Always Only You by Chloe Liese (z-lib.org).epub

and she’s chronically under-slept and anxious. Which has me deeply curious
about what kind of support she’s getting. “Are you in therapy?”
“Talk therapy,” she says flatly. “I find it occasionally helpful. Mostly
exhausting.”
“Other than talk therapy, are you in occupational therapy? Have you learned
about sensory diets?”
She scrunches her nose. “Occupational therapy, no. But the guy mentioned it
in talk therapy, maybe? I don’t remember. I zone out a lot when I go. I do it to
please Mom and Dad. Because they’re worried about me.”
“Well, maybe he’s working you toward OT. That’s where you learn about
how to take care of the stuff that’s hard to explain and draining to talk about. For
example, sensory diets. Just like a dietician helps you figure out what your
nutritional needs are, sensory diets are tailored for each individual person to
keep your brain and body balanced and as peaceful as possible, at least until the
outside world throws it all up in the air.”
Ziggy turns so that she’s angled slightly toward me. “What do you mean?”
I lift my fidget necklace. “I’m a fidgeter, always have been. My mom said
she could have sworn I was going to get an ADHD diagnosis when she took me
for my comprehensive eval. But here we are. I’m autistic. And I need sensory
input to feel settled and calm. So, I sit on a big exercise ball—that way I can
bounce and swivel and sway. I have a necklace that people don’t think twice
about me playing with, and with it I can stim when I need to, without it drawing
particular attention to me. I do yoga every morning and swim to burn energy,
any activity that doesn’t hurt my joints.”
I flip the hem of my dress slacks. “French seams. No itchiness. Tag-less
shirts.” I drum my fingers, wracking my brain. “What else… Oh, yeah. I usually
wind down the day under a weighted blanket and my dog on top. But I’m
sensory seeking, so maybe you wouldn’t like that. You seem sensory—”
“Avoidant,” she finishes, staring down at her ripped-up cuticles, and biting a
nail. “Yes and no. It just needs to not catch me off guard, but I like hugs. From
the right people. At the right time. I’m not a robot.”
“I didn’t say you were. But I understand feeling defensive about it. It’s a
stereotype of autistics, that we’re these cold, emotionless shells, which isn’t true.
We just feel differently. And often the case is that we actually feel so much, we
have to compartmentalize it, funnel it into coping mechanisms that make it
manageable.”
She sucks in a shaky breath. “You’re the first person who gets that.”
I try to sift through her meaning, which isn’t easy for me. I have a hunch
she’s not just referring to fidget necklaces or how much talk therapy sucks when