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antiracistkaren · 4 years ago

Text

The Email I never sent.

From June 24th, 2020

Hi.

If you are getting this email, it’s because I feel the need to share this information with you. I don’t expect you to answer me, and frankly, I’m sending this to a pretty wide ranging group of folks, so if you don’t respond ever, I’m unlikely to remember or hold it against you. I’m telling you this up front so that when you open this email, you’re not on edge. I care about how you feel as you’re reading these words. I hope that you can hear my tone, a voice that you know well: one that cares a lot about you. This email isn’t carrying any anger at all, only information which, as you know I love.

You know what’s going on with my husband, and how turbulent things are right now. Well, imagine that, in the midst of that, not being able to function. Literally. Imagine breaking down in total tears in panic while on the phone with your husband’s brother (who you’re not at all sure likes you) because you’re so terrified of your own husband that you cannot speak through it, and trying to explain why you’re suddenly overcome. Then imagine trying to explain yourself, over and over, to people who keep asking, “I thought you were fine, and loving quarantine?”

Imagine discovering, the middle of your husband’s mental breakdown, that you seem to be having one of your own. How horrifying. When you’re in your room, you’re fine. In fact, it’s nice in here…

I can put on headphones and slowly organize my own room. In here, I’m safe. I can fold clothes. I can make my bed. I can bring order to the chaos inside of my room, but I cannot seem to bring order to the chaos of voices inside of my head. Usually I know exactly what my day will look like: I have it planned out from 8 AM until 8 PM. And then I get a structured hour of free time and after that I should really go to bed. (I don’t. I can’t fall asleep lately before midnight because my thoughts are clamoring in my head, and then a baby wakes up… you get it.)

Unfortunately, I cannot stay in my room. People need me outside--my husband can’t seem to handle the children on his own after he comes home from the mental institution. Mental Institution. I say those words a lot and giggle a little bit after those words every time, especially when I am alone. I never thought I would be saying those words out loud, much less out loud in a house that we somehow live in with kids I’ve somehow had with my own body and a husband who is in a mental institution.

But anyway, as I was saying--I do that, going off on little thought tangents all the time--my partner can’t seem to handle the kids without me. That’s odd to me because I’m not special, and I’ve somehow done it before and have lost that skill somewhere, but he needs me, so I put myself together (in the wrong order) and wear my Happy Mommy mask until bedtime, when I collapse into a gigantic ball of emotion.

I’m confused, my husband is confused, and all of the kids are scared. I can see how scared we all are, the whites around our eyes showing. Anthony is cut by me, my anger, my emotion, my white-hot truth-telling tongue seems to be cutting him all over. And then I see my kids cut him, and seeing Anthony get harmed by me, by my kids, it spirals me down all over again. I can’t even mention my partner, who seems to handle me like I’m just made up of sharp edges. I feel like a … butterfly knife or something. Something sharp and dangerous and very deadly in the hands of someone skilled with it.

Looking back, this Autism pattern fits neatly over my whole life. It’s so strange though… because...

Ah, here’s the best example: become aware that you’re breathing.

Please. Just do it. Think about the fact that you’re breathing. You do it all the time. You don’t think about it, right? Unless I tell you to.

What if I told you that I had to think about breathing in order to breathe? That my whole life, I thought everyone had to think about breathing. That we were all just together in a room, y’all breathing without thinking about it, and me--watching you breathe and imitating the breathing motion, thinking that I am required to operate that way in order to stay alive. No one told me that breathing is automatic, so why would I mention to other people how I’m breathing?

It has come to my attention that I am unique, which is weird, so here’s what it’s like:

Every single day I am aware of every word, facial expression, vocal tone, and hand gesture. I have spent my life carefully curating a personality based on imitating those around me that I love. That radio voice I use on the mic? Classic Ron--finding my lower register and leaning into the mic. The way I read Geeks rules? That’s Josh, who showed me that being quirky and having a big personality can be leveraged on stage in order to BE on stage. My mom taught me quick-witted insults to hurl back at kids who were mean to me. I built a personality based on other people that I thought would serve me best, and I think I’ve done fairly well considering I’m still alive and fairly happy. Or I was, until the quarantine.

You see, every single day, deep in the recesses of my mind, always running like a little motor in the background is the program “Fear of Being a Bad Person”. Every move I make is processed through this motor and filter in the back. Everything I say or text, emojis I use, all of this, is processed through a “I’m trying to be a Good Girl” filter.

When I was young, I didn’t think I was a Bad Person.

When I was in preschool, I was lauded. I had friends. I remember my friends Jason and Summer to this day. I remember feeling safe and cozy in my elementary school in Wetumpka, Alabama. I remember my mother ensuring that I was put into an advanced class in kindergarten. Teachers could tell that there was something different about me, but also, they couldn’t handle my fidgeting, my impatience with kids not being fast as I was to know the answer. I would roll my eyes, make faces at the other kids, get up--because I knew all this stuff anyway--and go away from circle time. That was Bad.

And then suddenly I spent most of my day with older kids. I got to do Tangrams, write plays, dress up and hang out with kids who seemed to accept that I was a bit smarter, a bit different. My mom fought for that for me, every time.

