Member-only story
Are Autistic Brains Too Much?
A story of books and words
Growing up, there was a painting at my grandmother’s house of a woman sitting on a chair with a book in her hands. Being a lover of books myself, I found it fascinating, It was like an invisible line tying me to her. It wasn’t until many years later that I realized that book was a bible and the painting was a religious one.
Being an autistic child I struggled with insomnia. I simply couldn’t “turn off” my brain at night to sleep. So I would end up in my mother’s library reading her books. No book was out of reach for me. I read Lolita way before I should’ve but there were no forbidden books. Everything was on the table.
I loved books. They were my happy place. Every time I wanted to buy another book, my grandmother would say “But you have so many at home. Just read the ones you have. Are they really that different?”
Having grown up in a rural area and having almost no education, the bible was the only book my grandmother ever read.
At some point, I started writing as well. I wrote diaries, I wrote blogs, and I wrote articles and essays.
I was reading Sara Gibbs’s memoir «Drama queen» and was struck by something she wrote.
