What’s the first impression you want to give people?

I have bigger problems when people think I am normal than when they don’t. This is because neurodivergent and neurotypical people have two different perspectives, and the neurotypical person (also referred to as “allistic”) is always going to assume I am just like them because majority is implied– neurotypical. I do not have to start every conversation with “hi, my name is Leslie, and I’m an autistic (‘hi, Leslie’),” but I do not think it would hurt if I did. When I do not, people can see that I am irregular, but they can’t put their finger on why.

I have cerebral palsy so I move and look different, but not by so much that you’d think “neurodivergent and physically disabled.” My biggest issue in life is not looking disabled or autistic enough, because I can say it all I want and there’s still going to be a look of disbelief when I actually show people I’m not Bruce Almighty. I would rather people love me backstage, because my social masks are worth nothing. It’s valuable to go through the process of an official diagnosis just for confirmation that you’re not crazy. You’ve done the research and you believe you. It is only when you believe that you know more about your own brain than other people do that they push back. Why do you think you’re the authority on telling other people who you are? “You don’t look autistic” is my favorite. I struggle with imposter syndrome because of it, or I did……….

I actually do think I look autistic now that I know. Like, I just looked around one day and realized my closet was serving Young Sheldon realness (also “Old Sheldon” realness due to all the long–sleeved t-shirts)……. which is also serving Jim Parsons realness because we are both Houston gays of a certain age (he’s older), and our accents are nearly identical when we fall back on them. If you met Jim and me together, it would seem like you met two people who have always known each other, and I mean it. That boy knows what HATCH is, maybe thought about going. For all I know, Michael has a picture of him somewhere.

Michael and I met at a Houston gay club, then found out we were both HATCHlings and he starts going through a photo album on his phone. Complete strangers, except not…….. I was in his pictures. I was in my 30s and the pictures were taken when I was 18 or 19 and he was still in diapers (15). In short, Jim Parsons has the same accent as the gays who raised me. I love him like he personally vouched for me at The Ripcord…… because that’s what you do at the end of the night in Houston if you’re with the boys.

When I’m with “the boys,” I feel more comfortable in a club, gay or straight. That’s because the club is an unfamiliar environment with lights and sounds that are way too fuckin’ loud, but the boys feel like home when the club doesn’t. My favorite memory of clubbing in Houston is the night I went to JR’s in a white t-shirt, jeans, and red leather CFM pumps. It was a great outfit, but within two hours I thought I’d never be able to walk again. My friend Brian knew that I could hardly stand up, so he carried me to my car. I looked like the butchest fairy princess on record.

Looking like a butch fairy princess is also a neurodivergent trait, interestingly enough. Neurodivergent people have loose definitions of gender and sexuality. The spectrums between gay and straight, male and female, mono and poly are all enormous, why I call it “Avatar state,” and you probably will, too, if you’ve seen Avatar: The Last Airbender (not the movie- skip it).

“How dare you make me, a bisexual, choose between two or more things?” #bumperstickerwisdom

I identify with Toph because she’s physically disabled (blind) and coded as autistic in her bluntness. This was even more apparent in Legend of Korra. But, of course, that is not acknowledged because There is No War in Ba Sing Se. Problems do not go away if you sweep them under the rug, and get worse the longer you ignore them. Local is national.

We were engulfed in flames, the embodiment of our own ignorance because the former president going after John McCain for being a POW never even raised an eyebrow. FUCK those people. How could you not see that and the former president’s treatment of the mentally handicapped thinking, “this is surely a leader?” People who think the former president is Jesus have never recognized he’s actually Brian…….. but they know he’s the Messiah. They’ve followed quite a few (I’m not convinced God wanted George W. Bush, either…… but they were).

I am not nearly as furious at the former president’s supporters as I am at the people who stood by and did nothing, and there are a ton of them. Voting participation is usually less or right at half in a presidential election, and you have to pay people to show up for the mayor/city council/state leg, dog catcher, etc. I believe that is actually an elected position in West University because my math teacher in 10th grade was mayor and I think I remember her mentioning it.

OMG, now *that* woman was a monotropic thought process…………. Where were we again? 😉

I do not know how people see me the way they do, I just know that it is the same way that people have looked at others who have raised me. I am not dissimilar from a pastor or an opera singer, because that’s what was modeled for me. I have a stage presence every bit as big as theirs, and I never want to use it ever again, because it’s everything about me that’s not really there. It’s the end of the movie, and I’m stepping out from behind the curtain……. while everything is still in color. I am trying to stop the desaturation, or at the very least, turn up the shadows to make stunning, stark grayscale photography. I have said “pay no attention long enough.”

Perhaps Jack Ryan’s archetype can’t be autistic easily, which is why it was easy to let go of that dream. I don’t think I could have taken the pressure cooker, even as an analyst. Some analysts are even forward-deployed, and though I think it would be exciting, I know through talking to Zac and Daniel that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. They both got to explore, they both went through trauma. Both are figuring it out with me.

