I was looking for the word to describe why I did so poorly
on retreats, why they terrified me, why I was absolutely miserable on all of
them. How they were just awful experiences for me, and the only thing I got out
of them was how not to cry. How I spent them in rooms of strangers and waiting forever for figuring out how all the other people were doing things that were making sense to them. How I wish I had known I could call my parents and
have them bring me home, but I had no idea that was a possibility and no idea
how to go around doing it. For a word for the explanation.
I know that word, or at least a summary of it.
But I won’t tell other people. I both desperately want to,
and am simultaneously terrified to.
I don’t want to use it to explain away excuses and failures,
to be a bad example, to give it a bad name.
There are so many times, when I am trying to explain a
social thing, where I am trying to explain how my brain does not do the thing,
or how I have complex work-arounds to allow my brain to do the thing, and I
can’t find the word.
Or more accurately, won’t use the word.
Can’t
Won’t
Can’t
Won’t
Autism. Autistic.
It would make the explanation quicker, perhaps. But I can’t
make myself use the word. Not in “real life” to physical people who actually
know who I am.
It might not be the best thing, professionally, so I can
understand on holding off on it there. But what about socially? When I am
interacting with boyfriend’s priest friend, or his Jesuit-in-training-friend
(yes, he knows a lot of priests/priests-to-be)… they are a social interaction
that is not at all connected to my professional life (most of my social life is
connected to my professional life, so I suppose it could be iffier there).
I am mad at myself for not using the word when I know it is
there.
I am mad at myself for wanting to use the word when I am not
sure if it applies to me, or if I have a real claim, or if people would think I
don’t have a real claim.
I am confused and tired and stressed.
I know the word, why can’t I use it?
I know it is tied up in ideas of disability, and that I am
afraid of the consequences of that. I would rather it be a personal failing of
me, of me not trying hard enough, of laziness, in some ways, than being a thing
I can’t do.
Shame, maybe.
I don’t want to admit I can’t do the thing.
Especially when I usually can do the thing, it just might
require a lot of energy that I might not have at the time, so it is then
laziness maybe.
Labels: asperger's, autism, autism acceptance, disability, meltdown, talking, talking problems, words