Disorder?

On Friday, I had a television interview in Detroit (see it here) and I felt I messed it up. When I explained ASD, what the acronym is, I froze when I got to the D. My brain didn’t know what to say as I forgot what it was. My brain panicked and eventually I said, “diagnosis.” 

For the rest of the day I was beating myself up. How could I forget something so simple? It’s my diagnosis, I know what it stands for, but for some reason I couldn’t remember that the D was disorder. 

It ate at me. I couldn’t fathom how I made such an elementary mistake. Then, I understood what happened. It was a mistake, but as I thought about the question, and the amazing place I was standing on pit road of the new track in Detroit, and I had been just five days removed from flagging the 107th Indianapolis 500, so how, in that moment, could I use the word disorder?

When I’m in my Kansas, things are more normal. My strengths in my Kansas are strong, and standing in my place I feel most at ease, makes it difficult to think of it as a disorder in that environment. 

I’ve never been had issue with a word, but in that moment I struggled with the word. Granted, prior to the interview I had the hardest of times socially, trying to find which station my interview was with, and the autism in me was hindering my ability to do what was needed. Don’t get me wrong, it is a disorder. Things that others find easy can be extremely difficult, but when things go right, and the environment is perfect, I’ll forget the disorder that exists.