POV: You enter the apartment of a “high-functioning” autistic adult

If you came over right now…

You’d hear the dishwasher running, but see a sink full of dishes and a stove containing dirty cookware. The peninsula I’m sitting at typing this post has become a catch-all, mainly due to my lack of furniture and the need to keep certain items from my cat.

You’d say something about how I don’t have a couch even though I’ve lived here almost four months now, and I would brush it off because I’m tired of explaining to people that I need to see what I have before I buy things to fill so I’m not buying furniture that doesn’t actually serve me. It’s not a big deal to me, because I use my bar stool when I’m on my crappy lappy, sit on the floor when I’m clicker training my kitten, and sit or lay on my bed when I want something soft. I haven’t set up my TV yet because it got wet with a busted gel ice pack during the move, and I’m not in the mood for bad news pertaining to that right now.

Yes, I still haven’t bought a MacBook. I am keen to this year, but the thing about buying it last year was news of M1 chip issues and an influx of updated reviews in December about how the storage was awful. Although anything would be an upgrade at this point, I would prefer something reliable since I’d be spending well over my rent.

Yes, my rent — this is a much nicer place, so of course the rent would go up. I’m no longer living in a town that I hate, in an apartment with water-damaged floors and black mold growing under the kitchen sink.

I’m fine with not having furniture.

New town, new apartment, new furniture, new beginnings.

The pile of crumpled toilet paper sitting behind my two different brands of dish soap are just from today, right now — my allergies are bugging me. It’s gross to you, but it’s not gross to me. It’s actually the most practical process — throwing it away before I go to bed — I’ve implemented since I quit my job at Walmart.

Before you can ask about that, you’re looking at the empty Anchor Hocking dishes — a square dish that held cornbread three weeks ago, a rectangle that held chocolate cake (no icing) two weeks ago.

Why haven’t they been washed yet, you ask?

Executive dysfunction. Dissociative identity disorder.

It’s one thing for me to say my mental diagnoses don’t affect my everyday life.

It’s another thing for me to expect my mental diagnoses not to affect my everyday life.

But before everything else — your questions, your comments, you stepping through my door — I will ask,

Why are you here?

unless I invited you. Because who are you to come into my home and provide feedback and commentary I never asked for? 🧐

This post was written in March, six months ago.

The kitchen area actually looks like this lately:

And I strive to keep it this tidy. ✨