Hello all my fellow Autism-Spectrum people!
I actually have a question for you all. I am a writer (my interests are people and stories) and I have only recently played with the idea that I may be Aspie. I show all of the symptoms typical to female Aspies and even have some of the developmental delays common to Autism Spectrum Disorders.
Before reaching this revelation, I wrote a particular story that I felt reflected my experience (writing is often a way for me to figure stuff out), but also found very sad and strange. Now that I have discovered that I may be an Aspie (in fact, I'm sure of it), I have revisited this story in a new light.
I was wondering if any of you can take look at it (especially girl Aspies) and see if this story speaks to you? I'm usually a fantasy writer, preferring medieval fantasy rather than "realism" or anything else.
To give some background as well - I am 25 and have always known I was different. My mother always wanted me to be like other children though (she didn't know I was Aspie, has suffered from depression all her life, and I believe may also be Aspie) and so I learnt to try and copy others or force myself to do things I otherwise wouldn't, just to please her and be accepted and not cause our fights etc.
Thank you all, here is the story I wrote:
How Kara Met God
Kara didn?t enjoy being the centre of attention. She didn?t even think of herself as that important and found other people more interesting and deserving of praise. But people didn?t give her much thought anyway, which is how she liked it. She was just an average girl, with average potential, average looks and an average family. That was all she wanted.
Kara went up to her mother and gave her a hug. The one thing that wasn?t average about Kara was her ability to love others. She loved everyone so intensely she often felt like chaining them to her before they could get away.
?I love you mum,? Kara said, squeezing her mother tightly.
Beverley placed her hand on Kara?s back after a moment of surprise and said, ?I love you too, Kay.?
A couple months ago Kara was in a terrible accident. Everyone thought she was going to die. She was in a coma for over a month when she woke up, crying. She wouldn?t stop crying for days, her parents worried that she had sustained brain damage. The doctors assured them she was okay though, saying it was just shock, and eventually she stopped crying and was released from hospital. Now she loved everyone so intensely it took them by surprise.
?You should get going, or you?ll be late for school,? Kara?s mother said, as she managed to writhe free.
Kara gave a big toothy smile, ?School!?
Beverley looked at her daughter quizzically, ?This isn?t like you. Since when do you like school so much??
?Since I came back from the dead,? Kara said, a tinge of sadness in her tone.
Since I met God, Kara thought.
Beverley grabbed her daughter and hugged her further, ?Please don?t be sad, honey. You?re okay now.?
?I?m not sad mum. I?m happier than I?ve ever been.?
And it was the truth.
Kara made her way to school by the bus that stopped outside her parents? house. Usually she would drive, but her car was totalled in the accident. She often wondered how it happened. Why it happened.
Couldn?t she somehow have stopped it from happening?
When Kara spoke to the psychiatrist about this, she said it was normal to blame herself for something that could have hurt her friends and almost killed her. It was normal to take blame for something that happened because she was behind the wheel. But she reassured Kara that what happened was an accident and couldn?t have been avoided.
But what happened to Kara was far from normal.
Kara told the psychiatrist she was probably right, but kept her thoughts to herself.
On the bus trip Kara watched all the people around her. There were a couple of boys from the primary school nearby throwing paper balls at a girl ahead of them. This made Kara smile. This wouldn?t usually make Kara smile.
On the other side was an elderly lady holding a large bag for groceries and shaking her head at the young boys. This made Kara feel intensely happy, she couldn?t help but start laughing. She laughed so loudly it surprised the gecko fixed to the window beside her with its padded toes and it ran away. Her voice echoed through the bus and people slowly stopped speaking. Everyone turned and looked at her. Stared at her. Kara forced her laughter down and they all turned away.
Kara made a note to keep her happiness to herself. People didn?t like it when you were too happy. She thought this was strange.
When Kara had died for those few minutes on the operating table, that?s when she found out the truth. Why everyone was here, why the world existed, why everyone populated the earth. The meaning of life. She met the big guy upstairs.
