How my brain works.

I think in pictures and patterns. I notice when someone's hands are nervous before I notice what they're saying. I need predictable routines and clear step-by-step instructions, not long verbal lists.

I rock to regulate. I line things up because order is one of the few things I can actually control. I shut down before I melt down, and the shutdown is usually the warning a kinder adult would catch in time.

I'm not lacking empathy, I have a lot of it. I'm just not always good at performing it on demand, in real time, with the social face people expect.

My full-scale IQ was tested at 142, which sits in the gifted range. I don't lead with that, because it gets used in exactly two harmful ways: as a tragedy magnifier ("but he's so smart!") or as an excuse to ignore what I actually need ("he'll be fine, he's clever").

I'm not fine. I'm clever. Both things are true. The number doesn't cancel the autism, the trauma, the mutism, or the body that stayed nine. It just means the thinking parts of me work fast, and the world around them often doesn't.

If you're an adult deciding what supports a kid like me needs: please don't subtract them because the test came back high. That's the opposite of what the number means.

Hard for me: sudden loud noises, strobes, unexpected touch, scratchy fabrics, strong artificial scents, crowds, fluorescent flicker, surprise plans, loud chewing nearby, eye contact when I'm overloaded.

Easy for me: quiet rooms, predictable schedules, firm pressure (weighted blanket), the same five safe foods, soft cotton, low light, the river, my desk, headphones, my sister's calm voice through PJM signs.

The trapped energy: when sensory overload pushes me toward wanting to scream, I physically can't. That energy doesn't disappear. It comes out as a stare, a still face, and later as a poem.

Native: Polish.

Fluent in writing: English.

Understand fully: German, Spanish, French.

Basic conversation: Japanese, improving slowly.

Sign: some Polish Sign Language (PJM), but my real signing is a hybrid of PJM, home signs, gestures, facial expressions, and my AAC tablet.

I'm not multilingual to impress anyone. Most of it came from needing more ways to make myself understood without sound.

I learn by reading and by doing. I'm bad at learning by listening for an hour. Group projects are torture, by the time I've typed one thought, the conversation has moved on twice.

I love literature and history. Words and stories help me make sense of chaos. I'm rotten at small-talk subjects like sports trivia.

I work alone in a quiet room for hours and lose track of time. That's not a problem to fix. That's how I produce most of my best writing.

Diagnoses I carry: autism spectrum disorder, generalised anxiety, depression, PTSD from foster care, and non-24-hour sleep-wake disorder. The depression and anxiety mostly come from the PTSD, not the other way around.

I'm in regular therapy with someone who understands all of it together, which sounds obvious but took years to find. Most clinicians can do one of those at a time. Very few can hold the whole thing.

I'm not a crisis. I'm not always fine either. Both things can be true on the same Tuesday.

My circadian rhythm runs longer than a day. So my sleep window drifts forward by roughly an hour every 24 hours. For a week or two I can almost pass for a normal teenager. Then I'm awake at 4am again, writing in the dark, while everyone else sleeps.

It is not insomnia, not laziness, not "phone before bed". It's a body that didn't get the memo about sunrise. Sighted non-24 is rare; most documented cases are blind people. Mine sits alongside autism, which is the most common pairing in sighted cases.

When my schedule flips, school is brutal and meeting friends is harder. I cope with a fixed wake anchor when I can hold one, melatonin at the right hour, bright morning light, and people in my life who don't read a 4am poem as a cry for help.

Autistic kids often get told to "use their words" when they're overloaded. The whole script of autism therapy assumes a voice exists. Mine doesn't.

So when I'm at the edge of a meltdown, the adults who only know one of my diagnoses give me bad advice. The mutism adults say "type it." The autism adults say "name your feeling." My hands are shaking too much to type, and my body is past words.

What actually works: lower the noise, stop talking at me, give me my body back, and wait. That's it. That's the whole intervention. It just takes faith.

I want to be a writer. Maybe a journalist, maybe a historian, maybe someone who helps other disabled people or children who feel as lost as I have felt.

If I had a million złoty, the first thing I'd buy is a soundproof room, a huge library, and the best headphones ever made. That probably tells you exactly what my brain thinks safety looks like.