Mcyt -autistic- oneshots

Mask it, 'till you make it (Grian)

TW-blood

Grian's POV:

A lot of people didn't know I was autistic. In fact, for the first 24 years of my life, I didn't know either. Then I had this huge "breakdown" thing and we realised that something was up. And I realised that not everyone pretends to be an entirely different person when they talk to people. If I'm honest, it was a shock.

It was a normal Tuesday, we not very normal because I had a lot of videos to film for my channel and business meetings and everything else. So, we'll call it a busy Tuesday instead. The week had already caught up to me despite it only being the second day, I hadn't been sleeping too great and I was getting a cold. Things weren't going great, but I needed to get things done, so I did them.

And by the time it had gotten to 11 pm, my video still wasn't edited enough to be posted and I had completely stressed myself out. I went to get a glass of water and was so tired that I dropped it, right on my foot. Leaving a large cut, chunks of glass everywhere and a lot of blood. Biting on my hand in order to stop myself from screaming, I back into the corner of my kitchen and tried to stay calm. But it was so hard and everything felt like it was on top of me. I couldn't breath so I thought it was a panic attack, but I just lost control and it was so horrible. My wife (well girlfriend at the time) sleepily came downstairs into the kitchen the next morning and saw me there.

She called an ambulance because apparently I was so pale I looked dead, and tried to wake me up. I woke up pretty quickly and ended up sobbing from fear and shame. I still remember it, kind of like it was yesterday.

"You're okay, it's okay. There's an ambulance coming. I'm going to put something on your foot." She grabbed a tea towel and pressed it into the cut; it killed, but I could see from the floor that if lost quite a bit of blood already. "Can you hold it for me love?" I nodded weakly, trying to stop myself from crying and take some deep breaths. "I'm just going to clear up some of this glass." She went to go get our dust pan and brush and I just kind of spaced out. When I came back to the real world, there was a paramedic in front of me.

After some formalities, and a check of my cut, they decided it would be best to take me to hospital. Whilst I didn't feel too sick, they wanted me to have a blood transfusion or something. It was hard to process everything, my head felt like there was so much cotton wool crammed in there and I just felt like crying.

My wife sat next to me in the ambulance on the way there. "How did it happen?"

"Uh, I was stressed and tired, and I kind of just dropped it and then everything was too much. That's not normal is it?"

"Don't worry about that for now, we'll talk about it later." She smiled at me and I handed a pathetic smile back.

And we did talk about it later. Once I was out the hospital, with 12 stitches in my foot, we had a very long chat about it. With my parents at some point too. We talked about I had always been a sensitive kid, and had some sensory issues (mostly I was just a picky eater and didn't like loud sounds or certain textures). So we looked at autism, but they all said I was too socially capable so it couldn't be that. We kept looking, but there wasn't really anything that made sense. It was one late night talk that unlocked it all.

"Love?"

"Yea?" I answered, as we lay there in our bed, the lights all off and drifting off to sleep.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure. What is it?"

"Do you know what autistic masking is?"

"No."

"Can you take a quiz? You can do it on your phone quickly."

"Fine. What's it called?"

"CAT-Q. You found it?"

I scrolled through the safari feed and saw it come up. "This one?" I asked, titling my phone towards her.

"Yep."

"Okay, it will take a few minutes."

"That's fine, I just think it might give us a few answers."

"Sure." I mumbled, too busy concentrating on the questions it was asking me to fill out. They are seemed like normal things and I muddled through them all quickly. "So it says that my overall score is 154, what does that mean?"

"Scroll down a bit."

I did as she asked. "Oh that isn't normal?"

"Not really. I think you might mask, love."

"I guess so too then. Wait so you don't like study other people's social skills to make your own better?"

"No."

"You don't have little scripts of things you can say in your head?"

"No."

"What you don't even practice how to smile in the mirror?!"

"No."

"Guess we've found our answer then. I'm autistic?"

"At least we can look at getting a diagnosis now."

"Yea, I'll do that tomorrow."

"Okay, night love."

"Night, and thank you."

"For what?"

"Helping me find some answers."

"You're welcome. Now get some sleep."

"Yea, yea, you too."

And after finding a private clinic and waiting a few months, I received an email. The email said that based off the meetings we had had with them that they pretty much knew I was autistic. At first I wasn't sure how to feel. Like I was happy to finally have an answer, and feel like I wasn't the problem. But it was sort of scary. People don't understand autism very well and there was a lot for me to learn. And worst of all, the clinic recommended that I reduced my masking. That felt strange.

The world taught me to mask. My masking stopped all the kids at school bullying me. And it stops people from giving me dirty looks or thinking I'm weird. And would my wife still love me if I was my entire self with her, instead of just half of me? Masking was a massive part of my life and I couldn't really see it without it.

But I wanted things to get better. I wanted to stop being so tired all the time. And I wanted to feel more people understood and liked me. So when at home, I basically stopped masking. (It did take a few months but eventually I got there.) And it was nice. You know, to feel loved for being yourself. But some days were horrific.

Say for example, if I went out somewhere to meet someone. Well, I'd mask because I still kind of felt like I had to mask outside my own house (even around my parents). But that made me super tired and irritable, especially as I wasn't used to masking as much due to stopping at home. And it meant that I'd basically go home and cry.

That sound stupid now I think about it. And it happened every time I went out to do something relatively important. Going out to buy food was ok, but going to a restaurant wasn't. And it didn't matter if I had been seeing friends, or if I had had an amazing time, I'd still cry. Because it just all got too much? I don't know, I'm not sure how to explain it.

The covid pandemic was a whole different story and if I talked about stressed it has made me I would be here for the next 3 days. Honestly, that's a story I don't want to be reading ever again. So I guess I'm doing okay. Some days things are tough, some days things are okay. On the tough days I tend just to mask it, till I make it. It's just easier that way. More importantly, I have people who love me no matter who I am, but they love me even more when I am myself. And I've never gotten used to how happy that makes me.

A/n Hey. Thank you so much for reading. This was a little tester story for you guys. Majority of mcyt books I see pretty much only have dsmp people, but would you guys want people from hermitcraft too. Recently, I've become obsessed with it, especially as season 9 has just begun! I know I've done a dan tdm story before. But would you guys want  any other minecraft youtubers. If I don't know them I'm happy to watch some videos to find out about them and then try to write it. Please request any ideas you have. And I hope you enjoyed!