Fish Out of Water

Lydia Wayman

autisticspeaks.wordpress.com

I take in a gulp of air and shut my eyes tight before I plunge beneath the surface.

One, two, three…

It starts to feel like my brain is tingling from the inside.

Four, five, six…

I’m not counting in seconds, not in minutes, but in hours.

Seven, eight, nine…

I search for anyone, anything who will ground me through my ever-increasing internal chaos.

Ten!

When given the cue, I cannot break the surface fast enough, gasping
for breath. I’ve done this thousands of times, and yet, after
twenty-five years of daily descents, I am no more sure that I will
survive the next one.

—-

I’m really not a writer.  Writers have readers.  I write because it’s
the only way for me to get from one day to the next without
semi-spontaneous internal combustion taking effect.

I’m not a writer.  I’m a processor of the world, an organizer
of experience, and, certainly, a weaver of words. Much like typical
people have no need of the world to tune into their every thought as
they learn and grow by connecting this neuron to that one and forming
new pathways, it matters little to me whether others read the ways in
which I develop my sense of myself and the world.

My memory goes back to before my first birthday. Prior to sometime
much later, though, my memories are only sensory; I remember smells,
tastes, and sounds … the painting on the end of my crib, my sister’s
writing on the chalkboard, and smell of the air sanitizer at my daycare …
but I really cannot remember almost any my thoughts and opinions. Without a way of processing the world and my place in it, I had no means
of forming these memories.

I was an early and voracious reader. I had sight words in my second year and devoured The Hobbit in
third grade. Yet, my language development was uneven; I asked my mom
several years ago when I began to ask “how are you?” to other people,
and she responded, “Lyd, we’re still waiting.”

I taught myself to type in fourth grade and took to instant messaging
much like I take to cats and pink and Diet Mountain Dew. In middle and
high school, I would form rather close friendships with kids in my
grade online, but when we met in the hall or in class, I was absolutely
silent. I didn’t understand why I had so much language ability … and
yet, simple conversation evaded me entirely. I could lecture, for
certain, and at home, my mom was either asking me to say something,
anything, to anyone, or, conversely, for-the-love-of-all-that-is-good
please stop chattering. My sister (to this day) answers my every
conversational volley with either, “I can’t hear you! Speak up!” or,
“Geez, Lydia, I’m right here!”

I kept no friends from high school and made none in college until my
senior year. I met Leigh in late August, and one rainy evening in
mid-September during which I had dragged her to the gym with me, she
asked, “Hey, have you heard of Asperger’s?”

“Yeah,” I said. “We learned about it in one of my education classes; I think I have it.”

“Um, I know you do.”

Several months later, I met with a clinical psychologist who had
oddly-perfect teeth and a heavily-gelled comb over. I left with a
diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder. It was January 7, 2009. I was
21.

My final semester of college began just a week later, and with it, so
did the crumbling of my world. I had pushed so hard and tried to just be normal for
so long that I simply, one day, could not do it another minute. The
social and communicative demands of student teaching put so much stress
on my atypical neurology that I became violently ill. After two weeks, I
dropped student teaching in order to take an “alternative assignment”
with more support, but upon doing so, I had to forego any hopes of a
teaching license. My plans for the future had burst.

I stumbled and staggered through the months until graduation, every
moment ready to fall over the edge and into total burnout. Rather than
all at once, it came on gradually, and by the time I went home in May of
2009, I was a vacuum. Everything went in; I heard, I thought, I felt.
Nothing, nothing came out.

Nothing came out … unless my hands were on the keyboard. It became my
lifeline. I used it to communicate anything more complicated than
simple questions-and-answers for over two years.  During that time, I
also began to blog, and I was surprised when more than a few parents of
children with autism were interested in my writing. I was able to
articulate why autistic people do the things we do that strike typical
people as downright odd. “Just as a newsflash,” I would say, “I think you’re odd.”

During the last two years, I have read dozens of books about autism
and connected with others (mostly online, of course) who have it. As I
learned how my mind worked and how I could make myself more comfortable
in this world, I slowly came out of my shadowed state. My typing,
mostly in the forms of blog posts but also in books comprised of short
essays, emails, conversations, and texts, has been the lifeline that
connects my brain to this world.  Every moment I don’t spend at my
computer is like holding my breath under water.

I take in a gulp of air and shut my eyes tight before I go out for the day.

One, two, three…

I run errands with my mom.  Grocery store, Target, post office.

Four, five, six

Doctor appointment and drop off the dry-cleaning.

Seven, eight, nine…

The light, the noise is so overwhelming, it’s become unintelligible.

Ten!

Breathe.  I’m settled in my comfortable spot with my favorite blanket, with my fingers at home on their keys.

—-

Previously published at autisticspeaks.wordpress.com.