Autism, exiles.

Those of us who live far from home, walk with light feet not quite upheld by the ground, our longings upon our backs. Though mistrustful of estrangement, we capitulate to that first exile which marked us as human.

Exiled from the condition of noble savages, we are subject to the language with which we necessarily move through the world: maddened by thoughts (captive words); lovesick (incarnated words); epic, poetic (metaphoric words); misunderstood (crossed words); searching for words (stuttering words) to say the impossible; connected (virtual words); named (baptismal words); married, retired, graduated (ritual words); recidivist, recurrent (symptomatic words); spoken and speaking.

In autism this exile is more radical. Autistic people, also submerged in this language soup in which we bathe daily, find themselves alone with their private tongue that often does not allow them to bond with others. They also often find themselves defenseless before the words of others who are an overwhelming presence and noise to them.

…

Fragment of a text published in the cultural magazine Raíces al aire, June 2017