My Greatest Regret

I think things could've been different for me if I'd known, and all of the people I grew up with had known, I was autistic. It would've helped to know why I was so off and I never seemed to really be one of them. There's a lot of things I would've done differently and I'm glad modern kids get diagnosed early. Countless offenses made in the cloud of ignorance youth and autism imposed upon me likely warrant apologies to goodness knows how many parties, but most of these fade through the mists of time. Most, not all, because there is one in particular to whom I KNOW I owe an apology, because I had an obsessive crush on her for about a decade. What I would've and did call love at the time was just one of many manifestations of autistic obsessiveness, and she would be far from the last woman over whom I obsessed.

Her name will not be disclosed here because of what little common sense I possess at 33. Nothing bad ever happened, mind you. All I did was perform silly romantic stunts and talk constantly about how much I was in love with her, although, naturally, never to her face. As will be quite clear to everyone not an infatuated autistic child, this did nothing but embarrass the shit out of her and generally get on her nerves. After I left for college, I fell for a girl a year for all four undergraduate years, with a similarly obsessive MO and results. About a year after I got my B.A., I got some actual romantic experience under my belt, ending in an awful breakup. In my torment, I sent her an e-mail asking her out in a move motivated by roughly equal proportions of nostalgia, heartbreak, and autism, or, if you like, abject stupidity. Suffice it to say, the result were very clear instructions to never contact her again, which was devastating but understandable.

12-step programs have a step where one is supposed to make amends to everyone one wronged in the course of one's addiction. There is an exception to this that comes into play if the best thing you can do for whomever you have wronged is to simply never bother them again. So it is that I find myself inextricably in this position with this thing in my past that continues to haunt me. She is happily married with kids and has become a successful doctor, making an apology from me about as desirable as a hole in the head. Any honest assessment would mean that I would only be seeking forgiveness, not attempting to sincerely make amends, given all that. Mine is a common story for autistics, as you'll easily confirm by reading the stories like it on autistic message boards. Modern early diagnosis helps a lot, but I know I'll never stop regretting so many of the things I have done in the places I've been or the cost of my dreams and the weight of sins.

-Frank