Two Happily Autistic Weirdos

Yeah, you heard us. Proud to be weirdly Autistic as we experience and learn about the world. It marks the day that we met. Considering we aren't great in social situations, it goes hand in hand that it would be difficult to find someone we would want to spend most of our time with, let alone forever. So we had met online, him messaging me first. Unlike most people, we don't like chit chat. Our first conversation had to do with the depths of mental health and the struggles that come with it. With that, there was enough for me to meet. Most people I met were quite shallow and were of little interest. Typically we are exhausted and drained talking/being around people in about an hour, including our immediate family members and few friends. Within our first meeting, we ended up spending five hours together and not feeling tired at all but willing to keep chatting together. It was early February when we first met and when John had to leave for a few days in March for training, it was then we knew we were inseparable.

It's hard to function when the other half of your brain isn't around. And no joke. As Autistics, we are lacking in certain areas that are typically expected of people (such as social cue awareness or certain executive functioning). However, when we are together, we help overlap what one of us is missing to compensate for the other.

We will also explain what it's like to be autistic while adding research that we find to give you an idea of what it's like to suffer from various shifts in what is deemed 'normal' in our society. Easily summarized for us (since Autism is now on a spectrum that varies from individual to individual), it's a sensory overload and having to process strong to extreme emotions that are gained from stimuli around or internally produced by ourselves. For example light, on many days, feels much brighter than normal and it physically hurts our eyes (even closing them is still too bright). Even internal thoughts and memories can trigger these memorable sensory inputs to cause reactions whether we wanted them or not. We can't stop them from occurring, but it is our responsibility to do our best to control and maintain ourselves during these processes. They can come out of nowhere, slamming us with too much to process at once either nonstop or an occasional peck at us. Either way, we are learning to work with them the best we can.

We are thrilled to get to travel and explore this amazing world together. Our first exploration was supposed to be the park across the street from our home, but violence was increasing and kept us indoors to making us flee for our lives. Though our circumstances weren't the best (lost home, job, vehicle within two months), we have made the best of our situation and are finally enjoying life! Even with health issues and needing constant evaluation of our well-being daily, it is possible to still live the dream!

Even today, we were thrown into a tough situation, thrown out into another tough situation and are consantly struggling. Except while together we are happy and content. We are eager to make the best of any situation we are in.

Happy anniversary of our meeting day back in 2016!

Shall we go down memory lane?

By this point I had moved to Colorado and had lived there for a bit of time. Still heavily recovering from PTSD and insomnia with heavy HEAVY depression and suicidal ideations/plans. I had met someone and had been together for few months and we had a really bad split. I worked through the pain to be happy on my own whether I found someone or not. By end of Jan I was already planning a few month long road trip on my own. I needed to get away. I was online and on many apps to meet people. With my issues of lacking very good social awareness and having high anxiety, its not easy for me to meet people for the first time. Sifting through potential friends online saved me time and energy. It also was to prepare me for a more smoother introduction when we actually meet face to face.

Enter John. He messaged me first and within our first convo I was already impressed that we didn't go through chit-chat (how are you? What's the weather like? What's your favorite hobby?). We talked about what was important to us. I think we waited a week or two before we met for the first time. Barnes and Nobles here in Colorado Springs. Now when we were about to meet, I honestly wasn't sure who I was meeting. I was talking to multiple people (most disappeared after a day with at least 3+ more people trying to message me to take the spot), so I was surprised when I saw him. We spent five hours together. That may seem like a short amount of time, but typically with new people (or even family), within the hour I'm exhausted and drained. We both were fine until we realized what time had actually passed and we had to both head home.

We hung out almost every day, messaging every day. Then came early March when he had to leave for 3 days for training. I was on edge and worried the whole time. Have I mentioned when I'm really attached I tend to overworry about their well-being and safety? Yeah it spiked. I had trouble sleeping waiting for the possibility he would message. Of course he was working and couldn't message often so I wanted to make sure I was able to respond and chat when he could.

Days passed and he was headed back! We met at Chipotle (which used to be our favorite date location but maybe more on why that changed later). Since then we realized that the only person we really enjoyed being around and talking to were each other. We had a different language than others had. We had similar experiences and stories that we could relate to. We just meshed perfectly. With every day we wove another thread creating a stronger tapestry.

We've only been married for 2.5yrs and already act like an old couple who have been married for over +10yrs. We've experienced being broke and homeless, going in and out of hospitals, going through family troubles and setting boundaries, to much more. It still shocks us how some people have a life where they either never experience these or maybe ONCE near the last half of their life. We went through it all and are definitely stronger while we have watched far too many fail by this point. Even our worst together is leaps and bounds above the BEST days with anyone else we have been with. And that's saying a lot for both of us, having gone through some screwed-up relationships.

We are perfect together. For autistics, it is already a slim chance of meeting someone we can get along with. It's a MUCH smaller chance that we find someone perfect we want to spend all our time together with. With our particular boundaries, it seems like we are asking for a lot (and most people wouldn't adapt), but to us, it is huge because it's usually being asked due to the amount of pain we can't tolerate. Yes, within the past two years we have basically spent 24/7/365 together. He's the light of my life, someone who makes me want to be a better person and someone who wants to live to experience this world with him! I love you so much dear! <3

That's basically it for now. The rest is history and we've been enjoying all of our time together learning and growing. We will continue our journey together and hope you find the life you are searching for! Follow us to see the world through different eyes, or to just learn about something strange and new. Learning should be a skill everyone carries and we are hoping to teach you how exciting it really is!