he never felt any empathy for me because I had the strength to challenge it. Empathy for our child was limited, because she'd had the audacity to be a child and to challenge his family in ways that children sometimes mildly challenge adults. She had broken the family rules which still limit him and keep him bound, tied and silent to this day. But our child is also my child and she doesn't live by those same rules thankfully. He does not question his own beliefs which means that he is caught up in a habitual, childhood pattern of feeling sorry for those he's been trained to be loyal to.

These men make great misogynists and not through conscious choice but because they make fantastic victims of social conditioning. Peter feels sorry for men when feminists speak out about gender inequality- men mindlessly going about their businees without a thought for gender equality have done nothing wrong in Peter's mind. He once even told me that feminists complaining about patriarchal behaviour exhibited by men are sexist man haters.  An interesting take on things. He also calls himself a feminist. 

His empathy naturally flows to the accidental perpetrators and away from those who speak up about them. It's ok to do wrong, provided it's done in ignorance or mindlessness or omission. 

He is protective of objects over people also, as if it might hurt too much to care for what is really important. I believe that the feelings of love and protection are so strong for him that he almost can't deal with it and so shuts them away and misdirects his feelings instead towards items like phones, keys and purses. Similarly to empathy, love, care and protectiveness manifests in all the wrong places. 

I often find myself wondering if they make Cassandras of themselves sometimes, are they forcing down their true feelings and hiding beneath a sea of empathy which they don't fully understand or can manage? Or are they as bad as the perpetrators they empathise with? Are their minds perhaps as warped as we fear they could be? Perhaps truth and good are threats to their impulses and ruthless absorptions and so they can never empathise with what is real and right. Maybe their empathy lingers in shadows, meant for the ones who get caught out because they themselves live in fear of being caught out by reality when the mask slips. I guess we'll never know unless we take a walk in their shoes and no matter how much empathy I can muster, his shoes just don't fit. 

A letter to a loser

Dear Peter,

I've come to realise in recent months that you are a loser.

A literal loser. 

You have lost me, the family unit which we created together, our beautiful children, our family home, all because you felt more loyalty towards your dysfunctional family of origin and you never had the balls to stand up and question them or yourself. 

It should never have been easier to make excuses for them than it was to advocate for us. 

It was easy for you to walk away and it never should have been. It should never have been easy for you to go back to your teenage bedroom, lossacking on your bed whilst I am at home, single-handedly caring for our kids. The day we had our first child was the day your loyalties should have switched, but that never happened. It makes me question if you are emotionally impacted by anything at all. Although any time I questioned your domestic awareness, that seems to affect you deeply. Why were you taking the minor things so personally and yet you could never feel so passionate for the bigger things? When your family were clearly segregating me from the rest of you and then being unkind to our child too? You batted that away easily enough.

Realising that you are a loser feels freeing to me in some ways. I can't expect much from a loser. But I feel traumatised that this loser-person is such a far cry from the man I met in the very beginning. At some point, I offended you so deeply that you withdrew all love, commitment and loyalty to me at all. And you can't even communicate to me what I did or why you're hurt because you apparently have no comprehension of your own emotions. When I argue that this seems to me like some sort of emotional disability, you argue back that you are extremely emotionally intelligent and reel off plenty of succinct examples of times you have appropriately shown empathy to others. So why couldn't you do it for us? What is really going on for you? 

The people who are supposed to matter to you are being emotionally abused by you.

Do you hate yourself so much that you made us the target of your frustration with yourself? I know already that you would be turning this back on me. I know I too get frustrated at times- but I work on myself and my growth through therapy. You believe that therapy is the cause of all our issues and refuse to work at all on yourself. Projecting and gaslighting away all of the real issues. 

I am at a point where I'm becoming content with the idea of you being merely a visitor in the girls lives as opposed to an influential parent. All of the trauma of your own childhood, you project onto theirs by refusing to face up to anything. You do not meet their emotional needs. You are emotionally neglectful, smug at times, distant and detached. I am happier for you to have less influence in their lives.

They are already seeing the truth. Already, they often prefer not to be around your parents and your sister and still, you refuse to see clearly their negative impact. You are an intelligent man who is emotionally lacking and I worry about how this will affect our girls over time. 

You have shown your true colours to some people who have been able to observe the way you put me down, try to demean me and discredit what I say. It's sad and this is the behaviour of a sad man. I've given you so many opportunities to sort yourself out, go to therapy, watch the videos, prioritise us but you refuse every olive branch through your own pig headed ignorance. I could have given up years ago and instead I've wasted years of my life on you, waiting for you to do better, only for you to dig your heels in even more. 

The children will remain predominantly with me, because it is healthier that way in so many ways. I will fight you tooth and nail to ensure that they remain mostly in my care, with you as a regular visitor in their lives from the comfortable distance which you have created. 

I'm sad that this truth has unfolded, that this is who you truly are. A loser. You have lost so much and you continue to lose. We have lost too, we have lost someone who could have made different choices, who could have tried and could have sought out the therapy needed, but it's too late now. I'll find a new way of life for me and the girls and who knows, maybe one day a new love if I can ever trust again. I hope that one day, you do realise what you have lost through the choices that you have made. Perhaps, hindsight is the only gain for you now.