It Was Always There

There were always signs.

My earliest memory of it was when I was 2 years old. My paternal grandmother gifted me a set of fingerpaints and I completely melted down in the food court area of a Zellers. My mom and grandmum stood there in shock as I screamed and screamed at the fingerpaints in front of me, completely terrified of the innocuous paints in front of me. They ended up at a different home that night.

My deep fear of paint became a joke. I remember the husband of my first babysitter teasing me that he was going to paint the walls and I would fall to pieces (it was the 80s, so scaring small children was fun at the time). No one knew where my fear of paint began. The best my mom could do was to connect it to an episode of Sesame Street I had seen where paint dripped down the screen, coating the images on the TV in an opaque purple ooze.

I didn’t have the vocabulary to tell them what scared me - it was the texture. There was something about how the paint stayed on my skin, drying and hardening to a thick layer of filth that felt perverse when I rubbed it between my fingers. I hated getting the palms of my hands dirty. I still have problems getting my palms dirty today.

Then there was the fire bell. When I was five, my school had a giant, red fire bell that made the most awful, ear-piercing clang that would make the students jump out of their seats whenever it rang. My school scheduled fire drills at the top of every year, so the bell was nearly unavoidable. I remember sitting in class at the beginning of several school years, my stomach turning with nausea at the thought of the fire bell ringing. It got to the point where I would be so anxious and sick at the thought of the bell’s ominous clang that the teachers would tell my parents when a fire drill was happening so they could keep me home.

There were so many other signs. Food aversions. Spinning and dancing in circles to music as a way of regulating my fragile nervous system. A propensity for daydreaming and spacing out mid-conversation. An extreme phobia of thunderstorms (only at night when they are too loud and too bright). Hyperfixations that would consume every waking moment. Fear of crowds. An uncommonly deep, monotone voice.

I always felt “off.” I didn’t understand why the other kids at school weren’t terrified of the fire bell, or how they could switch so easily to a different lesson after the one before. Even in a group of other kids, I felt a sensation of loneliness, like I was a creature from another planet who had been dropped into a group of humans and expected to be just like them. I would engage as I needed to, but once I was alone, I would retreat into a rich, inner life that was infinitely more fulfilling than anything my peers could offer me.

But since I was a model student and exceptionally bright when it came to writing and language arts, no one saw anything wrong with me. Yes, I was a “weird kid,” but aren’t we all? I graduated high school with honors and went on my merry little way.

I became better at hiding. I was accused of being a sensitive kid, so I learned to hold back my tears. I wore the right makeup and clothes and only talked about my special interests if someone brought them up first. I struggled through regular university life until I found a place in the Acting Program at Dalhousie University, convinced that I could finally excel in a place that embraced weirdness. To my chagrin, I didn’t fit in there either. What happens when you’re weirder than the theatre kids?

The Acting Program years were some of the worst of my life. I was in an abusive relationship with a person who, once I finally severed ties with him, was devoted to ruining my reputation. The other students in the class saw me as frigid and unengaged, a combination that came off as egotistical. My fear of loud noises and crowds made it almost impossible to attend nights out at the local pub with my class or cast parties after shows. Even the teachers brought up my “mask” - a term they used for my inability to demonstrate “real emotion” on stage. One teacher even kicked me out of a lesson because she claimed I was lazy and entitled, riding the coattails of an attractive exterior and not dedicating myself to the real work of being an actor.

Every moment in that program was devastating. Aside from the fuckwit ex who tried to ruin my life, I couldn’t understand why I was reviled by so many people. I had done my best to be exactly like everyone else, and somehow, it blew up in my face. And since I had no label or frame of reference for why I was what I was, I assumed that everyone knew better than me. I had to be lazy. I had to be entitled. If I ever slipped and said something accidentally insulting, it had to be because I was mean and full of myself. What other explanation could there be?

After the Program, I didn’t have much luck with anything. My dating life was a nightmare. I quit acting. I tried several different careers and went back to school two more times, with nothing to show for my distinct lack of effort. I moved to Toronto and struggled to keep a job, or even to just keep my head above water. Meanwhile, I lost friends over and over again if I ever dared to let my carefully constructed “mask” slip and felt lonelier than I ever had. All the habits I thought I would grow out of - the anxiety, the loss of focus, the inability to keep my head down and do what was expected of me - never left. They only created deeper, real-world consequences.

It wasn’t all bad. I met my husband in Toronto and eventually developed a fantastic circle of friends. We got a dog. After COVID hit and we relocated to Winnipeg, Manitoba, I gave birth to a little girl, who is to date the greatest person I’ve ever met. Times were tough, but I had a family of my own and a wonderful partner by my side who, despite my eccentricities, loved me to the ends of the Earth. It was more than I could ever hope for.

But the beast was still there. Like it always was. And before long, it reared its ugly head again.

I tried to be normal. Now that I was a mother, it was important to get my shit together and work a normal job with normal people. Every position I took lasted no more than nine months before I was fired. I tried. I really did. But as with everything in my life, there would be that fateful moment when that mask would slip and I would be completely unable to carry on with the job. I would be so exhausted and burnt out that I couldn’t focus on my tasks. Worst of all, I couldn’t stay silent if something bothered me. This prompted emotional meltdowns and HR visits that were almost always the reason for my untimely demise as a beloved employee.

My husband - my patient, loving, eternally sympathetic husband - sat down with me one night for a come-to-Jesus talk that changed everything. He told me that we couldn’t continue going the way we had been - we needed stability in our lives. Ultimately, it came down to me. I had to find something that I could stick with, or at the very least, tolerate long enough for it to create a sense of stability in our lives.

For the first time, I realized that my “quirks” were a real problem for the people who depended on me. I had to get help. I needed answers.

Around this time, I made a friend through my husband’s work. She was diagnosed with a hybrid of Autism and ADHD, something that I had never heard of or thought was possible. I’d never met anyone in my life who was so easy to talk to - so effortless were our interactions that the thought of maintaining my mask never crossed my mind. When I asked if she thought I might also be autistic, she stared at me in silence. That was all I needed to know.

It was always there. The signs had been flashing along the highway of my life, beckoning me to the stops that carried the answers all along. I was never lazy or dumb or mean or callous or overly sensitive or careless or egotistical or narcissistic or even crazy. I was fucking Autistic.

These posts are dedicated to my journey. On the precipice of my 40th birthday, I’m learning to re-evaluate myself and my abilities not just for my sake, but for my family’s as well. The joy that I had lost long ago as a little girl is firing up inside me, ready to reclaim the parts of me from those who tried to dull my sparkle. I will no longer apologize for who I am. I will not apologize for who I’ve always been.

And if you’re on a similar journey - welcome! I hope that my words will be some comfort to you, that you’ll read them and see a person who struggles just as you do to function in a world that is not built for us. Together, I know we can carve out a future that will accept neurodivergence with patience and grace, bringing us into the fold and allowing us to be unapologetically whole.

The mask is off. And invite you to take off yours as well.