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Diver Analogy

I am a diver.  I go into the water as deep as I have the courage to go.  There are fish all around me.  They breathe through gills, but I need a breathing apparatus.  They swim unaided, but I need swinfins.  I'm nothing like a fish.  I'm from another world.  Underwater, I have to rely on special equipment to see, move, and stay alive.

But I don't trust my special equipment.  I feel like something important might be missing from my underwater diving toolkit.  I'm convinced that my accessories are unreliable.  I'm already disadvantaged because I'm the wrong kind of animal.  I'm an intruder.

But I can't return to land.  There's no boat anywhere.  There's no land either.  I'm not a misplaced man but a diminished fish.  The truth is blood in the water.

This is a very rough picture of what it's like for me living with an ASD.  It's not just socializing.  It's all of my life whenever it intersects with anyone else.  The reality is much more nuanced, but I still don't know how to express it well.  I'm trying to get better at expressing it.  But just imagine feeling like an amnesiac alien every moment of your life.  Maybe that's better than my diver analogy.

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