The Autistic Experience

“I struggle to hold you daily, I suffer from the burden, and I still carry you with hate and shame.”

Growing autistic, you don’t just develop a feeling of loneliness but have a disconnect with your reality and body. You somatize your pain and suffering. When all bodies look a certain way, and people feel different you alienate your body as the mystery that you have never known. And as people disable you, you internalize the feeling of inadequacy and hate felt by your society.

It took me a long time to accept my body and I still struggle to accept praise. I always saw men smaller than me as broader, less muscular as stronger and felt my body was undesired and unworthy. Every time someone complemented me, I would feel shame and like an imposter. I would not register the praise for myself and assumed they were not talking about me. The feeling so surreal that my body could be praised. My body that has been abused, sexualized, and used as a means for gratification for people who hurt me. My body that was never mine because my experience was taken from me.

Companionship, kindness, and dedication for others are high esteemed traits that I have never had the blessing of being reciprocated with. Autistic people show intimacy by sharing information about themselves and they express empathy by relating to others a story from their experiences. Every time we connect with people, and they shun us, yawn, look the other way, use their phones, and tell us to stop because we have a “tendency to go on monologues”, it sends a message to our brains that we are not wanted. We are not good enough. We are ugly. While few of us can express the pain, most of us struggle to realize the trauma we face daily. The echoes of the world silence our pride, and we internalize it to our bodies. We start hating it and the intimate parts of our life. Some of us let others abuse our bodies as they have our souls, while others harm it themselves. It is hard for us to understand that it is not our bodies that people hate but our divergence. And we don’t look ugly, but they treat us that way.