Sunday, March 24, 2019

The anonymous life of a hermit and how she got that way

I have been ridiculed my entire life. Being autistic and multiple means that I am a daily plethora of anomalous and odd behaviours and mannerisms. From the excessive gesturing to autistic metaphoric speech, I have been a prime target.
It isn't that I am overly sensitive, well, I am a sensitive being but to be so made fun of and laughed at for just being myself at every breath and movement has definitely helped propel me into seeking the nonthreatening safe zone of desperately seeking no company but my own. I mean, I do not think normal and I do not even speak normally with both such extreme differences. I see that.
 I get that. The times upon times when people have made fun of me have piled high and created thickthick walls all because I do not want to be further injured by ridicule.
The times when I was told, laughingly, "if you sat on your hands you wouldn't be able to talk" or, in one of my phases where I use a certain phrase too much, "you know, you know, you say that allll the time" or the down browed remarks when I was so excited about some small thing and being told to "calm down, it isn't that exciting"....the list goes on and on.
When I am in the presence of others, I am onguard and no longer free to feel what I feel, say what I'd really like to say or move as I want to move.
No, people definitely do not like pacing or jumping up and down with extreme glee. And they made sure to point out every social misstep.
I stopped being able to be me many many years ago.
I stopped being able to say what was on my mind ages and ages ago. I cannot talk in my natural, normal for me way.
I had to become anonymous, hidden and isolated, withdrawn into the only place free of possible ridicule, my own home.
No one hurts me here. No one gets to give me dirty looks or make rude remarks. No one tries to subdue, change and temper with who I am.
I've never been able to be comfortable with my differences amongst others.
Being Multiple, I am different in every single way. Being Autistic, I think, speak and behave unusually in every single way. And others, family, friends, strangers in stores and people I would live with, have forced me to stifle, subdue and quietly drown, submerged deeply within myself.
I cannot be me outside my front door.
Being a hermit is my salvation.
Now, if only I can rid myself of all the pain and humiliation that has been perpetrated upon me throughout all these years....
It's a battle to be okay with who I am since who I am has been made fun of for so veryvery long.
I am a hermit. No one can hurt me anymore.

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