2026-8-9
I am writing this, in part, as a defense of myself. There is shame in being the way I am, but I am moving past that from a person experiencing this shame to a person who once felt shame over being so different.
I have never been diagnosed, but I have autism or something with a lot of the same symptoms. I have read that autism and trauma can produce the same results. Regardless, I am dealing with these symptoms.
I am often profoundly alone. This has been exacerbated by the fact that we moved 9 times with the military and my husband was away often. For a while now I have realized I have some sort of sign about me that says, “easy to take advantage of” or “good target”.
I have been targeted. Do you know the story of the autistic kid who was lured out by promises of friendship only to be taken advantage of in some way? I have had that happen over and over by people I loved and/or trusted. I have been taken advantage of, controlled, and bullied by people in my life who I should have been able to trust-my parents, people I thought were friends, peers, and multiple pastors.
I am often treated like I am a problem. This has been a constant in my life. And most often when I reach out for support, I am told some version of: “if only you weren’t so problematic, people wouldn’t feel the need to bully, mistreat, control, or take advantage of you”. It is like a specific kind of victim shaming for autistic people.
(Catholic) Church after church saw me as the problem and ostracized me. My basic coping and just being me was seen, over and over, as a problem. It is so much easier to get rid of people than to treat them with decency.
And do you know what? For every single person who “tricked” me intentionally to use me in some brutal way, there will be some consequence. (Think Luke 17:2). It isn’t like people who are cruel and selfish just get away with it. CS Lewis once said one idea of heaven is this: we all go to heaven, but some people have so cultivated vice and sin that they don’t realize they are there.
What has saved me is Jesus. You don’t need priests to get to Him. You don’t need parents to get to Him. You don’t need your family, your spouse, or anyone to get to God. The fundamental thing is that we have access to God all by ourselves.
And this really is the key thing. And it doesn’t “solve” every problem. Because you still have a sign on your back saying you are a good, isolated target. There is still the sense that you can never drop your guard.
But knowing that Jesus is in your corner is the balm.
And going through this makes it so that you are able to see Christ in the people around you like few other people can. How many homeless are autistic? How many incarcerated had childhood trauma? How many were treated like a problem by everyone in their life for decades? How many celebrities suffer because people only see their fame and money instead of their humanness?
Christ is with them.
For every church that has pushed me out the front door, I am more able to see that actually, Christ is outside of the high and mighty churches and on the curb with those that have been excluded. Praise be to God! Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of God. And that is something that I never would have understood had I stayed inside the church with its locked doors with everyone carrying guns (metaphorical or, here in the west, real) just in case some undesirable (beloved child of God) walks in.
So here I am, sharing just a bit of my life, with you my reader. There has been severe hardships, but I want to say my journey has been sanctified, too. Year after year I am sustained by God. I know I have angels protecting me. I know I am saved. It is the kind of experience I think many comfortable middle-of-the-Gaussian kind of people don’t have.