Dear average human

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To most people

Im the one on the edge, watching you but not engaging with you, interacting with you but not connecting with you, shaking hands with you but repulsed by your touch, letting you hug me but hating every second of it, going through my life separate and distanced. You think I am like you, a somewhat inferior or failed version of you. You cant get your mold for how people should be to fit with me, Im sorry that you think that is my fault, that I am therefore the difficult one. You know it is an option for you to just accept me without trying to turn me into how you think a person should be.
Why am I required to constantly defend who I am? No I am not odd, obsessive or weird for only having three interests that I very much like. Of course I know im wearing sunglasses inside, just because I didn’t remember to smile at you doesn’t mean I don’t like you - I cant read you either.

Of course im a very logical person. No one noticed that I couldn’t understand facial expressions, body language and emotions until I was almost 20, I had to find other ways to know when to get away from you and when it was ok to approach you. I cant recognise peoples faces, I analyse the data I have to figure out who they are. My mind contains a dictionary of translations between your figures of speech and what you mean by them. Your words sound like a mass of noise yet I still figure out what you are saying, the world is a mass of disorganised detail yet I still put the fragmented bits of information together well enough to get through life without too many mishaps. I had to compensate for things somehow, find other ways of doing things that come naturally to you.

Apparently relationships require trust. Why would I trust people who give up on me, who don’t know how to understand, accept or work with me. Apparently I should let myself close to people on an emotional level. Why would I do that when people have hurt me, abused me, bullied me and caused me to believe I am the problem in my life. When people are confusing, difficult, unpredictable and scary of course I’d be wary of trusting you. No need to take it personally.

Apparently I should care about my family. Though before I got out of home I used to wish they would all die – is it wrong to want an end to the expectations, to the ties to my past, to move on from the way they have tried to condition me and the reminder that I am not who I am supposed to be. Is it wrong to hate the people who lived with me for 20 years without realising I saw the world differently, without understanding that things which were not important to them could be important to me – and that that is not a failing on my part or something to be corrected.

Why are you right? Why am I wrong? Why is the volume right and im over-sensitive, why is the brightness fine and Im the one who should just put up with it and take my sunglasses off. Why is your lack of importance with routine the way I should feel about routine too. Why is the way you learn how I should learn too. Why should I just learn to put up with people and situations that cause me to hate being alive.

Why is my photographic memory and verbatim recall “not right” – why shouldn’t I use the abilities I have just because they are not standard? Why shouldn’t I focus totally on the few things that I really enjoy and am good at – its not hurting you and enables me to achieve more than you could in these areas. Why shouldn’t I spend lots of time by myself? I don’t need you to feel happy. Why shouldn’t I eat a diet primarily consisting of 10 foods, its probably not any more unhealthy than your varied diet of chips, pie, burgers, processed cereal, biscuits, sausage, fish sticks, coleslaw, cheese, canned goods and bread. Why shouldn’t I make use of information I can hear that is below the level that you can hear? Why am I rude for not wasting time discussing the weather when we both know that neither of us are interested in it? Why am I rude when I don’t interrupt you to say ‘hello’ when we can both see that I am here and a smile will suffice to communicate my emotional status? Why do you think im taking on more than I can handle with working full time and studying full time when neither will actually take me 40 hours to do. Why am I antisocial to not subject myself to the chaos and overload associated with attending class and going drinking with work colleagues? Whats wrong with me having multiple items of identical clothing – at least I feel comfortable and look ok. I like my 12kg blanket the same way you like your feather duvet, please stop making comments about how im going to wake up squashed flat one day – those comments have gotten rather old. I find it relaxing to bounce my foot, tap my hand, cant control the twitches and tics and have no problem with the hyperactivity.

I spend enough of my life trying to make sense of you and figure out what you are wanting from me. Why wont you help me when I try to understand you? Why do you not want to make your requests directly, why wont you just tell me that you are upset or angry or frustrated, if I knew I would be able to respond better.

