literally anything

I read an article once that claimed that 'normal' people can clock the existence of autism almost immediately, even if you're doing your absolute best to hide it. The author compared it to the Uncanny Valley effect— the fear that strikes a person when faced with something that looks and acts almost human, but something doesn't feel right. Something about fear and disgust centers in the brain, subconscious patterns of tracking eye contact, studying one's tone of voice to assess whether or not they are a threat. I am not a threat, I don't believe. 'We're much more afraid of you than you are of us', right? Spiders, little bugs and things, racing about under a little boy's shoe and praying the kid doesn't detect us and decide to bring his foot down and smash us flat.

It's quite hard for me to read faces usually, but there is something distinctly vicious in the moment it takes for a human being to decide you're not one of them. I've never been able to describe the look. Hesitation? Fear? Revulsion? The knowledge that whatever the thing is that stands in front of them, it is not like them. The rejection of the Other, to preserve the lives of the safer ones. There's something in the eyes (or is it the quirk of the mouth?), in the sly, mocking glance they send towards their friends beside them, the silent decision of let's not bother with this one, not until she annoys us. She's not enough of a person to be worth your time.

I do try hard to be human, I really do. I shower often, douse my skin and hair in scented products that leave me weighed down and itchy. I dye my hair blonder and blonder with each visit to the hair stylist, ignoring the overwhelming scent of the bleach as the hands on my head feel like they're wrapping around my throat. I curl that same hair every morning, with a knock-off Dyson Air-Wrap that I begged for when I was fourteen, because a girl at school who hates me swore by it and I want so badly to win her invisible favor. I slather my face in moisture and pigment, bring sticky metal far too close to my eyes, dab concealer here and there, and in every place that I see even the hint of a blemish. I swipe lip gloss onto my mouth, ignoring the chemical taste. I finish it all by brushing powder onto the ensemble, so it won't fade. So the facade won't flake or smear off as the day goes on.

Hell, I even speak like them. I use slang, laugh at jokes, and keep my mouth shut about grammar and spelling and the fun facts of where the word they just used came from, because no one cares about propriety, and no one cares about the Old English origins of the insults they spit. I try not to cover my ears at the smack of their lips and the click of their teeth, try not to ask them to quit it shut the fuck up when the sound of their mid-morning snack fills every crevice of the classroom and I can't focus on algebra anymore.

I find myself hating them, most days. Hating how little effort it really takes for them to act just like the rest. Hating how they hate me, how easy it is for them to brush me to the side. Hating how no one hears them laughing or sees their glares but me. Hating how only I can read their minds, how quickly I know when someone is only keeping me around because they're too polite to tell me to leave (and, trust me, their friends will hear all about it even if I don't).

Don't they see how hard I try to be like them? I have a different voice and demeanor for every person I speak to— and even then, it depends on where we are. Sometimes I get mean to the few that I suspect actually do tolerate me. Sometimes I'm too nice to the girl that just yesterday told me I should skip lunch more often (oh, yeah, did I mention skipping lunch? I do that for them, too. So that soon I'll take up less space, hopefully. So that I have something else to hold over their heads. So that I'm better than some of them, in one regard). Do they see the effort, and simply decide it's pathetic? Or do they think I'm doing this on purpose, acting weird just for the hell of it. Very few people look autistic. Most of us, however, can tell when they see it on us.

Sometimes, I do manage to make a good first impression. It's rare, but sometimes the lie is too thick for their proboscis to poke through, and they don't manage to suck out the mangled soup of humanity that I put together. I smile, nod, agree with most of (but not everything) they say. Eye contact now— look away— look back (but not too long, that's weird). Keep your voice higher than natural, but not squeaky; just enough to seem a bit daft, but friendly when it comes down to it. Do not make a face when they mention their world view, and do not mention anything about the state of the climate when they praise how warm it's been lately.

Fight to keep that smile. Never rest your face, because in their language that is known as a 'glare', and it means you do not like them. Never-mind the fact that that's right, and you actually don't like them, because that doesn't matter. You must always pretend to like someone— unless, of course, this someone happens to be you. Then it's fair game for anyone who meets you.

Is everything about me really so repulsive? Uncanny Valley, I suppose, strikes again. The only boy who ever made it known that he liked me tried to win me over by insulting me. I ignored him for a boy that was forced to hang out with me. How did I not see that coming? No one has liked ('liked', what a stupid word) me and truly said it, if anyone's ever been interested at all. I'd prefer not to care about these things, but it hurts when everyone I know has had someone crushing on them and I'm the only person I know who never really has. Because when you're not a real person, you don't get to be loved, right? Love is a state of being reserved for humanity only, sorry. Better get that one-way ticket back to Mars.

I miss when I didn't know all of this. The years before seventh grade, when it hit me like a freight train. I miss being eleven, nine, seven, five. I miss not being conscious that it was even possible to be different. I miss that gold star sticker on my workbooks, that bus ride to the host school of our Gifted program that we used to tell stories to each other on. Now, I don't mean to whine— oh, that's all I've been doing as of late, so sorry— but I find it so ironic that that little girl, me, who used to plan out her valedictorian speech now struggles to do four math problems on a worksheet.

The human brains can keep up with it. Even for those who can't, they have something else to supplement it with; they are cool, pretty, talented at something or other, athletic, normal. I have nothing but the prestige I lost years ago, the one I still cling to like an anchor that's slowly dragging me down with it to the bottom of the ocean. I'll throw the damn thing in myself if I have to, if that is what it takes for my broken bones to reshape themselves into a form that is more familiar to those around me. I'm tired of scaring people away, and even more tired of annoying them into giving up.

I've never met in-person another autistic person (non-human, they'd say) that doesn't annoy me. It's a shallow fact, but it's true. I seem to have gotten so used to pretending that I forget that the people I publicly scorn are those who I embody in the secrecy of my home. I sneer at them inwardly and treat them with the same fake, polite smile I've seen others use with me, ignoring the hypocrisy of it all. "I didn't know you were autistic!" they say, not believing me, and what I don't say is Good, no one should know. Keep on thinking I'm a liar.

This act of humanism is getting very tired. When do I rest, when will they stop throwing peanuts and jeering for me to dance? I try my best, but it's never enough. I will always be a circus freak-show, an animal created to laugh at and ridicule. There is no cage bars weak enough for me to break out of, because it's so much work… and you know, if I focus hard enough I can pretend that I like how cold the metal is against my skin. Just do this for fifty more years, they say. Cope. Meditate. If you can convince one person that you're not an impersonator of them, then that's [still not] enough.

Maybe one day I'll learn just what combination of lies will get the uncanny to crumble. Maybe, if I keep waving my arms and screaming Hey! I'm just like you! Nothing to see here— everything on display!, then one day someone will believe me.