The Edge of The Playground: Two Stories one Journey: A Mother and Daughter's Memoir of Autism From Childhood to Adulthood by Mary Lynn Ackerman Willis & Mikhaela Ackerman

Author:Mary Lynn Ackerman Willis & Mikhaela Ackerman [Ackerman Willis, Mary Lynn & Ackerman, Mikhaela]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Edge of The Playground, LLC
Published: 2019-10-01T05:00:00+00:00

15

Mikhaela

Imagine a world where you cannot recognize the faces of anyone, not even your loved ones. No matter how intently you study the face and try to understand the features, it will not compute into your memory. The face is made up of strange shapes, intense eyes, and variations that are so slight everyone may as well look the same. Going out for any reason is accompanied by the anxiety you may not recognize someone. You are not a shy person by nature, yet you turn into one because you cannot locate who you are looking for when you enter a room. You arrive first so that people will hopefully recognize you instead.

Every social engagement ends in exhaustion. You refrain from using the restroom at a crowded restaurant because you know you will never find your way back to your table or be able to recognize the people at your table.

Always secretly hoping no one leaves, telling you they’ll meet you outside, because you know once separated, you won’t recognize them easily. Not knowing if someone is related to another because you don’t see the intricacies of the facial features that make people look like alike.

I wish I had this capability so that when I have a child, I’ll be able to experience the joy of seeing someone who looks like me.

This is my reality.

For me, not being able to recognize faces or facial expressions is one of the hardest parts of autism. It is something I wish I could learn or one day it would just click for me. I see and experience every other sensation, color, and light around me so intensely my mind was never able to absorb the features of a face, making me blind to it. My spatial relations skills test so low that it wouldn’t surprise me if that is another reason I am unable to put the shapes of each individual feature together to see a face. No faces. No expressions. Only colors and blurs of people.

When I tell people I cannot recognize them, I am met with odd responses. I will never know how essential and personal it is for their face be recognized. To me, I attach no significance to whether or not I am recognized since I am unable to do this myself. But to others, it’s a sense of connection.

Every time I try to recognize a face, or facial expression, it is like trying to read a Chinese character. Maybe if I see Chinese characters often enough I will learn the language. Or maybe it will always be confusing, and I’ll never be able to attach the correct meaning to it.

When I speak with someone, I do see his or her face. I see it like I imagine you would see it. And in the moment, I know who it is. But the minute the person walks away, changes clothes, changes hair color, or sees me in an out of context situation where I am not expecting to meet, it is as if I’ve never seen this person before.

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