Don’t tell me that my only problem in life is that I don’t try hard enough, that I don’t put in enough effort, that I’m not tolerant enough of others. You don’t know what its like being me, you don’t know how hard I try, how much effort I put into doing things you don’t even need to think about, dealing with barriers you cant even begin to understand. I have been through things you will never experience, I have pushed through when others would have given up or thought I should give up. I have pushed through multiple instances of almost unbearable pain, beat starvation and sleep deprivation. I know how to put my head down and work, Ive earned everything I own. You underestimate my determination, my endurance, my strength – though you sure know how to wear them down.

“No one will define me, no one will tell me what I can achieve, no one will say I have not given all I have to give”

You have broken me, but you will not beat me.

Cogs

That's beautiful. You should publish it somewhere for general NT consumption.

Great post - can really identify with what you've written.

Great post - though I don't think I get the last line.

Very articulate - well done!

The line: "you don't know how hard I try" particularly resonates with me.

Well said and i think that most of the words ring true for a lot of us a good example of life with Autisim

Lovely.

This needs to be seen.

I once had a friend say something right to me: "you work twice as hard as everyone else to do what everyone else can easily do."

It was nice to have someone understand.

To most people

Thank you for replying to my earlier letter. I have addressed your responses below.

You tell me I need a break, however my interests are my break from life. You get in the way, telling me I’ll burn out – you have no idea what life is like for me and how much it means to be able to escape into my interests. You tell me I don’t know what Im doing – does anyone really understand living with ASD? Why do you keep seeing the very things that are important to me and work for me as wrong and in need of fixing?

You tell me you don’t see the ASD in me, the diagnosis makes no sense to you. Why does it need to make sense, why cant you just accept it and move on? Why try and figure out how to fit me to whatever you think the mould of ‘autism’ looks like. Im me, I am different from everyone else you know. I have a label on my medical record but that doesn’t change the fact that I am me. I am not the label. I do not have to explain or justify the labels applicability to me. I believe the label is correct, why cant you accept that and just get to know me as I am?

You tell me my problems are my fault. That my lack of connection with people, lack of trust, stress over changes to routine are reactions I chose. I had no support and no one who understood me, you may be right that there were alternatives to not letting people in my life however I was too young, too inexperienced with life and people, trying to deal with too much on my own and lacking in support to see any alternatives. I did the best I could. Admit that you played a part in this. You were in a position to demonstrate that people could be trusted, did care, could support me however you did not. I now know that you tried, however you didn’t get to know me well enough to be able to actually communicate your good intentions to me. I just experienced your actions which were confusing, unpredictable, which hurt and left me angry, which got in the way of me doing what I needed to look after myself and did what I could to look after myself.

You tell me I have always had options and choices and continue to always have options and choices in life. I assume then that you don’t know what its like when people get in the way, restrict your options forcing you down one path. I have a choice as to where I work, but I can only work where someone wants to be employing me. When the tradeoffs become so unbalanced its not really a choice anymore. When it’s a choice between working with the medical system and eventually getting what I need or not working with the medical system and not being able to cope with how I feel, the hyperactivity/ discomfort, depression, extreme sensory issues etc. yes there are two possible paths I could take but the payoff of each is so skewed I don’t really have a choice if I want to continue living life. Yeah, I could give up on life and I have wanted to in the past – which would solve that particular problem, however then people have a legal right to force themselves into my life – so its not as much up to me as you think.

They say that individuals are a product of their time and place. I cant control my time and place, and you do very well at limiting my ability to influence my time and place. I was born into a society I need to learn to work with. I didn’t choose to be born into the place/environment/situation I was in yet they undeniably influence my life in significant ways. I do not have the degree of choice, freedom and options that you are saying I do. As you are swept along in the tide of society you may be deluded into thinking that your life is of your own doing, under your own control, that you are all powerful over your life. Its not my place to burst your bubble, to remind you that you are who you are because of factors you don’t understand, didn’t chose and cant control, but please stop asserting that I have the same degree of freedom you think you do.

