A Nonexistent World

"I live in a world where I do not exist. I know I have hands, arms, legs and a brain, but my place in this world is very tenuous. If I leave a room and come back, will the people in the room remember me? I live in constant fear that others will not remember me. Do they have the ability to keep me in their minds? I am never sure if they do or will. I wonder to myself that if I use a loud voice will I be remembered? If I make sure that I am a good boy, will people remember me? The fear of being remembered is coupled with my inability to remember myself. I constantly forget who I am. I have to frequently remind myself, 'You can talk and initiate conversations.' This does not come easily for me especially when I am in relationship with others. At those times, I feel very anxious and forget what I want to talk about and who I am."

What is this autistic boy telling us? It seems he can see himself physically, but not psychologically. He seems to live in a world consumed by fear and the inability to feel recognized by others and by himself. There are two key points that he seems to be telling us: 1) he exists not knowing if others can hold him in their minds and 2) he cannot hold himself in his own mind. He loses his ability to exist in the minds of others as well as within himself.

It is important to make sense of this experience by reviewing what we know about an “Incomplete Attachment.” In the attachment process, the child learns about himself through the eyes and behaviors of his caregivers. He learns how to regulate himself and his emotional states through the mutual regulation that takes place between the caregivers and himself. He learns that it is safe to exist because he feels seen and validated by others. Unfortunately this autistic child has not gained the benefit of what other’s receive within the attachment process – a sense of self, a sense of security, a sense that there is continuity of being, a sense of wholeness, a sense of a personality, a sense of calmness and a sense of a meaningful existence. It can be said that because he has had an incomplete attachment his psychological development is at a standstill and delayed. He is thus left waiting for the attachment process to be completed.

Stern (1985) unintentionally captured very vividly the experience as an autistic person when he described his reason for placing the sense of self in infancy at center stage of developmental inquiry. Taking Stern (1985)* into consideration, I am going to try to sum up what I perceive the autistic experience to be. It can best be described as a state of psychic paralysis, with no ownership of action or will, extreme fragmentation and disassociation and with a deep sense of loneliness and depression. It is a complete state of futility, hopelessness that feels scary and absolute. It feels like a state of never-ending hell analogous to living in a “black hole” with no exit. Life feels meaningless and is filled with ever-present despair. It is a continuous experience of thinking, but with no language to give shape to those thoughts. It is a continuous state of anxiety without the ability to identify the anxiety or stop it. It is a continuous state of confusion without the ability to ask for help or seek clarity. It is an experience of having no way to use the self in relationship to others. It is as if one is living in a “ deep vacuum” with no bottom, top or sides. It is a state of existence without boundaries. It is a state of existence with no continuity of being. It feels as if you exist without a personality. You are a nonexistent being within a shell that looks like a person.

* Stern, D. (1985) The Interpersonal World of the Infant. New York: Basic Books.