Today, I decided to talk to my little sister about my autism. I wanted to try and better see what life was like through her eyes, in comparison to mine. I also wanted her to know more about me, now that I'm starting to understand all these things about myself. Like I've said before, normally I wouldn't just offer up random bits of information about myself, unless directly asked. But, I think the key to improving my situation, and better accepting myself, is to show more of who I am to those closest to me.
So I started asking her questions. To be honest, I was curious if she was autistic, too, and she just handled it better or differently than I do. I hyperfocus, she has ADHD. I have social anxiety, but growing up, she was constantly surrounded by people, always seeking them out. I mentioned in an earlier post that she actually felt sick if she didn't have someone to socialize with every day. So, we couldn't be less alike, could we? But ADHD, just like OCD, anxiety, and depression, often attacks autistic people. And maybe, from an early age, where my special interests were in books and on tv screens, her special interests were on people. Hyperfocusing on other people, and conversations, would not only make you a master of them, you would have far less anxiety doing it. So, that was my theory, and I decided asking her about it, not mentioning at first that I wondered if she had it too.
At one point, she said that if she had autism, she wouldn't want to know. She said she didn't like labels like that, and she would figure out how to deal with her problems on her own. That's a very healthy and sensible view. And completely opposite from me. But that's because she is not autistic (as far as I can tell), and one of the issues that I struggle with is that I don't deal with my problems. I try to fix them, realize I don't know how, then I shut down. I've come across this many times. Now that I better understand how I "work", I can better combat my problems, and also play to my strengths.
The main focus of our discussion ended up being the Aspergian trait of thinking in absolutes. I mentioned this before, but I want to talk about this some more. I asked her if she liked things in different degrees, and she did. She could understand how I would have trouble, and think the way I do, about most things. For example, she said that she loves Harry Potter, and she loves Twilight, and she couldn't possibly say which she loves more, because that would be comparing apples and oranges.
But then she asked me this: who do I love more? Her, or the family dog? I think she was trying to show to me that I really was capable of liking things in varying degrees, but I kind of got stuck. I wanted to say that I loved her more, of course. You're supposed to love people more than pets, especially if those people are family. If I was having a light conversation with some random person, that's what I would say, and then I would give myself reasons why, so that I wouldn't feel like I was lying. But I couldn't really say it, because I didn't really know. She said, "if she died and I didn't, would you be more or less sad than if I died, and she didn't?" Well, I could honestly answer that if the human died, and the dog didn't, I would be more sad. Over the past two years, I've watched as our sweet puppy mysteriously changed into an old lady dog. She has grey hairs, and sleeps all the time. She has diabetes, so we have to give her insulin shots, but she keeps getting sicker and sicker. She barely has the energy to get up and say hello anymore, but she'll wag her tail when you say her name. She is old. She will die. Almost every time I see her, that is my exact thought. My puppy is going to die, any day now. And I feel sad. So, I pet her and talk to her, telling her I love her, and how much she means to me. I do things to make her feel good. The truth is: I am already in mourning. I am preparing for the inevitable.
But my sister? She is young. She is at the beginning of her life. If she died now, it would be a horrible shock, and a tragedy. I am not preparing for her death, because she is not supposed to die soon. So, yes, I would cry more if she died. I would be very, very sad. Would I be more sad than if my dog died? I don't know. But I would be more surprised. And Aspies hate surprises. Selfishly, my life would be turned upside-down if my sister died. It would not if my dog died.
I couldn't really say all of that out loud, so I just got really quiet. She told me I ought to figure that out for myself. I feel really bad. I want to tell my sister I love her more than the dog. I really, really did. But our love is complicated. The dog doesn't hurt me, and she doesn't (technically) do me any favors. But my little sister? I do things for her, she does things for me. She hurts me, I hurt her. Certainly, my love for the dog is simpler and easier to understand than my love for the human. But is it stronger or weaker? I have no idea.
We talked for a long time, about a lot of things, and it really got me thinking. I even started telling her why it was such a wonderful thing for me to know that I have Asperger's. She didn't understand at first, and maybe she still doesn't, but I tried to explain. But it specifically involves the way I think. In the Aspie mind, there is no shades of grey. Only black or white. Yes or no. Right, or wrong.
This can be a gift. Or a curse. And I'll tell you why.
Growing up, just like anybody else, I learned about my world, and how to behave, by watching others. Walking, talking, reading, writing, these are all things other people showed me how to do. Before I saw them doing it, I didn't not know how to do it, and if I had tried to do it by myself, I would have been wrong. So, in my Aspie brain, that meant that everyone else was always right, and if I did not match them, I was wrong.
You can imagine what that would do to a little girl, when her brain and her body would not, could not, wholly conform to the model presented to her. Every time I said something, did something, that wasn't normal, people would tell me. So I had to stop that thing, because it was wrong. My mother mentions to someone that "Little Penny is so independent! She doesn't need help with any of her school work!" And little Penny learns that not asking for help is a good thing, so if she wanted to be a good little girl, she should do things on her own.
Little Penny hated tomatoes and onions, and hamburgers scared the crap out of her. But everyone else was eating those things, so little Penny was wrong, and had to try it. She had to eat them, even though they were disgusting, because obviously, she was wrong.
