Nonverbal Autistic Speaking Here

From Autistic me: you will never know how difficult it is for me, at times, to form words and speak out loud. My brain struggles with English as if it is a foreign language. Some days, like today, it's all I can do to string together enough words that my teen can understand what I'm trying to say.

Some days, Words Just Don't Work. And he and I have grown used to it; it's our normal.

The other thing I wanted to say, to those that love and care for nonverbal Autistics, being nonverbal does not hurt and it often feels very natural and normal not to speak. The times I'm nonverbal, I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything, in fact, the times where I feel the greatest, most pervasive peace and calm and whole, is when I'm nonverbal. 

I struggle because the outer world is completely against silence and mutism and nonverbal, whereas so much of my being, my brain and neurology screams 'be quiet, say nothing'; it is so peaceful in the quiet. I cannot emphasize enough that nonverbal can be pure bliss to some of us Autistics. Hell is being forced to talk and interact and play nice and act normal. 

I can't imagine how difficult it must be for a parent or caregiver of a nonverbal Autistic. I guess my parting wisdom as both an Autistic and the mother of a quiet Autistic is, if your child does not appear to be in any distress, they are probably quite content and maybe even feeling great calm.

I know my son loves me, even on the days I'm unable to speak. I love my son equally on the days I am verbal, and on the days I am mute. That does not change.

Just because someone is nonverbal does not mean they are in distress or pain. Sometimes it is the exact opposite. 

I live in both worlds, verbal and nonverbal. If I could only choose one, I think you can figure out which one I'd prefer.❤

Be kind to your local Autistics, both the verbal and nonverbal ones.

and there is no one listening

So talking is a useless endeavor. 

I want everyone to leave me alone rather intensely these days.

Disconnected 

I am alone

In an over filled world

That never cease

To take a breath

Or a pause

I watch

From afar

It's the safest place to be.

I want to go home, go to bed, sleep till morrow and then some

on being mute

As the noise inside my head slows way down, I delight more deeply in external noises (plus I am not as easily annoyed or overwhelmed by said noises).

It's less difficult to understand the spoken words of others.

Song lyrics, on the radio, suddenly became clear and coherent.

I enjoy the sound of my own breathing. 

I turned off the closed captioning on the television because I can understand what is being said now.

I've run into a couple hurdles. To activate my credit card, I encountered a voice-activated only phone number. In a similar vein, my dentist appointment could not be made via phone, rather I need to show up, written request in hand, and get an appointment made.

Likewise, at the vet, I couldn't park in the lot and call and ask the receptionist to bring out my dog food. Instead, I prepared a written sign, conveniently made from the box of dog food I required, so that the receptionist could easily see what I needed.

In both in-person cases, I was treated with great respect and my errands were successful. 

In some ways being mute is like a layer of protection, a blanket of insulation against the external world. My worries are less. My expectations are lowered, too. I don't have to engage in chitchat or banter. Good overall but at times a hardship.

More positive than negative.

Inside, I feel great calm.

Being mute has its pluses and minuses.

and so it begins....Alone again naturally

We've voluntarily left therapy, partially due to pandemic restrictions, autistic limitations and the feeling that the effort was more than the actual productivity. 

We had two appointments a week this month but only engaged in therapeutic work for two sessions. The others were no shows, cancels or walkouts without any memory/ healing work taking place.

It felt like we were walking in to a trap each time we arrived at the office.

The unfortunate analogy repeatedly heard was that it felt like therapist "was throwing rocks at our head." Therapy had become majorly unpredictable and too emotionally painful to endure.

All the warm fuzzies of being heard and unburdened melted away. The office turned into a frozen wasteland and my fingertips grew cold and blue.

There is no return date on any horizon that I can see. I feel perfectly okay with this. I didn't quit or bail, rather, I was painted into a corner. Leaving was the only way to get free.

I fly solo now. No friends, family or foes to bog me down or contort and twist for.

I think I heard some one talking out of my mouth try and explain that we had reached the end of our rope and were unwilling to fall for anyone but ourselves.

Therapy had been deteriorating right along with the rising pandemic restrictions. Distance. Distance, we know thee well. We cannot speak well or much when we have to shout to be heard.

