Stuck in Time - A poem about feeling detached from the world

Whether you are neurodivergent, queer, questioning, or an ally - welcome!

Episode Overview:

1. Short Introduction
2. Mason reads his poem Stuck in Time
3. Personal Context
4. Bloopers

And remember - You make the world better. Our stories matter.

Instagram: @autistic.trans.guy

Email: autistic.trans.guy.experience@gmail.com

Transcript

Short Intro

Mason 0:00

This podcast about personal stories is brought to you by a podcaster who has trouble talking about personal stories. Welcome to the Autistic Trans Guy Podcast Poetry Edition. Whether you're neodivergent, queer, or questioning, this is a safe space. A place for identity, shared struggle, and understanding. I'm Mason, I'm autistic and trans. And I'm here to share my voice through my poems. Welcome again. I'm so glad you're here. To be honest, this time I had a really hard time uploading this episode, because I was essentially almost only talking about myself. And that bothered me. Yes, it is a podcast about personal stories, but it made me quite self-conscious. I want to do this more listener-focused. So that you get the best out of the episodes for yourself. Which I will be focusing on more in future episodes. I hope you still enjoyed though. And find something that resonates with you. In case you're new here, each episode is structured as followed. A short intro, then I'm gonna read a poem of mine which is about a particular aspect of the autistic and trans experience, and afterwards I'll give personal context to it and dive deeper into the notions which are touched on. Let's jump right in. Have you ever felt like everyone is living their lives while yours is put on hold and it feels like the world is spinning without you? Then this poem might resonate with you. It's called Stuck in Time.

Poem Stuck in Time

Mason 2:37

The world keeps spinning, but I'm stuck in time. Everyone is singing a tune that isn't mine. Everybody has their group, but I'm in an endless loop of trying and trying to fit in, to once see a group from within. But I'm standing on the outside, attempting to hide, to hide my tears, like I always have for all those years. I just want to be part of their song. Am I not good enough for anyone? Well I'm fighting with my inner knives, they are having the time of their lives. The world keeps spinning, but I'm stuck in time. Everyone is winning, though I don't seem to shine. Once in the middle of a crowd, but nothing I enjoy is allowed. You're too loud, you're too shy. I just can't comply. There are too many rules not even learned in school. No matter what I say, they keep turning away. It seems like they deem me invisible, making me free and imprisoned at the same time. Free from the social climb, imprisoned by a wall, treated small. Everyone keeps telling me how to behave. We are locking each other in a cave. Playing their game is insane. Endless contradictions are to blame. You better not be obtrusive, but you must be exclusive. Don't be intrusive, but also not repulsive. Don't be too submissive, but don't you dare be assertive. The whole concept is delusive. Why can't the world be inclusive? The world keeps spinning, but I'm stuck in time. Everyone keeps swimming. I eventually stopped to climb. I'm better off alone, being in my comfort zone. It's not that I didn't try, but people and I we don't quite see eye to eye. The more I keep my distance, the more I ponder about existence. Why do some alienate and isolate, carrying their own weight? It's kind of better, kind of worse, a downright curse. Stuck with my thoughts and mine alone, distracting myself with my phone, watching videos to hear some noises to compensate for real voices. But it's no compensation at all. It's just a distraction to not face my fall. And when it's time to come back, everything turns back to black. Facing reality in all its absurdity. No end, no beginning. I finally admit I'm not fine. I'm stationary, the clock is ticking without me, the whole world is in motion, I'm covered in an ocean of emotion, but also a void within me, and it hurts to see a net with many branches, a whole network dances, connecting everyone except me. Detached from it, lost at sea. A silence, not the comfortable kind, an ambience, the night designed. Feeling so lonely, but the cure being only to get out of my shell and walk through hell. So I gotta choose the misery of loneliness versus the misery of socializing, the choices so polarizing. The world keeps spinning, but I'm stuck in time. Everyone knows where they are heading, and I don't even know who I am. They always seem to be sure where to go, but I just don't know. How can they be so sure of everything, as if their path is already woven in in the very matter of this universe, like an already written verse? Everyone just seems to know their path, and I'm here alone, doing some math. Regardless of the overwhelming infinities, I'm calculating probabilities. How likely this way gets me out of this rut, but nothing adds up. Should I instead listen to my gut? Because math doesn't seem to be on my side, so I need to provide a guide for myself, creating my own bookshelf. The world keeps spinning and I'm stuck in time. Time to reflect, I am grinning, time to notice the world's prime. With all this time alone, I notice life's tone. Everywhere you look in each and every nook, there's rhythm all around, patterns can be found. Our ongoing heartbeat complete and repeat thump with its every pump. There's rhythm all around, patterns can be found. Our breathing very soothing. Inhale exhale a human's tail. There's rhythm all around, patterns can be found. The sun goes up, the sun goes down, the horizon wearing a golden colored crown. Day and night, light burns bright, sun and moon, a caterpillar's cocoon, soon to be a butterfly, roaming Earth's sky. There's rhythm all around, patterns can be found. Wake and sleep, cold and heat, the music speed, summer and winter, student and mentor. There's rhythm all around, patterns can be found. The world keeps spinning and I'm stuck in time. I find my way to winning, I find comfort in rhyme. When I run in the morning sun, when I lay outside at night, watching the stars burn bright. When I listen to a song, the bass going strong, when I sing and the cars wing, when I dive, seeing all those fish alive, when I focus on sport, my mind being on the court, when I dream about a colorful theme, when I meditate, feeling like I levitate, when I'm when I watch a movie, marveling at its storytelling beauty, when I read and plant a story seed, when I write late at night, and when I rhyme, I'm also stuck in time.

