as small as a world and as large as alone

1:13pm June 15, 2014

neurodiversitysci:

inkskinned:

idk man it just makes me so so so sad when you’re watching a cutiepie talk about their passion like when they light up and start bubbling over with words and then all of a sudden they stop themselves and say stuff like “sorry, i know this is boring” or “sorry i just got excited”

like you know somewhere in their life someone they respected told them “shut up nobody cares” and ever since they can’t talk about their favorite things without apologizing every 5 seconds

This is the saddest thing.

Ever noticed how when you’re a kid and you get too excited about things—you skip or sing or smile too much, or you hug people too hard, or you can’t stop talking really fast about something you like—people tell you to stop. Many kids and adults seem to take personal offense to children’s happiness and try to stamp it out, especially (but not always) if it’s about something they’re not interested in.  And then when you’re an adult and people suddenly realize that it’s no fun to be around people without enthusiasm or happy emotions, they say you shouldn’t be so insecure and down and apologize all the time. 

The common denominator is you can never win if you feel or like things too intensely—everything you do is wrong and it is always your fault.

When I was 16, I went to a fish store with my therapist to help him pick out a fish.  (I was living at a residential facility, this was an “outing”.)  I got really excited about the fish and started dancing around the store and flapping my hands and saying “fish” over and over again.

As soon as we got back to the office, he told me in great detail that this was inappropriate.  He kept saying that it was an inappropriate display of emotion, that people are not supposed to show excitement in this way, or pretty much show excitement at all, but especially not show excitement by running around and flapping your hands and squealing about fish.

He was really cruel about it and it made me not do that in front of people for a long time, which was his intent, I’m sure.

[To add insult to injury.. I made a video showing myself doing the same thing that I did back then, to try to show that he didn’t control me anymore and I could show happiness any damn way I wanted.  My stalker, or one of her friends I’m not sure, some asshole, proceeded to tear me apart over it, saying things like “I heard you volunteered with an autistic girl when you were younger, did SHE have a happy dance, HMMMMM?”  The implication being that I’d somehow ‘stolen’ this from a 'real’ autistic person.  The whole thing, of course, occurred before I met the girl in question, but that means nothing to assholes.  But having someone do that to me the moment I posted a video online did not help me want to show enthusiasm in this way either.  Which, of course, was again the calculated intent of my stalker and her friends.  Which is why such people are toxic assholes who deserve to have to face up to what they do to people’s lives, to actually feel the misery they create in other people.]

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