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cosmicnuisance · 1 year

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Sometimes I find myself sitting down, wishing for One Thing.

One Thing to look back at and say, this is what caused it. This is the route factor. The One Thing which caused the pain. The illness. The endless doctor's appointments. The worried looks. The long talks. The eggshell walking.

One Thing. To explain the shaking. The anxiety. The panic attacks. To explain the sleeplessness and the scars. To explain all these responses I have to minute occurrences.

One night, I talk to my friend. We're sleeping on the sofa as I explain to her the voices. The actions that weren't my own. The feeling of being on autopilot. She tells me, you're dissociating in those moments. That's what it is. It's a trauma response.

But, I tell her, I'm not traumatised. So I can't be experiencing a trauma response to trauma that never happened. I have loving parents. Who love me and each other. I've always had friends. I am loved and supported in my interests and pursuits.

Sure, I tell her, maybe my parents took a while to come around to the LGBT stuff, and hey, maybe they haven't learned to accept the trans thing, but they're there. And they haven't kicked me out, or stopped loving me, or stopped treating me they way they always have. Maybe I got teased a bit in high school, but nothing extreme. Definitely not enough to count as trauma.

At 2am in the morning, I stare into the sorrow as she looks at me and tells me.

“Growing up neurodivergent in a neurotypical world is a traumatic experience.”

Growing up queer in a cisgender, hetero-normative society is traumatising.

And I stop. And I laugh it off and we move on to another topic.

But.

I keep thinking about it.

“Growing up neurodivergent in a neurotypical world is a traumatic experience.”

And I think back. To the childhood I remember in a haze. To the kids I surrounded myself with and called friends. I think about them. I think about how they never tried to really learn about my interests, other than sitting while I talked about them. I think about how they never stood up for me when I got made fun of by the boys in our year, and the years above, for liking a "babies show".

It was Pokemon. I was in primary school.

I think about how our "friendship" fizzled out the second we left for high school. They were all going to the same high school. I wasn't.

And that was that.

I think about the little girl who got along better with the boys. I think about her best friend at the time who said he liked her. I think about how for years beforehand everyone had teased them for "dating".

We were 10. The only thing I was interested in was drawing cats and reading books.

I think about how she told him she liked him too. I think about how she thought she was being truthful. Because she did like him. He talked to her, and dug up worms with her without calling her gross, and he knew more about Pokemon than anyone else in their class. So she said "yes." She told them they could be boyfriend and girlfriend.

I think about how they never kissed. How really, everything they ever did was platonic. How she had been so conditioned into being forbidden from touching a boy unless they were dating. How she was never taught to express love for a friend. How she didn't know the difference between platonic and romantic feelings.

I think about how their first "date" was going to the cinema. How her mother sat beside them the whole time. They called each other boyfriend and girlfriend and held hands and hugged each other goodbye every day and got each other Valentine's gifts.

Then, a month into high school, just a few months after the whole thing started, they broke up. I think about how they hadn't met up in months. He barely messaged her. She told him she didn't want to be his girlfriend anymore.

Years later, and she hears he told everyone she dumped him because he got glasses.

She had glasses.

I think about how I was 8 when I got my autism diagnosis. I was 8 when the doctor appointments started.

I was 17 when they stopped.

I was 9 when my teacher pulled me to the side. I was 9 when he looked at me and said he didn’t think I should put what I had on my introduction for the wall.

I was 9. I wrote that I liked to draw and climb trees. I wrote that I had Asperger’s Syndrome.

Because that’s what I was told. That was the big label they smacked on my file.

I don’t use that term now. I understand the history. The pain that happened to get it. And I refute it. I am autistic. Autism. That is what I have. There is not high-functioning, No low-functioning. No specific labels to sort the “good” autistics from the “bad” autistics. Because there are none. There are autistic people and non-autistic people. That's it.

I was 9 when my teacher told me I shouldn’t announce it to everyone. That I should try and hide it.

I didn’t. I wrote that shit down and I got it stuck to the fucking wall.

And kids read it. And they asked me what it meant. They thought I was sick. Then disabled. I hated that. I wasn’t disabled, I said. I was just like them, but more awesome, I told anyone that asked.

And yeah. I was more awesome than them. But I was also disabled. Even if I didn’t want to admit that out loud, or even to myself.

