#But sometimes my autistic brain just latches onto something stupid and will not let go | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

whysamwhy123 · 9 months

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Seeing as I'm not going to ever write it now due to Recent Events, I've decided to babble on here about this terrible idea I had for a big, elaborate comedy/crack fic. If I had been able to pull it off, I would have wanted to post it on either Halloween or April Fools Day because it's very much supposed to be dumb. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

Keeping with my inability to come up with good titles, it was tentatively called ''Who Killed Tony Khan? A Hookhausen Mystery!''. At a company party where most of the AEW roster are gathered, Tony's giving a speech where he makes a mean joke about Danhausen, who decides to curse him. Tony then promptly dies on the spot, so now everyone thinks Danhausen is a murderer, no matter how much he insists the curse wasn't supposed to do that. He swears he's innocent. But no one's convinced. Other than Hook, that is. Naturally, Hook wants to clear the name of the man he loves so he and Danhausen have to team up once again, put on their detective hats and try to figure out what really happened to their boss and who's the true culprit. So the whole fic would have been a goofy romp with these two looking for clues, interrogating their co-workers and slowly piecing together the mystery. Obviously, it's not gonna happen now - I probably wouldn't have written it anyway because I'm nowhere near talented or smart enough to write a compelling mystery, but given the Stuff That's Happened recently, the whole inciting incident to that story now seems a lot less goofy and a lot more...distasteful. Plus, the dumb joke I was going to make at the end as a way to Deus Ex Machina the conflict away wouldn't work at all now (if you're curious, DM me about it, but fair warning, it's probably not funny to anyone other than me. And it's outdated now, anyway.)

Also...there were gonna be so many cocaine jokes in this fic. Like, enough that you could have made a drinking game out of it...

The thing is though...I still really want to write some kind of Hookhausen mystery fic! I don't know why but I really like the idea of Hook getting dragged into a situation so out of his element (like solving a fucking murder case - not exactly something in his usual wheelhouse) but willingly throwing himself into it because he just has to clear Danhausen's name. Why, yes, Acts of Service is one of my love languages, how did you know? So the more extreme examples of that, the better!

Hell, maybe I go even more out there and make it some kind of Film Noir AU. Hook as this young but still hard-boiled private eye, roped into some strange criminal plot with a heavy supernatural twist, thanks to Actual Demon Danhausen. I don't know, I just love dumb stuff like that, feels like it could be fun to play around with *shrugs*

#What is wrong with you Sam you should not be allowed to write #You know the drill folks - more of me rambling on and on and on about the weird fic ideas that I'll never write #You have been warned #And boy did I go off on this one JEEZ LOUIZE!#Whenever I make posts like this I always imagine myself as a crazy old person rocking back and forth in my chair #Ranting and raving to the empty squalid home around me as if there was someone actually listening #Which...honestly that's exactly what I'm doing here...yikes.#I shouldn't be thinking about ideas like this seeing as I literally can't write anything right now #And haven't for weeks at this point #But sometimes my autistic brain just latches onto something stupid and will not let go #So yeah Film Noir Hookhausen Supernatural Murder Mystery AU what a fucking embarrassment I am LOL

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inside-aut-blog · 5 years

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This has all been said before, many times, and very articulately, and it’s hard to know what can be added to the conversation—but there is this:

But here is what I know about being autistic. Here is the most important thing I know about being autistic.

It’s not an isolated experience.

That’s not to say it can’t be an isolating experience, because it absolutely can. It absolutely can, and from what I gather from other autistics it very often is.

But it’s not an isolated one.

You know, it doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

Because it’s like this, you know. Identities are intersectional. Experiences overlap, and they influence each other, and they become this great big tangled web of stuff and it’s impossible to unravel it all entirely. Because, you know, that’s you. That’s your life. You can’t just dissect it down into neat little bits and pieces and line it all up and have it make perfect individual sense.

Lives don’t work that way. Brains don’t work that way. So of course neither do people.

Take me, for example.

Let’s go back to the thing from before. The thing about how being autistic can be an isolating experience. Let’s talk about that.

