I awoke this morning to discover that my access to Facebook has been cut off. Again. The reason is that I am supposedly not using my real name. This is not the first time this has occurred, and I imagine it will not be the last. My crime, if you can call it that is that I have stadium-165406_1280placed the suffix Âû to my name. This is now the third time this has occurred.

The first time this occurred Facebook merely asked me to change my name to the correct name. I adjusted the spacing between the last character of my name and the  of the Âû. The second time I was required to submit evidence proving that this was in fact my name. I did this and it was accepted, after a two to three day period of time I had my account back.

This time the same occurred. I have again submitted this evidence and hopefully in the coming days I will gain back my account access.

The reality of this situation impacts me quite deeply. It leaves me feeling lost and disconnected. I am very active and connected on Facebook particularly and Social Media in general. I have a sense of losing my tribe. I am sure people would say but those online connections are not real connections. And to some extent this is true, but, in another way they are very very real and very very important.

As an autistic I find face to face communication to be quite difficult. I find text-based  communication far easier to express myself and far easier to engage in.

Since this morning, upon realisation of this happening I have struggled greatly to be able to focus or concentrate on anything that I need to. I open my browser to my study and find an inability to focus. In an ideal world I would not have this dependence on these online connections, but the reality is I do. And they are not just online behind the computer connections.

If I am unable to regain the access to my account I have lost years of posts. Years of pictures. Years of connection. Access to support plank-729441_1280groups. I started this account back in 2007 so it’s a significant portion of my life that has been posted to this service.

There is something innate I think in the human person to seek out a tribe. Much of my tribe resides inside my computer as it were. Not really inside my computer but that is where I interact with them.

It is as though my tribe has been lost. I can rebuild it I guess. Yes. Of course I can, but there is so much that simply can’t be brought back. Records of interactions, photographic memories and those things simply can’t be brought back so easily.

I am somewhat without my tribe. I need my tribe. My tribe has incalculable connectedness to so many aspects of my life.

Here’s hoping this time tomorrow I will be back amongst my tribe.