Mask
The last few years I’ve been telling people that I don’t like talking. But every time I say so someone tells me that I’m very good in formulating my thoughts, which I am. They also tell me that I talk a lot. Which I don’t.

After being told that I am autistic I have slowly become aware of the fact that I have a very hard time in recognizing my own feelings: In December it dawned on me that a strange feeling in my right leg that I’ve had for years was pain.

How could you be unaware of the fact that you are feeling pain? I am!

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In my teens I often used something I called my “command voice”.

Usely when I opened my mouth and said something no one listened. Which actually didn’t matter all that much. I didn’t have a lot to say. But when I used my command voice people listened. It was hard work to use it, but I liked the result.

But when I became an adult I lost my command voice. Partly because I forgot. Maybe also because I didn’t need it as much. I learned that I also could connect to people by looking them in the eye.

Over the years I became very proficient at connecting to people. Or so I thought.

The last few month I’ve learned that neuro typicals don’t have the feeling that they are connecting to somebody when the look someone in the eye. They only have that feeling when the hear someone.

Last night while I was having a very tiring conversation with someone I notice that what it was that made it tiring. I had to force my voice out of my body to be heard.

I hadn’t lost my command voice. I just learned to use it all the time. That’s why it’s so tiring to talk with people.

Again something I learned but was better without. Now I have to make a choice between not being heard or being tired all the time.

Maybe there is a third alternative.

(While I was drawing this picture my father turned 77. I thought this might make a nice present so I had it framed. He put it in a prominent space in his study )