Going Off-Script: Don't let what you hear impact how you treat me.
Have you ever had a word or song stuck in your head?
It isnāt that you want to look at a new car but you canāt stop singing the Cars 4 Kids jingle. You both donāt want a new credit card and donāt intend to change banks but you canāt stop hearing, "What's in YOUR wallet?"
Chances are anyone who heard you humming or decrying the stuckness of the jingle just empathized with your frustration and continued to speak to you as usual.
This is not the case if you are autistic.
My brain and speech are stuck in a continuous loop of repeating scripts from cartoons I watched as a kid. I canāt stop my mouth. Iām scripting dumb Thomas the Tank words as I type this.
I am getting rather tired of people hearing my repeated scripts and assuming I don't really understand.
The truth is I don't care aboutĀ trains but I had the bad luck of hearing these catchy shows when my brain was young and malleable.
My speech goes beyond what I think of as unreliable. To me it is reliably annoying.
Until I learned to type my thoughts, the whole world believed my capacity to think and learn was far gone. Now that I can show otherwise my life is becoming more full.
My point is that my collection of sayings and songs has probably kept people from believing I am smart.
Until someone has a way to really communicate, take their scripts in stride and speak to them like they understand everything you say.
There's an excellent chance they do.
Nick is just an autistic guy trying to get his big voice out.
Want to read more of Nick's writing? You can find his stuff here on the REV blog and also at NeuroClastic.
Want to leave Nick a tip to support his work? You can donate via his Ko-Fi page
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