James - Odd girl out: my extraordinary autistic life

CANT YOU JUST enjoy the silence? Tim sighs. Its a thin sound. Dark gray and unhappy.

Theres no such thing as silence, I insist.

Dont be ridiculous. Youre overthinking it. Again. Just stop talking, close your eyes, and lie here in the dark.

I know hes exasperated. There is tension in his voice.

He tries again, this time with a forced softness. Youll feel better if you just stop for a moment.

Stop what? I dont want to make him cross, so I lie on the bed with my arms rigid by my side. Quietly, trying hard not to move. Trying to be silent. I need words. If Im not reading words, listening to them, or saying them out loud, I feel jittery.

Not anxious, more a kind of scared. A sense of unease, as if something is going to happen. Like the rumble on a track that speaks of a train about to whiz by. My unease is not the fear of something bad, but of something out of my control. Situations I am not in charge of and events I cant predict confuse me, whether they are negative or positive.

There are good feelings and bad feelings. The good ones come in pretty colors and feel soft, like cashmere between my fingers. The bad ones come in shades of green and are jagged and spiky, like a piece of plastic that catches your finger and makes you bleed. Silence and nothing happening feel bad.

My sense is that most people chase the good feelings and either sit with the bad feelings until they pass or do anything they can think of to shut them down, to make them go away. I dont do this. I cant. I dont know how. The good feelings can be as overwhelming as the bad. They are just as big.

I cant name my feelings. I dont recognize them. Dont know what they look like. I know all the words that describe them, of course, and I like many of them. I like saying the word optimistic. I enjoy how it feels in my mouth. I like words that sound as they should feel. Shocked is a quick and brutal word, and I imagine thats what the emotion must feel like. Irritated sounds scratchy and itchy.

No one uses the word neutral when it comes to emotions, but thats how I want to live. I want to experience life in neutral. Not feeling anything much. For me, the absence of sensation is better than experiencing anything too jarring, too unexpected, too new. I want to move through life with no sudden movements. Sameness is my anchor. I want each day to unfold quietly and predictably.

Tim calls it living in the gray. If a painting cant move you or if a piece of music cant inspire you or take you to the depths of despair, he has said, then what do you have? If you cant be moved to tears or lost in laughter, how do you know youre alive? If theres no joy and you strive only for an absence of fear or anxiety, then what kind of a life is that?

Its my life, I think. Or at least its my ideal life. Its not that I dont like music or paintings. I do, at the right time and in the right place. I dont like listening to music when I need to concentrate. The lyrics mix with the words I am thinking and it becomes a confused mess. Tim is right; I cannot be moved to tears by the arts. But surely thats OK? If I see a real person in trouble, I will do everything I can to help, so why does it matter that I cant weep over an imagined life?

In many respectsand certainly from the outsidemy life is a good one. I have a solid marriage of twenty years, one where we never argue. I have children I love to spend time with and who love to spend time with me. I live in a beautiful house in a county that is easy to live in. I have an interesting job. I can do pretty much what I want to do.

I dont think feeling strong emotions would make my life any better. I can see why my being fiery or an adventurer would enhance Tims life, however. He hates living in the gray. He wants the peaks and troughs. If anything, all I want to do is quash the fear that envelops me and takes over my mind at times. If I can just achieve neutral more often and learn to do the things that come easily to others, then I think I may finally be content.

The world is an alien place to me. One full of dangers. I need to make sure they dont catch me out. I am aware of my fragility. Does everyone feel this? Im not sure. If they do, how do they live with those feelings? I need something to distract me. I need words.

Tim shifts position on the hotel bed and takes my hand in his.

See, he says, isnt it great to just enjoy the nothingness of lying quietly in the dark? Doesnt it make you feel better?

How can he actually believe it is dark? It isnt dark and it certainly isnt silent. A dull orange light from the corridor outside our room is seeping in under the door, and the shards of brilliant blue-white from the day outside are piercing irritating gaps in the curtains. A red light nags at me from the smoke alarm above my head. Theres a low-level electrical hum coming from the TV on standby on the wall at the end of the bed. Every once in a while footsteps echo in the hallway beyond the room. Voices bounce from the walls. Then, moments later, I hear key cards being pushed into slots and doors snapping open and slamming shut. Outside, there is a rustling in the trees and the distant sound of people playing tennis. I think I hear a dove. Do they have doves in France?

I go to reach for my phone to find out and then remember I have promised to lie quietly and enjoy the silence. Tim strokes my hand. I hear his knuckles brush against the starchy cotton sheet.

Isnt it great having no children to worry about? No demands on us. We can just lie here, get our bearings, and relax until we feel like doing something.

I feel trapped, as if I cant breathe. I need words. My iPad is on the floor next to the bed. There must be at least thirty audiobooks on it. I could be listening to a thriller, working out what will happen next. Or to a memoir, vicariously enjoying someone elses life. I could be distracted from the million thoughts bouncing around my head. I swallow and hear the sound.