I have an alternating lateral isotropia which makes one eye focus while the other eye drifts. I have no 3D vision. I don’t always have the correct social masks and say things that people just don’t say in a conversation. They don’t know how to address the elephant in the room….. how to tell me that I’m weird because I obviously don’t already know.

People gloss over my limitations all the time and I am brutally honest about them. Others think I’m shitting on myself and placate me, later realizing I was right and they resent me “because I didn’t tell them.” They still feel snowed because they were seeing me through their filters and not the ones I told them existed. In essence, what is happening is that my social masking is so good, so practiced, that when I say I’m autistic or ADHD it is dismissed. I am not special. Most women with autism/ADHD face this to some extent. It’s more often for me having been raised in a fish bowl because I am skilled at making things look fine (while everything is actually on fire).

Other people seem inversely weird to me, and I could not put my finger on it, either. Until now, I’ve thought I was an alien, taking refuge in science fiction (dear God how did I not know this was coming…… I’m basically Mac and PC [John Hodgman and Justin Long]). Come to find out, it’s because people have been asking me to do things way beyond my capability and I’ve let them down because “I didn’t know any better.” It is never that I told them I was ADHD (haven’t had to tell an employer I’m autistic), explained that it meant I had limitations, and you didn’t look it up. I am only responsible for half of a conversation, and I have never been good at holding people accountable for their part. I hate and am also too weak to stand up to authority most days.

The thing is, though, I run a tight ship with an order all its own, which generally looks like there has been some sort of struggle. I desperately need structure and hate authority simultaneously, because my system is in collaboration with no one and I am lost in my own little world– no one is capable of helping me maintain it; I couldn’t explain it if anyone offered. It’s comfortable in my mind, but it also feels like waiting for God to make Eve when I don’t have a sounding board. According to Zac, this might take a while (he’s an atheist). It’s an apt description because the most beloved trees in my mental garden touch upon knowledge of humanity and the divine.

I think deep thoughts and ask the real questions of myself every day. “Why am I like this?” is a constant refrain, but not a pejorative. Fuel to keep the fire going. Writing is working and I’m getting further along in my healing journey, like just now realizing that I was programmed to look for people like my 10th grade teacher because I was already chasing a cougar (she was young, but I was 11 years younger). Oh my FUCK have I just played a huge hand in making myself feel better and someone else worse, just not her. All the archetypes that came afterward, Supergrover the last and most precious in a line because I’d never met anyone like her, and I never will again. It is all just so sad- one f the reasons I’m isolating because I don’t want to take out grief or anger on others. She calmed me and won’t let me calm her. Somehow, we’ve become a part of each other’s heartbeat despite actively disliking each other and stuck in a loophole-less Massey Pre-Nup.

Relationships like ours don’t happen often,, where both people are just too much for the other because of our different outlooks on life. We actually have little in common if you look outside our thoughts. We track together, but “for all our mutual experiences, our separate conclusions are the same.” We are in different social, professional, and relationship situations, with the difference being an absolute power balance and not one we made. Alternatively, there is no such situation in which I wouldn’t just roll with it. You need snacks? Ok. You need me to steal something? Ok. I’ll be at the National Archives by eight. LET’S DO THIS. My inner Nicholas Cage is struggling to get out. 😉

Just text me first.

I grew through wanting bugs to be features and realizing I couldn’t just release the beta as official and publish a patch later…. I am not Microsoft, and she is not Windows…… but her e-mail address does mark her as having had a 56K modem that came with a proprietary CD (Compuserve, Wow, take your pick- not even AOL? Really?), because that’s the only way you would have gotten an e-mail address that ancient, and yes, I am making fun of her. That’s because she’s basically “Windows 98 and the Plus Pack!” years old.

It would have been fun teaching her terms like “mommy save,” the idea that women only have one personal folder and it is the desktop. You know it immediately because you sit down at the computer and the icons are layered (we also have what we called “12:00 flashers,” ’cause every appliance in their house is always blinking 12.). And that line isn’t making fun of her because A) I don’t know what her desktop is like. II) I was making fun of my users and my own mother from “back in the day.”

My mother assumed that if it plugged into the wall, I could fix it. This is not untrue if we’re talking about a desktop/laptop/tablet/phone. I, like Daniel Stern, have no concept of how to program a VCR. “The cows can tape something by now.” My mother once flew me from Portland to Houston because it was cheaper to house and feed me for a few days than it was to call the Geek Squad and I provide better service. I am sure that she did want to see me as well, but she got a bargain, ijs.

All of these things combine to make me dig down on every topic. I’m creative. I like writing. I like computers because they enable me to write. I like tablets because they allow me to write anywhere with a minimum amount of effort. It genuinely seems like the longer I say silent, the more the words flow.

In Scotland, I can find no record of it, but my parents tell me that they chose my name because it meant “quiet spirit.” Today I realized for the first time just how much they actually nailed it.

There are lots of bugs, but the feature is me. The best impression I can give is that I allow myself to take up room in the world because I am not frightened of yours. Be as big as you are.

I’m trying.