The Autistic Experience

Isolated and misplaced. I was different from my conception, but I was disabled when people tried to force me into the boxes that only their minds can fathom. I have always thought of neurodivergence as a spectrum of light. We are all different and our lights infinite combination of shades. Our colours are too vibrant for this world to understand. My colours have made me different, but I have not always known to love them.

Growing in a world that is black and white and idealizes being grey, my colours are diminished and misunderstood. I am called an aberration and an abnormality. I am considered a disease and rendered disabled. A world that is without colours has always seen me too loud and has tried to silence my sound. I was perfectly functional and had it not been for the world that is shaded in grey I would have known my divergence to be a gift. We worship what is the norm and have poor tolerance for what is different. I have always sought a connection and wanted to be understood by my peers. But while I tried to understand, change, and adapt myself to their definitions and expectations, I forgot to understand myself. I forgot that in the pursuit to be connected to them I lost the connection to myself. I forced myself to be better and I still don’t believe I am good enough. I internalized the echoes of this world when it rendered me a deviant. I forgot that a peacock in a pool of pigeons may seem odd but is essential and beautiful. My divergence is what makes me unique and instead of trying to break my wings and drain my colours I need to spread my wings and show the world I am beautiful.

I am reminded every day that there are more people like me who have not accepted themselves and in trying to fit themselves in the image of this typical world, forgotten they are beautiful. They have lost the capacity to love themselves and say that they are amazing. In pursuit of normalcy, they have been disabled with their divergence. We forget that until we stop bleaching our skins of colours it is going to hurt. We lose what makes us beautiful and in trying to be like them we render ourselves disabled.