#SHARINGSILENCE - THE MEMOIR

where it all begain...

This is where everything began, before Ruah, before this site and what I had originally intended the site to be.

Just the story of my life

where the silence first began...

and continued...

“What they call normal is just outdated firmware.”

– Me

Born Wrong in Their World

I was born in the ’80s.

It was a different world back then. No internet. No awareness. People didn’t speak of things they didn’t understand — they hid them. Buried them. Erased them with shame.

I must’ve been around three. I don’t have clear memories from then — which tells me I was still very young. But I remember fear. That part never left. Not fear of anything in particular — just an ambient, silent dread.

There are photos of me smiling. So I know, logically, that I must’ve laughed. Played. Been held.

Preschool: Echoes of a Beginning

I have faint memories of preschool. Fragments, like old film reels burned at the edges.

There was a girl. Sarah? Sara? Something like that. Smaller than me. Long, straight light-brown hair. I don’t remember her face — just a blur framed by hair and movement.

What I do remember is the feeling. Uncomfortable, unfamiliar — but not bad. Something like belonging, though I didn’t understand it then.

Every time we walked through the preschool gates, she’d appear. Run up, jump, stretch, kiss me on the cheek, and vanish again. Routine. Predictable. Like clockwork.

It wasn’t a one-off. Mum mentioned it once, offhand, like it amused her. So it must’ve happened often enough to etch itself into her memory too.

To me, she’s not a person — she’s a pattern. And like most things from back then, she fades before I can ask her name.

Autism flattens some things like that.

Shutdown Memory

One sticks hard. Recess, maybe. The others would run out to sandpits and swings. I stood still. Not from confusion — my body wouldn’t move.

My mind screamed: Move.
My body replied: Nope.
Mind: MOVE!
Body: hehehe… watch this.

And I pissed myself. Not because I wasn’t toilet trained. I was. But because the shutdown was total.

It happened more than once. Until someone realised: if a shadow walked with me, I could move. I just needed to feel safe.

“Do you know how to use the toilet, Kevin?”
Nod.
“Are you sure?”
Nod.
“Kevin?”
Face screws up. Meltdown begins.

Because repeating myself isn’t easy.
Because being asked the same question over and over triggers panic — not understanding.
Because autism doesn’t always mean “different.”
Sometimes it means done explaining.

Asperger’s, and Erasure

The word came back: Asperger’s.
But instead of answers, it brought denial.

“No. Our child is not retarded.”

That was the end of it. The diagnosis vanished. No support. No accommodation. No acknowledgement. It would not be spoken of again — not until decades later, when a dying woman muttered truths between her regrets.

The Father

“My son will not be a retard.”
“Don’t be a pussy boy.”
“Men don’t cry.”
“I’ll beat the man into you.”

That was my father. A man who clung to the memory of a short stint in the army reserves like it made him something. Our house was a training ground. Discipline. Routine. Domination. I was a child. He treated me like a soldier.

I wasn’t broken.
The world was.
And I was being punished for not conforming to a world that refused to make space for difference.

"I’ve never asked to be treated differently.

I’ve only ever asked for the world to change — because we are different."

– Me

Behind the Chair

The memories are scattered — some vague, others sharp in feeling but blurred in detail.

They were likely buried, either by trauma or by survival instinct. I don’t know.But I know the pain. And I know the confusion.

My sister was three years older than me.
She was also harmed — I believe by our father. Whether she was told to act the way she did, or whether it was trauma acting through her, I can’t know.
She cut contact with the family years ago, blamed me, and vanished. I never understood why. Still don’t.

One of my earliest memories is of an armchair in her bedroom.
I was hiding behind it — not from danger exactly, just… hiding.
She was there too. And she told me to do things.
I didn’t understand them. I was three. She was six.
I didn’t know what “right” or “wrong” was. Just that something felt off.

I remember another setting — under the blankets.
Things happened there too. Things that happened more than once.
She gave me instructions I didn’t understand — not then, not fully even now.
She used words I didn’t know, told me to act out things I didn’t yet have a body for.

I don’t know how long it went on.
I don’t know how often.
But I remember the pattern.
That’s how my brain holds things — not in sequence, but in repetition.

This is what my earliest years looked like.
Not joy. Not laughter. Just confusion, pressure, obedience, and a sense of something being deeply wrong.

I don’t have good memories until maybe age 10 or 11 — and even those are tangled in later pain.
But they exist, small as they are.
And I hold onto those few flecks of light — because on the dark days, they’re all I’ve got.

“Communication delays aren’t gaps in intelligence.

They’re what happens when data streams exceed output bandwidth.”

– Me

Under the Blanket

L.

[more to come]

“Because autism doesn’t always mean ‘different.’ Sometimes it means ‘done explaining.”

– Me

The Lurgy

Somewhere near Whiteman Park. Childhood. Year unknown.

We weren’t allowed in the caves.

They cost money.

That part I remember clearly.

I don’t know how old I was — maybe six? Maybe eight? Still small enough to notice every stick on the ground. Still curious about every patch of bushland. We’d driven out to Whiteman Park as a family — Mum, Dad, me, L, and C — though I couldn’t tell you why or when.

