A Kind of Spark

People aren't like books. A familiar book is always the same, always comforting and full of the same words and pictures. A familiar person can be new and challenging, no matter how many times you try to read them.

She's functioning - don't make that face, it's a perfectly appropriate medical term - she's functioning and I thought people might like to see that. She has it mild, Keedie. Like you." "It's mild to you!" Keedie shouts and I flinch, not used to hearing her raise her voice. "It's mild to you and every other heartless soul in this village, Nina, it's not mild to me. It's not mild to Addie! It's mild to you because we make it so, at great personal cost!

Books are not medicine, they are food. You won't remember every bite but you will remember the taste.

It's so confusing. To be too much for some people and not enough for everyone else.

While you are neurotypical and I am autistic, I promise we are more alike than we are different.

Whatever goes on inside that box with other people, I don't understand it. I always feel like everyone else has been sent pages and pages of instructions, tips and tricks to life and how to move smoothly. I'm always a few steps behind. I can read a book in a day, memorize anything, feel so strongly. But the doublespeak and the secret looks. I'm not sure I'll ever decipher them.

It's better to be open about who you really are, what you're really like, and be disliked by a few than it is to hide who you are and be tolerated by many.

The ocean needs all kinds of fish, Keedie says quietly. Just like the world needs all kinds of minds. Just one would be really dull, wouldn't it?

I live my life desperately trying to make other people feel at ease. To show them I'm normal. That I can be just like everyone else. And on days like today, when I fail, I hate myself. More than anyone else can hate me.

Someone being autistic is the same as being left-handed or color blind. It means we all experience the world differently.

I think different is good. As long as you're not hurting anyone. We need all kinds of difference in the world.

If they don't see it's wrong, if they don't say it's wrong, it can happen again. It could happen to you; it could happen to me.

I spend every moment of my life, when I am outside our family home, second-guessing everything that I do. I study people's faces to make sure that they are accepting what I am saying, that they are never confused or offended. I make myself smaller. I shrink away, eyes downcast and hand outstretched. For a crumb of sympathy.

Other people's minds are small. Your mind is enormous. You don't want to be like other people.

No horrible, awful, rubbish day is worth damaging a library book.

When grown-ups don't like what we have to say, they blame our autism and say we don't know our own minds.

People make sounds of disgust, which sparks anger in me. How can they sit here and be more displeased by me telling the truth, than by the truth itself?

It’s not my brain that makes me break down. It’s the pretending. The hiding. The way the world isn’t built for us.

I will not let people use my difference as a stick to beat me with. I imagine throwing that stick into the river. Watching it disappear and float away.

Neurotypical people," Keedie sighs, finally looking at me with a grin. "So lacking in empathy. It's terribly sad.

My Grandpa always said, people like me in the past might not have been the most sociable. Or the chattiest. But while everyone else was around the fireplace gossiping, we were out finding electricity. That's what my autism is. It's a kind of spark. It's like sharks, you see.

Autistic people have probably done so much for hundreds of years without any credit.

Some people are like trees. The wind can blow and blow, they'll never move. They'll always be there.

I know I'm going to keep trying. I know I can keep trying, even when they tell me I can't. I will decide when to give up.

I'm surprised by her consideration. People don't normally think about how to make things less difficult for me.

Someone being autistic is no different from someone being left-handed or color-blind. It means we experience the world differently. And while some people might misunderstand it, I know that it is just part of who I am. I can't be cured. I don't want to be. It's just a fact of my life.

She struggled with other children; she fought with teachers; she had difficulty controlling her emotions. She would only take part in school if she was engaged or interested.

[...] none of it is built for people like us." "Addie, nowhere is built for people like us," Keedie murmurs.

You shouldn't listen to people who shout and say nasty things on the internet. They're the lowest of the low. You should care about what you think.

When you're... different, your processing is a little unique. The hands have a bit of trouble doing exactly what the brain wants. They're so busy getting the words exactly right, and in the right order, that they don't have time to get the writing perfect or pretty.