Ugh Gross

butch cowboys need love too!

"I woke up. The moon is full, so I send my wishes to the universe", 2021

Being autistic is this hellish little adventure where people dislike you because you’re autistic. So then they’re cruel to you. So then you learn to pick up on subtler and subtler indicators that someone dislikes you to protect yourself from their cruelty. You learn how to interpret the way their voice changes, the words they use, their body language. You pick up on it because it’s all you can do to figure out who is going to hurt you and who isn’t. And then one day you are an adult and the way other adults hurt you is covert, but you’re still picking up on those tiny signs that indicate danger. You KNOW someone doesn’t like you, but if you point it out to anyone they dismiss it. They reassure you that you’re just being insecure. Of course this person likes you, why wouldn’t they?

And it’s like, I can tell. I can always tell. I can tell by the way their face moves when they see me. I can tell by their tone of voice, the way they sound annoyed at me no matter what I say. The subtle digs. The sense that they just don’t want to be around me. I’ve spent my entire life learning how to tell what these signs mean and nobody believes me when I point them out.

And then! The fun part is when I am right! The fun part is when they are mean to me, or do something to overtly show how much they dislike me! The fun part about this is the paranoia that I am disliked never gets to fully go away because someone is always just loathing my vibe. And the best part? The vibe they hate so much is the vibe I put out by being autistic!

Hyper empathy is hard in its own way. It’s hard to not be able to shake off when I feel unwelcome or unsafe. It’s hard to feel like I am experiencing everyone else’s feelings alongside them, it’s exhausting and often means I can’t tolerate being around people who are upset.

On November 12, 1833, there was a meteor shower so intense that it was possible to see up to 100,000 meteors crossing the sky every hour. At the time, many thought it was the end of the world, so much so that it inspired this woodcut by Adolf Vollmy.