Feeling on the Outside

Feeling on the outside, I knew I was different from my Montessori peers when I was two. Feeling on the outside and failing to get in, feelings on the inside that won’t get out of my head.

I hear things louder, even when they are quiet.

I can’t understand words in songs even though I am a singer.

The pain I feel won’t tell me how badly to hurt.

My emotions are delayed and remorseful.

Making eye contact burns my eyes.

I hurt people’s feelings because I can’t feel my own.

I am broken, and nobody knows because of my mask and my innocent spirit; you would never know.

Quietly searching for the reason I’m different for 24 years, and I finally found it; I finally know that I am whole.

I didn’t want to believe it either. Autism.

Autism doesn’t have a look, just a nagging annoyance of feeling on the outside. The pain of not understanding anything, but people expecting you to because they can’t see what you feel. They can’t see through the mask, so artfully crafted just for their own good.

No doctor or parent wants to assign a pretty person Autism. Even if they see the traits nobody wants to see it, pretty should be easy, not Autistic.

People think Autism looks messy, ugly, uncomfortable, like on the show “Love on the Spectrum.” that show did more harm by not showing the spectrum of the spectrum. But rather the spectrum of white auties with limited capabilities.

That’s not a spectrum that is a bubble, a pocket of existing that isn’t true for many on the spectrum, including BIPOC.

I have always accidentally identified with Autistic characters in film or people in my real life. I suppose I always knew but didn’t want to know.

Because I am already living in a world where my gender is a disability, my skin is a disability, and I now know I have to confront my brain as a disability too.

I once had a boyfriend who, when discovered I was dyslexic, said not to tell anyone because someone might think I was a “retard.” I didn’t tell anyone; I didn’t get accommodations in school for a long time because of it. I failed classes because of it. Just knowing that my way of thinking disgusted someone that much made me want to shrink. That’s what I did, shrink behind the mask that I called Aishah. Everyone thought I was brilliant, all of them missing the meltdowns I would have alone in bathroom stalls. It was a bit like a shit show — a tiny version of a teenager holding up a big mask that she could barely hold on to. It was all too heavy to carry.

There are days I want to go by a different name, hoping that name will make me a different person — but it won’t; that’s not how it works. I still have to be Aishah, but bigger and without a mask.

Think of it like you are an individual on the outside of a big air-filled bubble, and every person you know is on the inside of that bubble, so you poke and prod, run in circles around the bubble trying to get in, but you can’t get in. Nobody will let you in either. All of the people on the inside can see your failed attempts to be where they are, but instead of helping, they laugh and turn away.

Being Autistic is not something I thought I would have to figure out as an adult, and I know nobody wants me around because of it. It hurts tremendously, but it is the truth, and I dislike greatly avoiding that. I’m only good at being bad or wrong or broken.

I can’t even write a class paper without ruining it. But can write on Medium effortlessly. Broken, wrong, bad.

I can’t be around people without them getting mad at me. They can feel my cold aura, and they can’t help but move away. Broken, wrong, bad.

I want what I can’t have family, friends, love. My brain doesn’t allow these things to grow; it puts them out like water to fire. Broken, wrong, bad.

So maybe I’ll never have a partner or a happy family, but maybe I’ll have all of me, and maybe that will be enough? Whole, right, good?

Grammarly is telling me that this writing sounds worried, but I can’t hear it. It sounds like honesty to me. And this is another thing that gets me into trouble, my misunderstanding of everything.

This post alone was hard for me to write, to think through, and publish. I don’t want a label, just understanding from others as I learn to understand myself. This is the only way I can do it. I don’t have the energy to tell each person who knows me this heavy, icky, misunderstood part of me. So I’ll write it down, and you can read all about it.