Grief

Grief has been something I’ve been sitting with lately. It’s an old friend, it’s pulled up a chair. It’s here to stay for a while. If I could boil down my experience of being late-diagnosed Autistic to one word, it would be sad. While I have lived quite an extraordinary life in many ways, leaving home at 16, buying a home by myself at 23, traveling the world, being the first in my family to go to graduate school, etc. There is such immense impenetrable grief there too. All the experiences I didn’t have because I didn’t know I was Autistic or dyslexic or had dyscalculia and I didn’t even know there was help and understanding for someone like me.

You see, when you look at a list of my accomplishments, it might look impressive in some ways. But it’s almost as if the end justifies the means. I only applied to one undergraduate and one graduate school because I was so learning disabled, I was terrified of going to a rigorous school because of how hard high school was. I stayed away from the SAT and GRE and only went to schools that didn’t require them. I left architecture school because I felt lost. I stayed in relationships that weren’t ok because I didn’t know any better. I ignored my intuition because I was taught over and over again that my inner knowing was wrong, flawed, ill-fitting to the world.

In some ways, my accomplishments were possible because I always was on the outside of society. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t fit in, I couldn’t network or understand social hierarchy at work. I’ve never been promoted in my life because I wouldn’t know the first thing about even trying. But I did create efficient systems at work, one time to the point of being 6 months ahead of everyone else. I couldve literally taken 6 months off without working and people wouldn’t have even noticed because I was that far ahead. But promotable? Oh no, I didn’t pick up on the right social cues or give off the right social cues. I was never promotable.

Even though my life has been a beautiful ride and I love so much about my life, it has been a sad ride too. I hid myself for so long and in hindsight, I grieve for little me.