I’ve explained several times on this blog how capable I am of treating a rule like a sacred creed. One of those rules came from the countless times my father scolded me for losing important documents. “Scan it”, “How many times have I told you to scan things?”, “You’ll have to learn to scan your documents.” And countless variations of the same message eventually got through to me.
As I mentioned in my articles about my diagnostic journey, I eventually realized that everything I thought I knew about giftedness, “zebras,” and other colorful labels wasn’t built on solid scientific foundations. It felt like an earthquake.
The more I read, the closer I got to a crisis I never saw coming. It was too much for my brain. I had shattered all of my convictions at once: believing things that weren’t factual and passing them on to others. The meltdown came quickly, after weeks of extreme social and sensory stimulation.
Screaming. Tears. Head against walls.
My daily life—though I didn’t call it autistic yet.
When the crisis finally subsided, apparently believing myself to be a certain German dictator whose name shall remain unspoken, I pulled out my neuropsychological assessment, full of nonsense, and the only proof of my IQ test results. And then…
I set it on fire. Right outside the garden door. For the first time, I calmly watched a problem disappear—one that would never follow me again.
The last spark flew into the air.
And then I realized something: I had scanned the document.
In an instant, I went from Bowser-style villainous laughter, eyes gleaming in front of the flames, to an extremely rational realization.
As I write these lines, I can vividly picture the scene as an absurd, overacted animated movie sequence.
Without realizing it, my system had anticipated my own future failure. My past rigidity had protected me from myself. Because giftedness did play a role in my autism—but not the role I had imagined. And losing that document would have meant losing part of the explanation for my social mask.
→ More autisticisms, if you’d like to continue
