Cliff, Tell Me, Have You Ever Been to Wilmington Delaware for Donuts?
Navigating The Shame & Perpetual Disappointment of The Autistic Inner Child as an Autistic Adult
The South Jersey sky went black somewhere around exit 16 on 295 south. Up to this point, I’d had a great day. First, I met Dorian, my best friend of 15 years, for breakfast at a barn-style brunch spot called, “First Watch”. He was unfulfilled with the French toast and millionaire bacon, which according to him was lacking the peppery taste he was accustomed to. I teetered with a Chile Chorizo omelet, which had way too much going on for my liking. However, the cheese grits, which came in a souffle dish, were quite delectable.
Dorian and I are both neurodivergent nerds who are always laptop ready, with some type of something important, and could use some immediate attention. For as long as we’ve known each other, we’ve always been this way. We also always know where to plug in. Thus, after we paid our brunch tab, we headed to a nearby café that we’d become familiar with during the pandemic. As we walked in, I grabbed an organic, blood orange sparkling water from the refrigerated goods section, looped around the snack sale table, grabbed a small container of rainbow gummies, and went to the register to check out.
I headed over to the window where Dorian sat his belongings, and set up shop. Eventually, he returned with a small glass on a saucer and two Splenda packets. He was determined to make a seemingly unappetizing caramel macchiato taste better. He was failing miserably. We pulled out our laptops and began working.
He worked on a database update for his computer, and I edited one of the chapters of the novel I’ve been writing. Occasionally, the silence would be interrupted with harder typing, self-talk, singing along with the café music, or even laughter. We have always been the kind of friends who are capable of just existing alongside one another for hours, sometimes even days. We don’t necessarily need to do anything. Being is enough.
Usually, it’s Dorian who must get home to his children or spouse. This time, it was I who’d made plans for the latter part of the afternoon with my new friend Jay. Jay lives in downtown Wilmington, usually about an hour and 15 minutes from me, but was only 40 minutes or so from where we were. It was getting later, and I’d done all the writing I was going to do for that day. I mentioned the time and suggested Dorian and I make a move on lunch before we went our separate ways.
Meanwhile, I received a text from Jay that he was getting sleepy and thinking of squeezing in a nap before my arrival. I told him he should. I also told him to set his alarm for 5:30, because that’s when I’d likely arrive. He agreed. Dorian and I ended up splitting a pepperoni and cheese brick oven pizza and Tuscan wings from a nearby Italian pizza bar named “Treno’s”.
Once we said our goodbyes and parted ways, I found my foot a little too heavy as I navigated through Haddon Heights, which has always felt quite sundown-ish to me. I slowed to follow their speed limit, but I was relieved when one of those little side streets spewed me out onto 295 south. I moved with the flow of traffic toward the Delaware Memorial Bridge, where I experienced the brunt of what my phone had just tried to warn me about. The darkness that I thought I had escaped 15 exits ago had been making the journey into Wilmington along with me, and it finally erupted in a fit of rage and fury. Flashing lights shot through the sky, and the water surrounding the bridge rioted.
What seemed like buckets of water splashed ferociously against my windshields and the hood of my car. My front and rear wipers worked overtime to help me see, but they were not enough. As I E-Z passed into the state of Delaware, I realized I had allowed my fixed, determined autistic brain to keep me so locked in that I was currently risking my life to see someone who had not even asked me to come. I volunteered to stop by when I left my hangout session with Dorian. I’d come too far to turn back, and it was too dangerous to try and wait it out on the side of the road.
Once I found my exit, I pushed all the air I’d been too anxious to exhale through the gap in my two front teeth. I was afraid to take my eyes off the road for one second to look at my GPS screen again, which had been trying to alert me that the next turn was mine, but I missed it for the next three blocks. I finally made a right turn down a narrow residential street, which led me to a completely powerless stoplight. I checked my surroundings before turning out onto the main road that would carry me downtown. I caught only one long red light, and felt it safe enough to send Jay a follow-up text to the “On My Way!” text I’d sent before hopping on the road.
As I navigated the streets of downtown Wilmington, I found no resolve. Parking was even more limited than the first time I met Jay. The rain picked up speed again, and I grew weary of trying to find somewhere to park. I drove the block twice and three streets over before I found a space that I was comfortable with. At this time, there were several feelings coursing through me, but in that moment, I needed Jay to answer—I needed this moment to be what it was supposed to be.