Little Penny didn't like people touching her, but girls are supposed to want boyfriends, and boyfriends are supposed to touch their girlfriends, so little Penny had to let them, even though she hated it. Because they were right, and Penny was wrong.
Every time I did something I didn't see other people doing, like smelling my hands, or tapping my fingers, or losing myself in a book, or talking about school buses and ants and superheroes and hair, I would stop, and try to correct it. Other people don't read books fast, Penny, so you must be wrong. Other people don't think school buses are pretty, and they weren't thrilled the first time they got to ride one as a teenager, so you don't talk about things like that. Other people don't walk down the hall running the back of their hand on the railing. Other people don't smell things, or touch their faces, or tap their legs. So you need to stop. But I couldn't stop. And I hated it.
Whenever I did something different, and other people noticed, they'd always give me this look and say "you're weird," or, "what's wrong with you?" That always bothered me. It still does. As I got older, I would joke and say "do you want the long list, or the short one?" But every time they said that, every time they pointed out that I was different, and therefore, wrong, it hurt. I remember every time that happened. A friend mentions that I have a unibrow, which I hadn't noticed before, so I go home and pluck it out, even though it burns, because girls are supposed to have two eyebrows. Someone gives me a confused stare when I use big words, and I resolve to copy "normal" people's speech pattern to the best of my ability, re-writing and re-thinking, when big words come out. Some jerk teases me because I'm so pale, starting a several year cycle, of never wearing shorts, to laying for hours outside in my bathing suit, to finally paying money (something that hurts more than yanking hair out of my face) to try and buy a tan, and fix the wrongness. Someone gapes at me in horror, because I don't know who this "Brad Pitt" person is, so I start making mental flashcards, berating myself when I don't know who people are talking about. A girl points out that I have bigger boobs than she does, and I spend the rest of high school wearing loose clothing and curling in on myself, even though slouching made my back hurt.
I don't resent these people. They just pointed out what they saw, things that made me stick out. They didn't mean to hurt me, and if they did, then that means there is obviously something more wrong with them, than there is with me. But my Aspie brain said "they're right, you're wrong, you need to figure out how to be less wrong." I worked so hard, to be like them, to act like them, to look like them, to like things that they did. I refused to mention any of my special interests, because other people didn't like them, so they must not actually be interesting. I would struggle to contain myself, to stop tapping and twitching, to just sit still and be normal. I would force myself to do things that horrified, terrified, or disgusted me, because that's what you're supposed to do. And I never, never asked for help.
But today, as I explained this train of thought to my sister (although, not in that much detail), I realized something. I notice all the time that people are different than other people. One person is tall, another is short. One person likes science, and another likes art. One person talks with a Southern accent, and another barely speaks English at all. This never bothered me. In fact, it made them interesting. Unpredictable sometimes, but definitely interesting. It was okay that they were different from each other, because they came from different gene pools, different backgrounds. But, for some reason, I never saw how it was okay for me to be different from them. I have no idea why I never made that connection. I wish I had seen that earlier.
I'm not one to regret. I've always known that the past is the past, and there's nothing you can do to change it. There is no point wondering what could have been, or wishing you had behaved a different way. I barely think about the past, except to compare with the present. I use it, like a catalog in my head, to better understand how things work, and what action I should take. I worry much too much about the future and the present to spend any energy on the past.
But this one thing, I wish, I wish was different. I wish my parents saw what I was doing to myself, and told me that what made me different, made me me, and that that's a good thing. I wish that I had asked for help, that I had told them how scared I was, because I talked different, walked different, and liked different things. I know I can't change the past, and I truly believe that from pain and suffering, even that we cause ourselves, we learn how to be stronger, better, kinder people. But for the first time in my life, if someone were to ask me that stupid question: "If you could go back, and change one thing, what would it be?" my answer wouldn't be "nothing." Not anymore. What I want, more than anything, is not to cringe when people tell me I'm weird. I don't want to squirm when people ask me about myself. I don't want shrug uncomfortably when my friends say "It must be a strange place inside your head."
I am different. People are going to point that out for the rest of my life. Every time they do, I feel them pushing me away, saying "I'm like this, and you're like that. I'm over here, but you're way over there." I prefer to look at what makes us the same. We all have pain and fear. We all have things that make us feel good. We all have things and people we care about. And none of us want to be alone. I just wish the people around me would stop working so hard to push me away. I've spent my life chasing after the illusion of "normal", trying to draw closer to everyone else on the planet. I wish that people could just accept me for who I am, and how I think, and learn that, yeah, okay, we are different. But we're not as different as everybody says.
But first, I need to learn how to accept myself. I'm starting to, and I've made a lot of progress, but today has just been really hard, and I need to work through that.
But I'm so glad I know why I'm different. I'm so glad that everything makes sense now. And I'm so glad that I'm me. Seriously. Sometimes it can be really hard, but sometimes it can be really great, too. I guess I'm biased, because I've never been anyone but me. I can't comprehend how horrible it must be, to not be able to completely lose yourself in a book or a song. I can't imagine not being able to understand and remember little complex details of something interesting. Sure, some things are really hard that aren't supposed to be. But sometimes, being me is pretty awesome.
Penny
No comments:
Post a Comment