that's it that's how it feels that's what you're doing if you slip up someone's gonna as a kid i couldn't put that into words i thought that what i was feeling everyone must be feeling because you're a kid and you don't know i just knew that i was different than everybody because i was having such a hard time with life and they weren't i thought why are you all so happy why are you all not stressed because the thing about masking is it's not fun it's really draining because unfortunately masks don't come in a store and you go and buy one and you put it on you gotta build that mask you gotta find resources to know what the mask is supposed to look like and those resources are analyzing everything all of the time it's spending all day every day memorizing every single interaction that everyone around you is having how their mouth moves their face moves their eyes move their hands move the words that they say the phrases the laughs how they're laughing how they're standing how they're dressing and in my autistic brain i sort everything by rules and by steps and so i would make rules i shook everyone's hands when i met them because i thought that's something that people did i would go into my room for hours and practice facial expressions in the mirror and be able to have to find the expression that i thought looked the best and then trying to do it without looking in the mirror and memorizing exactly how it made my face feel in all the right places i never knew what outfits to wear and so usually i would find an outfit that one girl was wearing at school i would write it in a book and then a week later i would wear that exact same outfit not even that i liked i didn't even like them just of what i saw that they were doing and i'm like that's what a human does i'm gonna do the same thing even when it came to pictures that i took i would find people on instagram that were like my age that had a lot of followers and saw what they posted and i'm like i'll do the same because that's what's gonna make me human and i would write those down as well i had so many notes on my phone that were just how to live my life how to look at all times how to talk to people the only reason i started doing dance was because i really liked this girl who was a dancer i only tried out for sports because the other girls were trying out for sports and i thought this was a human thing to do i was never good at sports and i couldn't understand that and it frustrated me so much i did my makeup because that's what everyone else was doing and then who'da thunk that i am a pretty good actor so when i was six i started acting in our local theater when you're an actor you have a director that gives you here are the words you say so say these words exactly memorize them i have an identical memory so that's fantastic and then we're going to tell you exactly how to say them how to use your voice where to look where to stand how your body should be like this is your relationship to other people this is where you walk at all times everything has rules and i
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