I talked to a friend last night. I couldn’t unload because she’s an unemployed author with two kids and a partner who has cancer. But she’s not American, so she’s not apt to being overly emotive or draining. It was incredibly kind of her.

Someone offered me their car to drive around town.

I wrote the first ten pages of a screenplay until I passed out from exhaustion.

I don’t listen to the radio anymore. It’s just unfulfilling.

I baked cornbread, threw in some canned chilies, frozen corn and refriéd beans I made last week. It came out ok. I’m not big on taste.

My left middle finger has turned orange from smoking.

I feel exhausted and defeated even with all this. There gets to be a point where the things that would have helped when you needed them no longer are enough.

I’m good at advocating for myself. I have to be to survive. I asked for help in anticipation of needing it. Check in on me, I told them over and over. But even before then, I’ve been talking about being autistic and needing help, even if things seem fine. It it didn’t come. At least not in time.

My breakdown on FB yesterday brought out a mix of pat consolations. The problem is that everyone thinks my suffering is the same as their suffering and I’m asking for special treatment.

That’s what happens when you have an invisible disability and have coped for your deficiencies by being extra good at the things you’re so bad at that people *would* help if they knew how bad things were. And if I lived in a world where people actually looked outside of that Maslow’s hierarchy of selfish American needs. I hope they enjoy their sourdough bread. When democracy peters out and the beauty in the world is gone, they can comfort themselves with the perfect banana bread recipe.

I can go through the motions but my energy and soul are so depleted I don’t want the car or the conversations or the suggestions of walks in nature and fresh air. I don’t want anything except someone to come here and clean my filthy shed. Maybe stock my fridge or at least make sure I had water and psych meds. That Hugo had food.

But I’m done asking because asking for these things elicits solutions that are impractical and completely lacking in compassion. The friend who offered the car thinks my problem is that I despise Tucson. Like a petulant child.

What’s the point of being a great communicator if no one is receptive to the things I’m saying. And if they can’t hear the pleas for personal help, why bother even writing about the bigger things that affect us all?

They don’t listen when I say them. And then when they happen, I just have to watch the preventable debacles and keep myself from sounding arrogant and saying “I told you so.”

I want to sew my mouth shut and take a rock to my phone and computer. That is how done I am.