butterflyinthewell:

The more important a message is, and the more social pressure I’m under to deliver it properly…

…the more likely it is that I will screw it up or not deliver at all because my brain forgets what words are or how to say them.

Being able to speak and being able communicate via speech are extremely different things.

People who hear an autistic person talk love to assume speech means no communication difficulties. That is so far opposite to the truth that it’s beyond a lie.

If you are not autistic and have no speech issues of your own, you cannot understand how this feels. 

You can’t grasp that rising sense of panic or the way your vision gets super sharp yet blurry at the same time. 

You can’t grasp how your eyes can’t stand to see faces when this panic rises in you, so you look to the side or turn completely away from anybody who talks to you in person(usually to ask “did you make that phone call yet?!”). 

You can’t fathom weird pressure you get in your teeth from grimacing or the choking feeling of trying to swallow your spit past the knot in your throat because you’re under pressure and what are words again?

You can’t understand how it feels to be staring blankly at somebody in front of you or at the wall with the phone receiver pressed tight to your ear while questions are being fired faster than you can comprehend or answer them. 

You don’t know the frustration and terror of realizing the very important words you need to say have completely fled your mind at a moment when everybody expects an instantaneous response.

You can’t experience the embarrassment and odd relief that happens when you stammer something that has no relevance to the situation or you say “I don’t know” in response to questions you know the answers to.

You can’t understand what it’s like to collapse in a meltdown afterward because you don’t know if you just screwed up something people say is so simple. 

You can’t feel the dread of having to wait until tomorrow and face all of that again to find out if you did the thing right or not.

Stop saying I don’t have communication difficulties because I can talk.