The Empty Soldier

Autism was first diagnosed as early as 1911. Autism was used as a term referring to a group of people with symptoms related to schizophrenia. Scary!

To clarify, autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impaired social interaction, verbal and non-verbal communication, and restricted and repetitive behavior. Not all forms of autism look the same, which is why they define it as a spectrum disorder.

Spectrum: used to classify something or suggest that it can be classified in terms of its position on a scale between two extreme or opposite points:

On a long drive home, I thought weirdly as my second twin was diagnosed with autism.

What happens to children that are never diagnosed? In fear of their child being different, the parent instead does not seek help for the behaviors that seem not "normal"; instead, they see it as a child being a child. I am sure I fall under this category as I side-eye some of my older children's behavior, thinking maybe I missed something in them.

I have a daughter that comes off as quite narcissistic, but now I fear she was never diagnosed. Her lack of emotion, even as a child, has always concerned me, her distance she keeps and lack of care for other people's feelings have brought me to this assumption. I love her to death, but her inability to love or show love back as a young adult scares me. Her little spurts of genuine acknowledgment at times bring me hope. I am not going to lie.

This journey of autism has me falling deep down a rabbit hole of What ifs.

What if: misdiagnosed forms of autism, years later, take the form of narcissism. Sad to think, but what if?

The biggest what if:

Picture a baby born in the seventies, raised in an underdeveloped area with limited to no resources. Growing up in a family with many siblings with a single mother working 27 hours out of a 24-hour day. No one around to watch him long enough to notice his disconnection from other people. He is never diagnosed and grows up creating a coping mechanism for his disability of emotional disconnection from his peers. He learns the art of performance and lives a life of many. Building multiple relationships that sometimes ask too much of him, and then he flees. Realizing that he could never measure up to men, he choices his friends wisely, only seeking relationships of pure dominance. Women become his comfort. As an adult, he can't truly love or be loved. He finds it impossible to put himself in anyone's shoes. Living a life surface deep, too afraid to actually be seen. Wondering the earth unloved and misdiagnosed.

When you think of a soldier, you think of war, the proud human willing to take the bullet for their country. A fight against two nations under God is what we all know as a soldier.

Do you know any empty soldiers? A simple human born in a society that would never be accepted by their peers. Stand up straight, don't blink, built not to show a pinch of emotion. Empty soldiers are everywhere. Most of them are very handsome in the uniform they created to keep you intrigued. Know all the right things to say or do to keep your attention. Empty Soldiers are too scared to show their flaws, so they camouflage into societal norms. An Empty Soldier who once was a child with an emotional disconnection learned coping mechanisms to survive in this world. The war that an empty soldier fights is within of what is seen and what is shown.

What if?

The man you call your X that shows all the narcissistic traits isn't really a narcissist. What if he is just an Empty Soldier?

I have thought about this the entire drive to my home. It made so much sense in a scenario that made no sense whatsoever makes all the sense now. I need to be loved by someone who doesn't have the compacity to love, which I took as a challenge.

A project that God knew I didn't need, A project with an empty soldier to deflect the issues that lay inside me. It's a circle of hurt, the loop that never ends until someone realizes that our emptiness inside wasn't created by man.

I pray for all the empty soldiers that walk the earth. I pray for the women that take captive of their holo hearts, thinking they could create something in them that was missed from the start, the ability to connect.