This is how I avoided it.
In engineering, a shortcut can be clever. In life, shortcuts are more complicated.
Sometimes productivity becomes a shortcut around vulnerability. Humor becomes a shortcut around grief. Logic becomes a shortcut around emotion. Work becomes a shortcut around conflict. Certainty becomes a shortcut around fear.
There are no instant fixes for identity, relationships, grief, or emotional connection. Some problems cannot be automated. Some wounds cannot be optimized away. The long way through may be the only honest way forward.
Late diagnosis. High adaptive function. Multiple documented impairments. Above-average compensatory behavior. Subject appears successful. Subject reports difficulty identifying the person underneath.
Letters move beneath my eyes Sounds broke apart inside my mouth Names arrived a moment late So they tried to punch the wrong out
Numbers twisted when I held them Left and right refused to stay They called confusion laziness Then punished what I couldn’t change Every answer had a timer Every silence proved them right So I learned to hide the panic I learned to fucking fight I learned faces I learned phrases I learned when to look away I built a version they accepted Then forgot it wasn’t me
You think the wiring made me great Like the answers came prewritten You met me after I adapted You never saw what adaptation did
Name the autism Name the ADHD Name the words that would not settle Name the numbers fighting me But don’t turn every scar I earned Into something handed free
DON’T CALL THIS A SHORTCUT You never walked this road You celebrate the strength in me But never count the load DON’T CALL THIS A SHORTCUT You see somebody standing You never saw the child Who learned that being different Meant learning to survive
Don’t call it a gift You never paid the price You saw the pattern recognition You didn’t see the nights Don’t call it a superpower Like I chose the way it works You celebrate the output Then disappear when it hurts
You saw a dozen talents I saw twelve abandoned lives Every version almost good enough None of them survived A shelf of half-built futures A graveyard full of plans A hundred things I could have been If I could make my focus land No sleep New pill Wrong dose Stand still Lose the hunger Lose desire Feel less broken Feel less alive Try again Quit again Watch another year go by Everybody sees potential I see proof I never tried But I did try God, I tried Until trying became disguise Until the mask fit better than my skin And truth felt improvised
You think the wiring made me great Like the answers came prewritten You never watched me lose myself To become the man who wouldn’t quit
Name the autism Name the ADHD Name the words that would not settle Name the numbers fighting me But don’t turn every scar I earned
God gave me someone patient When I couldn’t read the room I learned the shape of kindness By watching what she’d do She never asked me for a costume Never taught me to pretend But I studied every movement Till the learning wouldn’t end
Twenty-seven years beside her Still rehearsing what to say I learned to make connection Then masked myself away Now every face has facets Every room receives its own I can be whoever you require I just don’t know who I am alone
It taught me how to take a hit It taught me how to hide It taught me how to win the room While something died inside It taught me how to prove them wrong To turn the pain to drive It taught me how to overcome It never taught me how to live It never taught me how to rest Or ask for someone’s hand It never taught me what to do When depression took command I could fight every bastard Who said I’d never win But nobody showed me How to fight the dark within
MY FAILURES BELONG TO THE DISORDER MY VICTORIES BELONG TO THE GIFT SO TELL ME— WHAT THE HELL IS LEFT THAT YOU’LL ALLOW TO JUST BE ME? I DON’T WANT YOUR PITY I DON’T WANT YOUR MYTH I AM NOT A FUCKING SUPERPOWER I AM A PERSON LIVING WITH THIS DON’T CALL THIS A SHORTCUT DON’T CALL THIS A GIFT YOU WEREN’T THERE WHEN I LEARNED HOW MUCH PAIN I COULD LIVE WITH DON’T CALL THIS A SHORTCUT YOU DON’T GET TO EXPLAIN EVERYTHING I EVER CONQUERED WHILE IGNORING ALL THE PAIN
Name the autism Name the ADHD Let the truth explain the struggle But don’t let it replace me Name the dyslexia Name the panic underneath But don’t turn my whole existence Into one pathology
DON’T CALL THIS A SHORTCUT I earned every scar The label names the battlefield It didn’t win the war DON’T CALL THIS A SHORTCUT I’m still trying to believe There’s someone underneath the mask Who still belongs to me
Subject appears resilient. Subject demonstrates exceptional adaptation. Subject has exceeded all expectations. Subject continues to report— No. I learned to survive. You called it resilience. I learned to hide the damage. You called it adaptation. I exceeded every expectation because failing never felt safe. I am not your subject. I am not your diagnosis. I am not the evidence that suffering makes you stronger. I’m still here. But don’t confuse that with being okay.