I'm Terrified That You Don't Understand Me

“I'm terrified that you don't understand me.” 

I want to send that so badly to all these new people in my life... I'd also like to add, 

“I'm terrified that I don't understand you”, like 15 minutes after the first text in a way that certainly only makes sense to other autistic people and seems needy to nuerotypicals. It's not needy though, they just don't understand me, so they don't know that I thought of the second text 15 minutes later and I cannot bind myself in the straight jacket of neurotypical social norms, so I couldn't stop myself from sending that when it came to mind because I only realized it looked strange 30 min later after 30 min of acting out how the rest of the exchange might go, so that I'm prepared to provide reactions that appeal to the emotions of neurotypicals, so they don't find me offputting. Smile. Smile and make it look real. 

I'm in this kind of purgatory with a handful of people that entered my life this year. I don't trust that they see me as I am, but I trust them enough to be more myself with them than I am with people I don't know. 

For example; I was texting with Omar about him reading a play for me (already very scary and vulnerable), then I told him that I have a vision for his style because we started talking about clothes. Then, I realized that he probably doesn't know that I have a vision for everyone’s style because everyone I know exists as a character in my head that I use for my maladaptive day dreams. What would he know about maladaptive day dreams? So, now I'm so embarrassed because I'm thinking that he probably thinks I care so much about him that I think of his style. If he knew that I actually think of all my friends that much and imagine them a lot, he would know it's not specific to him and I wouldn't feel embarrassed. However, he doesn't know that because we’re in connection purgatory. Tomorrow we're meant to read the play…I don't know how to teach him that I don't only think of what he wears before we meet up. I'm really terrified that he doesn't understand me. 

When I ask if he understands me, he says he does though. I just wonder if he's “understanding me” in the way I pretend to understand other languages when I ask for help in other countries. Where I like nod and say “thank you” in their language before showing off my broken use of the country’s language to another person in hopes that they speak enough English to help me. You know? Or maybe I'm not understanding him. Maybe I've made the wrong deduction on who he is as a person and he's more similar to me than I'll allow myself to believe because realizing we're similar would add depth to the friendship that I don't feel safe adding. So let's not consider that I may be misreading him and instead  blame him for not understanding me. Woe is me! No one understands me! ;) That's what I like to say in order to avoid vulnerability. Haha. It's a lot easier to decide that someone doesn't understand you in advance than it is to use your words to share about yourself and grow closer because of it. 

I want to say that to Paris too. That I'm terrified they don't understand me. They take a long time to reply to  messages. A lot of time for me to wonder if my last text was finally strange enough to scare them away. I like to say they don't understand me, but writing this makes me realize that they actually do. Kat has been saying they see me very well. Perhaps if I peek over my force field, I can see that everyone interacting with me is choosing to do so because we’re no longer in a controlled environment like school or a work place that forces our proximity. Maybe I could actually send “I appreciate that you are working on understanding me. It means the world to me.”