Written by Libby Banks for ASAN. This piece is for the autistic people who have been told, by themselves or others, that they are grieving i
"It means the watcher is finally off: no audience requiring a performance, no timeline imposing closure, no demand to feel a certain way by a certain date. For people who aren’t watched by default, that’s an ordinary condition; they reach it often. For many autistics, it’s rare. The audience went internal a long time ago, so emptying the room isn’t enough — the monitor has to stand down too.
"That’s why it can take years. Not because the grief wasn’t there, and not because we loved them less, but because the conditions that let grief happen for many of us — unwatched, unhurried — are the conditions we get least."
"Many autistics are demand-sensitive — not uniquely, but acutely. The body resists coercion, sometimes intensely, including when the demand comes from inside. This sensitivity sits on a spectrum, but for many of us it is integral to how we move through the world."
"By the time we’re grieving, the demand often comes from inside. Years of being watched install a watcher. You learn to monitor your own face, your own tone, your own timing – to grieve the way you’ve learned to do everything else in public: legibly."