Personal Context

Mason 9:34

Alright. In the end I'll get into what exactly I'm meant to emphasize with this poem. So without further ado, let's delve into it. For a little context, timeline-wise, this is one of my older poems. Actually it's one of the first I've ever written. That was about three years ago. And I wrote it in a phase of my life where I felt super lonely and detached from everything. This was a super crucial time for me though. I was yet again in an in-between phase. Just a little reference to the last episode. Anyway, the reason why I felt so unanchored was because shortly before I had just detached myself from something that was not good for me. And that was huge. The time when you gain distance from something, whether it's mental or physical distance, it gives room for healing and introspection. And that's where beautiful things start to happen. My passion for poetry originated from that phase. I I actually I actually found a quote of mine in my journal from that time. Fourth of november twenty twenty three. Three words. I love writing. I found a new passion. Or has it found me? Or has it always been a passion of mine and now I have the mental resources to actually do it? Whatever it is, I'm loving it. Yeah, so I I found a way to express and process my emotions, other than with sports studies. And writing is a way of communication which works for me. But there are so many other ways like music, painting, humor, art in general, and many, many more. And whatever your kind of expression and communic communication style is, it's valid. And I encourage you, as long as it's safe for you, go tell your story in your way because it matters. I know I'm deviating a lot right now, but it's it's just so exciting. What I sometimes do is I read an old journal, entry, and write with another color as future Mason, so to speak, and give little Mason props, encouragement, and appreciation. And that feels super special. It feels like I'm actually talking with my younger self, and it makes me feel like there's always future Mason appreciating me for what I do for him now and giving me encouragement and hope. For for those who of you for those of who for those of you who are journaling, I can only recommend doing that. And yeah, as as I do, I wrote I wrote a poem to Little Me, to Minnie Mason. A little teaser for the next episode. Anyway, in general, I recommend journaling. It's incredibly helpful to figure stuff out, organize thoughts and process emotions. To me, it literally feels like I transfer the emotion through the pen onto the pages. So ultimately it's not only a mental thing anymore, but it's captured in physical reality. I actually be super interested in the neuroscience behind that. Hmm. Anyway, b back to the poem. The time I wrote Stuck in Time, I already knew I'm autistic. I think I quite freshly had the diagnosis a few months by then. But I didn't know yet that I'm actually a guy, so I still felt such a huge mismatch with what's in s what's inside and how the outer world reacted and interacted with me. That time I did think though that me being autistic was the explanation for everything. I mean it it was life-changing. I f I finally felt like I'm not making my experience up and it's actually valid and true. I finally had a sense of identity which I've never had before beyond being an athlete that is. That's the only thing I defined myself back then. Uh di defined myself with back then. Yeah, anyway. But there was still more to the story. I could not have predicted how big of a difference gender alignment made for me regarding socializing. And of course, in many other aspects, but this one was surprising to me. So being seen as a girl and being forced to act at part had so much more impact than I had previously thought. To sum it up a bit, social stuff actually had three layers. The first one, being an undiagnosed artistic person in a neurotypical world can be socially tough. The second layer being undiagnosed artistic and seen as a girl in a neurotypical patriarchal world can be socially tough. And the third layer being a trans guy but not knowing that can be socially tough. And all of that combined was a social mess. And now the Yeah, I have all of those things sorted out. The life quality is incomparable. All these things are still entangled a lot, though. Like like it's it's kinda hard to differentiate uh which one it is in a given situation. For example, if I'm with a group of guys and I feel a bit uncomfortable, don't know how to behave or what to say, it's hard to pinpoint whether it's due to the Tism or because I was brought up and perceived as a girl for over two decades. I mean it's it's probably so interchangeably woven together that it's both and not possible to distinguish in some cases. That's my theory, at least. What do you think? I have so many stories I