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10:26pm August 26, 2014

I guess that’s a question I have…

…does anyone here remember a time “when words never grew on their own and thoughts were mere shadows in the distance”?

I know that many autistic people go through a phase like that and outgrow it, often at the ages of 4, 7, 12, 15, or 20.  (Basically, the end of early childhood, the beginning of middle childhood, the beginning of puberty, or the beginning of young adulthood.)

I know that many other autistic people retain some amount of that phase, even as we grow able to create words and thoughts of our own.

But I’m curious… how many people remember that?  Was it something that stayed with you?  Was it something you lost forever once you developed thought or language?  Is it something you miss?  Is it something you hated, felt like a prison?  Some combination of these things?  Something else entirely?  Do you remember the time when things changed, or did it sneak up on you?

Does that way of thinking still feel like ‘home’ to you, or is it foreign?  Can you go back and forth?  Do you feel like you’ve been shut off from it, despite desperately wanting to go back?  Do you feel more like good riddance, it was hell on earth?  Did you have to work hard to claw your way out of there?  Do you still have to work hard?  Do you naturally fall back to that state when you aren’t paying attention?  Or do you only experience it in shutdowns?  (Have you only ever experienced it in shutdowns, and can’t even remember a time when it was your natural state outside of shutdowns?)

All of these things and more, I am curious about.