The Alternate Lexicon
I miss Stina and Dylan.
I have a lot of other things I could, and probably should, say, too. Things about how I can’t forgive people who aren’t sorry, and how I still start to email or text to tell them little things before I remember we’re not speaking. Things about how I cry pretty much whenever I think about them. Things about how I didn’t volunteer to go to Harrisonburg for training at work because it felt too close. Fuck, I want to tell them how we’re going to Disney, because they (especially Stina) love Disney. I want to tell them the diagnosis is official, and doesn’t that make them feel shitty for the snide comments and scare quotes?
I want to tell them everything. But we aren’t speaking. And I can’t forgive people who aren’t sorry.
A memo to all of my coworkers, who will not, of course, read this, because if I told you what my website was I’d have to self-censor more and I’m super uninterested in doing that:
Yep, you heard me correctly, I’m autistic. See, autism is a vague group of behaviours and ways of processing the world we all share, and no two people on the spectrum are identical any more than any two people who are NT are identical.
You’ve seen me stimming, but apparently without knowing about autism you’d just thought I was fidgety. Ha! Trick’s on you: stimming IS just being fidgety for people on the spectrum. We stim for the same reasons any other person might tap their feet or shake their legs in a meeting: it provides sensory stimulation that helps us regulate our behaviour and emotions.
The thing about autism is that it makes me really awesome at some stuff, and really not awesome at other stuff. My particular, unique brand of autism makes me really good at learning scripts (“Please let me put this thermometer back under your tongue along the gumline.”) and repetitive actions like taking a blood sample. It also makes me really bad at some stuff I have to do at work, like multitasking and listening to multiple things at the same time. I’m sorry you were speaking to me and I walked away–I was busy hearing the faint harmony line in this song on the piped-in radio station.
Autism also makes me prone to these things that I’ve called a few different names in the past: panic attacks, tantrums, meltdowns. They happen when I’m feeling overwhelmed and without any control (and usually when I’m tired and/or hungry). I know my limits and my strengths, and ask that they be respected like any other person’s–even if they seem like they’re weird.
When you start requiring me to do multiple things I’m really bad at (like listening to two imputs and multitasking at the same time), there is a very strong chance I’m going to have to go cry somewhere and might scare off donors.
Can we please not make that happen? And can we please not laugh at me when I ask?
Thanks.
Suffice to say, as far as the job goes, that I am officially prohibited from talking about it, as a Big Pharma Shill of the lowliest rank. I’m enjoying it and seem to be learning quickly.
I wish I could say that I learn quickly in the rest of my life.
My Official Autism Eval Thing is scheduled for this February 18th, and I’m feeling sort of numb about the whole thing.
I’ve started to wonder if perhaps feeling neutral or numb is some sort of response to having too much emotion or feeling, at least some of the time. There is absolutely a point where I am so physically uncomfortable that I become unable to experience further discomfort; in the reverse, I’m capable of being pretty physically neutral, neither exceptionally comfortable or uncomfortable. There are times that I really do feel neutrally about a given subject or event or person or any other direct object of my emotions, and this is an appropriate level of shit-giving. But there are times that I probably should feel more intensely than I do, and recentish events have caused me to reflect if that’s not some sort of really terrible coping mechanism.
Bluntly, I feel…okay about Christina (and, by default and/or tacit agreement and not ever talking to me, Dylan) ending our friendship. And I don’t think I’m meant to, quite yet. I spent days and days heartbroken and crying randomly; it was even worse than when everything ended with Alice because there were almost three extra years involved–three years we’d largely spent living together or next door to one another. And then I woke up, and it was all just gone, and that seems really weird to me. It makes much more sense that my brain decided that this level of emotion is just not viable long-term and turned the whole thing off for a while. That, in turn, helps explain a lot of weird emotional things I remember, both recent and not recent.
