What It Is to Be Authentic

From the time I entered school at five years old, I knew I wasn't like other children.

Not a very original line, I know... but true nonetheless. 

I had to watch very carefully what my classmates were doing in order to get through a day of lessons and even just at playtime.

Studies suggest that autistic girls slip through the cracks undetected because they become master chameleons. And that may work for a while, with casual encounters, but eventually your cover gets blown once things start to get more personal. Your friends will notice strange habits you have, or feel their boundaries being crossed, or you'll hurt them in ways that frighten them.

My first week in Kindergarten, I sat at a round table with a few other children, coloring on construction paper. I noticed the other kids had these really fat crayons, where mine were the regular skinny kind. A pang of envy surfaced and I couldn't help but feel like the oddball at the table. But what's more; these children were just scribbling a bunch of random crap all over the paper, with no detectable pattern, and no intent on making the results look recognizable. I crumpled up my actual drawing, grabbed a clean sheet of paper, and began to scribble as best I could.

The following day the teacher said she would like to share one of the drawings we'd done, that stood out to her the most. She said she chose it because it was a very good example of abstract art. How you can draw something beautiful without it looking like real life. I felt my jaw drop. It was mine. Even in my effort to blend in with everyone else in the class... I stood out. Because when it came to any artistic outlet, even while trying to imitate what I saw, I had to make it my own way.

Autism aside, everyone puts on a mask. Polite society requires it of us. We're told to be honest-- but taught to be careful not to upset the world around us with our offensive noises, body language, and human needs. There are absurd dinner table rules we have to follow so as not to look like barbarians. Empty greetings we're expected to use so as to seem engaging and friendly. It's not lying... it's manners. 

Before long you become this case study of not enough of this and too much of that. But you're never going be baby bear. Your temperature will never be just right. Everyone's going to tell you the right formula you need to follow, and no one's going to follow it. By the time you reach adulthood you are a walking, talking contradiction who doesn't stand a chance at getting by on just "being yourself". And you know what? That's OK, because you don't know who the fuck that is anyway, right? It's much easier to have everyone tell you who you're supposed to be. The brain has to work so much harder to go rogue.

So how does one figure out how to be authentic or who their authentic self even is? By starting with the things living inside your head that you keep hidden or feel insecure about. And I'm not talking about those sudden fantasies you have of bludgeoning the person sitting next to you. I mean the vulnerable stuff that you build armour around. That's where the real you is. That person who needs to feel accepted and cared for. To believe in their own worth and beauty. The one who fears rejection and abandonment.

When we hide those most human of qualities, what's left? Good manners, sarcasm, passive aggression, guilt, and way too many apologies. Sure, little bits of you will leak out through the cracks in your armour, but you're still not wholly you. So what can you do to change this? This is where you take a deep breath and force yourself to do or say that uncomfortable thing. You sit with the regret of it after, and the urge to take it back, and hold yourself to it without trying to make the world OK with that. Then when you notice that you didn't die and neither did anyone else... push a little more of yourself through those cracks. Let the pressure of it start to widen them little by little.

One day the armour collapses. You feel naked to the world around you like the day you were born. But you stand there as a whole person...
Stronger than you've ever been, and more beautiful than ever before.

This blog is dedicated to Maryellen Brady @me_brady