“Growing up neurodivergent in a neurotypical world is a traumatic experience.”

I repeat it to myself as a mantra. As I think back.

I think about when a mother placed a hat on their kid’s head fresh from the dryer. How it was warm and far too big. How that kid put a badge on it and proudly declared that it was her hat now. Covered it in button badges and wore it to school every day. How she wore it everywhere. Around the house. In school. Going to restaurants. In the middle of summer they walked around wearing an adult man’s thermal hat weighed down with metal button badges like it was armour. And in a way it was.

Every day she walked into class with that hat. Every day, she was told to take it off. And didn't. Couldn't. The hat kept her safe. She needed that hat like a limb.

I think about how the hat was a comfort item. Still is a comfort item. Maybe it doesn’t get worn every day, but it’s still there. Sewn up and fraying at the seams. But they will always have that hat.

I think about every time a teacher told her to take it off. I think about every raised voice, every pinch of the eyebrows, every exasperated sigh she received. I think about every time she was told to stop fidgeting. To sit properly. To pay attention. I think about how she was still the smartest damn kid in that class when she never paid attention in the way she was told to. The way she was forced to. How she drew in all the margins. How she read books in maths and wrote them in English. How she desperately wanted to fit in, but still wanted to be herself.

I think about how she never consciously masked. How she was always too quiet or too loud, and definitely always, always too weird. Strange. But she paid attention to the little things. The way the girls talked. How they interacted to each other. What they liked. I think about how she never understood it. But she mimicked it. She learned to stand like them, play like them, and talk about boys with them- how they were annoying. How she hated them. How she wanted this one to be her boyfriend. I think about her being put on the spot and pressured into giving up the name of the boy she liked. I think about how no one believed her when she said there was none. I think about how she chose the name of the boy who she was “rivals” with.

I think about the scars on her shins that have long since faded. I think about the concerned looks and hushed voices.

I think about how the first time she hurt herself wasn’t standing over a sink with a razor blade slicing into her arms like in the movies. I think about the little kid furiously trying to cut her nose off with her duvet cover. The kid walking around with a friction burn over her face for weeks. The kid scratching at her legs like she was trying to dig something out.

I think about how she was taken back to the doctors. The forcefully cheery rooms with the forcefully cheery woman. Who wanted to know. Who wanted an explanation as to why a bubbly, loving and loved for kid was mutilating themselves in any way they could.

She didn’t get an answer.

How was an 8 year old supposed to explain something so complex? To say it felt good? To say they didn’t know? To explain they were punishing themselves for being different, being an outsider, being weird?

The kid spent months talking to her. She chalked it up to a sensory issue stemming from autism. She showed her how to make stress balls from balloons and flour. She sent them off with a wave and another inch to the growing file.

I think about how the pixie cut she got when she was 7 paired with the hand-me-down trousers of her brother’s got that girl mistaken so often for a boy. How the kid’s refusal to wear skirts or dresses got her labelled a “tomboy”. I think about the lady who mistakenly called her by a boy’s name. I think of how that name stuck. How often that kid got teased and laughed at and called a boy. Of how much she hated it, because of course she wasn’t a boy. Of course she wasn’t. That wasn’t possible. I think about how really, she didn’t mind being called a boy. I think about the time her brother’s teacher asked her mother to “control her youngest son” when she sat in on a meeting. How she hated him for wanting her to sit still. How she was thrilled at the belief she was a boy. How she smiled quietly at her mother’s lack of correction.

How she sat still for the rest of the meeting to make sure her mother didn’t bring it up again.

I think about how she just hated the teasing. Being seen as different. Being the outsider once again. I think about how she finally had a reason to point to why people teased her. About how she wouldn’t get a single haircut for the next 4 years.

I think about the first person she met who liked the same things she did. I think about how much time they spent together. How they depended on each other. How toxic that became.

I think about how at the raw and tender age of 13 that movie-moment happened. Under the cover of darkness with a sharpener and a screwdriver. I think about the obsessive tally marks on skin and paper. The lack of reasoning for drawing the blade over and over again. I think about how they went months without being discovered. I think about the obsessive counting of the scars.

15. 32. 40.

And then they were back in that doctors office again.

I think about the first woman, who lasted three sessions total, once a month. Then the next. Another three sessions. Then the man, who cancelled their third appointment and never rescheduled.

I think about them being tossed like a hot potato from therapist to therapist. I think about how they could never build up trust with them. I think about how unwanted they felt. How hopeless did you have to be to be unwanted by the people who were supposed to help?

52. 64. 72.

I think about the confusion and the fear and the sadness from going through puberty. I think about how much hatred they aimed towards themselves for it. How many names and flags and genders they cycled through to feel like they fit. To feel right.

I think about how they never did.

I think about his parents who were there every step of the way. I think about his mother who confiscated all of his sharpeners. I remember him thinking about the irony of being an artist unable to sharpen his tools.

I think about the years of sleepless nights. The nightmares. The sleep-talking. The days where he felt he was on autopilot. The stories from his mother of childhood night terrors and hours of screaming on end.

I think about the voice in their head. I think about the body it belonged to. I think about all the times he was in control. I think about the times they watched him sit on the end of their bed and whisper all their worst insecurities and self-hatreds to them. I think about the times he held their hand when they were scared and told them they would be okay. I think about how no one ever saw or heard him except them. I think about how they had always known he wasn’t real. I think about how real he is to them.

I think about their high school career. Five years of hell. I think about the homework. The exams. The refusal of breaks. The notes about behaviour from teachers. The being singled out in class for fidgeting. The ban on fidget toys. The stares. The remarks. The teasing. I think about the face of bravado and the easy laughs and the dark humour shared with friends. I think about the shoebox on a wardrobe filled with notes passed in class. I think about the relationships made and the ones shattered.

I think about the best friend who turned out to be a creep. Who broke their trust so wholly that they didn’t think they would be able to trust again. All the days of shared classes where hearing his voice gave them panic attacks. Where looking at him made their lungs shrivel.

I think about comments made and the ones unsaid. I think about all the relationships broken from secrecy. I think about queer kids who were terrified to admit it to anyone. Who only shared their pain with those who understood. With those who were the same. I think about queer kids planning how to move out as soon as they could. Queer kids making safety plans for when they came out. Queer kids finding family in each other. Queer kids who run away. Queer kids who don’t.

I think back to the 7 year old crying when her mother found a backpack in their wardrobe filled with clothes and chocolate bars. I think about that kid’s plan to run away. How she didn’t want to. How she didn’t understand the need to. How she felt the need anyway.

I think about the 13 year old’s plans to run away. I think about their whispers under covers to friends who would shelter them. I think about how they never went through with it.

I think about the pills.

I think about the first ones. I think about the blue ones. I think about the capsules. I think about the powdery dry replacements. I think about the ones split in half. I think about the ones from bottles and the ones from strips.

I think about the ones sat beside the sink and the ones sat beside the bed.

I think about her words.

“Growing up neurodivergent in a neurotypical world is a traumatic experience.”

I think about how much I wish that were wrong.

I think about how much I know it isn't.

I think about the trauma of being different. I think about the trauma of being autistic. I think about the trauma of being queer.

I mourn the loss of my childhood as I look back at all the trauma that permeated it. I think about how many queer kids will never realise what happened was trauma. I think about how many neurodiverse kids will never realise what happened was trauma.

I think about how I never realised what happened was trauma.

I think about kids who lived through it. Kids who didn’t. Kids who survived the system. Kids who were failed by it.

I think about the 7 year old kid with the pixie cut.

The 8-year old with the new diagnosis.

The 9 year old in the waiting room.

I think about the 10 year old with friction burns on their face and legs.

The 11 year old making stress balls from balloons and flour.

The 12 year old finding a friend.

I think about the 13 year old with the fresh scars.

The 14 year old who tried to explain them.

I think about the 15 year old who overdosed.

The 16 year old who survived.

I think about the 17 year old who was discharged because they aged out.

I think about all the kids who didn’t.

And then I stop. And I breathe. And I think about the 18 year old who is here. The 18 year old who is now.

The 18 year old who is traumatised. Because growing up neurodiverse in a neurotypical world does that. But I think about how the 18-year old won’t let that define them. How they will survive. And thrive.

Because traumatic experiences don’t last forever.

And they are so much more than the sum of their past.

They are the cause of their future.

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