The extreme closeup of my face has an explanation eventually, I promise. (And not just the fact that I’m fascinated and baffled by the fact whenever I see closeups of my face I think of a cat who got too close to the camera.)
I have a lot of memories of childhood, that all have the same general pattern to them. I will be somewhere with people. They will say things. My memory will record exactly what they said. By exactly, I mean, the sounds, the tone, everything about it. Quite often – if acoustic conditions are right – with no particular distortions of auditory processing. Meaning I can make out the exact sound of the words, possibly with more precision than average, not less. Except…
There’s no meaning in the words. Or there’s limited meaning in the words. Or I know the meaning of some but there’s no meaning in others. Or the meaning cuts out in some other way, partially or fully. Or I don’t even know words are a thing that can have meaning. Generally under these circumstances – and I know this contradicts a stereotype, but that’s why it’s a
stereotype, not a
universal truth – I’ll understand the tone perfectly. And by perfectly, I mean at a level more detailed and nuanced than most people seem to understand tone. (The more I understand words, the less I understand tone, especially in the moment. It’s all about brain resources, not about a permanently broken tone comprehension system.)
So the memory that prompted this photo, and this post, is one where I was in a park. A little girl ran up to me and stared at my face and said, “Are you wearing makeup?” I didn’t understand a single word. I think my mom may have tried to explain something to her, but I don’t know what she said. And even if I’d been trying to understand, and capable of understanding words, I wouldn’t have known what makeup was.
So… my face does things like the above. There’s no makeup there. I think the very pink eyelids (and some other areas) contrasted with my overall yellowish skin tone kind of amplifies the appearance of makeup, even though I don’t know of anyone who’d do the
bottom part of their eyes that way.
My eyelids can also turn various shades of blue, greenish, brown, or a kind of muddy grayish dark color. Pretty much spontaneously. Sometimes along with the area underneath my eyes, sometimes not. They’ve always done this to some extent. Even when I got enough sun that my skin was much darker than this. I think maybe my eyelids are just extremely thin, so small changes in blood flow can have a very visible effect.
And that’s just my eyes. My cheeks and lips change colors pretty readily too.
I’ve never actually really worn makeup. Except for plays and stuff like that. But in everyday life, no. I tried a few times just with stuff sitting around the house. The reactions I got (”you look like you have a black eye” etc.) confirmed that it seemed to be a pointless idea. And by temperament it’s just never really been my thing. I only even tried it during a time period when I was about ten and thought I was “supposed to”, during which I was doing
lots of things I wasn’t really into. My brother wore way more makeup as a teen (he wasn’t a goth, but he was in some kind of eighties subculture that somewhat resembled that aesthetic) than I ever did. (I think I might have never put on a shred of the stuff as an actual teenager.)
But I’ve been told that even when I was a baby I often
looked as if I was wearing makeup, eye makeup in particular, and not always the same color.
So if you ever think you see I’m wearing makeup, in order of possibility, it’s:
- This weird thing my skin does.
- A costume.
- Some kind of attempt to disguise myself.
#1 is by far pretty much always what it’ll be. I’ve never done #2 since I was a kid. And I really honestly can’t figure out how #3 would happen, it’s just the only other remote possibility I could come up with. That and I’ve known people who use makeup as sunscreen, but I don’t know if I’d be able to manage the logistics of that even if I wanted to.
And no this isn’t super important but not everything has to be and I’m exhausted.
Hashtags: childhood, receptive language, actuallyautistic, skin, not makeup, makeup, selfies, Mel, face, eyes, eye makeup, not eye makeup, language, words
Time and again, I think if a psychologist were doing extensive Borderline Personality Studies, they'd have a field day with some of these cows
