Dear Normal People

Dear Normal People,

 I’m a fighter, I fight the world. 

Everytime I step out into the world I have to fight against all that assaults my senses. Very often I don’t understand what people mean when they speak . So when interacting I fight the urge to turn my back and run away. I piece together in my mind bits and pieces of the  world I exist in and try to make a collage that I feel represents the reality around me , or my best guess of the reality around me.

I have a high IQ, I present a person to you that likely seems as normal as any other you may have encountered so you don’t know I’m clueless and have no idea what it is your trying to tell me, not at first anyway.

I have complex ideas that exist in images in my mind that move so much faster than language ever could. This makes it incredibly difficult for me to articulate to you in words everything that I have attached to any idea in my mind so what I am able to share with you of my ideas makes no sense to you.

I can excel in your world for periods of time, but not indefinitely. I can do one thing better than most anyone. That one thing can be a lot of different things but I can’t do more than any one thing at a time very well.

When overloaded with too much input my ability to achieve at a high level is diminished and I seem less than intelligent or lazy to you.

The barrier of communication my autism presents is so very frustrating to me. I don’t understand how you cannot comprehend the world around us as I do. 

You make rules and don’t write them down, then change them whenever you like. To me the concept of a rule is that you are suppose to follow the rule, not interpret it.

When I try to tell you I am different your reaction makes me feel you think me weak minded. It feels to me you don’t empathize with me. 

My perception is the thought of someone thinking differently from you isn’t something you will acknowledge, as if you’d rather assume you are just superior to me.

I’ve been fighting to achieve success in your world , by your rules , my entire life. Never achieving that success and ultimately having to run away and change everything in my life, again and again, because I am not made for your world or your rules.

I am a survivor, I have to be. I can’t go somewhere that my nuero type is the most common because that place doesn’t exist.

I need your help. I need you to understand that I am different from you. I’m not better , I’m not worse but I am different.

My mind considers things that yours doesn’t. This isn’t a choice for me. I have suffered great anxiety for my entire existence because of my difference not being accepted by the majority of you. 

The answer isn’t for me to act like you or be more like you. The answer , for me , is for you to recognize and accept me. Without this , the pain of my existence will always be there. The pain isn’t from the way my mind thinks. It’s from being separated from you.

Understanding, inclusion and acceptance is what will make me and our world whole.