fears.

I know people have fears. Lots of people have irrational fears, like of the dark, or of water.... I personally fear ants. There's a decent reason though. It was the summer after 8th grade, and I was at church. We were making a video. In this video was a scene of epic battle, where many people died (don't worry, no church people were intentionally harmed during the making of the video. Just me). I was one scripted to die, so I did. Now, I'm allergic to grass, so when I lay in certain kinds of grass, I get hives and it itches and I hate it. When I laid in this grass, my arms itched. This was normal. Then one arm itched a lot more than the other. Then more than a lot. Then it really hurt. I broke character to glance at my arm, hoping the camera didn't see this dead guy suddenly look at his arm. What I saw was not my arm. It was a wall of ants. If you don't live in Texas, you may not understand the implications of "fire ants". These things aren't just normal ants. They attack you. They bite. They leave this thing that's like a pimple, but it hurts and itches, and the more you scratch it, the more it hurts. That sucks, right? Well now imagine many hundred of those little bitches between your knuckles and your elbow. My left arm was about twice the size of my other arm, due to the swelling and puffiness. So. That's one of my perfectly rational irrational fears.

There's another one that I cant justify though. Don't laugh at me, but the worry of mine that's eating at me right now is that I might be mentally retarded. Or autistic. Or just mental somehow. Seriously, now before you start with the "oh kyle, you're not stupid. Look at what you've accomplished! and start listing all the awesome crap I've done, do you seriously think I've just forgotten it? No, I know what all I've done. I did well on AP exams. Not perfect, by a long shot, but stupid kids don't get 5's on calculus exams and 4's on nearly every other one they take (darn you 3 on physics). Stupid kids don't get Eagle Scout awards. Or win science fair things. Or have friends. Or go to college and make A's. Or have girlfriends. Or so many other things that I can and have done. I'm not stupid. I know that. But there's something wrong. Maybe not IQ wise, but maybe just mental speed problems or social problems or something like that.

Really. I think there seriously is. I don't hear things that normal people hear. I'm that person that you have to tell things to like 3 or 4 times. Then other times, I hear things and they don't process for several seconds. I'm that person that laughs last at a joke.

I talk really loudly. I mix up words when I go from thoughts to speech. I read slowly. I can't spell. I'm ADD. I guess the ADD is self-diagnosed, but still. I am, and everyone that knows me knows I am. I think to some degree I'm dyslexic, too. I have a theory on dyslexia though: I think everyone's dyslexic, but at some point it becomes a problem, and those are the people we call dyslexic. Anyway, I think I'm under the line, but still more so than normal people.

I don't think I'm funny, though I have a good comment here or there. I also make out of place wayward comments. Maybe that's just a weird sense of humor, but I'm starting to take a different take on it.

If you saw Shutter Island or something like it, that's kinda where this is coming from. Not from the movie, but more like the thought process I'm using. Have you ever thought everyone is laughing at you behind your back, and you didn't have any idea or suspicion until you suddenly did? Well, my fear is that everyone around me has this understanding that they should treat me normal, and therefore patronize me and don't tell me. Do you think retarded people know they're being treated extra nice all the time? No one's going to go up to someone with severe downs syndrome and be like, hey, you know you're really mentally slow, right? Because, really, everyone thinks it's so rude and out of place to tell a retarded kid that he's retarded. Seriously, even I know that's wrong. But like the guy in Shutter Island, is anything people do around you real? Is everyone in on it? What if everyone around me is just trying to make me feel normal, but really they all know something I don't? Like, even my parents kept it from me and talk to all the doctors behind my back.

I'm trying not to sound crazy, but it's not working. I guess if it were true, someone would have slipped up by now. Maybe they did. Maybe they called me retarded and I thought they were just using it as a name calling word kinda thing. I'm really not trying to sound crazy, but this is a legitimate fear of mine. It only gets worse when I start making stupid mistakes and I catch people talking about me behind my back. I start feeling like everything I do is being watched. Everything I say is being judged. And meanwhile everyone is pretending like nothing is wrong to my face.

Worst part? Nothing you can say will help. You can assure me as much as you want that I'm not mental, that I'm just like everyone else, but the idea won't go away. Maybe you're just saying that to make me feel better. Just like in Shutter Island, one minute I'll get it, but I'll go back, and there's just nothing you can do. I hope I'm not crazy just for thinking this, but that may be it too.