Let’s talk about that, and me, and my experience.

Because the thing, here, with me, is that growing up I absolutely did not feel isolated.

I felt different, for sure, and so many autistic people talk about feeling different.

But the thing is, i’ve heard so many of those same autistic people (not all of them, but many) talk about not understanding why. About assuming the problem was with them, about assuming that everyone experienced things the same way but only they struggled with it, about assuming it was down to some kind of personal weakness or innate weirdness or brokenness or wrongness. I’ve heard a lot about that.

But the thing is, the thing is, for me, it wasn’t like that.

I grew up feeling different, but I never wondered why. I never had to wonder.

Because I wasn’t autistic in a vacuum. I was autistic smack in the middle of my life, and my experiences, and my family and my other identities and all that sort of thing—and my life and my experiences and my other identities were also atypical.

So when I felt different, when I felt other, when I felt just a little bit off-center and out-of-place, I didn’t ever wonder at it. It was just a thing, it was just of course. It was because of all my other atypicalities.

It was because I was adopted, it was because I was white and my family was black and no other families around us were like that, it was because I loved to read so much, it was because I was so smart, it was because I was so short, it was because i’d come from an abusive household, it was—later—because I had so many siblings, it was because I was weird on purpose because that was cool, it was because I was mature, it was—even later—because I was asexual, it was because I had a lot more going on than my classmates (who of course I never considered might have anything of their own going on), it was because I was aromantic, it was because I was maybe nonbinary, it was because I had social anxiety, it was because, because, because—

It was because a lot of things, and never, ever, ever because there was something wrong with me.

And it was never bad.

Because I was different, and i’d been raised with the belief that differences were good, and important, and special, and cool.

And I didn’t—i never, in all that time, thought that my feeling different from my peers was because I might be autistic.

—and that’s not to say I never wondered whether I might be. I did. A number of times, actually, growing up.

The first, fleeting time came after my mom told me my little sister had asperger’s (still a diagnosis back then) but didn’t tell me what the hell that meant (except that it was why she walked funny sometimes, and why she had trouble telling what was right and wrong to do sometimes).

So I googled it, as you do.

And as I was reading, I thought—oh. So that’s what that is. And I thought—huh. Some of this sounds kind of familiar. Some of it sounds kind of maybe like me.

And then I thought—nah. That’s not really like you at all, you just want to be different and special. (Because that was good and important and cool, remember, and the differences I already had were the things I liked most about myself—my oddball family, my being adopted, my slightly-crooked fingers….)

And then I brushed it aside and didn’t think about it again for years.

Until I did some research after reading some things some folks wrote about Sherlock Holmes seeming autistic. And then I thought about it a little more, off and on. (Could I be this? Wouldn’t it be cool if I were this?)

But again I thought. No. I can’t be this. I only want to be this so I can be different another time over. These experiences aren’t really mine, I can’t really relate, i’m lying.

And then I thought—

I just want attention, obviously.

And then I thought—

Does that even make sense if I haven’t actually told anyone I’m thinking about it?

And then I thought—

Don’t be stupid, of course it does.

And I brushed it aside again.

But it didn’t sit dormant for years, this time. It didn’t sit idle and dissipate into nothing. It kept coming back. I kept wondering. Quietly, quietly, for years.

Until one day something happened.

I said that I didn’t care about something, and my brother, in a moment of frustration, said that of course I didn’t, because I didn’t care about anything or anyone.

In his defense, I said it pretty snappishly. And, in I’d been saying it a lot in general. (I go through periods of time where I latch onto different phrases and repeat them to death—hello, echolalia—and at the time one of my phrases was “I care not,” and variations.)

But (fair response or no) it stung. Sort of struck home.

And I felt—well. I felt wrong. I felt wrong, not quite right, not quite human. Somehow broken, other, different in a way that was not good, for the first time.

I felt like I was doing caring wrong, like I was faking it, like I was always only ever playing a part and didn’t really care about people.

And that terrified me.

Because I still didn’t connect it to autism. Even though I’d been wondering about it off and on for years by that point, even though I knew differences in expressions of caring and differences in empathy to be common autistic experiences, even though though I knew both experiences to be morally neutral, even though, even though, even though—

I still didn’t.