We weren’t at the cave itself. We stayed in the free part — the bush tracks, the playground, whatever didn’t cost anything. That’s how it always was. If it had an entry fee, we didn’t go.

We were walking near the trees when L stepped into a patch of mud. It looked solid — just leaves and dry dirt — but her leg went straight down. One side of her body dropped into the mud, up to the knee. It clung to her sock. It was thick. Messy. Proper mud.

We didn’t help her.

We laughed.

We ran.

“You’ve got the lurgy!” we shouted.

That word — lurgy — it meant everything and nothing. Mum used it for colds, for stomach bugs, for sneezes, even for gross food smells. If something made her scrunch her nose, it was the lurgy. If you were sick, unlucky, or just disgusting that day — you had the lurgy.

It wasn’t a real word. Not one we learned in school. But we used it like it was. We knew exactly what it meant. You got the lurgy, people stayed away. That was the rule.

That day, L had it. And that was enough.

It wasn’t cruel — not in our heads. It was a game. That’s how we made sense of things. No money? We made up games. Couldn’t go in the caves? Didn’t matter — we had the lurgy now. That was the adventure. Running through the bush yelling, dodging an imaginary disease we’d made up.

We never thought about how L felt.

She was the one left behind, wet and cold, trying to get her leg unstuck.

But we were laughing.

And laughing meant things were okay.

It meant no one could tell how poor we were.

It meant we didn’t care about the caves.

It meant we had our own stories.

Our own language.

Our own way of surviving.

We couldn’t afford a lot of things.

But the lurgy? That was free.

And sometimes, that was enough.

“I don’t want pity. I don’t want compliments.

I want structural change. I want no shenanigans.”

– Me

Worms

a diagnosis by Mum

In our house, if you scratched your bum — you had worms.

Didn’t matter why. Didn't matter if it was once or ten times, over jeans or under. A single subconscious itch and you were officially wormed. Diagnosis instant. Treatment inevitable.

Mum was obsessed. Not in a paranoid way exactly — more like it was a known fact of life, the way weather existed. Worms were real. Worms were everywhere. And children, apparently, were their natural hosts.

We were wormed regularly. Like clockwork. Not because we had symptoms — but because Mum was sure we would soon. Or already did. Or maybe had last week and forgot to tell her. Maybe one of us brought them home from school. Maybe the dog passed them on. Maybe it was just Tuesday.

You got hungry between meals? Worms.

You ate too fast? Worms.

You looked pale? Worms.

Tired? Fidgety? Daydreaming? Worms.

We joked about it as kids — behind her back, of course. “Ohhh you’re hungry? Must be the worms.” It became our own kind of diagnosis — a household punchline we used to tease each other, a shorthand for anything Mum might jump on.

But under the laughter, there was this constant ritual of tablets and suspicion. Line up. Swallow this. No questions. Just do it. Mum said so.

And I don’t know if any of us ever had worms. Maybe once? Maybe never. But in that house, it was always safer to assume you did.

Worms weren’t a condition. They were a certainty.

“Put your drugs down your own throat first.

Then we can talk about what’s left.”

– Me

Primary School Excursion - Zoo Emu Attack

[more to come]

“I’m not trying to be difficult—I’m trying to survive.”

– Me

What’s to Eat?

Shit with sugar on!

A knuckle Sandwich!

[more to come]

“This isn’t evolution arriving — it’s evolution finally being heard.”

– Me

Haircuts

Short back and sides

#2 crew cut

Army hand brush

[more to come]

“Underestimated. Not due to failure, but due to design.”

– Me

The Zoo - The Outfits

Matching green and yellow fluro denim type material suit (pants and jackets)

White and Black horizontal stripped shirts

Myself and ‘I’

DBs

[more to come]

“I didn’t disappear. I was erased.

– Me

The Shack and Masturbation

I.

[more to come]

“Trace patterns, poke cracks — and watch what breaks first.”

– Me

27Mhz CB Radio

L. Steve, Scotty

drugs, potato cannons and weirdness

[more to come]

“Shenanigans are a calibrated form of mischief — not lawless, but governed by personal ethics.”

– Me

Scotty and the Laced Weed

Balcony Climbing, Scotty...

Cold concrete

[more to come]

“You bullied us, shunned us, ridiculed us because we were different?”

– Me

That Golden Weed

Opium and Weed

Thai Buddha

[more to come]

“My delay is not software failure — it’s a hardware design flaw. It needs time to catch up.”

– Me

The Photo Frame

Full of pictures

of me, as a child.. I remember none of it.

[more to come]

“Kev is autistic — the silent, hidden, pattern-driven brain. Kay is the mask, the trauma-forged protector who engages with the world.”

– Me

Survival Is Not Recovery

Then

Ten years ago, I wasn’t whole. But I was healing. I had support. I had safety.

Mary was my support worker. She didn’t just do her job — she understood how to be near me without damaging me further.

With Alma Street's help, I found structure. The support wasn’t personal, but it was functional. And that was enough.

I started getting better.

Then, quietly, the supports were taken away. Not because I was okay — but because the system decided I was no longer urgent.