The bus drove her usual route and Kara admired the leafy green trees lining the suburban roads. Everything seemed brighter and more alive. The same things she used to see on her way to school seemed more beautiful to her somehow. More amazing than ever before. She marvelled at it and almost felt proud, but for that other feeling seeping in. Loneliness. She often wondered before the accident why people could feel so lonely when there were all these other people around them. If they talked to these people, made idle chit-chat, wouldn?t that make their loneliness go away? Wouldn?t that make them feel less alone, like their existence was a shared one? But now she understood.
The bus stopped and some children came in. Two boys found each other and sat down beside each other, the one boy?s little sister sitting behind them and trying to include herself in their banter, poking her head through the crack in the chairs only to have her brother push her away. In that moment Kara really loved that little girl. But wasn?t it because she was that little girl too?
The bus filled with more people. There was a business man, busy looking at his phone, there was an older girl in a shop uniform, looking at her watch often and watching impatiently as the driver took payment from a disorganised couple of girls, dressed casually and giggling happily. There was a woman and her baby son. She was rolling the pram back and forth, trying to quieten him down and then there was someone else. Someone familiar. Kara recognised her friend Sam coming onto the bus. As usual she was not quite dressed, her singlet showing because her uniform shirt hadn?t been buttoned up and her hair damp. She saw Kara and gave a half smile, walking hesitantly towards her.
?Hi Kara,? she said, taking the seat beside her.
Kara looked at her dishevelled friend and gave her a hug.
?Nice to see you too,? Sam replied.
?I?ve missed you.?
Sam smiled. ?I?ve missed you too. How are you doing??
?I?m the best I?ve ever been,? Kara exclaimed, beaming.
?You seem... different.?
Kara remembered that people didn?t like other people that were too happy. ?No. Not different. Just the same old Kara.?
?I would?ve visited you, but Mum and Dad had me looking after Mikey all summer while they were at work.?
?It?s okay. I understand.?
?I heard the guy that hit you came right at you. That he wasn?t drunk or on his phone or crazy or... anything. Just decided to hit into you.?
?That?s what the police told us.?
?Weird.?
?I guess it is,? Kara said, looking down at her hands in her lap. It was very strange. Like it was somehow meant to happen, like it had been planned. Ordained from God.
?I?m sorry. You obviously don?t want to talk about it.?
?No, it?s okay, really. Honestly, I?m happy to talk about anything?
Despite giving Sam the all clear, the conversation hit a dead end and the two of them sat in silence.
?How?s John and Abby??
?They?re okay. I?m surprised you haven?t seen them already.?
?I guess I was too busy savouring everything. Time ran away from me.?
?Fair enough. They seem okay though. You probably already know they were barely scratched. I mean, compared to you that is. A couple broken bones, but they recovered pretty quickly. Everyone was really just worried about you,? Sam said.
?I?m glad they?re okay. I felt like it was my fault.?
?Don?t say that. Everyone knows it wasn?t your fault.?
Silence again. Kara desperately wanted to lap up as much happiness she could get and steer clear of the topic that just brought awkwardness.
?What classes do you have this term,? Kara chimed in.
Sam took out a crumpled piece of paper from her bag. She unravelled it to reveal her timetable for the term.
?Oh, we?ll be in each other?s Economics class.?
?Cool. I can copy off of you.?
Kara cracked up, ?Not unless you want to fail. I suck at that class, but I have to do it if I want to get into Business.?
?Why are you doing it if you hate it so much??
?I don?t know what else to do. It?s not like I have any hobbies or interests.?
?Ugh, don?t start talking to me about that. I have no idea what I should be doing once we graduate. I?m thinking take a year off and travel sounds good. Then I?ll decide.?
Kara and Sam spoke like old times again. This made Kara happy, but she tried to keep her happiness down, so that it didn?t overflow. What would happen if she became too happy?
