If you wrong us, shall we not... smile?

( I'm aware that this text will be met by incredulity, disbelief and all manner of hurt feelings. That's okay. Knock yourself out. I'm officially too tired to care. )

Something has been happening this past week. Something frightening and extraordinary. I've slowly begun to suspect that I may have the right to my own opinions. I've spoken to a few trusted friends about this and they agree that I do indeed have that right. They've also expressed profound surprise at the fact that this could ever be in doubt.

It's not the slightest bit surprising to me, however. I've spent my entire life having one simple lesson drilled into me. The world has unanimously, or as close as makes no difference, said that "we are right and you are wrong; stop doing things natural to you and start doing those natural to us".

So that's what I've been trying to do.

It hasn't worked out very well.

It's made me rather tired.

So very tired.

I'm tired of just barely getting through life, and that by smiling, nodding and hoping that no one catches on to how little I actually understand of the world. Even when I manage to get away with it, the stress and confusion is just as bad. I hide my lack of understanding so people won't stop seeing me as an adult. I know from experience that they will, given a reason.

I'm tired of constantly having high levels of anxiety whenever I'm even close to another human being. I know from experience that most of them are unpredictable, prejudiced and religious about forcing their social norms on others. I don't know who or when someone will do this, just that it will happen.

I'm tired of constantly being expected to understand all manner of social rules and expectations, since I'm so "bright". I don't know why the ability to program computers and remember the contents of books should imply anything about my understanding of the rest of the world, but apparently the reason is obvious to most people.

I'm tired of being hurt, physically and emotionally, all the while knowing that I must keep smiling, must not complain, must not give the slightest hint of having been hurt. I know that if I do, I will be met with aggression or incredulity, accused of thinking and feeling things I don't, or just demoted to child and have my concerns ignored.

I'm tired of being accused of thinking, meaning, intending, hinting and even doing all manner of things that I would never do, or in many cases even be unaware of the possibility of doing until I'm accused of it. I know that once such an accusation is made, no amount of well-articulated words will convince the person otherwise.

I'm tired of people assuming that one ability automatically implies the presense of other abilities, especially completely unrelated ones. I don't know why the fact that I'm successfully working as a research engineer at a major technical university, which I am, would in any way imply that I'm capable of brushing my teeth every day, which I'm not.

I'm tired of nearly everyone from children to pensioners telling me that my way of experiencing the world is wrong, caused by childhood trauma, sick, caused by abusive parents, defective, caused by poor upbringing, or even that it doesn't exist at all. After at least twenty-two years of this, it has had quite an effect, if perhaps not the one they intended.

I'm tired of people telling me they know what something I have issues with every day of my life is like, just because something remotely similar happened to them once. People who are "also sometimes bothered by lights" don't automatically know what it's like to discreetly self-injure for hours every day to keep the blinding classroom lights and the resulting headaches from driving you mad, to give just one small example.

I'm tired of being forced to interact with, listen and speak to people I couldn't care less about, for no other reason than their own fixations with the fulfilment of the social rituals they hold so dear. They could never comprehend why I would choose not to do these things. After all, it's "only a dinner," or "only a meeting," and "aren't we nice to invite you".

I'm tired of my aspie friends exclaiming over how autistic I am whenever I tell them some new detail of my inner workings. I know what I am. I've begun to adjust to realising just how much of these traits I have. I get enough of the zoo exhibit feeling from the neurotypicals I have to deal with without them adding to it.

I'm tired of no one catching on to the fact that I cannot ask for help, most of the time including telling people that I cannot ask for help. Yes, this paragraph is an exception. There have been more of these, but never when I really needed them. When I need to tell people this, I can't. This is regardless of the severity of the situation. I spent more than half a year with a cracked tooth exposing the nerve because of this, to give just one example.

I'm tired of the fact that even among the most open-minded, well-intentioned people I know, many have a hard time wrapping their heads around the concept that most physical contact causes me pain or at least discomfort. These are supposedly intelligent people, and yet they cannot understand such a simple concept.

I'm tired of my partner still reacting to my needs to be alone, avoid noise and sometimes speech and physical contact as if I was doing it against her. She acts as if sensory overload was some sort of judgement, pronouncing her a terrible person, simply because I cannot at that moment deal with speaking or being touched. This may come as surprise, but my nervous system is not a personal insult.

I'm tired of being called cute or laughed at when I become confused or do something unusual or "wrong". There's nothing remotely funny about being disoriented and surrounded by people who think it's more important to ridicule me than to offer help. Nor is it in any way cute to prefer or need to do things in ways different from those of other people.

I'm tired of being accused of not listening whenever I actually do make an effort to listen, or in other words, when I look down, close my eyes and let my face go blank. I don't know about other people, but I tend to use my ears when I'm listening, not my eyes and face. If I had been holding my ears, that would have been a different matter.

I'm tired of having my disabilities questioned, disbelieved or minimised, whether it's to my face or behind my back. It doesen't matter to me whether it's because they can't see a wheelchair, because they think "I'm doing so well," or because "I'm so clever". Regardless of the reason, it's offensive, degrading, and most of all, false.

I'm tired of people asking me when things happened. I don't have a working sense of time beyond a period of about fifteen seconds. Anything longer than that is a very long time, and the difference between a minute and two hours, or a day and a month, are largely philosophical. For some reason people simply refuse to understand this.

I'm tired of people checking whether I'm okay or even trying to comfort me whenever I let myself relax, zone out and let go of my facial muscles. Whenever I don't keep my face in a smiling position, people feel entitled to make all sorts of claims about my inner state of being, and what's more, often will not be disuaded by my explanations to the contrary.

Most of all, I'm tired of following the first social rule I ever learned, namely that everyone but me has an automatic veto on the definition of right and wrong. I'm tired of living with the fear that whatever I do, even though it may be something I was taught to do by another person, someone else may come along and proclaim it to be wrong, thus adding to my already substantial confusion about the world.

This is far from an exhaustive list. Each entry is also far from being a complete description of that particular issue. This is a brief list of subject headings, nothing more.

I feel like I'm ever so slowly waking up from a long nightmare. The slowness is mostly due to the fact that once I learn something, it tends to stick. It's often very difficult for me to unlearn or change something later in life. Now that I'm finally beginning to unlearn it, I suspect I won't be considered as nice a person anymore.

I've always before been considered a nice person, which may be true, but they've thought so for all the wrong reasons. People have said this in large part due to the fact that I've been forced into silence and compliance. I've seemed nice to people because, since no one ever bothered to teach me when it's okay to say no, I have almost never dared doing so.

Well... No more.

Update: Additions and linguistic tinkering.
Update: Spelling correction.