Spent a long time only leaving the house every 3 months to bulk food shop. The only other person living in the house was my step dad, it's a big one and I had the downstairs to myself. We would only really talk if it was urgent or one of us needed help or there was an emergency. I'm diagnosed but we suspect he's also an aspie.
We both enjoy our quiet and privacy. The only thing I would hear from him is his footsteps going up or down the stairs once in a while. He has everything he needs up there and doesn't use the rest of the house; So he considered it mine. I would go for long walks and hikes at night or early morning when nobody was awake.
I lived out in the country, so there wasn't much traffic. I absolutely hated it when people would drive past me slowly with their high beams on or stop and ask me if I was okay. I used to want to hit everyone who looked at me. I know I've gone months without contact because I starved myself & fasted for a while in protest: my step dad was mad at me and wouldn't take me to the grocery store until I apologized.
So I shut down our custom chat program I wrote to talk with him over LAN and didn't talk to him again until I got fed up living off rice, water and bread. I don't know how much weight I lost, but when I came out of my room to go grocery shopping he was shocked and said my face got skinnier. He demanded I show him my chest and got upset. I usually stay around 190 - 200 pounds, I'm a 6'2 man. My stomach didn't hang over my pants like it usually does, if I puffed out my belly to try and make myself look fat it wouldn't really work. My ribs and muscles were visible for once lol.
This no-contact happened most of the time and people rarely stopped on the side of the road. Most of the time they would drive past me slowly, which annoyed me because it would ruin my night vision and I would have to readjust. I've since learned that isolation like that can actually fuck with your mind. I thought I was immune because I'm autistic and have less, if any need for social interaction. I was upset with my only friend and had stopped talking to him for 4 years around this time and the rest of my family didn't give a shit. They were off doing drugs and living hard in the city.
I lived like this for over 10 years. Near the end I would hear voices almost every time I tried to sleep, specifically stronger and more likely in my left ear for some reason. I feel maybe it was like that because if I laid on my right side, I would face away from my bathroom which had a large window I would look out. I would often get paranoid something or someone could come through it. The voices were always female and very distinct: panicked pleading, difficult weeping explaining, playful yet forceful commands and once there was this really fucking creepy little girl laugh that I never heard again. I'm not religious or superstitious, if aliens exist I would be excited, I don't see it as a scary thing. When these things were happening to me my ears would get hot and it would feel like I can feel the blood rushing through my head and a tingly pain along with terror.
I would get afraid to go to sleep, so I would either stay up until I couldn't or sleep with all my lights on, or both. If I left the radio on sometimes I would hear a faint repeating noise inside the signal, inside the slight static that would sound like chanted commands: "blink.. blink, blink, BLINK!" I blink, *quiet*, "left ... look.. left, left, LEFT, LOOK!" I'm scared and accidentally look left. Now I'm unsure if the signal is controlling me or if I chose to do it, etc. Sometimes I would smoke pot before bed to try and help me sleep, sometimes this only made it worse. The "commands" made me puke once.
Then I would have long periods where I would cry everyday, get really angry and started to feel as if I wasn't real. I would hurt myself because I didn't believe I was actually bleeding or feeling pain. I tried walking to town once (20 miles through high elevation mountains with large dips) because I decided to follow the "Just do it! Stop making excuses!" and try to find a job and just walk there every fucking day. I wanted to change my situation and not have to rely on my step dad who required his ass kissed more and more frequently. Then came the suicide attempts, which I would walk into the mountains to think about, plan, practice. I'm getting off-topic, I'm bad at telling stories. I walked to town and felt absolutely dead, bought some food and supplies to make bread and basics with and walked back.
My feet were bleeding and I couldn't walk any more. I would keep falling over, so I would just sit there and rest for like 30 minutes, get up and walk until I fell over again. A nice Mexican man and his wife found me and drove me home. I don't usually accept help or trust people, but I couldn't walk. I think he recognized how much I hated myself, he gave me his phone number and offered to help me with driving me for groceries, therapy, talking and invited me to a BBQ and to meet his daughter (I don't get it either lol). I was too ashamed to accept his offer and eventually lost his number, but I am grateful to him. I realized I wasn't well and started looking into self help. I found Jordan Peterson's video lectures of human behavior and bought his book and it lit a fire under my ass to improve my situation and be more grateful. Which lead to me talking to people again. Talking to my step father, talking to my family, cleaning my room and house, leaving my house (in the day time) and generally pushing against all my anxieties. I reconnected with my sister and she let me stay with her in town, I found a job and I haven't been back to that house in the middle of nowhere since. I didn't mean to write a diatribe. Turns out talking about the long silence dug up some shit. Thanks for listening
Side-note: Tried to apply for disability during this time. Psychologist said I was experiencing psychosis and re-evaluated that I have aspergers lol (gee thanks) but not low functioning enough to receive help and that my situation is more possibly due to lack of education.