3:32am September 15, 2014

General warning to autistic people, especially ‘sensing’ people.

Especially autistic people who have highly unusual sensory experiences, or are highly sensing (in the Donna Williams sense) in general.

I got an anon telling me that seeing colored glows inside my head around certain people was an irrational spiritual thing. I tried to explain that it seemed more to me like some kind of synesthesia (I’m a synesthete, been tested, been in genetic research, rigorous testing, there is no doubt that I have synesthesia), after which I got reblogged by someone who basically said “It’s not synesthesia, you just want to be special” and also tagged it #pagan. (I’m… vaguely pagan, in that my religion could be called a nature religion? Which has absolutely nothing to do with anything about this.)

So apparently if you write about unusual sensory experiences, whether those sensory experiences are internal (seen inside your head) or external, someone’s going to potentially come along and call you attention-seeking for talking about it.

The ironic thing is that I didn’t talk about this stuff for decades because I’d been convinced that sensing was an inferior and embarrassing cognitive style that I ought to be ashamed of. I started talking about it so that other autistic people like me would feel less alone – because I feel less alone when people talk about their unusual experiences. I guess being told “You just want to be special” is part of the price of describing unusual experiences, but it’s a pretty asshole thing to say to someone who’s finally talking about things they’re normally ashamed of.

I’m not going to stop talking about this stuff, because I know there are tons of other autistics out there experiencing these things. In fact, I mentioned the colors I see in my head because I’d read of an autistic man who saw the same thing and interpreted it in a way that gave him a lot of grief. I wanted to say to people, “Just because you see a big light-colored glow around someone in your head doesn’t mean it’s a good thing, it can mean it’s a sign of a big ego with the power to influence people in negative ways, stay away from such people where possible.” It was a warning. And an important warning. Lots of autistic people gravitate towards people like that and get burned. I got burned many times before I wised up.

I don’t know what the mechanism is that makes people see these things in our heads. I assume it’s similar to the synesthesia that’s more universal in people in some ways – like the way low notes are always darker and high notes are always lighter even for non-synesthetes. But I know that these things are representations of something real, representations of a concept or a pattern that we’ve picked up on and our brains have decided to represent them in this way. I don’t think there’s anything supernatural about it.

But people would rather put words in my mouth.

I’m writing this here just so that you know, that if you start talking about seeing a glow around someone, even if you see it in your mind’s eye and not your real eyes, then there will be people who will apparently see fit to bug you about it just because they can. And I assume the same is true about anything else picked up through the sensory patterns that Donna Williams refers to as ‘sensing’, a very common cognitive style among certain kinds of autistic people. Especially since sensing is often mistaken for psychic and psychic is often seen as something people do because they want to be special.

I honestly think that anyone who wants to be special is someone who’s never been through special ed. That changes your idea of special right there. Even being singled out as special in a good way makes you yearn to be ordinary. People don’t get that, at all. They think that everyone must want to be special. (Maybe they secretly want to be special so they assume it’s a universal drive?) So then they latch onto anything different about you and say “You’re just saying that to be special.”

Trust me, if I wanted to be special, I have a million better ways to do it than describing a cognitive style that has gotten me ridiculed, called defective, called psychotic or crazy, kicked out of class at school, and basically taught that my natural cognitive style is worthless and useless. I write about it without shame because I want other people to be able to see there is no shame in having a cognitive style that is often looked down upon as inferior. When my brain switched over into high-gear sensing mode, I thought I was stupid just like other people started telling me I was stupid. I thought I was defective. I thought I would never be able to do anything I wanted with my life, again.

I had no idea that being sensing was who I was supposed to be, that the world has a place for people like me, just like it has a place for everyone. (Nobody’s so special they don’t have a place in the world. Nobody.) I had no idea that being sensing would fuel my art, my poetry, my life, and even eventually be something I could write about. I had no idea that it would allow me one of the most intimate friendships I’ve had in my entire life, or another fairly intimate friendship where my sensing nature was a good part of what attracted my first real friend to me in a very 'opposites attract’ sort of friendship, in which we basically built a bridge between her cognitive style and mine and met in the middle and it was absolutely magical. I had no idea it had any advantages. I saw what I was losing, I didn’t see what I was gaining.

And now that I know… nothing can take that away from me. Not even people whose sole reason for interacting with me is to tear me down. I will continue writing about my experiences as a 'sensing’ person, whether they make sense to anyone or not. They don’t even always make sense to me, that’s kind of how it works, it’s all down in the realm of pre-sensory and sensory awareness. But it’s my best cognitive skill of them all. And I’m not going to go back to pretending it doesn’t exist, just because some people are going to bully me for it.

I’m okay, they’re mean. I’ve done nothing wrong. I have no idea who the bully is, or why they have taken an interest in bugging me about being pagan or sensing (as if the two are even connected), but I’ve stuck them on ignore. Just be aware, if you’re highly sensing, or worse highly sensing and pagan or admitting to have any spiritual beliefs at all, you too may get targeted for all I know. The only advice I have is stick them on ignore and get on with your day, because shutting up about who you are will only cause you grief in the long run.

Notes: