Autism Doesn’t Exist in My Other Life

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Abstract

mal. In that life I’m normal. Every now and then I’m even happy.</p><p id="32fa">Sometimes parts of the life I’ve invented spill over into the one I physically inhabit. I find myself making moments I genuinely had with my dad more special, more like what I wanted them to be, because he’s not here anymore and we can’t make any new moments. I need to try and believe that he was proud of me, that he liked me, because I truly don’t know if he was, or he did. He loved me…because I was his daughter. But I don’t know if he liked me. And it’s too late to ask him now, so I invent what I have always desperately wanted.</p><p id="70c5">I am not confrontational by nature. I have never been any good at defending myself. I find myself retreating into my imaginary life when someone confronts me. The more they push, the farther I disappear into myself. It takes quite a while before I re-emerge. If I feel unsafe, I stay hidden in order to protect myself.</p><p id="bd55">I force myself to walk a very fine line between what constitutes my imaginary life, my actual life and how difficult it can be to distinguish between the two. It can be as simple as me not wanting to deal with what is occurring in my actual life, because I have no control over what happens there.</p><p id="f325">I’m not entirely sure how to wrap up what I’ve written. Mostly because I can’t say that I’ve stopped living the life that only

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exists for me. If I could say that I “made the choice” to only live in the “real” world, it would be the best-case scenario for someone who’s “ill.” It would mean that I was getting better and that would make the people around me feel better. I wish I could give that to them. But the part of me that created that other life isn’t sick, it is neurologically different. There isn’t “a cure” for what I’ve got, and I don’t think there needs to be. This being “Autism Awareness” month, it might help if the world was aware that there doesn’t need to be a cure because it’s not a disease. Would I be so good at rewriting history if I wasn’t autistic? I don’t know and I don’t think it matters. Not to me. I’ve already rewritten so much of it.</p><div id="0145" class="link-block"> <a href="https://medium.com/@dogwithbooks/membership"> <div> <div> <h2>Join Medium with my referral link - Natalie Forrest</h2> <div><h3>As a Medium member, a portion of your membership fee goes to writers you read, and you get full access to every story…</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*Z1SLk8wn5pWurQmA)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div></article></body>

Autism Doesn’t Exist in My Other Life

I have a tendency to rewrite history. I do it so well that I can nearly convince myself that what I’ve made up really happened. I’m not sure if this goes along with over 40 years of masking. I haven’t had anyone tell me that they do the same thing. But then, I haven’t asked because I don’t know if I really want to know.

I’ve convinced myself that masking for so long broke part of my brain and I started to reinvent what had happened in my life up to that point as a result. I’m that good at lying to myself.

I’ve almost stopped masking, but I haven’t stopped lying to myself. I have a whole other life that I live inside my head. My family looks at me and sees me sitting on the sofa with them, watching television, but inside my head I am an entirely different person, in an entirely different place, living a life that in no way resembles the one I actually exist in. A life where I am witty and interesting and good looking and confident and normal. In that life I’m normal. Every now and then I’m even happy.

Sometimes parts of the life I’ve invented spill over into the one I physically inhabit. I find myself making moments I genuinely had with my dad more special, more like what I wanted them to be, because he’s not here anymore and we can’t make any new moments. I need to try and believe that he was proud of me, that he liked me, because I truly don’t know if he was, or he did. He loved me…because I was his daughter. But I don’t know if he liked me. And it’s too late to ask him now, so I invent what I have always desperately wanted.

I am not confrontational by nature. I have never been any good at defending myself. I find myself retreating into my imaginary life when someone confronts me. The more they push, the farther I disappear into myself. It takes quite a while before I re-emerge. If I feel unsafe, I stay hidden in order to protect myself.

I force myself to walk a very fine line between what constitutes my imaginary life, my actual life and how difficult it can be to distinguish between the two. It can be as simple as me not wanting to deal with what is occurring in my actual life, because I have no control over what happens there.

I’m not entirely sure how to wrap up what I’ve written. Mostly because I can’t say that I’ve stopped living the life that only exists for me. If I could say that I “made the choice” to only live in the “real” world, it would be the best-case scenario for someone who’s “ill.” It would mean that I was getting better and that would make the people around me feel better. I wish I could give that to them. But the part of me that created that other life isn’t sick, it is neurologically different. There isn’t “a cure” for what I’ve got, and I don’t think there needs to be. This being “Autism Awareness” month, it might help if the world was aware that there doesn’t need to be a cure because it’s not a disease. Would I be so good at rewriting history if I wasn’t autistic? I don’t know and I don’t think it matters. Not to me. I’ve already rewritten so much of it.