Last spring, depersonalization was kind of a political act. I'll go more into detail another time. Stuff is a lot better now for various reasons. And I know disability-as-metaphor is dangerous, but it is my disability and my metaphor.
If I'm disabled, and I know I am, and people don't know that and people don't see that, then what I think I know is not real.
If people with disabilities are real and vibrant people, and I know them, and people think of us something other, something sad and tragic, then what I think I know is not real.
If writing here and meeting people through this is a really important, special thing that's changed my life, but no one can see it when they look at me and people think the Internet isn't real life, then what I think I know is not real.
If I need help but I don't look like I need help and I half the time think I'm lying and exaggerating about needing help, and I don't have current documentation to prove I need help, then what I think I know is not real.
If people who say they are my friends, family members who say they love me, can explain without feeling concerned why they wouldn't (or didn't) want a disabled child, why it's okay to talk about disabled people in negative sweeping terms, and these people love me, and I'm still me, then I'm not me, and what I think I know is not real.
So then why is it wrong to sometimes feel like there is no difference between me and characters on TV? Or like my friends are not really my friends, but just a bunch of fake memories imprinted on my brain, leaving me nervous to talk to them because I feel like it's the first time, the first real time, like I'm a clone that has slipped into Amanda's life and is trying to proceed as normal?
I mean, if all this is true, I could be a Cylon.
(I'm making a pun, reality testing remains intact--at least as far as I know.)
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For some reason this all reminds me of how I feel about the fact that I compartmentalize so much, and the reason why I compartmentalize so much.
ReplyDeleteI understand and experience this.
ReplyDeleteI definitely relate and experience this, too.
ReplyDeleteHalf the time I feel like I should just keep my head down and hope that nobody notices that I'm different. Sometimes I feel that if I raise attention to my needs, my differences and people pay attention to it it places me in a position where people can tell me that what I say is not true and that I am fake.
I hate having to live life where my own reality, my own me, is so beholden to a society which is so intent on stripping it from me.
It's not just as an autistic person for me, it's also as a transsexual person. It is so difficult to say "I am autistic" when nothing on my body can be shown to back me up -- when nobody else can see this. It is so difficult to say "I am a woman" when people see a masculine body and see a man.
Nowadays when I am not trying not to be noticed I'm hiding behind the safety inherent in a healthy dose of militancy.