Gap-tooth - 🧶

(I’m in this photo and I don’t like it)

My family never put much priority on my comfort or happiness. I'm slow to wake up, and I grew up thinking that I hate mornings. My sister is the type of a person who is as wide awake as she'll be all day as soon as her eyes snap open, and when we were teenagers she used to wake me up on school days by tossing the dog at me (our old Tessa was enough of a terrier to always land on her feet, claws first, and could be tossed like a cat) and waking up every day having to wrestle a dog's tongue out of my mouth before I could open my eyes was Not Nice.

My family would berate me for being too sensitive, dramatic, or even downright manipulative, for being able to burst into tears first thing in the morning.

When my boyfriend wakes up before me, he takes meticulous care not to wake me up. He climbs out of bed so cautiously and slowly, gets dressed without turning on the light, and sits quietly in the dark of our one-room apartment until my alarm rings or I wake up on my own. This morning, I woke up to notice that the room was softly lit in a way I didn't recognise, and saw the love of my life quietly gaming in the light of a storm lantern.

I love mornings.

I actually hate that I can’t learn shit.

 I’ve been tested for everything from autism to ADHD, for every learning disability that exists and is out there, and I have none of them, none. I got tested, I’m cognitively above average in everything except for math, where I scored the exact average. I pick up patterns and gain info from context clues instinctively. There’s literally no reason for me to be unable to learn anything.

 I’m also 26 and can’t read an analogue clock. I know that when all the pointers are pointing to 12 then it’s 12, and if one pointer points at 12 and the other one points to a different hour, then it’s probably that hour, but other than that, it’s all white noise to me. I literally can’t learn valuable skills or information purely because they’re valuable. It’s IMPORTANT and USEFUL to know what time it is, and therefore I can’t learn it.

 There is literally no cognitive reason for me to be like this.

okay I will be honest I fucking HATE the trope/archetype where a character has behaviors that very heavily imply they're autistic but in the actual piece of media they go to great lengths to be like "no I'm not autistic! I've been tested and they say I'm not! I'm just me :) !" coward behavior. however. I do think there are some. SOME characters where it's so so much fucking funnier if they have a fuck ton of autistic traits but it's for reasons Completely Different from autism and They're Not Autistic They're Just Like That. for example