I think this level of sensation is directly correlated with meltdowns, for me, at least. And I think that this self-control response of total shutdown of emotion probably has the potential for weird neurological effects, like the part where I don’t remember a lot of the particulars of really nasty meltdowns. I think that my brain is trying to insulate me from feeling everything so strongly and acutely that it becomes difficult for me to even remember the events as they actually occured, because my memory is fuzzy to prevent me from feeling those things again. It’s not a perfect system, though, because I do remember some snatches of image or sound, and the further away temporally I get from any event the better my chances of remembering or feeling it properly are.
I spent a little over a month not feeling anything related to Stina and Dylan.
A coworker made a joke about not having any friends, and I responded that my friends had abandoned me. I got home tonight, and started to cry. The only real way to deal with this emotion and hurt and anger is to feel it, and work through it. Apologies in advance for any meltdowns it triggers, but I think I’m ready to do this like an adult. Maybe.
Damn, I need a therapist. As soon as my shiny insurance card arrives (seriously good insurance for cheap, yes please!), I shall have this thing.
Like Hez, I don’t believe in resolutions. I think you can set goals and have dreams, but timelines are invariably off and there are always surprises that change who you thought you were.
I’ve been thinking about how this blog has moved away from blogging my thoughts on autism and feminism and become more of a journal. Neither are really what I imagined when I started writing in this space, and I’m not sure either is what I want to be doing here.
So I don’t believe in resolutions, and I don’t know what I’m doing with this space.
I want to change my life so that it’s designed to make me happy, not to make me feel rotten. I’m starting a new job next week. I’m getting my new name in my passport soon. I’m getting Prosper’s import certs and making plans. I’m making plans. And I think I can learn how to be happy in a way that can be measured beyond moments.
There is a huge qualitative difference between these two statements:
“I’m sorry you’re upset.”
and
“I’m sorry I upset you.”
There is also a major difference between these statements:
“I’m sorry I upset you.”
and
“I’m sorry I did this thing that upset you.”
I’d love to get the very last sort of apology. It’s what I got out of nowhere from Alice and it made me feel deeply humble and human and appreciated. But there is a damn lot of value in the middle sort of apology. It is the sort of apology that keeps friendships afloat. I have offered more of the middle and last sort of apologies to Christina than I can count; I’m not perfect or blameless in any way, and I am absolutely sorry for all of the things I did that contributed to her decision to end our friendship.
I am not sorry for wanting a real apology for having been hurt. Adults own up when they hurt someone else and apologize for causing hurt, even if they think their actions were perfectly right.
I am deeply, unfathomably sorry that the people I thought were my best friends of seven years would rather end that friendship than tell me they’re sorry.
DELIGHTFUL CLOUDS.
I feel better. Thanks, my loves.
It’s slow, this process. Change passwords, make previously open things private. Extricate myself from your life one photo at a time.
I cry, sometimes without warning or explanation. I am relieved, grateful when my coworkers say they’ll miss me, give me phone numbers and talk of a party. Parties terrify me; I loathe them to the depths of my being, but they don’t have to know any of that because I appreciate the consideration. None of them are friends, but they’re nice enough people.
We talked about that, once. Friendship was an exclusive club to the two of us, something we extended rarely and selectively. We talked about how valuable it was, and how glad we were to have found each other. I believed every word of it.
I believed every word of it. You told me, so it must be true.
I doubt you think of me, or miss me, or have any regrets. Spending a day with your husband (and his friend) was more important than seeing someone who had been your best friend of seven years, at considerable expense and travel on my part. You’ve never seen where I live. Coming to me has never been an option. I’m only worth your time if I show up and do what you want me to do.
And fuck you, because I would forgive you if you fucking asked. If you had the decency to write and say you missed me, you’re sorry, any gesture of reconcilliation or apology, I would fall over myself to forgive you, because you are my best friend of seven years and I hate not having you in my life. Even though my family have told me time and again that you are not worth my effort or love or trust.
You’re not a nice person. I hope someday you realize it, and feel bad.
Lots of thoughts, not a lot of brains.
Two important things have happened, however.
1. I will be done with my current job on December 17th. No, I do not have another job lined up (though I’m applying and interviewing). I am surprisingly not too anxious–yet.
2. I cut off all of my hair.
[Picture of the author, who has short, red hair and is doing their best Lesbians Who Look Like Justin Bieber impression]
