The term for when your brain instantly and continuously obsesses over worse case scenarios (which may or may not even happen) is 'catastrophising'.
Being autistic and having heavily logic-laden thinking means that we're often able to follow a train of logical possibilities in our heads that can mean we see patterns others don't see. For me this often means seeing endless and terrifying parallels with the past and the possibility of a worse and apocalyptic future.
It's hard not to see the similarities between the rise of modern American Fascism in the form of Trump and his right wing nationalist supporters, and the rise of Hitler and HIS right wing nationalist supporters. Both involved gobby people telling the masses that they had an easy scapegoat (or scapegoats plural). Main difference being that Hitler was a better public speaker and had marginally better hair (plus his hands weren't as small as Trump's).
But both play off people's fears and the fact that it's often easier to kick downwards than make the massive long-term effort to build a stronger community that supports ALL it's members. People like the quick-fix option of blaming someone else directly for their problems rather than looking at the more complicated series of events that made the present how it is. The idea that if we just get rid of certain people then everything else will fall into place: for a lot of people that's appealing. VERY appealing. Thing is it never ends. Start witch-hunting the outsider groups and eventually you'll start to self destruct. 'First they came for...' and all that.
I remember being read that poem in school and it's been in my head ever since.
And now that I am officially a member of a minority group (yay for finally getting an official autism diagnosis :) ) under direct attack from people like Trump, and by the Tory UK government, I know that my fears were fully justified.
Because that's the thing about catastrophising: it's not completely irrational, it's based very strongly in reality but it focuses solely on the NEGATIVE outcomes, and ignores the existence of the possibility of POSITIVE outcomes at each leap forward it takes. It's like a really rubbish flowchart that only has one option available at every junction!
Looking on as the far-right rears it's ugly head again is genuinely terrifying. We've got a very clear map as to what can easily happen once it sinks it's teeth into a country and to put it as bluntly as I can: I don't want to die. I don't want to see people like me starved in their own homes or rounded up and marched away, or being denied their rights, being attacked in the streets, being 'put out of their misery' etc etc etc. But the thing is that some of this stuff is already happening and it's happening under the orders of the UK government. People ARE being denied their rights, people ARE starving to death in their own homes and there IS already the strong foundations of a growing propaganda campaign that encourages the public to view us as a burden that, were we dispensed with, would make everyone else's lives better.
[Above example taken from a BBC article on Autistic people dying earlier than the general population. Not that the first fact about us is how much we cost the tax payer, AND the second one is ALSO about cost. This is not something that is designed to simply clue people up on autism because if that had been the case the 'facts' would have been better written out and researched rather than the first two points focusing on how our existence affects the public, so it's not neutral. It's also not something that's trying to encourage people to fight for our rights and view us as equal human beings, so it's certainly not positive. Instead it encourages people to think of what we cost THEM. The article also cannot be viewed in a void. This exists in a context of multiple articles like it, multiple comments from politicians that portray us as burdens and a focus from the DWP on 'clamping down on benefit fraud' which actually is relatively uncommon. So this list of 'facts' is scary because it's part of a bigger pattern of dialogue that encourages the public to view us as subhuman burdens whose lives are miserable and who cost them a lot of money.]
There is hope however that we might be able to stop this stuff from getting any worse. There's always hope, right up until the last possible second, (and possibly even beyond.) Germany has come a long way from Nazi times and the UK is not completely right-wing and neither is America.
But the fear that the worst COULD happen becomes so strong in my mind that it's crippling. I can literally see it unfolding in front of me with absolute certainty that it's going to happen. All other options get sidelined by my terror-filled brain and it's so overwhelming that I feel crushed. Thoughts like 'what's the point if we're going to be killed anyway' fill my mind and I can't do anything. Everything that I love and that I hope for and want to work towards seems like a hollow vision. There's no point trying, there's no point continuing because there's no hope, no future.
And the suicidal thoughts begin. Not that I immediately want to die, but that I know that when the worst does happen (as my brain tells me it surely will) I want to be able to leave this world quickly and not suffer the drawn out demise that will happen otherwise. I fear gas chambers, I fear a world war, I fear troops on the ground, planes in the air and nuclear explosions poisoning the land and sea.
I also feel angry. Angry that I and others like me are so incredibly powerless in the face of such things. That we who will be among the first victims whenever people need a scapegoat, have the least say in how the world works. That the most vulnerable are the most hated and the least protected. I feel angry that I am scared of doing more. I feel that it might directly be my fault that the world is on the path it is, because I haven't done enough to stop the bigotry around me (while simultaneously feeling like there's no point doing more because it's a waste of time and energy cos everything's going to go to shit anyway). I feel angry that the life I thought I would have when I was little has been gradually stripped away by people who hate me without having met me, without me having done anything other than simply EXIST.
Eventually the periods of utter hopelessness do pass and I can start moving again, start enjoying things again. And when I do regain the ability to see the myriad futures we're facing I remind myself: 'there is always hope until the last possible second so don't give up yet!' and 'if the worst IS going to happen then fuck them I'm still going to try and be the person I want to be, living the life I want and making the world better bit by bit, because what more of a resistance can I put up than the utter and complete refusal to give up my humanity and my identity. You want me dead? I will not die. You want me to suffer, I will find joy. You want us to hate each other, I will keep reaching out to other people. You want me to believe and internalise your ableist bigotry? I will love myself and take pride in my autistic queer identity and I will teach others to do the same for themselves.
And when the catastrophising thoughts fill my head and try and crush me I'll remember my anger and feelings of helplessness and then I'll go and do something I enjoy, because: fuck you! As long as I've got it I'll find things in my life worth living for. And no matter what you'd have me believe. There's always, ALWAYS hope.
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