You might not have experienced it, but there is something about “ASD” which causes people to assume your not capable of things and then attempt to restrict you accordingly. Often its better not to tell people, to just come across as a very unusual person. Sometimes I feel sad that I cant be open, and let you know. However you are unlikely to know what to do with that information. Its safer for me to just let you figure that out – but I wish I could tell you, I wish you would just nod and carry on as before, I wish I could be open about who I am, I wish I could be myself around you – but I know better, those are unrealistic. I’ll filter what I say and do, try and appear enough like you for you to be willing to get along with me. I’ll wait for you to figure out things I can see instantly, I’ll let you explain something I can remember perfectly from last time because you don’t accept that I can have remembered it perfectly, I wont try to share my interests with you, I’ll cope with the stress rather than asking what is going to happen, I wont get into a routine because I know you will interfere with it and cause me too much stress. Lifes a game of knowing what to show and what to hide, finding the balance between stress and fitting in, dealing with people like you who make life this way for me. It would help things if you let me be me, let me stim, stare, study, work, go about my life.

You have told me who you think I am and who you think I should or could be. But you are wrong. You will see that I am more than you think. I am human like you. I have value and worth like you. I will not be restricted, I will not listen to you telling me who and what I am or can be. You have undoubtedly influenced my experiences in life, but I will not let you determine how I respond to those experience. I chose to fight back, I chose to live life as I want it, I chose to be who I want to be. You can see or chose not to see who I am – its up to you. But if you don’t want to get to know me, don’t try and get involved in my life. You have thrown stuff on me that people should never have to deal with. I chose to fight back, I will be stronger than what you throw at me, I will be more persistant than you can be, I will be more determined, I will get where I am wanting to go in life. Someday you may realise what you have put me through, or maybe you wont, but in the mean time please stop restricting me. Let me put my effort into moving forward and accomplishing things rather than fighting against you and your misconceptions of who I am and who I can be. I don’t need you to be making life any harder than it already is for me. But I will succeed regardless.

“No one will define me, no one will tell me what I can achieve, no one will say I have not given all I have to give”

Cogs

You are a very powerful writer, saying what I suspect many of us would like to say to most average humans. As others have said in this thread, your writing needs to be seen by society, to help others understand what many of us with ASD go through on a day-to-day basis. We can only hope it will help some of them understand us better.

Thanks for the comments, they are encouraging, I didnt expect such good feedback. I wrote these based on my own experiences with people in life, what i wish i could communicate to them. I dont know about putting it somewhere where others can see it. I also dont know if that would be helpful.

You should write a book with those types of letters and get it published.

This is a great post - I often feel the same way, especially in terms of dealing with hurt and pain. i try really really hard, especially reaching out to people for help and trying to figure out ways to get rid of the pain. Other people (who are quite NT) have a limited amount of time and can only scratch the surface. Their words help maybe 3% of the time because they live in an alien universe. A universe without convolutions, rigidities, need for sameness, fixations and other things completely alien to their world. They may experience it some but not to the same degree. They give up, as it's all about us adjusting to their world rather than accepting us for who we are. So your post is very validating.

you're a good writer....I enjoyed reading your posts.

Well honestly, the answer to most of your questions is that the world is not built for the few. That is why we have one size fits all, rather than one size fits the extraneously tall or the insignificantly small. Either of the last two would either be too tight or too loose on the many, and since most things are made by most people, and it only makes sense that majority would build to accommodate themselves, then most things are built for most people. I build projects all of the time, and honestly, I have not once put together a device made for lefties. I am right-handed and only build for myself, so my stuff is made for right-handed people. You are not wrong, just unfortunate: a square peg in a round society.

I understand what you are saying. I think im just frustrated, angry, saddened that the round society will attack, hastle, and mess with the square peg in societies attempts to jam the square peg into round holes, sand away at the square pegs nice corners and get annoyed at the square peg for being so difficult and unusual.