But then my mom got remarried. Moving mid-year in 2nd grade was difficult. I didn’t understand the new kids, the nuance at the school. I didn’t know who could be my friend. I didn’t understand the wealth gap. By the time middle school came around, I was regularly teased for the clothes I wore. I would cry to my mother about the teasing and she would throw up her hands, confused and furious because I had picked these clothes out. I would alternate between starving myself and eating furiously and crying when I got home from school. I would wear baggy clothes because boys would pop my bra strap, and make unwanted comments about my body. Suddenly my outspokenness made me a target. Boys started to touch me without me wanting them to, and I didn’t understand why. I also couldn’t seem to make it stop, no matter how baggy my clothes were.

Once I told my mother about a boy grabbing me on the bus, and I am talking about hand between my legs and squeezing at my vagina as I walked off the bus to my house, and she told the principal. I was forced to confront the boy and his mother in a locked room… his mother, who sat across from me and called me a slut and a liar. I have a very hard time being called a liar.

I don’t lie. I really don’t want to. If I am being forced to lie, it is because I believe social nuance demands it. I don’t really like your new haircut, but I’m required to lie about it because telling the truth is rude, in that situation. I’ve learned these boundaries by repeatedly being punished (through embarrassment in public and repetition).

So you can see how it might be tough for me to hold a job when I make off-the-cuff comments in meetings like “If we care about diversity so much, how come we don’t have any students of color or low-income students in our most expensive residence hall?”

And, “Are you kidding?! Tornadoes just ravaged Tuscaloosa. If I had extra money to give, and I don’t, I’m not going to give money to the this scholarship fund.” (This was after the deadly tornadoes ripped through my home town--because Tuscaloosa was my home, and I couldn’t believe that I was being asked to donate to the scholarships of rich, mostly white, kids when the Black community in Tuscaloosa was in literal rubble.)

Is it any wonder that I couldn’t seem to stop making mistakes in detail work, which I’m not interested in? Doesn’t it make sense that you’ve seen me not be able to sit when I’m playing board games that I’m excited about? That I get so nervous if there’s a scoring error during quiz, I drop my papers? That although I love public speaking, my hands shake uncontrollably?

A repeated phrase through my life has been “I know you’re a smart girl, why can’t you get this?”

If I am a Smart Girl… why can’t I seem to understand people? I guess I can’t really be a Smart Girl. So I guess I should stay home with my kids since I can’t seem to hack it out in the “real world.”

Imagine my relief when my psychiatrist spotted me immediately. I think my brain is completely broken. I am telling everyone I run into that my brain is broken because I don’t know who can help me. I can’t get it together because the person I’ve hyper focused on for the past 7 years isn’t around--and even though he is home now, he is different and I am different and together we aren’t the same.

Imagine my relief when my psychiatrist lets me in on a secret that other people are just breathing naturally, that it’s not my fault that I have to work so hard. Imagine figuring out that all of those times that I was touched without consent, made to feel stupid, made to feel less than, screamed at, rejected, and put on performance plans and forced to fight for your right to have a job and speak the truth… that it wasn’t because I was deficient… it’s just because I am different.

I had piled on mountains of guilt for hurting people’s feelings. Those moments of embarrassment and shame in my life are vivid memories, and they read in my brain like well-worn books. I take them out and remember them, literally read about them, (I write a lot about these moments in my journals) so that I can make sense out of them. I’ve gotten smarter over the years because I’ve allowed myself to learn how to type as fast as I think. And then I can pour out all of these thoughts on paper, edit them and use them to communicate.

I used to spend hours as a kid in my room, writing, coping with how difficult my life was by getting outside of myself and drawing conclusions, writing poetry, acting, performing music. I’ve lost all the time to do any of those things, and that is why I am completely breaking down.

I am Autistic. I’ve always been autistic. If you have met me in the past 4 years, this is a shock. You’ve only known me as a surprising stay at home mom in your life. Yeah, I’m a little weird, but I’m Fun! Right? That’s on-brand for a stay at home mom, I’ve learned.

So if you’re getting this and you’ve met me since 2016, I have to say you don’t know me very well. The people who have made it the long haul, the folks I’ve known since Alabama, they’re seeing a return to the norm for me. This is normal ol’ weird Sam and, yeah, she’s intense but we love her. I’ve told many of my Alabama people first, and you know what they say? “Oh yeah, I can see that… but I mean, you’re still YOU. You’ve always been this way!”

It seems like it’s, well, my newer whiter wealthier friends who are struggling with this. I think it is because Autism has been presented to us [human beings] as a deficiency, and sure, yes, I am deficient in some ways. But to me, it’s like being free. I am free to be honest about not understanding, and you are free to believe me. You’re free to not be scared to say, “Sam, you’re going on about this social justice thing…” because I understand now that I monologue.

I am certain this is me. I am finally seen and understood, and I can see and understand. I’m sharing this with you because I want you to see and understand me. If I have hurt you in the past, I promise you, it was blindly and unintentional. I feel love very intensely, and if I’ve sent this to you, it is because I love you and I consider you safe.

Through all of my life, my faith has been an underpinning of my making sense of this world too, and it will continue to do that for me. I was wonderfully and fearfully made, and I am loved by my creator, and I am an autistic woman. I hope that you can accept that diagnosis with me.

#autism #actuallyautistic #autisticadult #autisticpride #mentalhealth #socialjustice

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