When I got home I decided to practise nice talking to myself, but I couldn’t get the hang of it. I can’t imagine you ever talk to yourself, nice or not, but if you have any tips I’d be glad to hear them. You seem like an ‘outside your head’ kind of person to me, but maybe that’s just because I’m not in there.
‘You are a good person who deserves to be happy,’ I said to myself. It sounds so strange saying it aloud. The problem is though, my mind is much quicker than my mouth so before I’d even finished saying it, my thoughts reply: ‘No you’re not. Of course you’re not. Remember that time in grade six you laughed when Miss Piggy Peggy wet herself? That was awful. She will probably never be happy because of that.’
I don’t mean that I hear voices or anything, just that my thoughts seem have a mind of their own. Maybe that’s because of how my brain works. Maybe Dr Lim can control her thoughts, but I can’t control mine. So maybe the exercise would work for her, but it doesn’t for me.
I think of my brain as having fewer wires than other brains, but those wires have to work harder than other people’s. My wires make me really good at remembering numbers and different kinds of dinosaurs and facts from the news. I don’t think I have the wires that help with remembering faces, which is why I use my nickname system. And I definitely don’t have the wire that helps with talking to people, or making ‘small talk’ as Mum calls it. If someone wants to talk about books like Harry Potter or TV shows or types of dinosaurs I have a lot to say. I can talk for hours. If they ask what I’m up to on the weekend or talk about other people, then I go with my scripted conversations, or I just say I have to go to the bathroom and find a way to get out. It’s too exhausting, all of that analysing of tiny cues and faces and voices, and then my brain mulls over every social interaction for days afterwards.
It’s easier to limit conversations so I have less to worry about. It’s why I want to live with Dee next year if we both get into uni, because then I’ll have someone familiar to interact with when all of the newness gets too much. Dee wants to study marketing, and I’m going to study law. It seems like a good fit for someone like me.
Dr Lim used to call it my Aspergers, but now she just says ASD, which sounds like a secret code or a children’s charity or something. Mum and Dad never call it anything, they just talk about my ‘challenges’ as though not saying autism might make it go away. I think they think it’s separate to me, like there’s a normal kid hiding in here somewhere, just being smothered by that pesky ASD. But it’s not like that, not at all. Without ASD there is no me, because it’s as much a part of who I am as my skin or my blood. I wish they’d get it. Do you get it?
I’ve got to go because Ollie is standing at my bedroom door with that look on his face that makes you want to hug him, and holding his Batman and Spiderman figures. Let me paint an adorable picture for you.
Ollie: (in just his undies and Spiderman mask) ‘Want to play Spiderman and Batman go camping?’ (excitement level 100, cuteness at 99.9).
It’s a game he has just invented. You’d love it.
Talk soon.
Love, Erin
August 18
Dear Rudy,
Have you ever been embarrassed? I can’t remember a time when I think you would have been, even when you ripped your pants at the basketball court that time and those girls saw your bum. You laughed harder than anyone, and it was real, not the fake kind I do when really I want to rip my guts out with humiliation. I guess what I’m trying to figure out is whether I’m living an embarrassing life, or I just feel those feelings more than other people, like my threshold for shame is lower or something. Writing it down like that doesn’t really make sense, so I’ll just tell you what happened today.
At lunchtime Pointy Kathy and Dee and Jessica Rabbit were talking about Schoolies—as if there is anything else they can talk about these days. They were listing the drinks they were going to bring, like vodka and tequila and Bacardi.
‘And milk,’ I said, speaking for probably the first time all lunch hour.
Dee looked at me like I had shit on my face. She mouthed ‘WTF’, and she laughed a different laugh to her normal one. It was meaner.
I hesitated, then explained. ‘I mean for cereal… In the mornings.’
That didn’t make things better. Dee and Pointy Kathy started cackling and Jessica Rabbit sneered. Dee used the voice she usually reserves for people she doesn’t like. ‘Okay, well, you can bring milk like a weirdo and we’ll bring drinks that will actually do something.’
They were talking specifically about alcohol, even though no one said that. I still don’t really know what was wrong with suggesting milk, because we WILL need it, but my stomach has been churning since that conversation and I feel worse than I would if a basketball court of hot guys had seen my bum. Sometimes Dee is my biggest advocate, and sometimes I feel like she’d break up with me if there were such a thing for friends. Usually it’s when other girls are around. I wish it could be just Dee and me in the apartment at Schoolies, because I’m starting to imagine what might happen if I say the wrong thing or buy the wrong drink and make a mess of the whole week.
Your friendship dynamic at school was different, Rudy. It seemed easier. Maybe that’s a boy thing, or a personality thing, or a not-autistic thing. It’s hard to say. You and Tom and Damo and Matt all seemed to like each other a lot, but you also liked giving each other crap. Everyone was on board with that, though, and no one got more crap than the others. I kind of feel like I get most of the crap. Maybe I should tease Dee more often, but teasing always feels mean and not like a lot of fun to me.
I saw Tom today, by the way, after school, in town while I was buying shampoo and earplugs. They didn’t have the little white ones that come in the yellow container that I like, which was a shame. He was walking past the chemist and he saw me and came in to say hi. He was asking about you, and asking about how I’m going. He seemed pretty sad. I’m not trying to make you feel bad, I’m just saying how it was. His skin was grey and he’s shaved his head. He looks like a prisoner. He said he might call over soon to see Mum and Ollie and to look for a flash drive he thinks he lent you ages ago. Maybe you should get in touch with him, even if you don’t seem to want to be in touch with me.
I don’t know, I’d probably be mad if you did that. Maybe you should get in touch with everyone, all on the same day. Think about it.
Love, Erin
19 August
Dear Rudy,
We went to the movies tonight, as a family but not quite a whole family obviously, because you weren’t there. It was weird, but also kind of nice.
Here’s what didn’t happen: we didn’t run late because you took too long getting ready, picking out the perfect combination of very old clothes to sit in a cinema with the lights off. Dad and Mum didn’t have a fight because she defended you and he wanted you to ‘get your act together’. Ollie didn’t make a big announcement about wanting to sit next to you and end up sitting on your lap. We didn’t get ice cream and walk along the waterfront afterwards like we did when you insisted on taking some time to look at the full moon.