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so: I’m autistic, with asperger’s. I have been differentially diagnosed. it’s done. it was hard and complicated and it hurt and it is done.

tldr my perspective is in transition and it sucks and I see the edge of dawn and so can be content in the dark. the dark is where we sleep, rest, and heal

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when I'm with someone, I am constantly seeing something in their expression or hearing something in their voice and it tells me “hey, something deeper is happening - get closer”

what hurt the most was learning that those moments are usually easily parsed by someone with a more normal brain

now: someone’s experience always has deeper layers. that’s how life works.

in those moments, when I feel spurred to inquiry, I may not be seeing anything objectively special or significant. it might just be that I’m autistic and my brain’s coming up empty on interpreting the human before me.

I didn’t know. I thought I was doing something important*. I valued that part of my being in the world. I didn’t know that part of my motivation to get close was because I was missing something that someone else might have been able to see very easily.

I’m grieving this. it hurts.

for your sake, reader, and for the sake of my future interactions with you, I’ll note that I think I already know where I’ll land with this.

*my approach isn’t invalid, and how I do this is not without worth

it’s a bit like a nearsighted person getting to appreciate the finer details of a thing, because they had to get up close to see it at all. someone with 20/20 vision might have felt complete with what they saw, and would simply move on, having (reasonably) interpreted the scene correctly.

but because I can’t see as well as the average, I either have to get close, or choose to move on having seen less.

historically I’ve erred toward the former. I am learning that choosing the latter can actually be better for me, on occasion; it’s exhausting to only see the world through a microscope.

I know that how I see is special, and adds something important to the world.

I was just wrong about where it came from.

this information is useful as hell, and I will use it well. just gotta give the grief its time

Originally posted on Instagram