I never claimed to be normal

Something I appreciate so much more as I get older is silence.

When I was younger, it seems like I would do whatever I could do to fill the silence. Sometimes the quiet was scary, because it might lead my mind to go to scary places since I had a lot of trouble with emotional regulation. Whatever I could do to fill the silence – TV, music, eating food, etc, would help me a lot and I appreciate having access to those things at the time.

Nowadays, too much noise will usually make me overstimulated much quicker than it used to. I’m not exactly sure why but there may be other factors I’m not completely aware of that go beyond my autism. I no longer want to have multiple noises going on at the same time. One or two is fine, and complete silence makes me feel like I can breathe and relax.

Something I love, that may not be for everyone, is working on projects alongside other people in (mostly) silence. This happens sometimes at an art center I go to where me and others can work on arts and craft projects. The back room will be mostly quiet, and everyone is just focused on what they are making. There’s no forced conversations or feeling like we need to fill the silence. To some, this may seem boring, but to me, it’s relaxing and fun, and I like that I can fully focus on what I am making without any auditory distractions.

This is something I realize isn’t guaranteed in life though which makes it more special. People and things can make so many noises day to day. I had an unexpected rough night where there was someone outside of my apartment complex screaming all night long. I was not able to get much sleep at all, and the violent words he was screaming kept echoing in my head for days afterwards. He hasn’t been back since and each night since then it has been so quiet I wished I could hug the silence (and I’m not a hugger).

For me, having that quiet time where my brain doesn’t have to work overtime to process noises is very important. It reduces my stress levels, and gives me room to think better about things in general. As I’m writing this post, it is a pretty quiet morning and if it weren’t, I probably wouldn’t even be able to gather my thoughts together to write this.

So, here’s to silent mornings, afternoons, or nights. The true heroes of my life right now.