For most of my adult life, I thought I was terrible at relationships.

Not bad at love. Not bad at commitment.

Horrible at communication, even though I write and speak in public for a living. Horrible. So,  I thought.

Every relationship — romantic, professional, intimate, long-term, short-term — hit the same wall. Different faces. Same ending.

Some of you have experienced this with and/or because of me. I’m sorry; not sorry.

Someone would eventually say some version of:

“You’re too sensitive.”

“You’re too literal.”

“You should have known.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Why are you doing it like that?”

“I shouldn’t have to explain this.”

“You take everything so seriously.”

And after hearing that enough times, you do what many women, especially Black women, are trained to do: You assume the problem is you.

So, I did the responsible thing. I looked inward.

I asked myself the question that haunts high-functioning women everywhere: Why does this keep happening?

At some point, self-reflection turns into self-investigation.

And self-investigation eventually becomes: Maybe I should get tested.

Not because I felt broken, because the pattern was too consistent to ignore.

(Spoiler alert: There was nothing wrong with me.)

After a few years and several tests, I was given a late diagnosis of autism. Phew.

Once I understood that, everything — EVERYTHING — clicked. That’s only the beginning of the work, though.

Let’s talk about the group nobody is studying enough: autistic women.

Autistic women of color.

We are often: misdiagnosed, over-pathologized, undersupported, and labeled “difficult” instead of different.

We learn to mask early.

We learn to translate ourselves.

We learn to apologize for clarity.

Then, once we understand ourselves, we stop apologizing. That is the moment people get uncomfortable.

Here’s the thing no one tells you about autism when you are intelligent, verbal, accomplished, funny, emotionally aware, and (visually) socially functional, although I really hate crowds, new places…

You do not look like what people expect autism to look like.

You look like:

“Intense.”

“Direct.”

“Too much.”

“Cold” (when you are actually overwhelmed).

“Emotional” (when you are actually dysregulated).

“Difficult” (when you are actually precise).

Autism does not mean lack of empathy. It often means too much empathy with no filter.

Autism does not mean lack of communication.

It means literal, rule-based, consistency-driven communication.

Which brings me to the metaphor that finally made my brain exhale:

Autism is an operating system.

Not a virus.

Not a defect.

Not a malfunction.

An operating system…

Queen Sheba holds an MFA in creative writing from Queens University of Charlotte, a three-time Grammy-nominated artist in the Spoken Word-Poetry and Performance category, and the founder of Poetry vs. Hip-Hop.

Comments