An Experience

(This isn't my experience: like all my other recent posts it's one of Seven Answers).

Just recently I was talking to a lady who works with autistic adults and the more we talked the more I realised that my experience mirrored a lot of things she was saying about autistic behaviour.  Since that day I have been thinking about autism a lot (a little obsessively) and been researching it on the Internet and talking to people.  I was scared but I told my mum about it and she said that it was hard to work me out because as a child I was so closed off.  I am in the middle of a pivotal experience at the moment because things are falling into place.  I make sense to myself a bit more.  Friends that I have tentatively told have not laughed or told me I am being dramatic or a hypochondriac, as I feared they might, but have also had moments of clarity about me.  I am learning to forgive myself a little for certain behaviour.  Am able to know that when I check with people, 'Is this all right?' 'Do I look OK?' it is not out of low self-esteem but that I just don't know.  I am still learning the rules.  I'm also in awe of those people who still love me in spite of my 'little ways' and can be at peace with those who just couldn't get me.  Someone who I was very fond of and who did like me recently parted ways with me, their final words to me were, 'If you were a man you would be just weird.'  I think I know what he means and that is his choice but my heart is absolutely filled with love for this who can overlook a person's shabby, dark and broken bits and see the spark inside that brings the excitement and joy out of another person.