could tell. Like like for example, in the first year of primary school, we still all shared one changing room for PE classes. And by the second year, the teacher said, Oh yeah, the girls go over here now, and the boys over there. And I was like, What? Why why? I I mean, I said that in my head, not out loud, but I was like, Wha wh why I I want to be in the other changing room with the boys? Why why are there separate rooms all of a sudden? And why why do I have to be in here? Obviously, in retrospect, it's obvio it's obvious. I wanted that because I'm a guy. But I also I also think, um because of being autistic, I just didn't understand these social customs. Like genuinely didn't get it. And like I I always questioned them. And I never understood why people just don't question the default and don't question why things are done a specific way. Because Yeah. Because it's always been this way. Well, it's also always been this way that queer and neurodivergent people roamed this earth. But this fact some bigots wanna deny. In a nutshell, what I want to highlight with the poem is it's fascinating or I I find it fascinating how the concept of being stuck in time can feel completely different and even go in two opposite directions. It can feel imprisoning, but also liberating, eternal and timeless. Being stationary, being in the flow state. Two different lenses baked into one idiom. Sorry. Sorry. Ah, voice crack. And especially when being autistic, I feel like a lot of us experience these two forms very intensely. The feeling of not being part of anything is very common. And it's it's not only the feeling which is unpleasant, but then also having to witness how everyone else is managing their lives, keeping up jobs with ease, and having a rich social life. Yeah. I I'm not saying that autistic people can't have jobs and and a rich social life. Of of course we can. For a lot of us, it just comes with loads of difficulty. But we're still expected to perform exactly like everyone else. Because they just don't see the disability. And if we tell them, we're often not believed. Then we hear sentences like, Oh come on, everyone gets a little tired from work. Yes, that is true, but that's a completely different thing than having anxiety and panic attacks before and after, or being so overwhelmed that without an immediate sensory withdrawal, a complete meltdown is on the way. Or going nonverbal, being so overwhelmed that even speaking is just too much, and oftentimes we we have to mask all of that. Because you're forced to speak in certain situations, forced to perform, for example, in a work environment. So we often repress all of that. And once we're at a safe space, the mask falls off, and everything comes crashing down. And and they just don't see the amount of effort that goes into preparing. And recharging to be able to quote unquote function as neurotypicals do. So, yes, everyone gets a little tired. But there's a difference between getting tired doing something and just downright not being able to. I don't want to go too much into it now because this deserves its own episode. Where I also want to touch on the language use. Because, for example, I I I used disability for describing being autistic. But not everyone everyone from the community labels it that way, and that's equally as valid. Yeah, and in that future episode I will definitely say which words I use and also what the community in general prefers. So, to summarize, sentences like everyone gets a little tired sometimes are not only completely invalidating of our experience, but they actively promote a societal environment that is detrimental to neurodivergent people because it burns us out.

Join the Community!

Mason 23:37

Okay. Let's take another little detour, shall we? Okay, I'm kidding. Enough digression and chaos for the day. My my ADHD brain took over this episode. I hope you enjoyed it. If you want me to write a poem about a specific feeling, topic, or experience, let me know. I want this to be a collaborative endeavor, a community. You can either reach me on my Instagram account, autistic.trans.guy, or you can email me to the address autistic.trans.guy.experience at gmail.com Now I'd love to hear about you. What things in life give you a sense of being stuck in time? You can comment on the post for episode three on my IT account, or you can write me a message directly on Instagram if you only want me to read it. I'm looking forward to reading about you and to chat. And remember, you make the world better. Our stories matter.

Bloopers

Mason 25:38

Butleflip. Oh. In case you knew new. Yeah. Guys, I'm I'm literally sitting on the ground. Not not not in the closet this time. It's perfect, I I love the floor. I I sp spend half of my day on the floor. Recharging. Listening to music with my noise cancelling headphones. That's the life.