thinking about my atypical brain

I took three different short tests online, and they all said I probably have AS. To be honest about it I feel like I've known all along, and yet never known. Isn't that odd. Obvisouly there's no substitute for a real diagnosis, but I don't know if I care to pursue that. Maybe later.

I finally figured out how I want to use the nice journal Nancy gave me for Christmas. It's by far the nicest journal I've ever had, so I hesitated to make a mark in it. But I realized I want to write a book about the way I've seen the world and how life has been for me. From time to time in the past I'd toyed with the idea of an autobiography, but it seemed self-indulgent. To me, my life was fascinating and full of wonder, but really, to an outsider, it was just a normal ordinary life. Why would anyone want to read about an upper-middle-class white girl going to the best schools and suffering upper-middle-class angst over Roxy shirts and calories? However, now that I understand my condition, I realize that I actually haven't had an ordinary life. What many would call my fantasy life has been of equal meaning to me as the side of my life that is observable to outsiders. I used to think that putting stories about "I'm not a girl; I'm a bear" in an autobiography would be seen as an overly cute and clever self-depiction. But now I see that my experiences, with my phenomenal longterm memory, are not irrelevant. There are other people -- other girls, primarily, for the boys have been better studied -- who think as I do, and parents who don't know how to raise them. There is not enough out there to read that is anecdote-based, engaging, first-person rather than clinical. I think it would be useful for the general public to have something like this. Autobiography is the wrong word, though. It won't cover everything, and it won't be in order. It will focus on a series of specific themes pertaining to elements of AS and trace those through incidents from my experience. I want people to be able to relate to me, even if they never meet me, in a way I was able to relate to so few growing up. I want to help people, because there are so many people unaware of this condition, especially the less severe cases who have gone undiagnosed, who are suffering unnecessarily and might be comforted by the understanding.

I finally understand now why, despite having had all the advantages in the world, including the best of families, I still had such a difficult time growing up. And I feel vindicated, in a way. I know lots of people would caution me to be more private about such a thing, and I'm not sharing it with anyone except my boyfriend and my family, even if I am writing about it here. It's not the kidn of thing you broadcast. But it is something very important to me, because world makes so much more sense now. So I'm not going to be super secretive or anything either. I am not ashamed, because it's just how I am.

Now back to writing my paper. I had a minor eureka moment while looking at some Moche pots, so I think I'll be able to have fun with it until that particular angle is spent. Maybe I'll get eight pages or so out of it.