Crosses to Carry
being autistic has always been strange to live with, everything that comes with it. the constant feeling of not quite understanding the rules everyone else seems to follow automatically, knowing you’re supposed to be honest but also learning that being too honest can make people angry and realizing that sometimes people expect you to soften the truth or even lie a little, because that’s what society considers normal.
It feels like there are rules everyone else learned somewhere that i never fully received, and i try to follow them anyway
sometimes i get it right. a lot of times i don’t
the internet makes it worse, as usual
People see a small part of you and think they understand everything, but they don’t see the way my family has known me my entire life, the doctors who evaluated me, the therapists who talked with me for hours, the hospitals i’ve been in, the people who actually know how i function day to day
those people see a very different picture than strangers online
What I struggle with the most is the question of purpose, in church we talk about crosses we carry a lot, things God allows someone to carry in their life
suffering, illness, difficulties that don’t really make sense at first, sometimes they say those crosses have meaning even if we don’t understand it yet
but, i wish i understood this one, because if i’m honest, i don’t see the logic behind it most of the time.
I don’t understand what good comes from constantly feeling out of place, from always being the strange one in the room, from trying to learn social rules that seem to keep changing
Most times really do wish i had just been born normal
I keep hearing and reading people say that God doesn’t make mistakes, that every cross has a purpose, that suffering can shape you into something better, but when you’re the one carrying it, it’s hard not to ask why this one specifically
i don’t want to sound ungrateful either. i know there are people who carry much heavier crosses. my body works. i can walk, i can talk, i can see, i can smell, i can breathe without thinking about it. i know that’s a blessing. i just don’t understand why this part still feels so hard to live with sometimes
why this way of thinking, why this way of feeling things too strongly or not understanding them at all. why the constant confusion about things that seem effortless for everyone else?
I look at other people talking about autism online and they say they’re proud of it, that it’s just a different way of thinking and that the world should adjust, and i don’t feel like that at all.
i feel like i’ve spent my whole life trying to adjust myself instead, i just want things to make sense, i want conversations to make sense and i want people to say what they mean and mean what they say so i don’t have to spend hours afterward wondering if i misunderstood something again
i know the internet doesn’t know me. they don’t know the years of doctors and therapy and confusion and trying to learn things everyone else seemed to pick up naturally. they see a fragment and they decide what kind of person i must be and somehow that fragment always ends up being the wrong one.
I don’t understand the world i am in very well. i don’t understand people very well. and i don’t really understand why this is the cross i’m supposed to carry either.
Maybe one day it will make sense, i hope for it.