Realization, or What my Subconscious Has Been Trying to Tell Me All This Time

Realization

Today, on the way home from lunch, I saw a sign with the name of one of the prolific developers here in Stockton. That reminded me of the volleyball class that I was in, thirty years ago, and remember mention of pick-up games in Grupe Park. I was ignored when I asked about joining the fun, and this triggered a massive realization (actually an epiphany) of some very brutal truth.

At work, I was a "loner", with people taking advantage of the knowledge that I have no sense of smell, by gaslighting the "fact" that I reeked with body odor. This fallacy was revealed when both my mother and one of my brothers told me that I never did produce a bad musk all this time. This gave me relief as well as that sense of sadness that people, in different circles, lied to me to "protect my feelings" when shunned.

The "mock musk" was the one known "excuse" for people shying away from me. Being tall, large, and autistic seems to trigger an unconscious bias (defense mechanism?) in many, and I have the feeling that this remains a part of "my" world. I genuinely feel like the cartoon character Baby Huey, an oversized, awkward, naïve baby chicken trying to fit in with the other animals, only to be placated, faked out, and laughed at.

image credit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_Huey

My dreams often play out a recurring theme that I call "Dream Fade" where I'm among other people, especially in Cosplay, but as the dream plays out, I realize that everyone else had gone somewhere else, and I would never be able to catch up to them. Today brought the realization of why my subconscious has been playing out this theme: I'm an archetype of the Lone Wolf: someone who doesn't seem to be able to join a pack, but there are kindred spirits out there (unlike the term "misfit" which evokes a more pervasive sense of permanence). I see "cosplay squads" and try to join them, only to find out that they had gone somewhere else, and I would never be able to catch up to them.

After writing this, the memories popped up, with an entire "timeline" of invisibility which can be attributed to individuals who probably did figure me for a "Baby Huey" and dismiss me rather than reaching out and realizing that they could have fostered much better memories and be Encouragers rather than faceless "characters" in the deep dark recesses of my mind.

In the 8th Grade, I was part of Math Field Day, but wondered why I was never a part of the actual team. Everyone else knew each other, and the following year I wasn't invited, even though I had asked about it. Also in the 9th Grade, I was on the Cafeteria Advisory Committee, but was never notified of meetings after the first one. I figured that the committee was dissolved, but found the faculty member who ran it and asked him. Unfortunately there were no means via authority channels to get any reconciliation for that one, though I tried to find at least one.

High School continued this trend, with groups forming but myself as an Outsider, and actually a favorite target for bullying and "baiting" while others watched and laughed rather than engaging faculty intervention. There were only two get-together with classmates other than a class reunion, and even with Social Media, I was kept from the loop.

Even the volleyball class in college kept me out of the loop with pick-up games at a park location popular for volleyball.

Fast-forward to work life, and again I was invisible, whether it was "my" birthday month, there was Halloween at Work, or when it came to just being part of a group going out to lunch together, the few events that did take place seemed to have a lot of the "playing the script" vibe.

Invisibility in the Clowning and Cosplay "worlds" can be attributed, although only partially, to a few particular "monsters" in the respective worlds. With clowning, the monster there turned out to have been holding a decades-long grudge for my exposing a loophole in an annual recognition that she had been exploiting in her bid to collect trophies. Being intentionally left off of an e-mail notification of a clown group photo, left out of photos from the adventures that our alley went on, and left out of an article in a major clowning publication (actually this happened twice with different monsters), and excluded from media opportunities, and being ghosted by everyone at a Clown Week event that I had looked forward to as a return of the "magic" of the past, all proved that the monsters don't work in a vacuum.

Cosplay turned out to have exclusion, shunning, ghosting, and patronization with too much frequency to just be attributed to a single person or small group.

Since 2005, I had worn costumes to the Theme Party at an annual convention, but have yet to find any "fun shots" or videos with more than myself or perhaps a couple others posing (in fact, the photos that I did find were taken by a few kindhearted souls that I could count off on one hand and have the thumb and perhaps at a finger still left over). Last year, this came to a head when my efforts to inject even a bit of a chance of a "magic memory" came crashing down around me.

When you get to your hotel room just in time such that no one could notice your eyes welling up, and sit on the bed in an inconsolable crying jag (I'm welling up as I type this), you know that something has gone terribly wrong, and it will never be fixed completely.

While I might never get the full reconciliation (unless God intervenes in the hearts and minds of numerous people before they've passed on), my desire is that this never happens to anyone else who is only trying to create fond memories and inspire people.