It's something surreal to be autistic...

[Sakura.]

As you can see, I just created a thread here about my suffering related to being autistic. A moment later, while browsing the forum, I read a post about another person's similar suffering, this time due to being transgender. I am not transgender, and what they wrote about their suffering was surreal to me... I couldn't imagine the amount and nature of this suffering stemming solely from the fact that someone is transgender... I couldn't even identify with the amount and nature of this permanent suffering...


A moment later, I subconsciously remembered the post that was mine, momentarily forgetting that it was about me. For a moment, thinking in exactly the same terms as the suffering of transgender people, I subconsciously reflected on how surreal the suffering of people with autism is and how impossible it is for me to imagine...

And after a moment, I remembered that this post, which I had been subconsciously analyzing for a moment, was mine, about me, and that it doesn't concern suffering that I "can't imagine," but the suffering that I experience all the time...


It's surreal, as you can see, what I have to experience every day, my entire life... And I don't know how such a thing, such suffering, is possible...

 

[Macedonian1987]

As you can see, I just created a thread here about my suffering related to being autistic. A moment later, while browsing the forum, I read a post about another person's similar suffering, this time due to being transgender. I am not transgender, and what they wrote about their suffering was surreal to me... I couldn't imagine the amount and nature of this suffering stemming solely from the fact that someone is transgender... I couldn't even identify with the amount and nature of this permanent suffering...


A moment later, I subconsciously remembered the post that was mine, momentarily forgetting that it was about me. For a moment, thinking in exactly the same terms as the suffering of transgender people, I subconsciously reflected on how surreal the suffering of people with autism is and how impossible it is for me to imagine...

And after a moment, I remembered that this post, which I had been subconsciously analyzing for a moment, was mine, about me, and that it doesn't concern suffering that I "can't imagine," but the suffering that I experience all the time...


It's surreal, as you can see, what I have to experience every day, my entire life... And I don't know how such a thing, such suffering, is possible...

I have had those exact moments where the "manual" effort of living on the spectrum suddenly reveals itself as the Herculean task it truly is. We get so used to navigating the world's sharp edges that we often normalize our own exhaustion, only recognizing the sheer scale of our endurance when we see it from an objective distance. Please know that I see you, and while the intensity of this life can feel surreal and impossible to explain, your strength in carrying it is incredibly real.