did you know physics is secretly also psychology

I used to tell people, which based on my phrasing I might be reconsidering, I used to tell people that I had to learn to interact with other humans from a book.

When I was young, people were incomprehensible. I read, I mimicked, I went and got a whole-ass psychology degree. So I used to tell people this, and they would nod, not understanding what I meant, or not believing that I could seem so naturally social if this were true, or thinking that I said it because I needed reassurance that I was wrong about my own traits. Which seems odd to me, but maybe that's case in point.

What I was trying to say was 'see how much work I did, see how much work I'm doing right this minute,' and then maybe they would say I had done a good job, and that they appreciated it. But they didn't, because I didn't ask for that, and because a lot of the time it feels like the words coming out of my mouth get twisted mid-air into something that doesn't fit into anyone else's ears. I know the difference between my depression telling me that none of my friends love me, and thirty years of study and pattern recognition telling me that my best attempts to explain myself haven't really worked.

Then, possibly worse, some people did hear me. That wasn't what made it worse, though, them believing. The thing that made it worse was the lie. 'Oh interesting,' they would say, 'And does it still feel like that now?'; or 'Oh, I never would have guessed'. And then the lie would come out of my mouth, or something that is so deeply both truth and lie that it might as well be a physicist's cat in a box that is both and neither, living and dead, until observed. 'well, it becomes natural eventually, after enough practice'.

No. No it doesn't.

It might become faster. More efficient. Natural in the way that means it doesn't always need to be at the top of my mind. Because I am who I am, it became fast enough and efficient enough that I could make the problem disappear. A lot of things were that way. I used to think about how much of a relief it would be if they were worse. If I were worse. As if every ten years or so I don't sit down on the couch, take my hands in my hands, and ask if we really want to keep going like this.

I saw someone on YouTube getting their autism diagnosis, talking about digestive problems and hyper-mobility and asthma and context clues and humor, and the list of checked boxes running through my head made me laugh, and then not laugh. Like the cat in the box, laughing and not laughing, both, neither.

Stimulants didn't make me hyper. They didn't make me feel 'the best I've ever felt' like the psychiatrist warned. They didn't increase my anxiety. In fact it's wild how much less anxiety I have, not struggling to focus on the cars in front of me, not gritting my teeth as I try to force myself through one unstructured responsibility at a time, not having to squint so damn hard to catch my thoughts and their words in my head long enough to enjoy a conversation.

My brother and I joke about which one of us leans more autistic and which one of us leans more adhd. Like the cat in the box.

I know part of it is the pain of my muscles gripping my joints, part of it is the trauma from this past spring, part of it is whatever nonsense people are getting up to at work. Even given all those, I'm very very tired. Finally, I've gotten to the thought that made me pause the video and get distracted and then finally open a new blog post draft: When does the mask become who you are?

Or worded another way: how long until I'm fixed?

Even if I still thought I was broken, the answer is obvious now, I guess.

I don't think I'm being conceited. I used to think that any positive thought about myself was unforgivable hubris, but that's what therapy is so good at challenging. There are tasks I'm better at than most people. There are tasks I'm worse at. My skills are not my value, and neither are theirs.

It doesn't feel like bragging then when I say that if it were possible to truly become my mask I would have already done it.

Maybe it's that kind of season, because I also realized quite suddenly a few months ago that if it were possible save my dad I would have already done that too. Not everyone makes it out alive. It's not a hole you can lift someone out of, if you just get strong enough. You can throw the rope, but they have to be the one to realize they're in a hole.

A better question: who am I, under this mask? Because the thing I made to fool other people also fooled me. To collapse the wave, to measure, to take on a known state, is it worth it? The box was my lifeboat, prison, time capsule, burying a thing, digging it up years later, a gift to myself, from myself, of myself. To ask if it's worth it misses the point: an unobserved cat can only ever be half alive. And as far as I can tell, the only true worth of a person, any person, is just to fully be.