Music. For me, a person with Alexithymia and Situational Mutism, it says what I can't. I have extreme difficulty expressing how I am feeling. From something as simple as did that burn hurt, to losing my best friend in the whole world to suicide. I cannot process feelings easily.
I am an AUDHer. Diagnosed as an adult, as most adults tend to be, when my child was. I have C-PTSD from a life of trauma, starting in my childhood. So my usual GP was never certain if all of that quirkiness, or perceived resilience was just trauma based. She always suspected I was autistic but way back then, it was not a 'thing' and come on. I was a GIRL! I was also shit at Math.
Couldn't play cards, let alone count them.
Because I grew up in the Rainman era. So they missed me completely. Skipped right over the top of me. I was just a weird, angry, hyperlexic, over-achieving girl child. bent on social justice and saving all the critters from human destruction.
I could write things about others or fictional characters that would win award after award, and couldn't tell if I was too hot or hungry. I am complicated like that.
But music. Music, could always say what I could never quite get a hold of.
I would go through song after song to try to pinpoint what was flying around inside my head. Because no matter how hard I tried, I could not get those things to come out of my mouth.
How much music helped my during those teen years when I didn't know myself. I didn't know I was never going to reach those standards that were set for us. That average that was just not going to be obtainable for someone like me. Someone who was not average. And would never BE average.
I would never ever in my lifetime, be able to reach that average. Because I was not neurotypical?'
If you have ever had that thought 'does my child really need a label?' I am going to tell you something.
I had labels. Heaps of them. Psycho. Weirdo. Unfeeling Bitch. Annoying. Cold. Dumb. Spesh. Too Much. Too Hard. Nerd. Too emotional. Over-reacter. Liar. Too sensitive. Etc. Etc. Etc
When all along, I was just Autistic.
Imagine how much easier it would have been for me to navigate the world, especially the teenage realm, knowing my own brain!!
I digress. Again.
Luckily for me, in amongst that I had music. It said what I could not. It helped me feel. It put in to words what was always just within my grasp, but never quite there when I needed it.
It lifted me up. It run right on down my skin and right into my very bones.
It saw me through my firsts and it replaced words that would disappear on me in times of distress. It described things to me in a way that made sense to me. It was my friend, it was my confidante, it was my way to move this body of mine that could never be still. It spelled out heartbreak and it described joy. It made goosebumps appear when it soared right up into the air in swirls and ebbs and falls, and made my hands flap.
It still does that. Coz HAALOOOO, I didn't 'grow out' of my autism.
Thank you Music. If only I could take you to the ER and blast you at nurses who read about EDS or POTS in a textbook and mine does not quite fit that tiny little paragraph, or play you to an NDIS planner who assumes that because I am fantastic at my job as SSC that I have no challenges in this life. Or to my children so I can say all of those huge huge things that fly around in my heart every time I think about how wonderful you are. Or my partner so I could describe how easy it is to just BE with you.
Or to any one else who asks me, how are you, and I just script. Good Thanks. Instead of all of the scratchy, bumpy, creepy, crawly things that are actually creeping around inside me stealing my words.
I mean, if I could still walk unaided, I would answer in interpretive dance. But anyways
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