It is a shock to many of those who are close to me in person that I do not have Cable TV or entertain myself via paid streaming services. As I also had recently learned though reaching out to various support groups to see if this is common among the autistic community, I determined that I am not alone in thinking this way.

For nearly if I can remember when I was living with my parents, we had cable TVs. It was just a thing. Until I was 13, we did not have Internet and we had to go to go to either the local gas station or one of two video rental stores where we rented a video or a video game. For most of the time I was alive until they became extinct, we had at least two video rental stores in addition to the local stores having some videos to rent. Sadly, all of them are gone. Ironically, one was a doctor I visited, the other is now my pharmacy and the community store had some unfortunate success.

When I first moved out on my own, I did have basic, and I do mean the very basic cable due to the cost of it. I rarely turned it on as I have a Smart TV that you can access things like YouTube and the local news affiliate for my essential entertainment needs. When I moved here three years ago, I just didn’t see the value in having it installed, so I never considered it.

During a conversation with a family member over the weekend, I was considered to have an Amish-type of lifestyle because of my reluctance to have Cable TV or Streaming Services. I would be amiss to say that I do have Prime video only because I am enrolled in Prime through a discount because of EBT. Other than that, I would not have it and I couldn’t tell you the last time that I looked at it.

I do have an older TV in my bedroom that my sister gave me many years ago. While it has a DVD player and a HDMI port, I did have a Fire Stick for many years, but unfortunately it had become antiquated. Recently, I bought the barest level Roku player. I meticulously went through and took out what I did not need.

Now, to get to the crux of why I do not use these services. I can honestly say mostly since becoming an adult that I cannot sit through something and keep attentive to most things since it can be triggering through a sense of deeply embedded trauma that can be very overwhelming and oversensitive. Simply put, it is just too much to withstand I cannot stay focused on things. They just seem too real for me, and I often cannot separate fact from fiction.

I do watch the local news daily, but I limit myself greatly. I do not watch anything that is triggering, instead focusing on my phone, and doing what is needed to stay my eyes off the screen in my time of diasporic desires. I may watch other things, but that is done in small doses and through YouTube where it can be more controlled. I cannot even watch church service when I am home in real time. I do fine when I go in person, but I usually watch the video the next morning when I cannot go to church.

It is the reality that I live with trauma, and I have a long way to go in doing the healing. I am thankful to have providers that understand my needs when it comes to avoiding things that are triggering for me. I don’t think that I have ever worked on healing and wouldn’t even know where to begin the process as I feel that it is constant in my life and never seems to escape. It is the reason that at times it can be hard to function and live life in a standard life.

But that is in a nutshell, why I do not have a desire to have cable or streaming services in my home.