it only gets worse

I'll try to keep this post short and disorganized.

I went on a date recently. I got asked out again, and I feel a bit like the world is bludgeoning me over the head and demanding I be a human, so I finally gave in and went on a date. I'm an autist and I used to have too much anxiety to even post anonymously on an imageboard, but somehow I developed really good social skills in a relatively short period of time (by being autistic, ironically). Although I have good social skills now, it only really applies to general situations. Most of the skills I have were copied from other people. I know how to act because I've seen other people act the same way before. 

On the date I realized I'm still utterly inept when it comes to interpersonal interaction. A girl can punch me a hundred times and grab my arm, but I don't really understand why, and I don't know how to return the gesture (I feel indifferent to physical contact so it doesn't really make sense to me). I haven't seen many people interact in closer contexts, so I have no real frame of reference for how to act within them. In those situations I'm still awkward AF.

Yes I was in a relationship before, but if you ask my ex I'm pretty sure she'll be able to tell you I was a total autist when we dated.

I also can't interpret signs of attraction in an organic way / in real time. I have deliberately kept my self esteem so crushingly low, that I can't mentally acknowledge someone is attracted to me. The only reason I can tell is because I know what it looks like when someone is attracted to someone else. Pretty much what I have to do is take the signs of attraction, ask myself how this would apply to an attractive person who isn't me, and then return it to myself so I can understand it. Yeah it's about as weird as it sounds.

JFC this post is already so autistic. I just started.

My cat is dying. I think she may only have a few days left. For the most part, I'm indifferent to her dying, but I have brief lapses where I start to tear up before it goes away. I guess that brainwashing I did in my youth did me no favors. I can't even mourn properly when I lose people important to me. All I really am is a hollow husk.

On the bright side I don't think things will work out with the girl who asked me out. The date went really well, but I think she may be more similar to me than I first realized. If that's the case then we have no business being together. Well, not that I have any business being with anyone to begin with. Still, even if it doesn't work out, I'd rate it as a good life experience.

I only go outside out of necessity so the fact that this keeps happening is lunacy.

But anyway. I mainly made this post to talk about something else.

I feel fucked up, and I have for quite a while. The amphetamines I take no longer work. I feel like I'm stuck on a loop where someone else is holding the remote, and they won't change the channel. I have no willpower to do anything. I feel like any willpower I can muster has continued to get weaker and weaker over the last two or so years. I had a lapse for a bit where this stopped, but I immediately fell back into the loop. The thing that caused the lapse was decreasing my med dose. I'm going to try to do that further and see if it has any effect on how I feel. Going from 40mg to 30mg vyvanse. The symptoms I have are of low dopamine, but I think being on too high a dose may be too demanding on my body. Lowering it might have a positive effect, so that's what I'm going to find out.

Anyway, this is the post for now. hope u enjoy