The bus stopped at their stop and Kara and Sam got off and walked into the school. Kara?s eyes marvelled at the wonder of all the people around her. Big, small, fat, skinny, short, tall, black, white, girl, boy, happy, unhappy, rich, poor, smart, stupid. All those people. They were all so very beautiful. But then she was separate from them. In her own universe. Her own being. This made her sad, but she refused to be sad. She wanted to be happy, to savour it. What if it all one day went away again?
Kara smiled. A few people noticed she was back, but didn?t come up to her to say hello. She saw John and he waved to her, but rushed off to his form class. She saw Abby then, talking to some girls from their grade. Kara knew she could see her from the corner of her eye, but she chose to ignore her instead of come and say hello. The bell rang and Kara looked at Sam, about to say goodbye. Sam seemed shocked.
?Kara, why are you making that face? Are you okay??
Kara felt her face. She was smiling so wide that she was baring all her teeth. She quickly closed her mouth.
?Sorry.?
Sam gave an uncomfortable chuckle and waved goodbye.
Kara spent the morning classes soaking up all the information she could. She had Geography and Maths, both subjects she usually hated, but this time she studied all the equations and listened to the list of all the countries, marvelling at the cultures and the purposes equations could serve. Her teachers glared at her in shock, as if she had been possessed, every time she raised her hand and asked a question.
Kara wondered how this all happened? Did people think this all up on their own, using their own ingenuity and determination? Or did God make things this way, like a car hitting another for no reason other than it was meant to happen? She had never realised how big and nuanced the world really was. It scared her. All it was was a small body of rock floating in space with nothing stopping it being wiped out.
Would she do such a thing? Would it matter?
Kara thought it was funny how some things would pop up in life and coincide with something else that had happened. Like when her grandmother died, that week she watched a movie about a little boy dealing with the loss of his grandmother on TV and then later that week listening in on how a man was talking about having been at his grandmother?s funeral. It was as if things fell into place around her when things like that happened, like everyone and everything was teaching her how to cope. Were these things really coincidences?
It happened again when she was sitting in class and asking another question of her Geography teacher.
?Sir, how many countries are there in the world??
?You?re rather inquisitive today, aren?t you. There are approximately 196.?
?Why only approximately??
?Because some countries are still fighting over boarders and things can change very quickly, so that tomorrow, there may be 197.?
?Right,? Kara said.
?Did you guys ever think that your mum could read your thoughts when you were a kid?? Liam said in the row behind her.
?Yeah, like she would just know when you had done something bad. My mum had the hearing of a bat, I swear. If you said anything bad, she would just turn and yell ?I heard that?,? Phillipa replied.
?Yeah, same here. Did you guys ever think that maybe you were actually the only person alive and that one day you?d wake up and everything was a dream. Like sometimes I?m dreaming, and my dreams feel so real that I think they are real. But what if this is all a dream too,? John blurted.
?Yes!? Kara yelled, turning to them happily.
Everyone turned and stared at her. Again, she had to remember. People didn?t like it when you were too happy.
?She?s so weird now,? Phillipa whispered.
At lunch time, Kara went to the library. Everyone was gossiping about her and talking about the accident. She didn?t want to face them. Not like that. So she went to the library instead to make sense of it all.
Kara wasn?t much of a religious type, but the first book she went to was the Bible. It was in the Religious Education section, along with the Koran and the ?Tanakh.?
She didn?t even know there was a Hebrew bible; she thought they just read the normal bible. Because of this, she opted to open the Bible instead, to the familiar phrase of ?In the Beginning.? Everything in life had a beginning, even the world it seemed. Although to Kara it seemed strange for there to never have been anything before everything. How would nothing feel? Would nothing feel? Kara suddenly realised why people believed in God and Allah and all those angels.
She skimmed the page and the tiny text. Luckily this section had no ?he begats?. She remembered those from religious education. They got old.
Kara read:
?And God said ?Let there be light,? and there was light...
?And there was evening, and there was morning?the third day...
?Then God said, ?Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness??
