No one cares, work harder.
I heard that phrase a lot in my past, though it feels more like it's pulled from a past life than from the past decade. I used to hate those words in that order. Truth: I'm not sure why my autistic brain decided that it was essential for you to know that I don't hate the words individually, just as a group, in that particular order… I swear I'm in control here. It sounded cold, callous, uncaring, unforgiving, and unrelenting. It was, in actuality, the manifestation of the whip I had crafted and used for self-flagellation to spur myself onward in life. Ever upward in the quest for wealth, ever onward in the journey toward influence. And ever deeper into anxiety, depression, and suicidality.
Like so many other ND people, I grew up with perpetually low self-esteem. I had been telling myself the same message over and over again since I was in grade school: "No one cares about you as a human, Ben. Working your ass off is the only thing anyone cares about or will acknowledge you for." So when I eventually came upon a community that glorified self-abdication and self-abandonment, and elevated them to the level of human virtue, I latched on to it like a spider monkey. Truth: I don't actually know if spider monkeys "latch" onto things the way I imagine they do… which in my mind looks hilarious, by the way. Kinda like in that old TV show American Gladiators. When the gladiators would inevitably have to jump from a padded platform onto a cargo net. Yeah, like that.
Over the years, that self-talk, encouraged by the community, metastasized in my mind as well as in my life.
Exhausted from working on that TPS report? Been doing it for eight hours? It still isn't done? No one cares, work harder.
No one acknowledged your pain as a child and left you to deal with it alone? Well, just think of all the children who had it worse and were actually abused! No one cares, work harder.
Suffering from suicidal ideation since you were old enough to know it was a viable option? Stop being so selfish and cowardly! No one cares, work harder.
[Mentally insert Will Ferrell Anchorman meme here, I'm too lazy to google it, download the right one, and upload it just so you don't have to think today. Don't want to? Too bad, you already did.]
I frequently used No one cares, work harder to abuse myself because it not only confirmed my own belief that I didn't matter, it also made me angry in its casual disregard for my pain. The anger triggered my fight response, which spurred me on to keep trying in life. Anger and self-loathing can carry you only so far, it would seem.
I reckon that to a neurotypical brain, the negative self-talk may seem petty, easy to leave behind with a little CBT. But this trozo de carne, who already tends toward the self-abusive end of the "strong but silent type" spectrum, burned out. I never truly developed healthy self-esteem, even though I was, by most measures, successful in life. I had a high-paying career, a nuclear family, a half-acre lot and a dog and a truck. Life was grand.
Today, as I look back from a more healed and whole perspective, I see that old life of mine for what it was, and what it wasn't. I don't see a successful person. I see a used-up, charred husk where a vibrant human being could have been. Should have been.
I haven't been able to get that voice out of my head yet, but I'm trying a new tactic: I put it to new use. Sort of a reduce-reuse-recycle form of self-acceptance. I hear the phrase now as though Mr. Rogers is gently encouraging me: "No one is judging you if failure happens, Ben. Keep working. And don't let the fear of judgment stop you from doing the hard thing." I know that in the end, whether I fail or succeed, I have only myself to answer to anyway.
I wish this story had a tidy ending, but it doesn't. After leaving this handmade prison of self-abdication and self-abandonment, I entered into what I'll call a "nihilistic pause." And if you want to read more about that, you'll have to wait until next Thursday at 4:20.