r/writingdivergently

This is rant, not rage bating. Apologies in advance.

- Calling it ‘tism. It’s Autism

- The posts with weird spoons

- The “we’re all a bit on the spectrum”

- Saying ND is quirky. It’s not a quirk

- This is not bad in my head anymore thanks to those who explained it 🤗 Neurospicy: again, why spicy? What’s spicy about brains? We don’t need to look cute and appealing

- The tough reality of being friends when different neurotypes. Let’s face it, someone will grow bored or someone will grow silent

Any more?

EDIT: thanks to those who gave me new perspectives to be less rigid, and for interacting kindly despite my rant 🤗

I mean it kind of came.

More than a decade ago, I was in uni and I wrote a scene of a woman fighting demons in her modern office, alongside a man who looked like your classic Diablo III Barbarian.

Two years ago or so, I wrote a diary after being in therapy for some time. That diary was about my youth and the anger my parents gave me, when they told me I wasn’t gay and convinced me to go through therapy to prove it.

That woman was everything I loved in a Fantasy: femininity, strength, fight.

That boy was everything I wanted to leave behind through healing. Or find again, maybe.

I merged the two. One day I thought it could be a great idea to insert both in a single story, as two sides of one coin.

The story that came out turned out to be about an autistic adult woman and a queer boy, separated by barriers that keep worlds afar, and only they can cross. If they’re together. But they aren’t. They just feel each other, like a Sense8 kind of bond.

It’s not like I wanted to represent autistic or queer people.

It was personal. It was my story. My relationship with my feminine side and my wish to see that boy be strong and wield incredible powers.

Looking back, I see now that story appeals to many who hear me talking about it and say, “I went through that!” or “Vanessa is so relatable!” or “Danny makes me want to hug him.”

That’s why I thought, maybe stories that are a bit unconventional and niche, those about the rough sides of being an autistic adult masking through life and being the hero, or the queer boy hiding his sexuality, imagining to run away until he crosses to another world and his wish is granted… maybe that’s wholesome. There’s beauty in telling that story.

I wish I could say, I wanted to represent people like me because it’s right and I made an artistic choice.

I didn’t.

I just told my story and what I knew from my life and the life of people I knew, and somehow it became about magic, parallel worlds and a prophecy.

But deep down I healed myself with it.

I was selfish.

For once, I’m not ashamed.

I have this way to learn things by imitation and do them.

At school, every beginning of new school grade I was the worst student. Six months after, I was the best.

I never knew things though, I just created structures and logics and read people (teachers) to know what they wanted and how.

Don’t get me wrong, I know that is studying: learn things. But when others could see the big picture, I was always building things in tiny blocks, like ok: I go from A, to B, to C…. Even at work I see people jumping to C and I need to know all information to get there.

Sometimes then I get there better, with results that are good, but I always stick to the boundaries of what I have learned. I can’t invent things.

With people, I learn how they behave and do the same.

And I approach everything as if it’s something I need to learn the rules of: I write? Ok I learn the rules from feedback and apply the feedback. But I never feel like I know anything about it.

Whenever something out of the expected rules I learned happens, I’m like “where was this explained? Where was this written?”

Even a downvote on reddit for me it’s like, “what did I do wrong?” As if human reactions to me must be written somewhere.

Anyway, I’m just upset today because I try to achieve things but feel like I will never because it doesn’t come natural to me, I just learn scripts.

Which always makes me question who am I? Am I good at something?