Because autism doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

And so I immediately, automatically, instinctively connected it to something else. Some other difference of mine. A very old, very particular one.

I connected it, instantly, to my early childhood trauma. To the cold, uncaring birthparents I lived with before I was adopted.

I assumed it was a sign that I was like them, on some level. That I had absorbed, in those early years, some awful tendencies.

And so I was terrified.

Terrified, until—

A friend of mine stepped forward and said to me, hey, it sounds like maybe you express empathy differently? And maybe you’re worried that you don’t because you mostly see other people express it in more typical ways? And maybe you have some kind of brainweird that makes you express empathy differently?

And I thought—

Oh.

And I thought—

Well.

And I thought—

Thank god.

Because here was a reason that kind of made sense, and didn’t make me a monster. And here was a reason to consider autism more thoroughly, and do some real research, and maybe come to a real consensus about what the fresh hell was going on with my brain.

And so I researched. And I researched. And I researched. I read the diagnostic criteria, I read autistic people’s blogs, I read autistic people’s stories, I read autistic people’s proposed revisions to the criteria, I watched autistic people’s videos, I watched autistic people’s lectures, I scoured websites of organizations run by autistic people—

And I took a few online tests, and I read some more, I made a few lists of all the traits I had and compared them to the things I’d read, and I read some more, and I made a few more lists, and I read some more, and back and forth and back and forth and over and over and over—

Because I thought, having done all that research and introspection and everything, I thought probably there was a decent chance that maybe...?

But I couldn’t be sure. I couldn’t be sure, because it didn’t exist in a vacuum. There was a great big tangled web of stuff to untangle, so many threads I could hardly tell where to begin.

I was touch-averse, sure, and that was a common autistic trait—but was I touch-averse because I was autistic, or because of trauma, or because of being asexual, or because of being aromantic, or because of being anxious?

And I struggled with socializing, sure, and that was a common autistic trait—but was it because I was autistic, or because of having social anxiety, or because of trauma, or because of growing up in a kind of isolated rural community?

And I flinched at loud noises, sure, and that could be autism too—but was it, or was it just the trauma again, or was it plain anxiety, or was it just faking?

(Again and again, I reminded myself—it can’t be faking if you haven’t actually told anyone you think you’re autistic. Faking requires an audience.)

And I’d had those hours-long screaming fits when I was little, but—was that autism or just trauma, or just anger issues, or just general bratty tantrums?

And I stimmed all the time, but—was that autism, or just anxiety, or maybe ADHD, or was it just being kind of fidgety?

And I had pretty strong food sensitivities, but—was that autism, or was that somehow the trauma again, or just being a picky eater?

And I struggled with eye contact, sure, but—was that autism, or was that the social anxiety again, or was that the trauma, or was I just inventing the problem entirely even to myself?

And I struggled to speak sometimes, sure, and to keep from accidentally interrupting in conversations, but—was that the autism, or was that the social anxiety, or was that the lifetime of growing up with a zillion siblings and either getting steamrolled over or steamrolling over someone else, or—?

And so on and so forth, for a dozen other traits and more, because none of them existed in isolation and all of them could’ve been something else. They could’ve been something else.

Ultimately—after several autistic people told me I seemed autistic, over a period of a couple years, and after bringing up the possibility with a therapist and being told that it made sense—I realized that yes, of course they all could’ve been something else, of course there were tons and tons of factors to consider, of course, of course—

But there was no reason autism couldn’t be one of them.

If I could accept that asexuality, aromanticism, and trauma all factored into my touch-aversion—all three things all at the same time—why couldn’t autism do so as well? Why not? What was one reason more?

And after I entertained that idea, it was easy to acknowledge that I had many traits and experiences which autism could be a factor in—too many to be entirely coincidental. Too many to be coincidental at all.

So I could accept it, then. It was easy.

I was—am—autistic.

I just wasn’t—am not—only autistic.

And neither, of course, is anyone else.

Because autism doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

And neither do autistics.

(More on that later.)

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