I brought the car to the car wash today, the really nice one that does all the interior work for you. This is a task that my husband used to do all the time, but now that I have the car 99% of the time the task falls to me.

Apparently I have never actually gone to this car wash by myself before, because every step of the process was an awkward nightmare. I had to choose from a menu of options on a screen with a line of cars waiting behind me. Nobody was honking or angry, and I didn’t even take that long, but I cannot handle people waiting behind me. If I need to parallel park and there is another car coming up from behind I will just not park. I have completely abandoned errands and outings just because I could not figure out how to park without inconveniencing someone else.

The worst part was when I got to the entrance to the car wash and there was a big sign with instructions. Take your valuables. Leave the keys in the car. Leave the car running and in park. I followed the instructions, left the car and then was awkwardly summoned back by one of the workers. How was I supposed to know that I needed to drive the car into the bay myself? The sign was outside–I left the car running (with no valuables inside!) at the sign. How was I supposed to know?!

I have moments like this frequently in my life when it seems like everyone else has received different, much more thorough instructions on how to function in society. How does everyone else know to drive into the bay first and then follow the directions on the sign which you can no longer see? If there had been someone in line ahead of me, I would have watched them for clues, but alas I was the first in line today and left to my own autistic devices I stumbled.

I know having a neurodivergent diagnosis is very trendy these days. I do tend to roll my eyes a little bit when people can’t stop talking about their late-diagnosis ADHD. I have trouble discerning where we draw the line between personality and diagnosis, and I generally want my quirks to be attributed to me being a delightful character and not to an entry in the DSM-5.

But.

It’s nice to know I’m probably not the only person in the world who would have made that mistake at the car wash. And it’s nice to think that it’s not because we are dumb or bad, our brains just interact with the world differently.

Here is another autism story. I have always struggled to focus on a single conversation if there are other conversations going on around me. I am incapable of blocking out the extra stimulus. This is–of course–a massive problem in large group social situations, already a challenging area for me. I recently discovered, while googling something else entirely, that this is a common symptom of autism.

And this: remember in season one of The Pitt when we saw Mel teach Langdon a trick about turning off the lights to make the room more comfortable for an autistic patient? Um, guess who else likes to sit in her own home in the dark all the time? Me! I love natural light, but I come home from work every day and I turn off every single light in the house and no light gets turned on again until other family members start arriving home and turning them on.

Autism: it just makes sense!

The list of diagnostic criteria that map perfectly onto my life could go on forever. Ask my mom about the Great Tag Incident of 1988. Or how we used to run into kids from my class at the grocery store and they would say hello to me and I would not say hello back and I would get in so much trouble for being rude.

(As an aside: I am much better about this now, and I do return greetings and even initiate the greeting process myself sometimes. However, I still struggle with the moral issues around this. Why is it that if someone says hello to me I am now entrapped by social contract in a conversation that I didn’t even want to have in the first place? It seems very unfair. I still think non-response should be an option here.)

I do find the world to be Too Much most of the time, and that’s why I prefer to stay home where it’s quiet and dark and I know where we keep the coffee cups. Navigating new situations and new places is Even More Too Much which is why I have spent my life with one or two favorite restaurants and absolutely no desire to try anything else. It’s probably also why I never really settled in when we lived in New York City where everything is bright and busy and new all the time.

But it’s nice to know that the world isn’t Too Much because I’m lazy, and it’s not because I’m a bad person or because I am Not Enough. Things just hit my brain a little differently, and I really am trying to read your social cues around this damn directions sign at the car wash. I’m just also overstimulated by the bright lights of the world, and the movements around me, and the seams of my clothing and the emotions of the person in the car behind me so yeah… it’s gonna take me a minute. Or never. Maybe just tell me what to do!