Saturday, January 16, 2016

Autism in Love

     This post is inspired by the documentary by the same name, Autism in Love. It premiered on PBS and can be purchased to stream online, like from Amazon. I've also been wanting to write this post for a while and just haven't had time. However, since my recent graduation from college, I have more time and now am ready to write this.
     At the time I'm writing this, Tommy and I have been together for almost a year. It has been quite a journey getting to know each other and building our relationship. We've grown as individuals and as a couple. We've seen each other at our best times and at our worst times. Being on the spectrum presents some unique challenges to our relationship at times. Never anything we can't handle and work through. We both know each other's pasts and deepest secrets and yet.....we're still together and going strong.
     My past in relationships is not a good one. It's filled with heartache, abuse, unfaithfulness, and rejection. It broke me. It broke my trust in every other guy I tried to date. It broke my self-esteem to where I felt I didn't deserve a good guy to love. It broke my faith that a guy could ever love someone like me, with everything that had happened to me and all my flaws. I was single for four years in which time I worked on myself. I got to know who I was as an individual, worked through some of those negative feelings, and dealt with my broken past. Then I met Tommy.
      Even though he may not have known it at the time, I knew there was something different from the very beginning. I don't believe in love at first sight, but I knew something was there. People tried to warn me, told me to be careful. I didn't want to listen. Surely they must be wrong. I just knew that if I stayed true to myself, who I was, and what I believed in, I'd have nothing to worry about. I was right. He tells me often how I changed him and his way of thinking. However, I want him to know how much he changed me too.
     He accepts me the way I am: flaws, past, and all. When he found out I was on the Autism spectrum, he treated it as another fact about me. He didn't flinch away. He didn't get weird about it. Most importantly, he didn't treat me any different, and he didn't leave. A couple of guys I've dated, once they found out that I was on the spectrum, just left. Stopped talking to me, didn't hear from them again. Not Tommy. He's gone above and tried his best to understand everything that comes with having a girlfriend on the spectrum. I couldn't ask for anything more.
     I have also feared that if being on the spectrum didn't turn a guy away, my past would. I used to feel unlovable at times. I used to think that no good guy would want to be with me if they found out the things that had happened to me. I thought that maybe they would blame me for what had happened. Tommy and I have both shared our pasts with each other. He proved that not only does he love me despite my past, he vowed to never bring it against me and to never be like the guys in my past. He showed me that no matter what had happened to me, no matter what any of those other guys may have said, I am lovable. I am beautiful. I matter. I mean the world to him.
     He taught me how to trust again. I hadn't realized that in addition to not being able to trust, I had also built up this enormous wall. Every time I shared something else personal, every time I opened up, the wall came down just a little bit. I was surprised, however, to discover just how big I had built that wall. All these fears and insecurities I had, secrets I withheld, being scared of physical contact. He's proved to me time and time again, each step we take, that he's not like the rest. He's not like the ones I've had in my past. I was right from the beginning; he is different. This time is different. He respects me and listens to me. He tries to understand, and we communicate with each other in a way that I've never been able to communicate with someone before.
     My mom used to tell me that when I found the right person and was in love, I would just know. I never knew what she meant until I met Tommy. She was right. I just knew. That little something inside me telling me this one was different. There was something special about this one. I love him with all my heart, and he means the world to me. I may have a hard time expressing myself sometimes, but I want him to know just how much he means to me and how grateful I am that God brought us together.

"I live in the same world you do; I just experience it differently. I am a human being with feelings, just like you; I just express them in my own way." ~Me