On Shit

My wife and I had a conversation about conversing with my dad. For context without violating trust, let it be enough that my wife is someone who had lived through violent experiences as a child. My father had grown up starving and poor, and has today built an entire business that teaches others how to protect themselves from violence. In short, both have been through shit.

So when I told my wife that this is the reason that I felt that her opinion would forever be more valid to my father than mine, she felt a need to reassure me. This launched an entire conversation about simple observations I had made.

First, I want it to be understood that I am autistic. I am high functioning and have refused to be on any form of disability program past high school to prove to myself that I can use this as a superpower. As a result, I forced myself to learn about human behavior and social cues. But every now and again I find someone else who is autistic. The Highlander sense activates: we both notice each others presence, we both know that we are both aliens born on another planet in the form of humans (that really is how it feels to be autistic) and thus we know that we are alike in some way. It is two-way, it seems innate, and it seems to serve as a means to establish a baseline for communication. This is important later.

Second, there is a difference between having gone through shit and being in shit. This is mostly my wife being smarter than me, but she pointed out that these two classes of people who have had horrible events in their lives are what defines a survivor and a victim. She summarized it as like looking at two doors out of a shitty situation, labeled "bottle up and wait," and "let's get through it." Victims chose that first door. Victims do not get out of the shit, they just wallow in it until something outside of themselves pull them out. It is easy, it is unintentional, and if you get out you are still covered in shit that you still have to deal with. These people stink from a mile away. I am not programmed to pick up on social cues and can still pick them out. In high school I dated these people to try and save them. And of course this ended up just dragging me down into the shit with them.

Third is the people who chose the "let's get through this" door. They have been through shit. It was hard work and more than a little personal growth. Survivors are strong because they had to be just to crawl out of the shit they had been through. They think differently then others, they plan, they look for ways to get better at anything... they are all-around bad-ass. I believe that this leads to different wiring of their thoughts. They are human, but in more of a next-gen kind of way. More importantly, they seem to recognize each other. If autistic people are like aliens among humans, survivors are like mutants: they were human, but they are not so much anymore, and developed a Highlander sense so they could recognize and communicate on the same baseline.

I lived a good, safe life thanks to my father, so never needed to become a survivor. So I think he and I talk just because a condom broke that one time and he made me. My wife is a survivor, like my father, so they can share a baseline that makes communication easier between them. So in a way, my wife assuring me that my opinion holds just as much value as her does in my fathers mind just ending digging up proof that nope, not really. It's kinda fucked, but because I understand it better it doesn't bug me as much.

P.S. My wife is assuring me that he still loves me more. Eh...