After

What came next wasn’t collapse. It was erosion. One person gone. Then another. No handovers. No closure. Just disappearance.

And in that slow vanishing, I became unsafe again.

Some systems harmed me. Some just didn’t show up. But the silence? The silence destroyed me.

Inside

People mistake my silence for resilience.

It isn’t. It’s absence. I’m not performing strength. I’m barely here.

What most of you meet isn’t the real me. It’s Survival Kev.

He’s not a person. He’s armour. Trauma-forged, neurochemically enforced, and always on guard.

And he’s exhausted.

Today

I am trying. But I no longer know how to do this safely. If you want to meet the real me — you’ll have to stay long enough for him to step back.

That’s not something you ask for. That’s something you earn.

Her name was Mary. And for two years, I had a life. I saw my kids. I had therapy. I made plans. Then one day, she said she was leaving. She said someone would take over. No one did. You didn’t just lose my file — you lost me. I unraveled. Quietly. Predictably. Completely. And you weren’t there.

“I don’t show up as ‘autistic Kev’ anymore. What you’ll meet — if you choose to meet me — is Survival Kev.”

– Me

The Years You Stole

Eight years of abandonment.

Eight years of silence.

Eight years where I fell apart, piece by piece — while the systems designed to catch me stood by and watched.

I didn’t just lose my support. I lost my children. My stability. My health. My identity.

You had documentation. Warning signs. Red flags.

You did nothing.

You let Mary leave with no follow-up. You let NDIS change beneath me with no advocate. You let me spiral without even a check-in.

I lived through:

NDIS theft

Housing neglect

Suicidality without response

Substance relapses

Medical collapse

Complete isolation

And you, were silent.

I do not want pity. I do not want words. I want repair.

This isn’t about apology. It’s about action.

Fix what you broke. Or stop pretending you help people like me.

What you saw wasn’t the real me. You met Survival Kev — the mask, the calm, the nod. You thought I was fine because I didn’t scream. But that wasn’t safety. That was performance. Autistic shutdowns look like cooperation. You mistook stillness for stability. I disappeared to make you comfortable. And you let me vanish. That was never consent.

“They now grow up thinking I walked away… But I didn’t. I was alone.”

– Me

I Didn’t Disappear. I Was Erased.

You had the data. The records. The indicators.

And still, when I began to vanish — no one came looking.

My support worker left. NDIS changed. Services failed. My ex-wife cut contact. My GP retired. My mother died.

I didn’t fall through the cracks. I was pushed.

I missed years of my children’s lives. Not because I didn’t care. But because no one helped me hold on.

You call yourselves carers, providers, helpers.

But when I became voiceless, you became absent.

Read this closely. Reread it if you must.

Because silence doesn’t just echo. It kills.

Pity stings. Compliments scratch. Sympathy sounds like static. You think it helps — it doesn’t. I don’t want to be reassured. I want to be understood. Your words don’t land. They overload. If you can’t hold silence with me, you’re not ready to hear the truth. And I’m not explaining that again.

“You weren’t just absent in a crisis — you were absent for years. My life didn’t spiral in secret. It spiraled in plain sight.”

– Me

Lost Files

They called it a paper file. A lost record. A glitch.

I call it erasure.

Because when the system lost my diagnosis, it lost the key to understanding me.

And I paid the price.

In years. In safety. In my children.

You say the file was missing.

But I was right there.

“This isn’t evolution arriving — it’s evolution finally being heard.”

– Me

This Is Not a Glitch — It’s an Upgrade

Underestimated. Not because I failed. But because I was designed differently.

My OS processes input at speeds you don’t register. But my output — speech, emotion, expression — gets bottlenecked.

You read that as broken. You were wrong.

My shutdowns are system overloads. My silence is signal loss.

The lag isn’t ignorance. It’s compression.

Now, AI helps decode what your legacy brains couldn’t.

We are not malfunctioning.

We are the evolution you tried to debug.

I wasn’t underestimated because I failed. I was underestimated because the design of me wasn’t compatible with theirs. My OS runs at speeds your systems don’t detect. My hardware overheats from your noise. You called me broken — but I wasn’t. You just didn’t understand the bandwidth. I wasn’t slow. I was buffering. Now AI gives me a voice. And you’re finally hearing what was always there. But not because you learned. Because your firmware finally caught up.

“If you say you’ll help — help. If you’re not sure — say so. If you made a mistake — own it, fix it, move on.”

– Me

No Shenanigans: The Doctrine

No Shenanigans means:

No evasion

No neurotypical white-noise

No systems that silence truth with kindness masks

It is a firewall against dishonesty.

It means:

Say what you mean

Deliver what you promise

Own what you break

This doctrine is not rude. It is real. If you're unsure if something counts as shenanigans… it probably is.

We are done being polite to dysfunction.

The Doctrine wasn’t theory. It was necessity. A firewall built from betrayal. You taught me to doubt kindness. You taught me that policies lie. So I made a new rule: No shenanigans. No optics. No performance. Just do the thing. Or don’t. And say it like you mean it.

“Survival Kev will not disappear just because you’re kind"