You wake up and the world seems wrong. It seems only slightly wrong at first but the more you look at it the more wrong it seems. The colors, the light, the way things look when they're far away. Everything seems off-model. Different in a way that you can't explain.
You go out. It's too loud and everything costs attention. And nothing works. People are odd and even scary. They build themselves entirely around ideas that you can't access the ability to care about no matter how hard you try. You can't be sure you're connecting with them and in your uncertainty they leave you behind. Whenever you're alone you feel as though something is about to happen. You feel at once invisible and vulnerable.
Years go by and this effect loses all subtlety. You begin to feel pasted on the world, a design element from somewhere else. The world for its part seems too big for its own good. Its complexity feels pretentious. The people in it seem drunk on the pretense. And you begin to feel unnecessary as well. You don't need the world and it doesn't need you. But you don't want to die. You want to see a real, vivid world where you can be certain that you belong. You feel that it must exist, but all signs seem to point to you being trapped in this wrong dimension. In a reality that feels faded and alien. Trapped until you die. This is your life.
I describe myself. "Faded and alien" seems a harsh judgment. To others this world undoubtedly seems vibrant and real and I imagine they feel certain that these are their proper lives, everything unfolding as it naturally should. I however feel displaced. Too small. And vaporous like I'm in the world just enough to be chained to it. This is my experience of not belonging. It's constant and pervasive. There's no time when I don't feel this way. Imagine what that would be like for you. I want to describe this difficult feeling well enough that people who don't have it can understand because I feel like many find it hard to imagine what autism is like for me and others. And there are I think a lot of bad explanations out there because this is a complex and specific experience and it's difficult to describe well.
You go out. It's too loud and everything costs attention. And nothing works. People are odd and even scary. They build themselves entirely around ideas that you can't access the ability to care about no matter how hard you try. You can't be sure you're connecting with them and in your uncertainty they leave you behind. Whenever you're alone you feel as though something is about to happen. You feel at once invisible and vulnerable.
Years go by and this effect loses all subtlety. You begin to feel pasted on the world, a design element from somewhere else. The world for its part seems too big for its own good. Its complexity feels pretentious. The people in it seem drunk on the pretense. And you begin to feel unnecessary as well. You don't need the world and it doesn't need you. But you don't want to die. You want to see a real, vivid world where you can be certain that you belong. You feel that it must exist, but all signs seem to point to you being trapped in this wrong dimension. In a reality that feels faded and alien. Trapped until you die. This is your life.
I describe myself. "Faded and alien" seems a harsh judgment. To others this world undoubtedly seems vibrant and real and I imagine they feel certain that these are their proper lives, everything unfolding as it naturally should. I however feel displaced. Too small. And vaporous like I'm in the world just enough to be chained to it. This is my experience of not belonging. It's constant and pervasive. There's no time when I don't feel this way. Imagine what that would be like for you. I want to describe this difficult feeling well enough that people who don't have it can understand because I feel like many find it hard to imagine what autism is like for me and others. And there are I think a lot of bad explanations out there because this is a complex and specific experience and it's difficult to describe well.
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