Wait. Us? Were there two Gods? A God and a Goddess? Did that mean there was hope? Or was it just a mistake? Did God create people and the earth because he was lonely?
Kara thought so. It felt lonely.
Kara looked for more answers. If this was all her world, the answers must have been somewhere. Isn?t that what they tell people who have hypnotherapy? But Kara knew Christianity wasn?t the only religion. She looked elsewhere.
She went to one of the free computers in the library and logged in with her student code. She searched gods and goddesses and found many pop up on the screen, from all around the world. She remembered her father teaching her about the Greek Gods. He was into that mythical stuff. She looked up Greek Myths and read about their creation. Or at least their version of it.
?In the beginning??
Again that familiar phrase.
?There was chaos, a primeval state of existence. Chaos was a primal emptiness, a dark, silent, formless and infinite oddity with no life. Out of Chaos, the Mother Goddess Gaea came into existence.?
The story wasn?t familiar but the Chaos was.
Gaea?
Kara kept to herself for the rest of the school day, Sam attempting to talk to her in Economics, but giving up after Kara gave short, uninterested answers. Her friends were distanced and whenever she walked past, they went silent. If only they knew what she was.
The bell went and Sam and Kara walked out to the front of the school, where the parents and buses lined up to take the students home.
?I?m getting a lift with Abby?s mum, so I won?t be on the bus with you,? Sam said.
?Okay.?
They walked to Abby?s mum?s car, Kara deep in thought.
?How are you Kara?? Abby?s mum said from behind the steering wheel.
Sam and Abby got in the back, Abby?s little brother in the front, all watching Kara warily.
?I?m fine, Mrs Dawson.?
?Are you sure you wouldn?t like a lift home??
?Mum,? Abby said under her breath, nudging her mother?s arm.
?I think I?ll just take the bus home today, Mrs Dawson. Thank you though.?
?Alright Kara, well you look after yourself.?
?Bye Kara,? Sam called, before they drove off.
The bus trip home was much the same. Kara tried to keep cheerful, watching the people laughing, arguing, chatting, reading, waiting and living. But after a while she was jealous of them. She wanted to live too, like she used to.
She arrived home and went straight to her room, flopping down on her bed.
?Kara. Kara? Are you alright??
Kara groaned back.
Her mother sighed. ?Hello to you too.?
Kara thought about sleeping and escaping her worries, but then she worried she might go back to the darkness. To the nothing. To the Chaos.
After a while of lying on her bed, thinking about all she had read, fearing the worst, she got up and went to see her mother ? Beverley ? as she cooked dinner. It smelt of lasagne. Beverley wasn?t much of a cook, but since Kara?s accident she had taken time off from work and begun playing the house wife, making elaborate meals and baking. Cupcakes abounded in the kitchen and Kara spied an apple crumble in the fridge as she went to get some juice.
?So the little miss has finally emerged. You going to tell me what?s wrong, or are we going to play at that game again,? Beverley said cutting at a tomato, as Kara took a seat by the kitchen table.
?Where?s dad??
?He?s still at work. His got a meeting with some clients oversees, so he probably won?t be home until late.?
?He?s been working late a lot.?
?I know. But he?s doing it to put food on the table. What?s up with you though? This morning you were all hunky-dory and now you?re all moody. What?s happening pumpkin??
?I?ve just been thinking is all.?
Beverley placed the knife down and came to sit beside her daughter. ?Kay, you know it wasn?t you?re fault. You couldn?t have stopped it,? she said, placing a hand on Kara?s.
?It?s not that mum. Well... I guess it is. But not really.?
?Are you going to tell me??
Kara glanced down at her hands as she wrung them. ?Can I ask you a question instead??
?Of course,? Beverley said, getting up to continue chopping at tomatoes.
?Do you believe in God??
?Well... we?re not a Christian family, you know that. I guess I used to believe when I was little, when your Gran would take me to Church every Sunday. I guess I hope he is real, but that I?m a bit more sceptical now than I used to be. Why do you ask??
