#screw grammer i bite

[anemonet]

one death and Im out, one

[memyselfandi4everxx]

Self Diagnosed Autistic

My parents told me as a baby I didn’t really laugh or cry. I smiled a little bit, but I was an extremely quiet baby otherwise. I hated eye contact as a child. I only learned how to because I worked customer service jobs as a teen and people would be mean if I didn’t look at them. Adults particularly bullied me for this by saying they couldn’t here me unless I looked at them. If anyone at this point in my life, even gueinely, says I can’t hear you, I will get irrationally angry. Even now I can only look at people I trust (they won’t mind how i say things) when I speak, otherwise I have to look away as I’m speaking or else I won’t be able to focus on what I’m saying and might screw up. I can look at them as they speak though.  I used to chew on everything. Anything that went in my hair, hair, hoodie strings, necklaces, pencil grippers, shirt sleeves, cords, etc. Kids would bully me and call me weird for doing it so I slowly learned not to. That led to nail biting. I loved being rocked as a baby (0-4), it was the only way my mom could get me to calm down. I rocked alot in my chairs or when I stood still because it helped calm me. Got told to stop by adults, so I started shaking my legs. I always got shivers that would go up my back and caused my head to rip to the side. Even when I wasn’t cold. I always hate lots of loud noises. I had to leave family events alot because I would start crying from too much going on and no one would be able to comfort me. I don’t see alot of family now because of this. I used (covid) to have a really good sense of smell and this was hell. I always flinched and squinted in lights. I hate people I don’t know well (the trusted people) touching me, espeically surprise touches. I will flinch and jump if it happens. I have my “safe foods” which for me are food i can make without thinking about it. I can’t eat particular foods due to texture. I hate my hair, I hate it touching my neck, I hate it up because it pulls and hurts. I love love love the sims. I can spend whole days (24 hours) without food, bathroom breaks, or sleep if I’m playing the game. I watch the same movies/TV shows over and over (my mom hated this) and I would repeat the lines from them randomly. I listened to music on repeat for days. I own so much merch from KH, FNAF and those movies I watched. I loved guitar as a child, when I started taking lessons I practiced and researched all the time. Due to bullying... I eventually stop, but I did it for years constantly. I’m a control freak. I need to know what were doing at all times, and I usually plan out my days in my head before I get my days started. If my plans get ruined I get noticably anxious/annoyed. If they are big/important plans that gets ruined I will have complete crying/violent meltdowns and be upset for days after. I stopped showing happiness to people at a young age. True happiness makes me hop, clap, squeal, talk a mile a minute, etc. People found that annoying. So I just stop. I have never been able to keep a friend for longer than a year or two. I hate talking with people. I usually will rehearse how I will act in situations (even with people im comfortable with) to make sure I do it right. Because there is so many times were I don’t know what to say I have a few lines that usually get my through that will keep people from getting mad at me. ie. Happy Birthday, Merry Christmas, Good for you, *clapping*, etc. These usually confuse people, but they are happy lines so they don’t get mad. Interacting with people takes so much thinking I can’t do it often because it makes me so tired. People have called me intimidating/cold because before they interacted with me I had *resting bitch face*. I mask when I know I’m talking to someone. Even after they interacted they thought I didn’t like them because I don’t talk much. My Grandma always had to ask if i was enjoying myself because she couldn’t tell by my facial expressions (i trusted her so I was able to stay neutral which is comfortable for me). It takes a long time to get to know new people. I can’t keep names/faces right. I always screw up and call someone the wrong name.  I can only sleep peacefully if there are voices in the background. If there is no noise, I will lay awake for hours and when I fall asleep I will wake up about every hour. Has to be voices, no fans or ticking or rain. those bother me

I would hiss like the vampires in Twilight when I was angry (10-13) ... Not a shining moment in my life.

I have dyslexia and trouble understanding people when they talk to me. I can’t speak any other language, even though I took classes for 4 years, because of this. I barely understand/speak my native language lol. My spellings gotten better but I still screw up plenty of words, and I have no idea how grammer works.

[insomniac-arrest]

Writing phrase: I don't remember if I ever loved you

The air inside the shop was tight and sterile. The AC pumped out layers and layers of chilled septic air across the whole mall all day long. It made goosebumps rise up along my arms like tiny bug bites. I used to bring a sweater to work most days until my manager snapped that it was “blocking my name tag” and to switch to something else.

