Fiction
Autistic and Undiagnosed: A scary story
The spooky social life of an undiagnosed autistic woman
Let me tell you a scary story.
There once was a girl, we’ll call her….Ada. She tried very hard to get along with people. She smiled and asked them questions and listened and paid attention to what they said. But when it was her turn to speak, guess what happened?
No one truly listened to her.
She expressed herself and later people would just ask her the same old questions or just go “Huh?” No one paid attention to her but they said she was great and they liked her and they were all friends.
It gets scarier.
Her friends all had groups. Their family group, their friend group, their study group, their hobby group. So many groups to belong to. Ada learned she must have a group too. And not just one group. It’s sad to only have one! One person must have many, at least.
So she found a group. And then another one and another one and another one…Ada had many many groups. And each group was full of people who said they were all friends. She’d done it. She had groups. She had friends.
But one day Ada didn’t feel well. Her throat hurt and she couldn’t talk. She went a whole day without speaking. Once she got better, she told her friend group how sick she had been. “No way, but you said the funniest thing the other day!” Ada made her eyes smile along with everyone and thought But I didn’t.
The next week she felt unwell again so she stayed home from her weekly study group to rest. The next time she saw the group, everyone was making cards for another member that had gotten sick that day.
“I was sick last week, too,” Ada commented, always looking for connections to others.
“No way! You were here last time,” they insisted and kept on making beautiful cards. Ada pasted a smile on her face and a sticker on a card and thought But I wasn’t.
After that, Ada decided to skip her next hobby group to see if this kept happening, if people kept forgetting her absence and assuming her presence. Was her presence an absence?
The next week, she waited for her hobby group to mention her absence or ask what happened.
Nothing. But maybe they didn’t want to be nosy?
Then another member walked into the room and everyone immediately looked up and asked “Where have you been?? You missed last week and you’re late today.” Ada looked up, an echo of the rest, and thought But I was too.
This is where it gets really scary. Are you ready?
Ada is human. She’s not invisible, she’s not a spirit, she’s not anything except a flesh-and-blood human female. She has a reflection. Light bounces off of her just like everyone else. But nobody sees her.
I told you it was scary.
Ada didn’t know what to do. She’d done so much already to find a group, be a part of one, really put herself in the middle so that the group always included her always. And this is what happened.
What do you think she did?
I’ll wait for you to think about it. Oh, you’re already done? What do you think she did?
That’s a pretty good answer. Well, I’ll tell you what she actually did. She kept going to her groups.
That’s right. She did the social math and calculated that not going would make her more invisible and more forgettable. So. She. Kept. Going. With the same friend group, the same study group, the same hobby group, etc. And nothing ever changed. Even worse, she never figured out that members would see each other outside of the group.
I warned you this was a scary story.