?Do you think God made people because he was lonely??
?If he is real, I guess he would have been lonely all by himself up there. So yeah, maybe.?
?I think so too,? Kara said, beginning to cry.
?Oh pumpkin. What?s the matter??
Kara said nothing. She knew it must have been lonely and was glad she couldn?t remember it.
When she was ?dead? for that short time on the operating table, she had ventured into the darkness ? reality ? the ?Chaos?. There was nothing but her consciousness and an overwhelming loneliness. No sound, no smells, no sense of touch. Just her mind and the darkness. She wanted to cry, but she had no eyes. She wanted to wail, but she had no voice. All she had was thought and the emptiness of space. Kara did go back, to escape the loneliness. But things could never be the same again. At least here she could cry and feel her mother?s touch, even if it wasn?t real.
?Come on dry your face. I was saving the surprise for you, but Chris is having dinner with us tonight. He?s moving back and he wants to see how you?re doing.?
?That?s great news,? Kara managed, before a further onslaught of tears came.
?I think you must just be tired. Come on. You go rest. I?ll fetch you when dinner is ready.?
Kara was escorted to her bed where she slept for what seemed like days. She didn?t go back to the darkness as she had feared, but watched the people she had created live their lives. She went to places she had never been, but knew she had created them. She saw people from all walks of life and knew it was she who made them.
?Kara, look who?s here.?
Kara opened her eyes to see her mother and brother by her bedside. ?Chris!? she squealed, leaping up to hug him.
Chris laughed, ?Hi twerp,? he teased. ?How are you? I hope your noggin is still ok.?
?They say so,? Beverley said tentatively.
?I?m fine. Just... adjusting.?
They had dinner as a family, Kara enjoying the company her brother added and hoping she would one day forget what she had found out. As she went to the bathroom though, she overheard her brother and mother talking.
?She seems different.?
?The doctors said she was fine. No brain damage. But Stuart and I aren?t so sure. She burst into tears this afternoon, just like that. And this morning, she was just so... needy.?
?Do you think it changed her??
?Chris, what happened would change anyone, but I think there?s something wrong. I worry about her.?
?Why isn?t Stuart here? Shouldn?t he be here with you guys??
?Now don?t start. Stuart uses work to escape from it. It?s been hard on him, you know. Kara?s his little girl, his only child.?
?No excuse to be avoiding it.?
?Chris please don?t start. We need to be strong. For your sister.?
?I know... I?m sorry.?
Had she gone mad? Was it all a dream? It couldn?t have been. It felt more real than all of this. She had never felt more awake.
The finished dinner and chatted till late, Chris telling them about uni and what he had been up to in Sydney. His stories made Kara forget, if only for a moment.
When it was all done, Chris leaving and Kara and her mother both gone to bed, Kara lay in bed, unable to sleep. She was too full of thoughts. Surely she could have stopped the accident if she was this world?s creator. Had she wanted to ?wake up,? had she wanted the truth? Is that why it happened? Who would want this though ? this loneliness.
A creak came at Kara?s door and her father stepped in, suited up in black and blue pinstripe.
?I?m sorry, did I wake you??
?No. I can?t sleep.?
He sat down on the bed beside her, stroking her hair and smiling. ?What?s troubling you??
?Dad, do you sometimes feel alone.?
?Of course. But then I think of you and your mother and I don?t feel so alone.?
?Aren?t you afraid that will one day stop? That you will truly be alone? Nothing to make you feel better??
?Everyone will have to go through that eventually Kara. We all have to die alone, but we can take solace in the fact that we are alone together in that.?
Kara thought about this. ?I guess you?re right. Thanks Dad. Goodnight.?
?Night Kay.?
Kara went to sleep quickly. In her sleep she slipped away to her death, like a thief creeping away. Her place, she decided, was to watch on. Watch the lonely people and join them in their loneliness. It was only fair.
28 May 2014, 7:44 pm