We are on our own. The most common and normal atmosphere.

It's all good 

Naming Memories

Its unusual for us to have more than one memory floating on the surface with open access. Currently, we have five trauma events being talked about in therapy and written about in journals. To help keep things organized, we have taken to giving each memory a nickname for reference.

Here are three core memories:

Sold- when we were 3 or 4 and our father sold us to his boss. I think it is the first time we saw money being exchanged. Maybe the first time prostituted. Unsure. It was to my dad's commander at the Air Force base he was stationed at. We remember the room, televisionand stand and have discussed some of the details but not all of them.

After this incident, we became afraid of people, men. We didn't want to be touched and it was our first recollection of that.

Shoulder- maybe 4 or so. Our dad shocked us by grabbing our upper left arm and yanking us quickly off the floor. Very scary in a deeply visceral way. Thought our arm was broke. Need to write more about this one, too.

This caused us to feel that our own body was an unsafe place to be in.

Spoon- geez, all these are but semi complete and require much more processing. 

We remember being drugged by our evil grandmother, her brother, my great uncle the priest and my great grandmother was there, too. 

This caused us to be suspicious of all food and drink.

Snuff- around 8 or 9 just like Spoon. First time seriously choked and molested by dad.

That's enough for now.

I need to take some time, focus on one incident and write thoroughly about it.

They do have connections. It's the first time I've discovered how one memory is connected to another, like each memory is an island and I'm building a bridge to each.

My Coconspirator Mother

The open secret was that my mother gave me to my father to sexually abuse so that she didn't have to have sex with him.

I could sit in the living room and look at her knowing she expected me, her teen daughter, would sexually satisfy her husband, my father, and save herself from such indignity. She knew. She sanctioned. She handed me over to him for his use, all the while lying to herself that either she didn't know he was molesting me, or that by having sex with me, it saved my brothers and sisters from being his sexual victims as well.

I wonder if mom knew he raped all of her children, including her precious, never-do-wrong sons. Probably not because she would have never continued to live with him if she thought he had defiled those worthy of love and protection, her sons. Daughters were nothing but garbage and trash but sons, well, that was mighty different.

I wonder if mom knew about the child prostitution when my sister and I would go to "parties" on the West Side of town, and sexually service groups of men my father gathered. Did mother question where we would disappear to at night? Did she wonder about the sudden large sums of cash and bags of groceries brought home by her unemployed husband?

I'm not usually a vengeful person but lately I've struggled to not write mother a letter telling her all these things.

I want her to hurt. I want to be the one to hurt her, to force her to drop the lies and hear the truth. I want her to feel the pain of her sins, guilt and despicable actions. Her greatest pride was being a mother to very large brood. Her greatest sin was knowingly neglecting and prostituting them.

Did she know her husband was training her two oldest boys to be just like him? With lessons in how to seduce, molest and sexually use others? That was a mighty fine homeschool you allowed to happen, mommie dearest.

To this day, I cannot imagine how my siblings ignore, deny and overlook her crimes. 

God, what children won't do to try and win a mother's love!

Egads, the "love", the semblance of love and care from a cold, heartless bitch can cause an adult with the unmet needs of a child to drastic measure.

Pity the godless, vile thing disguised as my mother. I don't know how she became so broken and warped, and frankly I do not care. May her sins haunt her day, night, alive and dead. 

The lives she's ruined. The childhoods destroyed. The neglect and abuse she passed on to another generation, no two. What a legacy, you bitch. Rot in Hell with your husband. 

I do not love my mother, a woman who could not bring herself to love me. 

Compulsion

I had a strong, unwavering, instinctual feeling that I felt compelled to act upon. It could not be ignored.

I've only felt this a few times before. Once, I felt compelled to contact my brother as my sister was in an accident near death.

Two, I felt compelled to move 2,000 miles away to Oregon completely alone.

Three, I felt compelled to write my ex and let her know, if ever she needed assistance, help, someone to care for her, if she lived close enough, I would help her. 

I have no concrete reasons to why I would feel, think and write this. The thought would not leave me until I acted upon it and wrote her.

I do not feel obligated to do this, not one single bit.

I had to. Call it Destiny or Fate or Just the way it is.