White Noise

Noise. It has always been my greatest enemy, my biggest weakness. The thing that would make me spiral off into terror in a trembling vulnerable state. Yet it is a thing that is so close to me, both an ally and a nemesis, a bane of my existence and yet the thing that keeps me going.

Noise kept me on task all those times in class, and yet it was the thing that distracted me in the first place. Tiny threads in the interconnected code of life. For me it started with a simple microphone bluetooth connected to a speaker in the back of the classroom. Yelling, pounding in my ears, in my brain. All those times I stumbled out of music class, breath caught from my chest, desperate for the noiseless silence of the hallways.

Or when I would escape to the silent bathroom so that noisy devils in the classrooms wouldn't bring their horrible words, that my sniffles and sobs wouldn't be heard by them. That they will finally fall silent and leave me be in absolute quiet.

Black and white it all seemed, right? Either too loud to the point of making your ears bleed, or the dead silence filled with the taunting ringing of your ears. When I put these descriptions onto a black and white piece of paper like the one you're reading, it does sound that way, doesn't it? However, it is far from it. The world is full of grey of all different tones, saturations and levels.

The world is full of infinite colour, and I now choose to see it. I shall allow myself to see it. I open myself up to it.

. . .

Colour was an important part of my life, just as my hearing was. If you spoke to me about colour theory, I wouldn't shut up. At one point I'd realize you are not committing to the conversation like I was. I will zip my mouth shut like my oversized sweaters as quickly as I can out of embarrassment.

There are so many colours, in the world, in art, animation. Colour is possibly one of the most important things to me.

I have made a new association with colour -- sound. Music, laughter. Filled with a spectrum of emotion and stories. My headphones are one of my most prized -- and often worn -- possessions. If not that, when I go in public I prefer being incognito and use earbuds as a replacement in order to not draw any unnecessary attention. To go under any cruel devil's radar.

. . .

Often when you think of someone with Autism, you'll think of someone with headphones on. That is true, in a way, for me.

Smell, sound, light, taste, texture, those things can overwhelm a person diagnosed. Sound though, noise, that was the thing that I was most sensitive to. I never really had a problem with the others.

You can't "spot" my disability in a crowd. All four of my limbs are attached. No burn scars cover my neck and shoulder, unlike my father. I have no wheelchair, no crutches, no visible scars, no physical abnormalities.

There is nothing special about me from the crowd.

I am a white, blonde, blue eyed teenage girl. How plain can that be? I'm automatically entitled according to pop culture, right? A dumb, clumsy slut. Maybe a cheerleader, throw in a barn of ex's, then you've got your basic antagonist for a Mean Girls knockoff, right?

Well, I'm pretty much the opposite from that. Though I am clumsy, I don't care for fashion, or boys, gossip, any of that. It seems irrelevant to my goals right now. It's finite.