I totally pass. Hardly anyone ever gets to know *me*, since most people expect cute little blonde girls to make about as much sense in conversation as a fish, so they don’t mind if all I do is ask questions with big interested eyes and a smile, and deflect all theirs, or say something bizarre with a cute smile so if they don’t like it they can believe I’m kidding. If they pay attention, they might decide I’m kind of quirky. And if I tell them how it really is inside, they can’t believe that it’s any different from the way they think. I’ve been on stage, literally and figuratively, since I could stand, and I pass really well.

But from the inside, it’s like Bruce Willis acting – you’d never know he stutters. When *I* ever talk, I stutter so bad I can’t get a sentence out. So *I* never talk, unless someone strips my avatar(s) away (only special occasions, very good or very bad times). Otherwise, I keep the appropriate avatar on at all times to make the people around me comfortable (also so they don’t bug me so much…). I can’t turn it off anymore. I only ever stimm in ways that nobody can tell, even when I’m by myself. Nobody can tell I feel like you (Amanda) about speaking through typing. If I explain it to them, they still don’t understand that by insisting that we always talk out loud, they will never really hear *me*. I can type, and I speak music, dance, geometry, sex, trees, animals, light, and touch. If I’m talking, that’s not *me* at all. Not a lie, just not *me*. It’s a translator.

I feel so lonely sometimes, like I can see all of them, but they will never see *me*. I’ve noticed that, while NTs define autism as a lack of empathy, most NTs can only really empathise with someone who’s the same as them. Give them someone with a different gender, age, colour, culture, life experience, or some sort of obvious physical disability, and they mostly don’t even bother. They just assume it’s impossible, and they don’t try.

I always wished I could be the uncommunicative and rocking kind of autistic, because it seemed to me that they just didn’t care what was going on outside. Now I think that’s probably not true at all, but I still kind of wish I could just stop talking. Just force people to interact with *me* where I really am. It might cut down on the number of people who were really enthusiastic to talk to me, but it would probably make it a lot easier to know who really cared about me. But I’m no good at faking, and I don’t know how to do it on purpose.

I hate that I make up stuff just to make people happy. But I can’t get the words out fast enough for a “normal” conversation, and I feel like if I were to talk all mixed up but honest, they would probably be unhappy with me. Of course, this is (as I’m sure is true for a lot of us) from a lot of personal experience. But now that I think about it, this is mostly experience with people I don’t want to (or have to) experience ever again anyway. I will have to try this “I don’t know” thing more often. Thanks for your encouragement! Anyone who would prefer that I lie can just go find somebody else to talk to who’s better at lying. Ha! I have my own friends who like me just fine the way I am. :-p

So much, so many times, so often I don’t know the answer to something, or I don’t understand what I’m being asked, or I don’t remember whatever. But I’ve learned, over the years of (abusive) shrinks and (abusive) parents and relatives getting mad at me for telling the truth like that that saying such things isn’t allowed (and isn’t believed, either).

The first shrink I was ever taken to, when I was six or seven (and was obviously “odd,” though I still don’t have anything other than a self-diagnosis as an Aspie and various misdiagnosises such as bipolar disorder), told me flat out, when he asked me some question or other the first time I saw him, that “I don’t know” was never an acceptable answer.

So people are always saying I should be honest, but when I am honest I’m punished for being so? Somehow that doesn’t make sense to me, but I guess that could just be me.

As for “I don’t understand,” well, because of what seems to me to be undiagnosed auditory processing issues, along with various severe sensitivities to sounds, smells, lights, touch, and such things, I often have trouble following what someone is saying (even more so when in a situation with more than one or two other people). Yet “I don’t understand” or “What did you say?” or “Could you please repeat what you just said?” aren’t allowed as “accepted” responses.

Once again, being honest and trying to get enough information to process stuff and answer questions is punished. Still making no sense.

As for “I don’t remember,” due to various abuses along with just the way my brain is structured (to catalogue stuff, it seems, but not to bring it back to where it can be accessed without the proper, usually very specific, cue, so to speak), I have very few memories prior to age 10 or 11. And even after that age what memories I have are very scattered, tend towards the bad or scary, and are also hard to retrieve. Yet, once again, being honest is punished. And still makes no sense.

Anyway, the point of all that babble was, I think (hope?) to confirm that it is okay to say “I don’t know,” “I don’t understand,” and “I don’t remember.” Those have never been accepted responses in my life (though I think my husband accepts them a bit more than the rest of the world, at least), and I’m having trouble comprehending that they’re okay things to say. I mean, honesty is good and all, but being punished for being honest seems to say that honesty is bad. I get so confused….

Sorry for all this rambling. But thanks for the post…as with so many of your posts I’ve read over the last few months, it’s given me new stuff to think about, and I like that. I like thinking, and learning new things, even if I can’t always access or use whatever I’ve learned.