Day of an Aspie
Fearfully, I share beyond the veneer, beyond the surface, beyond my skin, into my inner most thoughts as an Aspie. Aspie is a club that is invitation only, exclusive but not elite. We tend to meet those on the bottom of the social pecking order. Parents think we try not to fit in, but we can’t fit in. Our minds are wired differently, and we can’t look into another person’s eyes. Looking into another eye is a blaze of lightning striking into the brain. The pain is huge. So, we retreat from direct eye contact. If we connect with another’s eyes, it is a trained behavior, not natural.
We have chaotic rituals that rule our daily routine. Trying to mask into normalcy impedes our ritual which fills our mind with anxiety and fear. Rituals course through the time we awake to the time we sleep; some are lucky to get sleep. Rituals of hygiene, eating, dressing, etc… Hygiene alludes to many of us. Why take the time for baths, hair combing, or teeth brushing? I do like a good, long bath, soaking just beneath the surface. The world is calm under water; light and sound is muffled. I just soak until my skin is all wrinkled. Rituals have order and they keep our fragile world calm. Rituals can be dark. When I self-injured, I had a ritual. It was obsessive and dark. Rituals sooth our black and white thinking.
The neurotypicals think and speak in an array of colors, but Aspies think in black and white, no greys or color. Our way of thinking clears the way to reality, peeling away the superficial world. Gestures are hard to understand, and we ask a lot of questions. Our black and white minds are full of questions. We must prevent ourselves from asking too much. We think about the same things for hours. These thoughts consume us and even interrupt the rituals. In our isolation, we think, we question, and we feel lonely.
Aspies feel loneliness. It seems strange since we like to retreat from the crazy world we cannot navigate. I asked my therapist why I feel so lonely. Our Creator made us all human and designed us for relationship and connection. We retreat into our minds, consumed in thoughts and questions we would be fearful to share. We spend most of our time with our thoughts, very little human contact during evenings and weekends, alone in our black and white thoughts.
Aspies retreat because we don’t understand our emotions, let alone normal people's emotions. Anger, sadness are the only emotions we partially embrace. Happiness, joy, and other emotions like that are a mask. We mask and rehearse before exiting our home for the day. Rehearsing chit chat, trying to fit in where fitting in an option is not. Returning from the outside world to our home, we are exhausted both physically and psychologically, only to wish to nap and dream away the horrors of a normal work or school day. Our home is a safe place, where we rule and do not have to conform to the neurotypicals. Our home is a place of cozy darkness and quietness, because the outside world is bright and loud.