Odd Girl Out

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Laura James writes the best memoir of a Person with Autism with a cis-female presentation of symptoms I have come across.

I have read it more than twice, but less than three times. Nothing to do with it not being compelling and readable.

More to do with my habit of clumsily destroying devices I was reading it on, and starting from scratch each time, and not caring, because I get differnt things each time I read it.

Her husband writes some very telling lyrics too.

This is an excerpt from Chapter Fifteen.

“It must be annoying for him to have lots of pieces of paper stuck all over the house, reminding me to eat, bath, drink water, go for a walk and so on, but he doesn’t say so.

Our relationship feels stronger than ever before. It’s as if we crossed into somewhere bad and have now crossed back again. I don’t think I considered the impact my diagnosis has had on him. Before I started to learn more about autism and my inability to see things easily from the perspective of another, I would have thought he shouldn’t be affected by something that wasn’t happening to him. Now I see it differently. While I cannot understand what it is like for him (I don’t think I will ever learn that skill), I can see and accept that it has had an effect.

We have met in the middle. We have also seen that each other’s ways do sometimes work. I’ve allowed Tim to take more control of our lives and he’s accepted that sometimes my way isn’t simply an idiosyncratic quirk. Sometimes it is logical and it works.

We are being kinder to each other. We have become more understanding of each other’s faults and we celebrate each other’s talents more. Kindness, I realize, is the key to everything and it is in a marriage where it is perhaps easiest to let it slip.

Tim has started writing songs again, this time seemingly from a happier place. I think perhaps he uses music to process how he is feeling at any one time. From the kitchen, I hear him working on a new track. The lyrics drift down the hall and catch me unaware. I recognize myself instantly in his words.

            She’s a book without an end
            A pocketful of friends
            An email yet to send
            She’s the odd girl in a crowd

            In a world that’s way too loud
            Obsessive but unbowed
            She’s a green light on the road
            Acid for the soul

            Fragments of a code
            A system overload
            She’s a spectrum all her own
            Cashmere grey and stone
            Cabbages and rose

            She’s the hope without a prayer
            The truth before the dare
            A campfire in the wild
            A mother and a child

            She’s a whisper and a scream
            A nightmare and a dream
            Our conscience in the dark
            Politics and art

If M were to ask again: ‘Who in your life supports you?’ I would now have a different answer. Tim does, I would say.

I have accepted that my autism, while not totally disabling, has an extreme effect on my life and I have to take it into account. That I have managed to muddle through for so long has been down to luck and sheer grit.

The cracks had always been there, but they weren’t allowing in any light. I’m coming to accept now that there are huge advantages to being autistic – the quickness of my mind, my ability to take in new information, my intelligence, the passion I feel for causes I believe in, my inability to take offence. The list goes on.

I think of Kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with powdered precious metals. The craft and the philosophy treat breakages and repairs as part of the history of any piece, rather than something to hide.

I am flawed. I am, in part, broken. Not by my autism, but by my insistence on fighting it and by the stresses it places on me. My being different from most people around me – and the years of living a life not meant for me – have taken their toll.

I look up pictures of Kintsugi bowls. I see the gold cracks glistening and realize that without them many of the pieces filling the screen on my laptop would be dull and ordinary. If they had been invisibly mended they would always be slightly inferior, a lesser version of what they once were.

Now, with their imperfections celebrated, they are somehow more. They are damaged and that damage makes them beautiful.”