(A spoken-word poem about autistic overload)
That’s all you think you see.
A man standing quietly in a queue.
A colleague who keeps to himself.
Someone who leaves parties early.
Someone who doesn’t make much eye contact.
You think you’ve figured me out.
Because you’re looking at the mask.
The fluorescent lights humming above me.
The clock ticking behind me.
The trolley wheel that squeaks every few seconds.
The child crying three aisles away.
The conversation at the checkout.
The music through the speakers.
Someone’s keys jangling.
I hear a thousand demands fighting for space inside my head.
And there is no volume control.
Every sound arrives at once.
Every movement pulls at my attention.
Every smell insists on being noticed.
Every flicker of light scratches at the inside of my skull.
And while your brain calmly decides…
“That doesn’t matter.”
Mine refuses to let it go.
Because pretending is what I’ve spent a lifetime learning.
I rehearsed conversations before I ever had them.
Studied faces like textbooks.
Memorised what was expected…
Until acting became survival.
Because every smile is calculated.
Every gesture analysed before it’s made.
Not because I’m dishonest.
Because I’m terrified…
Then the questions begin.
“Why are you so quiet?”
“It’s only a bit noisy.”
“Everyone gets overwhelmed.”
Does their heart race because a room is simply too full?
Do they feel panic because six conversations have become sixty?
Do they spend hours afterwards replaying every sentence they spoke…
wondering if they sounded strange…
You see me struggling to answer.
You think I don’t care.
my mind has become traffic.
Every thought trying to move at once.
Every word trapped behind another.
A nervous system waving a white flag.
A mind that has carried too much…
Perhaps I become frustrated.
Perhaps I need to disappear.
Not because I want to escape you.
Because I need to survive myself.
Pretending that none of it hurt.
Pretending I wasn’t overwhelmed.
Pretending I was coping…
because that’s what the world rewards.
“You don’t look autistic.”
Because you’ve mistaken the performance for the person.
You have seen the costume.
You have applauded the actor.
You never noticed the one bleeding backstage.
that’s the greatest misunderstanding of all.
Autism isn’t always visible.
It doesn’t always announce itself.
it looks exactly like the person you judged for leaving early.
The colleague who eats alone.
The father overwhelmed in a supermarket.
The neighbour who never says much.
The stranger who avoids your eyes.
Not because they don’t care.
Not because they’re rude.
Not because they’re cold.
Because every ounce of their strength
is being spent carrying a weight…
So before you decide someone is difficult.
What if they’re carrying something invisible?
Before you call someone rude.
What if speaking is the hardest thing they’ve done all day?
Before you judge someone for walking away.
Because the strongest people I know…
They aren’t the boldest.
They aren’t the ones who never fall apart.
They’re the ones who wake every morning…
step into a world that overwhelms them…
still find the courage to keep walking.
is the weight you never see.
