There’s a concept used in geology called ‘metastability’– in a nutshell, the idea is that minerals can exist under temperatures and pressures where they aren’t intrinsically stable (for instance, diamonds at the Earth’s surface exist in a metastable state), rather than at a lower-energy, more stable state, due to the presence of an activation energy barrier between the initial and final states. The way I see it, *every* time I behave in a way that appears ‘normal’ to the dominant culture, I exist in a metastable state. It’s not my most stable state, but I can run on my own inertia for a while.

People seem to insist on clinging to WYSIWYG assumptions, however– that what they perceive to be my ‘level of functioning’ under any given circumstance is representative of how I am ‘naturally’ and all the time. The assumptions are usually skewed in a specific direction for me, because most of the time I’m perceived as being relatively ‘high functioning.’ Thus, if I’m visibly ‘acting odd’ or having a meltdown, this tends to lead to exhortions to ‘snap out of it,’ because this *can’t* possibly be a natural state for me.

Julian^Amorpha