They Called It Autistic Immaturity. They Missed Everything.
I’m writing a memoir… out loud. Building a book. Fragment by fragment… just like I lived it.
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Look, first off… This is not the beginning of a poor-me story.
This is a story of how I found moments of joy… in my dark autistic life. Like Leonard Cohen sang in Suzanne, “among the garbage and the flowers.”
Content note: This one’s tough. Mentions abuse, trauma, suicidality.
1972 was a hell of a summer… Room 1
I first sought a diagnosis at 19. Following suicide attempt #1.
I was driving after dark. Which I wasn’t supposed to do… new family rule.
See, I’d damaged our car the week before, making a hasty turn into our driveway on Old Deer Park Road in Katonah. Hit the damn stone wall on the way in.
This was Westchester County. Code only allowed a nano break between the 18th-Century stones guarding our yard. Colonial heritage or something… masking slave labor.
I’m in the doghouse. With parents who were already skeptical about letting me go to college. Not “mature” enough.
Yet, when hood and fender are finally fixed at the old Amawalk Service Center out on Route 202? They drop me off on a muggy, hazy June night.
“Pick it up and bring it home. No side stops.” Then they instruct me, “Be… careful.” Rolling their collective 4 eyes.
I pull out, then wait. The light’s gotta change at the 4-lane interchange for me to head home on Route 35.
The light turns green. I go into a weird space in my head. There’s some reason I shouldn’t turn left… yet…
But I watch myself shrug, turn on my signal, and turn. Right into two lanes of accelerating traffic coming right at me.
Don’t remember much more. Just the red, don’t-turn-yet-idiot arrow. Staring at me brightly… through the windshield that used to be there.
I survived. That classic, white 1965 Mustang didn’t. Barely street legal, 271-horse V8 under the hood. Maybe the most collectible American car of all time.
A hand-me-down gift to our family from my father’s father. Who bragged, “I had to jew the dealer down from 5 grand,” back when he bought it new in ’65. A lot of money then.
Um, things got tense at home.
“You are responsible for your own actions. You are the cause here.”
Parental meeting time.
“Uh, I don’t know what happened.” I couldn’t stand these “meetings.” So many in my childhood. This was the worst of all.
“I don’t know. It just happened.”
Making my parents even more furious. These were avid Ayn Rand readers. And my grandfather? He slept beside an orderly nightstand. Mein Kampf tucked tightly in its tidy drawer.
My dead father’s voice echoes coldly in my mind still. “You are responsible for your own actions. You are the cause here.”
But, I stumble on. Making things worse… in my way.
“Something’s wrong. I don’t know what. I’m having horrible visions. Hitting people with the car as I drive by. Hitting their bodies… bones…”
I trail off. Into stony silence, I say, “And now something weird happened. I think… I think… maybe I should see a doctor…”
Next thing I know, I’m sitting in front of a Westchester County caseworker. Cuz my parents felt a psychologist or private therapist cost too much.
I had no idea what I was feeling… much less why.
The intake experience was horrific.
I felt… badgered.
She called it… delicately. Maybe the accident looked like an “attempt to… maybe… harm yourself?” But she continued with a sledgehammer.
“I know you have a secret you want to tell me.” Rinse, repeat…
I wanted so badly to please her. But had no idea what I was feeling… much less why.
Worse yet? There were things I didn’t want to tell her. Tell anyone. Darker than the physical or sexual abuse she was probably check-listing. Things a traumatized kid might do… himself.
I never went back. I told my parents I was uncomfortable talking to her.
My dad rocked back in his dark, maple, Early American dining room chair. “Fine. That’s your choice.”
He paused. Looking directly at my mother as he said to me, “I can see you won’t speak to her. I see no reason to look for another for you to talk to. Your decision.”
And that was that.
2016 was a good year. A damn fine year.
Finally at 63, a psychologist specializing in autism gave me another name, Alexithymia.
He said a lot of autistics can know something is wrong. But not know what. And baptized me, Autism Spectrum Disorder… with a side of ADHD.
2016 was a good year. A damn fine year.
But 1972 was a summer from hell.
The last US troops shipped home, fleeing Viet Nam. Palestinians massacred Israelis at the Olympics.
My father died that August. The week after he molested me for the last time.
We were all dying for freedom.
This is Fragment 4 in a series of pre-releases as I work through this memoir.
The next? Brings home the stakes. The moments of joy along the way… that draw a line under what could have been.
I was entranced.
Examining grass leaves, dew drops, and…
Ants.
Dozens of ants. One after another. Legs. Antennae. Mandibles. Eyes. Guiltily burning off the occasional leg with focused sunlight…
Endless fascination…
I was in the flow…
My autistic joys are hard to explain to another person. Pretty much ANY non-autistic person. And trying to… drags me into Deep Philosophical Waters…
A project’s been brewing since January, my friends.
Been rethinking my purpose.
I’m out to give you the experience of a life. A life that began in 1953. Whether you’re an adult… autistic, an ally, a researcher, or a caregiver.
Cuz if you don’t know us… how ya gonna love us.
And the neurotype is the meassage. That’s not a typo. It’s portmanteau…
The next-to-most radical thing I can think to offer?
Telling stories. That take you inside one old autistic’s skin…
Who survived the 20th Century. So you experience this. Now. Maybe we’ll understand each other better.
I think in fragments.
That may become pieces. That may become chapters. That may be…? A book.
Your input could shape the trip.
I want to share that process with you. Maybe later with the world.
Most radical thing of all. Scary as shit…
Join me?
This is Fragment 4 of a memoir I’m writing in public.
One autistic elder’s life, told in fragments… just like I lived it.
Since 2019 I’ve published a quarter of a million words. Over half the size of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Gotta be a pony somewhere in that shit.
Follow the bread crumbs… Fragment 1 here. The fragment that begins the Funhouse.
If this landed for you… the next one lands in your inbox… free.
Connect:
- Drop a comment… Did you ever feel something was wrong… but didn’t know why?
- When you figured it out… did it ever change how you saw the world?
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Get the Chapbook:
every clock is a handgun pointed at my head, art, poetry, and raw neurodivergent truth. Thirteen pieces. One autistic life, unfiltered. Available on Amazon
Subscribe to AutisticAF Out Loud… free or paid… and get the full PDF in your inbox. On me. #AutisticAF Out Loud Newsletter: One Voice. Raw. Real. Fiercely Autistic.
I’m an autistic poet and spoken word performer, diagnosed at 63. Now in my 70s. I’ve been publishing AutisticAF Out Loud since 2019… work that refuses to be packaged.
My spoken word piece , every clock is a handgun pointed at my head, was published in Wordgathering, a journal of disability poetry & literature. In 2022, I spoke at the UN World Autism Acceptance Day about my illustration work rooted in autism & ADHD.
I live in a rural Indiana trailer… across the courtyard from my wife’s trailer… with my 2 dogs & cat. Occasionally I shave… to face Walmart.
The algorithms hate me. I must be doing something right.
#SpokenWord #AutismAcceptance #AutisticPoetry
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