One flesh, one end

Amber and I settle into bed for the night. I tell her about the book I am reading, which involves lovers sharing a body but being unable to interact outside of letters (and a natural mimic who excels at hugs, but that is outside the scope of this). Amber takes the inevitable conversational offroad to ask what it would be like if we shared a body and whose, for gender reasons at the minimum.

"Is my autism in my body or my mind?" she wonders.

"Would you prefer to have your autism in the collective body?"

"I'd want it more than your mental health issues."

I wasn't aware it was a binary.

I receive this as a glancing blow. She doesn't mean it as an insult. It is a statement of fact. I wouldn't want her beleaguered by them either, but I don't want her to say as much.

I have mentioned Amber's autism diagnosis to others. A few who don't know her have asked if this is hard for me. It isn't. I fell in love with Amber before we adhered our label. I have never known my wife without autism. It is a part of her. She did not choose it. Even in her hypothetical, she cannot decide whether she would want the collective body to have autism. She knows no other way, though she observes other people who do not have the experiences she does.

I understand what it is to be less plagued. I went through therapy and am daily medicated to mitigate my symptoms and bring me closer to who I should be. For most of my life, I did not acknowledge that I have mental illnesses. I assumed the symptoms were more objective and were demonstrative not of chemical and neuronal misfirings, but of my personality. I believed my coping strategies were who I was.

My epiphany came from learning there was something wrong with me. Hers, from accepting there was nothing wrong with her.

Amber did not look her autism in the eye for a long time -- looking even concepts in the eye is a struggle for her. Now, she is open about it. She doesn't diminish its existence, but doesn't let herself feel guilty over it as she had.

Recently, her professor lectured how people with autism tend to have lower IQs and are generally inferior to allistics. The words piled atop her until she felt buried. He eventually noticed her crying from the frustration at his ignorance and asked her to stay after class -- which is the opposite of what her autism wanted. She hates being confronted and singled out, as it spikes her anxiety. (Her fitness watch affirmed this after.) He apologized and tried to justify why he would say this misinformation to a room full of potentially impressionable students, as well as asking her what she needs to be successful in his class. If he were remotely aware of Amber, he would know that she is a solid 4.0 student and all she might want is more time on tests, but she likely would have no use for it. Amber only wanted the interaction over, but she carried home how profoundly this bothered her. Not to the degree that she will drop his class, but she now fears him bringing her up in lessons or paying her special attention. She wants to be known as Amber the Awesome Student, not Amber the Autist Student, true though both are.

We don't function in spite of our neurodivergence. We function because of it. These are not disabilities, per se. Our brains work differently than a neurotypical base. They do not always work to our favor, though we are able to recognize that our reaction are not us. I try to counteract my ungenerous thoughts before they can become unfortunate actions.

Amber recognizes her triggers, though she cannot always avoid light and sound. (I have mostly eliminated onions and spiciness from my cooking for her.) However, she runs toward the academic stress that can provoke her misery.

Our minds are double-edged. Her autism makes her a focused and detailed student, and no doubt informs a part of her genius. My bouquet of mental illnesses can run away with the intricacies of hypothetals until I am so miserable I want to vomit, but they allow me to inhabit my stories and feel their corners under my fingers. I don't hallucinate voices, but I can talk to my character and find answers to their issues (or new issues because they are constantly plotting against me).

I can imagine a version of Amber who is not panicked by some social situation, not pained by loud noises, able to sustain eye contact, not given to digust at sensations like teeth on fabric or "things that are damp." I cannot imagine Amber without autism. That person has never existed. I've known Amber ignorant of her condition and masking as a matter of course. She has only ever had autism. The only different was that she did not accommodate herself with kindness. And I love her utterly, even after eleven years, almost all of them spent living together.

There is not a point in our relationship that our conditions are not present, only quieter. We have known the other with milder symptoms, but there is no cure (I would accept a cure for my worst mental quirks, but there is nothing to cure with autism). I do not think I am curable, only treatable, particularly when I keep to a sleep and eating schedule. I resent that I must let it control my hours in order to keep it quiescent, but it is better than feeling its spiral dig in.

We cannot have only the good parts of our brains. We cannot pick or chose who we get to be. We are fortunate enough to share a bed, but do not need to share a head as well.

last watched: Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities
reading: What If? 2