No, We're Not All a Little Autistic

It’s easy to understand why people think I’m normal. And before you insert some unhelpful quip like “normal’s just a setting on a washing machine” or “we’re all a little autistic” don’t. This is the whole point—you think I’m like you but I’m not; can you accept that so we can turn this into a constructive monologue please?

I understand that I don’t look like I have a disability. You can’t help but notice my high IQ so of course you can’t wrap your brain around the idea that I could have any kind of deficit.

I myself believed for decades that I could think or reason around any struggle and if I couldn’t, well that must be a character flaw.

I myself am still working to shake this belief.

Because for so long I have been able to use my cognitive strength to overcome so many of my weaknesses, but like a bodybuilder, just because I can lift a ton of bricks doesn’t mean I can carry it for long.

Just because you people have created a world you can thrive in, and just because I’ve worked hard to blend into it just to survive, doesn’t mean it’s not slowly killing me.

Oh so dramatic.

We all have struggles.

There’s one of those character flaws that’s oh so offensive cause it makes people uncomfortable.

I’m uncomfortable in your world every day.

Oh! So selfish! Only thinking of your own comfort!

Funny how it’s only offensive coming from my side of the street.

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Nobody would believe me if I told them how I really feel.

When I search for metaphors to try to explain I have to settle for the ones they can wrap their minds around-ones that match their own experiences enough that they can think they relate.

I can say I feel so extremely sensitive that a small sound feels like a thunderclap on my eardrum and in my body. They've felt the shock of a thunderclap.

I can't say that when I wrap up in the coziest blanket in the house and close my eyes in a dark room desperately trying to find some rest that the white noise of the distant road mixes with the sound of the heater and turns into a leaf blower pointed at my face that creates enough lift to steal most of my blanket and leave me floating, not ethereally like the rest I was seeking, but exposed and battered without anything to catch onto in order to ground myself again.

I can't say that.

Even if they listened to the whole run-on description and didn't tune out when things got weird, what good would it do? What are they supposed to do with this information? I don't know what to do with it myself.

———————————————————————————————————————The chilly evening walk was nice. Needed. The walk part anyway—it didn’t have to be in the evening. That only happened because it took all day to psych myself up to get dressed and leave the house.

No one else was out. I could have just put this trench coat over my pajamas, but the actual reason I changed out of them before going outside was because it had rained and we can’t have soggy hems on our pajamas. No, but now I have warm pjs ready and waiting upon my return.

Other people call something like a neighborhood stroll a “simple little thing.” Do they not have this many thoughts? Do they not consciously have to mentally walk through every step—and possible variations of said steps—before doing them?

Even now as I write, part of my brain is going over whether I should go inside as soon as I finish writing this sentence to write the rest where it’s warm (and risk getting distracted and not writing the rest at all) or stay here while wondering how the children are getting on with their other parent and whether I even deserve to be enjoying this quiet reprieve from their noise and activity and before I even complete that thought I begin to consider, dear reader, what you will make of this long run-on sentence and whether it will sufficiently portray the feeling swirling in my mind.

And now I pause, considering the many ways I could end this entry.

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