I needed my mind and body to cooperate with me. I needed to not go into the trauma of my past, which is full of worn-out welcomes, disingenuous invites, mistreatment, misread situations, and so much more. Here I was sitting in my black Subaru, which barely made it through the mayhem of navigating both the storm and Pennsylvania drivers, holding back tears that yearned desperately to fall. However, they did not dare in that first half hour, because how would I explain red eyes and a wet face to Jay, were he to call and tell me he was awake and would be down shortly. Nevertheless, when I picked up my phone, I realized there were still no replies to any of my messages.
I texted again, hitting the “Notify Anyway” button for the second time. No answer. The shame I’d been forcing myself to swallow throughout the worst parts of this journey was yearning desperately to come up, and this time, I let it. Of course, it was in the tone of my mother’s voice, as she always tried to prepare me for a world that only saw me as weird and would make no space for my differences.
“You are so fucking stupid,” I said aloud. “No, I’m not. He is not intentionally ignoring me. He is likely still asleep. He is not ignoring me. I don’t think he would do that. Why would he do that?”
I could feel my insides erupting with the shame I’d been trying to keep locked inside. It was too late. I already began the conversation. I’d already said the things aloud. I was sitting in my inner autistic child… sad, lonely, afraid, and confused.
Suddenly, I remembered the shame I experienced when girls felt the need to exclaim boldly that they didn’t like me and would NEVER actually date me. I was sitting in the body of the clumsy kid who was too tall, too big, and too slow to not become the butt of everyone’s jokes. I could feel the sudden drop in my chest back when I could hear the person I believed was my friend, stand behind a door or in close enough distance to the receiver, sigh heavily, and say, “tell him I’m not here”. I did not know when to go home. I did not know where to go.
I put unnecessary miles and “wear and tear” on my car, because, once again, I was so excited to have a new friend—especially one I thought was so much like me. We’re both late diagnosed autistic queer nerds who are embarking on the journey to discovering our unmasked selves. However, this experience was allowing me to see that me and my new friend didn’t have as much in common as I thought we did. He wasn’t making spontaneous trips to come an hour and a half to spend time with me. He also wasn’t risking his life in a severe thunderstorm, while a Pennsylvania driver just shot across multiple lanes in front of you to avoid an exit they’d reneged on taking.
Anyone else would have turned around in Jersey and gone home, but not me. I was hyper-fixated and determined to be who I say I am and where I say I’m going to be despite the good sense I’m supposed to have built up by now. I hydroplaned twice while going around those curves leading into that town. Having a new friend was suddenly not worth sacrificing myself as some type of token memorial of goodness. Showing up in my best ‘I just want to make you feel seen’ attitude was not worth my life.
It was 30 minutes past our original meet up time. Jay was off somewhere in La La Land, sleeping peacefully, ignoring his alarms, drooling on his pillow, and ignoring his text notifications. Meanwhile, my ego is shredded, I have literal steam coming off the top of my head, and a metaphorical egg on my face. I’d tried to tell myself that he was only sleeping and that this was not intentional because Sleep is natural. Sleep is good. I shouldn’t be upset, because it was an accident, and accidents happen.
Except, had I known a friend was coming to visit me, I would have likely not taken a nap at all, especially if I felt I’d be too tired to wake up when they arrived. Also, if I did choose to nap, I would have made sure I did not have my phone on “Do Not Disturb” mode while waiting for my guest. It was clear in this moment that while my life had made me a more intentional careful person, maybe his life allowed him the space to be careless. As a matter of fact, it has demanded my carefulness. Oftentimes, my life, my survival, and my ability to successfully mask has hinged completely on my intentional carefulness.
That incessant need for carefulness and thoughtfulness, leaving little room for error, is likely the reason I even found shame and discontent ragging within me the way it was. I was reliving the different occasions when those who I valued and went above and beyond for did not do the same for me. I was reliving the narrative that says I am invaluable, unworthy, and must sacrifice my mental and physical well-being to be acknowledged. In my metaphysical mind, I was aware that these were lies coming up because I was triggered. Nevertheless, that realization meant nothing to my autistic, real life brain.
Forty minutes later, I adjusted my seat and mirrors, put my seatbelt back on, started the ignition on my SUV, and started back toward the Delaware Memorial Bridge. I merged onto 295 north towards Trenton, sighed exhaustingly, and prepared my mind for another hour of braving the residual effects of this storm. I tried returning to the James Baldwin novel I was listening to for a little comfort, but then one of the lead characters committed suicide by jumping into the Hudson River, and his lover became trapped inside herself to the point of being placed in an insane asylum. Heavy winds, rain, tattered road, Baldwin, and the fog were all mine to brave. I traded the audio book for the barely visible road ahead.