“No wonder we’re like this, our souls are closer to the surface.”

By Lian Brook-Tyler

Before I went to bed last night I was reading a book for the *partners* of autistic women (such an autistic woman thing to do), and then spent my dreams giving three different TED talks on our sensitivities, lack of guile or filter, and our seeming ill fit for this modern material world.

I woke up with these words in my mind “No wonder we’re like this, our souls are closer to the surface.”

I don’t know if that’s true but it’s certainly the closest I’ve come to naming how it *feels*.

P.S. When I was looking for an image for this, I saw this one and thought: that’s how life feels at times, like I’m half naked (often literally true for sensory reasons!), my senses are turned up to 11 and the world is groping me (which can also be literally true, autistic women are more likely to have been sexually abused) … but maybe she looks like a damsel and that’s not what I want to portray.

And then I saw Royo based this picture on Inanna, Goddess of love, beauty, sex and war.

It depicts the myth of her journey to the underworld, during which she’s divested of her clothes and protective talismans.

She’s no damsel - she just isn’t where she’s accustomed to being.

It’s a lot.

Art: Luis Royo

 
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