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I have 400 people living inside me, and I think they all do different jobs.
I never remembered my textbooks in school, always leaving them in my locker. I always had to bum a pen from a desk neighbor, sheet of college ruled paper too. I’d tear off the little microperforation if it was the fancy stuff, if not, I’d pick each of the little bunny ear tabs off the far left of the page. I’d hear the teacher making sounds, more Charlie Brown’s teacher as muted trumpet than anything else, I’d hear the clock ticking, I’d hear the shuffling of kids in their seats, the chewing of gum. Then came the poetry, then came the words, then came the desperate attempt to make sense of the noise within me.
I think I got really serious about writing poetry in high school. I think it was born out of necessity really, I think it saved me.
Somehow, test day would come and despite the intensity of the classes I was in, I’d do well on the exams. I’d remember the information from the week I just wrote poetry through, the precise dates from A.P. U.S. History, the chemical formulas for different things the teacher mentioned in some lecture I wrote song lyrics or drew doodles during. Somehow, without ever really knowing how, I got by, I succeeded.
I can do this thing where I’m having a full conversation with someone, with you, in a room with dozens of other people, and once it’s over, remember not only what we just spoke of, but what everyone else around us did too. Their conversations, their words.
I can watch television while reading a book, listen to the radio whilst talking on the telephone. I can write a Signal Fire while helping teenagers work on their math homework, while reminding Sarah of the conversions from cups to ounces for her recipe. I can listen while I talk, and I do, more often than those I speak with would ever believe. Sometimes, there is strife in this.
I have 400 (or so) people in me. I am not schizophrenic, I am autistic.
I can’t speak to the autistic experience of other neurodivergents, though I want to investigate now that I’m writing this, but this is what it is to be me. Perhaps sometime I will, perhaps I’ll do a deep dive and see if others on the Spectrum also feel this phenomenon and call it the only truth they know.
Strangely, and a poem from my latest book The Never Was speaks to this, I can sometimes hear them whispering to me. Some are me, only better at things I feel incompetent at, some are me, only they feel imbued with intense feminine energy. I have men, women, neither/nor, both, animal, and spirit within me, and I feel them all, I recognize them as unique. Here is the poem I wrote to try my best to explain it, though it too feels incomplete, another in the long line of Never Was that “never was” able to feel finished and somehow is more loved because of that fact.
I’ve long wondered about my bizarre ability to do multiple things at once, to detach one from another from another when strange things occur. I can instantly become a different person when catastrophe of any kind strikes, I go somewhere else in the event of an emergency, and don’t really return until things are calmed down some. I’ve been in fist fights before in my younger days, though I’ve never once been angry enough to fight. In each, I was punched, and before I understood what was happening, the fight was over and the person was on the ground and my hands hurt and I realized that someone in me reacted instinctively and made sure I was safe. I was not angry, neither was whomever took over to get me out of that situation. I helped one of them up, the other I apologized to before running back to my van and driving away, shaking. I know it was me, but it wasn’t this me and that thought intrigues, and truthfully, kind of frightens me.
Nothing like that has happened since, thankfully, though I wonder of it sometimes when walking alone at night with Sarah in a strange foreign city, when navigating through a neighborhood you know to your bones is not the place you should be, not at that time of night, not if you know what’s good for you.
I wonder who will step to the mic of my mouth when I walk on stage at book readings or signings, who will offer the best advice when those I care for come to me trembling. I wonder where the “main me” goes when these others who have waited in line, finally get their turn.
I feel thankful for their skills, that some are so fascinated with the news whilst others prefer music. I am thankful some act as psychologist, to myself, to those in my world, while others are comedian, court jester, science nerd, or Bodhisattva to wild creatures that find their way to me.
Strangely, and I can speak to this with a precise honesty and truth that I swear to you is unfakeable, I can speak to this with all 400 voices in unison when I say:
I have 400 people in me, and they all feel like love.
They do, all of them, even the pugilistic bodyguard that has emerged so few times in all my days. They are soaked in it, it drips from them like water, it floods out over the shoes we share, it squeaks my feet as we walk. It’s love, just love, and I don’t know what to do with all of it sometimes, and I feel frustrated then.
It’s love, and it’s real love, and it’s honest in its humanity and its failings. It’s sad sometimes, lots of times if I’m honest, as even 400 people feel lonely when they don’t feel like anyone else. It’s fumbling, it’s forgetful about tenderness (though not often) and I am sure it’s self-serving more often than it should be. All of us are working on this, we’ve always been working on this, though it’s just so noisy sometimes.
I don’t know what to do with them all, all these mes that share this skin. They hide, they step forth, they all are unique, all different, and they look back anytime they can. I don’t look in mirrors, almost ever, a fact you know if you know me well. I don’t because it scares me, because I know I’m not alone in myself, and the mirror feels, as I said in the poem, superfluous. Just more mes, just more of the same, sharing these eyes, this mouth, this strange and weary body.
I have 400 people in me, and I offer to them all my gratitude, sincere and enduring, for the gifts they loan. I have 400 people, and they are me and I am them and we do our best to do our best. This is all I know.
What I want to know, now, what I wish to understand is simple. Simple, so I’ll ask, I’ll brave the crickets that could come when no one answers how I answer, when no one feels how I feel. Still, I will ask, still I will try:
How many people live inside you?
