Bethany > Books: favorites‎ (16)

'I love myself for who I am, every part of me, the parts that fit easily in this world and the parts that don’t, but it’s a whole other thing to ask someone else to love me for all of those parts, too.'

While people’s expressions aren’t easy for me to interpret, the longer I know them, the better I’m able to observe patterns and memorise their meaning.

They don’t understand what pursuing friendship and romance is like for me, how being autistic and demisexual means not just the exposure of myself, like it is for anyone when they meet people and try to forge a connection, but weighing when and how to trust someone with the truth of who I am, a truth that’s not always been met with understanding or acceptance or kindness.

‘I know I’m not easy to feel close to. I’m not warm and affectionate like the rest of my family. I don’t hug spontaneously or laugh often or thrive in the intimate chaos that defines our large family. I don’t love the way they do.’

How do I explain how unsure I feel that romantic love like that is something within my grasp, when I feel like even with my family, that bridge to closeness is so difficult to cross? That all my life, people have been difficult to understand, to be intimate with, to be around for long before I need room to breathe and quiet to think and space to move so I can function? How do I explain that even with the people I do love, when my tongue gets tied and I don’t want the noise of a rowdy group or anyone’s body near mine, that it’s so damn complicated to find ways to show them I love them that they’ll recognize? That closeness is so much fucking work when I seem to have a lot more boundaries and sensitivities than most, when it feels like what I need makes others feel held at arms length?

“Because I know that having arthritis, being autistic, does not make me less whole or human. It doesn’t make me wrong or broken. It makes some things in my life more challenging in ways, yes, and maybe I don’t represent the “norm,” but I can be someone who surmounts obstacles without it meaning there’s something fundamentally lacking in my makeup. Problem is, that truth has been harder to hold on to when I let people in. Because then my sensory limits, my unexpected emotions, my easily tired body, my unfiltered mouth, are part of the package deal with me, and apparently, they wear out their welcome. Everyone—my family and childhood friends, my one college boyfriend—everyone, except for Annie and Lo, who I have loved and let in, has ultimately come to resent me.”

“You’ve seen me work every moment I have under the lights, Francesca. I plan on being similarly dedicated when the lights are out.”

a) I wish Jade had been involved a little bit more, as she was kind of important but we didn't really see her at all and that plot point was just brushed over at the end; and
b) Although the ableism from Khai's family was addressed slightly more than it was in The Kiss Quotient, I still think it wasn't properly addressed and could've been a bigger plot point

“Sometimes I think it would be easier if everyone knew that some things are really easy for me but others are really hard. But then I think, it’s no one else’s business and I don’t owe anyone an apology or an explanation. Everyone has their stuff, and people don’t seem to want to talk about theirs so why should I be the only one? And then sometimes I wonder if I should even have this diagnosis, because it makes it seem like ‘normal’ people are on one side of the room and ‘abnormal’ people are over the other, when really it’s more of a whole range of different brains than a binary thing. I’m rambling now but you know what I mean. A label is fine in the hands of the person wearing it, it’s when someone else takes it and uses it without understanding what it actually means I wonder if it’s really so good at all.”

“Your emotions have always been more obvious than mine. I have to perform mine in a way that isn’t real to me in order for people to believe them.”