Neurodivergence is a Gift
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When I share with someone about my autistic brain, it often comes with hesitancy because they hear me speak it as if it is a disability. Most people are just uneducated about the issue.
I would not change – in fact I would pay money to remain as I am.
I am sacrificing the ability to participate in small talk and the ability to understand sarcasm.
What I’ve noticed about being “neurotypical” is having the ability to tell a lie.
I cannot even fathom being a liar, that would be the most uncomfortable way to live my life and I would not be able to tolerate it emotionally.
I sometimes have to explain to others that autism is often confused with narcissism.
I will tell someone my priorities and values and they will accuse me of flat-out lying.
If I have a gift for someone, it is incredibly hard for me to keep it a secret because just not sharing that feels to me like a lie.
I have had to put in a ton of effort in developing internal boundaries in myself to be capable of understanding that other people lie (to me and to themselves) and other people build up these elaborate fantasies in order to support and rationalize their lying.
Of my own accord, I came to the conclusion that I cannot tolerate lying to myself about anything whatsoever.
It is obvious to me that some parts of myself were rejected as a child and I have been intensely chasing these parts down and reclaiming them for the past 15 years.
Also known as rescuing my assemblage point, recovering soul fragments, or resolving extreme dissociative tendencies.
So in my case, ending the “lies” I tell to myself is literally about recovering the fact that I am angry about having lost these parts.
Programming that says “It’s not okay to be angry” has made me believe “I’m not angry”, which is not true, and the weight of this unconscious lie is the burden I have been carrying around.
Over the past year, I have been facing this in a totally new way and it is fascinating how many rationalizations have sprung out of this one lie.
This one lie “I’m not angry” has been incredibly painful and debilitating for me.
What is also fascinating is that anytime someone targets me or accuses me of something, it is virtually always incorrect because this issue is so difficult to spot.
The conclusions people jump to are always conclusions which may have been the case if a neurotypical person was exhibiting the same behaviors.
I have had to enlist expert help to pinpoint this exact dynamic.
To me, this is a fascinating conundrum because I can understand how it makes me sound arrogant if I reject someone else’s analysis of what is going on for me.
The people who take the time to ask me questions seem to always get answers they don’t expect, and the people who don’t bother communicating seem to always make assumptions about my motives which are purely projections of what their motives would be if they exhibited the same behaviors.
I’m not saying “Poor me” – I am simply illustrating an interesting scenario for the benefit of my own process.
Experientially, it’s almost as if I am on the outside of society looking in.
It’s frequently very uncomfortable, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
I can’t tolerate most people (and their constant lies), and most people can’t tolerate me.
It’s not because we don’t like each other, it’s because we can’t see each other.
If I have learned anything, it is far better to take the time to get to know someone than to jump to any conclusions about their experience (Unless, of course, they are clearly dangerous and unkind – then I will gladly honor that unexpressed need for space).
It is more convenient for people to jump to erroneous conclusions than to investigate reality for themselves.
I see this happening just about all day every day in a variety of ways.
It’s not going to stop happening anytime soon.
Those of us who are “outside society, looking in” can be perceived as a gift or as a curse, depending on how much patience and presence is available within each individual who encounters us.
Joshua