me

Blog I use to write.

Autistic, ADHD, OCD and other various intertwined stuff

Freshman year I went paranoid dissociation bonkers and sophomore year I had medication induced mania. Can't wait to see what junior year brings!!

Generally I'm worried my autistic burnout will get worse. Last year I was having meltdowns near daily, public verbal shutdowns, and significant social exhaustion.

However, now when I go into public and talk to people I've completely forgotten to mask

Was checking out after shopping. The cashier told me my total was, "$46." And I was surprised, so my autistic ass blurted out, "46 DOLLARS?!" Just kind of immediate, loud, and too shocked right back at her face. It wasn't rude just surprised (and I was making intense eye contact) In my head, I was immediately like oh my god why did I do that.

It was probably slightly rude to her and only embarrassing to me (constrained within the background knowledge that I usually have more inhibition in public)

Sometimes after I eat I can still smell and taste it.

The oils soaked into the skin above my lip. My peach fuzz surrounding the greasy remains, lightly brushing my nose as I wrinkle my face. A jellylike film coating my tongue, leaving a vague aftertaste. Sometimes I can't tell if I'm smelling the taste in my mouth or tasting the air in my nose.

It drives me crazy. It makes me want to dig my nails into my palms. If that doesn't work I sometimes pick at the skin around my nailbeds, peeling off the now dead skin.

It isn't a big deal. I get into the shower after dinner and scrub my face with a bar of soap. After I dry off the horrid food grease is replaced by less horrid bar soap residue. I then vigorously brush my tongue. It'll feel weirdly devoid of moisture. The area around my mouth both waxy from soap and pinpricked from minty toothbrush foam.

When you love something beyond yourself, you don't change. That love offers support, and reciprocity. But your baseline doesn't waiver when it leaves.

However, you can love something as an innateness. The definition of who you are. Everything else in your life will make room for it because it will become your baseline. Soon your sense of self, values, and actions will revolve around it. It will write your story. Predetermining the time you spend or don't spend on others. It'll become all you think about, your truth.

I don't recommend doing this with a person. I don't recommend doing this with anything.

However, for a monotropic brain sometimes this is a necessity. A source of regulation.

People are different though. Another person can't nest inside you. If they do, it's parasitic. No matter how hard you stare, they will never be your reflection in the mirror.

Chronic fatigue doesn't describe it. It doesn't explain that feeling when the atoms that are my bed and legs are no longer sensually tangible. It doesn't explain the gentle pressure of my skull around my eyes. The churning desire to stretch my legs until my muscles are taut. The inability to do so. 

I want to study until my fingers can no longer peel off the pencil. I want to make connections between everything I know. I want to sit in that library until my eyes burn. Until my inner voice is replaced by unwavering academic narration.

But would I leave myself synthetic? Is that an unhealthy coping mechanism or is it exactly what I need? What if I burn out and my determination slithers from within my ribcage. Or would it be exactly what I need to cure my burnout? Would it cure my exhaustion or leave my sense of self nothing but its extensions. 

There's good buzzing and bad buzzing. Right now my brain feels like a loading screen, elevator music, or liminal space. When I talk I respond too slow then stutter. My tangled tongue catches the first or last letter of what I need to say, but not my intent.

Unless it's my interest. Then my words are steady and quick. My brain jumps beyond the speaker and sputters impatiently for its turn to talk. Does that make me a one trick pony or does it make me passionate? 

The desire to encompass myself in my interests could backfire. I could feel anxious by the otherworldly expectation and fail to initiate. If I want something so big, no moment feels equally big enough to start.

I cry every day. Sobs and gasps deep with precedent. I like to imagine my tears as an extension of me. My greatest fears and regrets; I dry against my cheeks and forewarn my next migraine.

Emptiness isn't equivalent to numbness. People always get this wrong. I don't feel numb, my emptiness is deeply painful. My emptiness starts in my head, soon I've infected my entire body. Like a parasite; I expand within me and interrupt my own body's function.

My body screams: "I'm misaligned; I'm unhealthy." I know my experience is unreliable. Every good day is clouded by depression and shattered by overstimulation. Every social interaction: ruined by avoidancy; barred by a battery that cannot be defibrillated.

I step outside; my brain expands until my ears bleed. My eyes shake, I try to withstand the overstimulation, but I get home and feel the consequence over every inch of my consciousness.

Look down at your body. You're not flesh. You aren’t even in control of your mind. Chemicals are off balance and you will lose your eyes. Lose your perception, and all of a sudden you’re invincible.

Sometimes I wake up and look at my legs curled beneath my thighs. The hair emerging from my flesh is so still. It doesn’t think it just is. And then I think,

Oh god I have to wake up again tomorrow,

I can't sleep all day I have to think,

but I can’t think anymore.

Thoughts in my head all overlap. Merge and diverge. I cannot think and I repeat words-- I have to push past me. Is it me?

I close my eyes and see light behind them.

My eyelids a window into my soul I can feel my life fading.

My brain is trapped in a haze.

My skin folds beneath my touch as I press down.

A tenderness speaks from beneath my hull and I remember I'm human.

The follicles on my head object as I wake them from their sleep.