That manager had stopped liking me a couple weeks ago when I hacked off my hair anew and also probably after I insisted that Chick-Fil-A was a shit place to eat. He probably put the dots together on his own.

I was cramped over the candy-floss red counter with one of my legs bent out at a weird angle and trying to block out the bubblegum pop that bled out of the speakers. It was the type of day in the middle of the week where I was sure I was going to snap and a quit while breaking a few necks on my way out. It was cold. The colors of the candy shop popped like a headache. They were playing a bad cover of an early 2000s song that hadn’t even been good when it first came out.

A gaggle of three kids and a teen couple wondered in and I took a moment to ignore them. At the beginning of the summer I had taken more of an interest in the customers that came in from outside. The kid in a dinosaur hoodie that sang Baby Shark to his mom in excited toddler gibberish before slamming a handful of jelly beans into his stained lips. The twin goth teen girls who spent hours loitering in the back of the store with hushed whispers- looking like dark clouds at a rainbow sunrise. The old tubby middle-aged guy who bought two enormous bags of chocolate while his pupils were the size of coins and sweat poured down his forehead. Was he tweaking? Trying to bribe someone for forgiveness?It stopped mattering by the end of the first month and I was never a very observant person to begin with. It was the middle of the week. In the middle of the summer. The three kids were filling baggies up with chocolate coins and gummy bears while the young couple hovered by the candy bar display nearby.

I could hear them over the cover version of “Fine by Me” by Andy Grammer.

“You don’t have to be like this…” The girl was turned away from the boy and fingering an overly large honeycomb chocolate bar. 

Their tone was tense and I tried to block out the snippets of conversation. They had to be around 14 or 15 and as a college student entering my Sophomore year that placed them in the category of “children that are none of my business.”“Joey,” the girl hissed. “What were you even doing last night? I called you three times.”“I called back didn’t I?”She was wearing these feather earrings that dangled towards her shoulders and a halter top that looked slightly too old for her gawky frame. He was wearing a cap and blue jacket with some baseball insignia.

I turned around toward the cash register.

Only a few more words filtered through my head space:“Don’t be like that…”“Joey, I’m not sure if this is going to work…”

I cringed. Of course kids would have a breakup in my candy shop in the middle of the week with children in hearing distance.“I don’t think I ever loved you.”

”Sydney…”I was on the verge of rolling my eyes and getting my phone out just to distract myself. And then I stopped. I froze in place.

“Ow! You’re hurting me.”I whipped around so fast I think one of my ankles cracked just as the young boy had a hard hand on the teen girls shoulder.

“Everything alright over there?” I barked so loudly that the kids still filling their bags up with rainbow jelly beans looked over with full-moon eyes. I took a few quick steps over and suddenly I wasn’t a minimum-wage college student with a weird walk and goosebumps over her arms.

I was a bear. I was a rumbling tractor across a field waiting to be flattened. I was a butch bitch with her face screwed up into a snarl.

He glanced at my short hair and single tattoo. I wish I worked out more, still, I had several inches on him. I peeled my lips back, “I hope there’s no trouble here?”He went pale and both his hands dropped to his sides like discarded fast food bags. A kicked-puppy confusion flooded over his face. And he was just a fourteen old boy staring at me. And I was just a bear with her teeth out.

“We were just leaving.” The girl puffed up like a bird of paradise and took Joey’s hand. “Come on, let’s go to the food court.”I deflated as I watched them hurry out the door with strange glances over their shoulders and hurried steps. And I was left with the churning freeze of the AC and the acid in my gut that bubbled. Some part of me wanted to call out: Wait! I was just trying to make sure he wasn’t hurting you.

Wait! I just wanted to help!

Wait! I have problems little girl. Don’t give me that look. I have problems.

I groaned and leaned over the candy counter shop. It’s not like I ever got to date at that age. It wasn’t like I got to declare “I don’t think I ever loved you” and pretend I was in a Hallmark drama. “Stupid kids…” I wondered if I was always ever one of them or if I was toothless cub waiting to be a bear this whole time.

Send me a phrase or sentence and I’ll write a poem or flash fiction about it!