A jewish woman on the spectrum

You haven’t read about me in Mishpacha, Binah or Ami but I do exist I’m your daughter and sister inlaw I’m your guest, I’m in your shul. And if you know me a little you see I’m a little bit off.

How off? I don’t wear funny clothes or sit in a wheelchair I also don’t have a very monotone voice. But there is something akward which has been there always. I can’t turn it off, even that is all what I want. That stickel that Hashem gave me has hurt me so much and left me with insecureness and I still don’t know why He gave it to me.

But what am I doing off? I give you a few examples. Few weeks ago before the whole corona thing I went to a shiur for ladies in Amsterdam on shabbos. There were a lot of older ladies who were asking for my lastname. I assumed they wanted to do some kind of Jewish geography which is for me difficult since I’m a Baal Tesuvah and I’m not from Amsterdam and my husband is from England so they would then still don’t know who I am. So I was saying things like ‘well you can’t link me to anyone, I was married last August and eh, I’m not from Amsterdam’ so while saying that another lady said ”Sweetheart, it is ok, we just want to have your full name’ while another lady chimed in ”It’s hard to get used to a new name”. So yeah, that is a little akward.
Another thing, which is not easily to be noticed is the fact that I’m thinking about everything during a conversation. Am I looking interested? Is my body language doing ok? Is the other still interested? Am I not oversharing? Am I now too negative? Am I now speaking lashon hara? Is the other person thinking now bad about me because I might be oversharing/negative or talking too much about one subject? There is one other thing where you can see that I am off, and that is sometimes at a big shabbos table, shabbaton or a women event. Place me in a crowded area with lots of people and I kinda freeze. My brain can’t process all the noise, the mass of people, the smells I kinda freeze and need to go away from it. It makes me tired, anxious and sad. Tired because my senses are way more sensitive then from other people, anxious because I don’t know how to react and sad because it makes me cry that don’t have the skill to do like the others who can chat with people and have laugh and get some validation.

Why this blog?

Being on the spectrum is for me a big struggle and maybe it will always be that way. I’m really afraid for being judged. I’m really afraid I make people angry or not wanting to be near me, I’m afraid I do something wrong by being open about this. And that this will get lots of lashon hara against me. But I can’t be silent about this any longer because I have nothing to lose. All I can guess that there might be lots of women who never felt they belonged in school because they couldn’t connect with the girls in the class, who were not cautions that their classmates wanted to talk about the newest trends instead of your photography project were you were totally occupied with. Or women who’ve heard their child is autistic and now see that there is a woman blogging who is married and can does all the mitzvos. Just more awareness because, I’m your daughter or sister in law, I’m in your shul, I’m going to your mikve, you see nothing weird about me but you see I do little off and I just want to show in this blog some more understanding and awareness.