daybreak-writer

[daybreak-writer]

I Was Taught to Not Be Autistic.

For some reason I feel like I should write right now. So that's what I'm doing. I'm writing.

I guess I want to write about myself. I want to write about how I'm finally...discovering...myself I guess. I don't know. Something about saying that feels wrong or incorrect. I'm not sure. But I have autism. I'm autistic. And it makes sense. And I'm sad. I'm sad a lot of the time. I'm sad because I can't even tell my mom I'm autistic because any time a medical professional told her that, she would deny it and say I'm "just like that" and that she knows me better than they do. And I always believed her. She is a therapist after all, so she would know.

But no.

I'm autistic. I really am. And I love things. I love things so much. I will love one thing until I can't love it anymore because I've loved it so much. And I wish I could have all of it. But a lot of the time whatever thing it is is something that can't really satisfy that want or need. Like Portland. I love Portland. I love Portland more than anything and I just want to move there. But then what? It's not like I can have an aesthetic based around Portland. It's not like other special interests like bats or TV shows.

Then I also love video games. I love Overwatch. I don't have many Overwatch things. I love Camilla, I have many Camilla things. I love Cities: Skylines, but you can't really get Cities: Skylines things. And it makes me sad. I want things to express how much I love that thing.

I normally love something for a week to a month at a time, which sometimes makes me feel as though I'm not valid. Most autistic people with special interests will love that thing for years or their whole lives. I guess the only thing of mine like that would be Portland. And stuffed animals.

The thing with stuffed animals is that I’ve had a huge collection all my life. But my family hated it. They hated how my room was filled with stuffed animals and how I would want to buy another every time we went to Target. So after a while I got so dejected about it that I just gave up. I still have lots of stuffed animals, but my old ones are hiding in my closet. Only the new ones that I get do I keep on my bed, because my family tells me to put them in the closet. To hide them. To not let my friends or boyfriends or girlfriends or partners see my stuffed animals because it's immature.

I was also taught to stop cracking my knuckles. To stop chewing gum. To stop scratching my arms or to stop shaking my leg or to stop clicking my pen. I was taught to stop. I was taught to hide. I was taught that what I did was annoying, it bothered everyone around me. And why would I want to bother people? People always thought I was annoying. So I was taught to stop. It's unprofessional. Stop. The noises you make bother people. Stop. The clicking and chewing is annoying. Stop.

It's always stop.

So I would try. I tried to stop. But I would always sit in my bedroom and crack my knuckles. And chew gum. And bounce my leg. And click my pen. I could never stop forever. It didn't feel right.

I love talking about things I love. I was told to stop. My parents didn't want to always hear about a video game I loved. Not everybody wants to listen to me talk. If I keep talking about things I love, people will get annoyed. It bothers people. I only talk about that one thing. My parents don't care about that one thing. Nobody cares about that one thing. I was taught to keep it to myself.

When I talk, I get loud. I get very loud. I get loud and passionate and excited because I love talking about things that I love. My parents don't like that I get loud. They say I'm too loud. I need to be quiet. I can't be loud. Being loud is annoying. Being loud bothers people. I was taught to not be loud. I was taught to not be passionate.

I was taught to not be autistic.

I was taught that the movements I did and the volume of my voice and the things I would talk about were annoying. I was taught that I was annoying.

So I stopped. I tried to. I tried to keep everything inside. And then I talked about everything on Instagram. I would spam posts about what I loved. I felt that my friends online would understand and it's okay for me to be loud there. To be passionate. To love things and to love talking about things. For the most part that was the case. But there were always a few saying I was being annoying. That I was too loud.

I once met an internet friend in real life at a convention. They said to me, "Wow, you're not as annoying in person as you are online." I took that as a compliment. It meant that I had gotten better at being quiet. At not being passionate.

I was always passionate. My emotions were loud. If I was happy, I was elated. If I was sad, I was devastated. If I was mad, I was enraged.

"It's like I always have to walk on eggshells around you," my mom would say, "Nobody can say one thing wrong without you having a meltdown." I cried a lot. I cried at everything. I would get upset a lot. She was right, every little thing someone said wrong would make me cry. "You're just a sensitive kid," my mom would say, "You were a sensitive baby, too. You're just always sensitive." She didn't mean it in a bad way, she just stated it as fact. But when I showed that I was sensitive, it would be my fault. My fault that I couldn't just move on. My fault that I would hang on to the words that were said.

My meltdowns get bad. I'm terrified of shots. I had to get a TB test when I was 17 for a volunteer position at an elementary school. At the CVS MinuteClinic I had a meltdown. They called my name and for 2 hours I screamed and cried and wouldn't go into the clinic. My mom got mad. She said I was acting three years old, that I needed to act my age. What kind of 17 year old girl acts like this? She thought I was faking. She thought that I just didn't want to get the test. She didn't understand that the meltdown wasn't voluntary.

I screamed and cried and couldn't speak any words except for "I'm sorry"

"I'm sorry"

"I'm sorry"

"I'm sorry"

"Stop saying you're sorry," my mom would say, "it's annoying."

Of course it's annoying, I'm always annoying. I couldn't speak any other words. My mom had to pin me to the clinic chair and sit on my lap for the nurse to give me the TB test. "I'm sorry."

"Stop it."

I was taught to stop.

The nurse whispered to my mom, "The only people I see react like that are autistic. Have you ever thought your daughter might be autistic?" She thought I couldn't hear her. I was sitting in the corner with tears still streaming down my face, struggling to just say "I'm sorry" because it's all I could do.

"No, my daughter's not autistic," my mom said, "she's just 'like that.'"

In the car going home, I was still crying, but this time it was silent. I told my mom that I had heard the nurse. My mom said, "What do you think about that?" I said, "I don't know."

"Well I don't think you're autistic. You've always been good socially. You're just sensitive." That was always my mom's answer.

I let it go. "I can't be autistic," I thought, "I have good social skills, I wasn't as good in middle school but I'm better now. Now I know when I'm annoying people. I can't be autistic."

When I was 18 I got a new therapist. Her son is autistic. After I turned 19 my therapist said, "I think you have autism. What do you think?"

I asked for more explanation. She taught me about how autism looks different in everybody, it's never just one thing. I thought that was interesting. It was the third time a medical professional thought I had autism, except this time my mom wasn't there to tell me otherwise.

She explained a lot to me, about how helpful it is when children are diagnosed at a younger age. How then the parents can learn how to raise a child with autism, and how our brains work differently. It made sense to me.

I looked into it more. I read a book on it. My whole life started to make sense. I had been confused for my whole life, never knowing why I had so many problems and why they all seemed internal.

It finally made sense.

I do have autism. I'm loud and I'm passionate and I click my pen and I chew my gum and I love things and I love talking about things and I cry when I'm upset and I have meltdowns when I'm scared and I make noises when I'm happy and I am autistic. I do so much that makes sense now. It all makes more sense.

I just wish I had known sooner.

Maybe then I wouldn't have been taught to stop. Maybe I would have been taught why I am doing things.

Maybe I wouldn't have been taught to hide.

I love that I'm autistic. It makes me who I am. The words "autism" and "autistic" are taught to be scary words. They're not scary. They shouldn't be scary. For me they are correct. For me they teach me about myself. For me they teach me how the world works and how I work.

For me they're perfect, and I will never be scared of them again.