I just came back from the radio station. Shirley, the manager, suggested that for now I should read things from my blog. I had the idea to do interviews with people but didn’t know where to take those people from, and, to be honest, what to talk to them about – I’d probably end up talking at them instead about my own view of the world. It would be like reversed interview. Which may be an interesting concept but I guess the world is not ready for it.

I was suggested to record a little bit from my blog and I chose the recent post about coping with unexpected events. But when I started recording, it all felt so wrong and I kept laughing. First of all I wanted to record an introduction and it made me wonder how on earth I became a blogger! It felt so surreal, sitting there, in an empty studio and talking to piece of equipment about my life and thinking about all those changes that I’ve been through since a year ago.

I tried a few times and had to finally come out to tell Shirley I can’t do that as I laugh every time I try to speak. She then came to the studio with me, told me it was nervous laughter, read a piece she had and I somehow managed to do mine, it made more sense to me after I saw her recording hers.

Still, I was not very happy. I felt stressed and my throat started hurting while I was speaking, the sentences also didn’t sound right while read out loud. It seemed like I should have added a few ‘you knows’ or ‘wells’ to sound more like I was actually talking and not reading but because they were not written down, I couldn’t do that.

I wonder now why this is so difficult, it’s just talking, isn’t it? And it’s not like I never talk to myself when I’m alone, so it should be easy to adapt this persona and just carry on. I have no idea which part of my autism is preventing me from doing that, but it is quite annoying and tiring.

It feels to me like I’m on the edge of a meltdown now. I’m never going to be able to do that – talk to a piece of equipment! How? It feels so f***ing wrong! How other people are managing I don’t quite know.

It seems to me like I knew what I wanted to say but I couldn’t do that, it all got blocked somehow, even though that was just a trial. The fact it was a trial didn’t put my mind at ease at all.

And it seems like, if I’m autistic, it should be easier for me to talk to equipment than to people. There is actually this expression that we, autistics, talk ‘at’ people, not to them. We miss non verbal clues, we ignore hints and if we try to focus on those, it makes us tired. So talking to a piece of equipment should be easier for me, shouldn’t it? Piece of equipment doesn’t give nonverbal clues. And yet, I cannot do that.

The idea of talking to equipment makes me feel like my entire world has been turned upside down!