“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther”

It was only 2 pages into The Great Gatsby that I’d decided I was now reading the greatest piece of literature I’d seen. It was about 10 pages later I realised I couldn’t continue. If the greatest masterpiece of F.Scott Fitzgerald was not sufficient enough to hold my attention, what hope was there for the less refined written word.

Time is monolithic, mostly when it’s not on your side. Unequivocal, uninhibited and unsympathetic. It’s not the fear that strikes you when you begin to realise there’s a problem, it’s the ticking of the clock- the passage of time as your illness only grows. You wait a couple of hours to see a psychiatrist. A couple of weeks for the next appointment. Maybe you wait for the next treatment that’s supposed to help. It’s what you’re supposed to do- wait. Wait as the clock ticks by.

Along with my ritalin, I was given the following advice: “Make sure to take your multi-vitamins” and “fish oil is good for you”. She also helpfully informed me exercise “was important”. The sentences resonated with me for a long time, for time was a commodity I had too much of. When did fish oil become a medication, important become a quantitative statement. Such approximations wouldn’t be tolerated at a meeting, such generalisations wouldn’t be said for fear of leading an audience to think you either didn’t know or didn’t particularly care.

Since then I’ve drawn a line in the sand. I’ve crossed my Rubicon. Laws, ethics, moral obligations no longer hinder my work- what I thought gave me warmth only left me out in the cold, abandoned. I am now the subject of my own study. ASD is not this incurable, indefinite mental illness- it’s an enemy to be overcome. I’ve had compounds seized by customs, worry expressed by medical professionals, receipts that reveal a fountain of discontent.

Life with a medical condition so profound that you can’t read more than ten pages of your favourite book is not a living. Existence without the hope of cognitive achievement is more than unacceptable, it’s abhorrent to the human condition. That is why I propose to those who are out in cold, those for whom the light has dimmed, I dare you to fight back, that you fight with every breath because you don’t have a corner to go back to. No halfway measures. Try, optimise, fight on, persist, fail better, resolve, engage, antagonise, cope, understand. But above all Rage, into the unkown and unexpected.

“Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light. “