Painfully Awkward, Mildly Dark, and Fully Autistic

My name is Kendra Westphal. I am a 23-year-old, stressed out Millennial. I really don't know how to make myself more interesting or set myself apart from other people in my age group, but here goes.

I have a wonderful fiancé. His name is Jess, and he is one of the most lovely human beings. Mostly for that fact that he tolerates me. He is a genuine person and has a lovely beard. I have a dog named Jake. He is a Pitt-Lab mix and seriously the best thing to ever happen to me.

There has been more than one occasion that this dog has saved my life. Although he likes to chew on things and has kicked me in the face multiple times while I have been sleeping, he is still the most outstanding animal I could ever ask for.

That being said, he is a service dog. Yep. For someone who would be considered disabled. No, it is not Jessy's service dog. He is mine.

I am not what you would consider disabled because you cannot actively see it. From the outside, I look like your typical, slightly overweight, nerdy female.

However, my brain functions much differently than everyone else. My disability doesn't cause me to have to use a wheelchair or a glass eye. Instead, I have something else that I live with. I have something that nobody can see.

I have a form of Autism called Asperger's. It's seriously not a big deal. I'm just going to document my life having lived with it and continuing to live with it.

I think that it would be a cool experience being able to put yourself in the shoes of someone living with a day to day disability. However this is not just some ordinary, hospital pamphlet informative crap. This is the funny and fucked up struggles I have gone through in life.

Maybe some of you can relate. Maybe some of you have this disability, something similar or are living with it diagnosed.

Whatever the case is, I'm more than happy to give you a little insight on my life.

I guess I should start by telling you a bit more about myself.

I live in Northern California. I grew up mostly in Arizona. I moved back here rather abruptly after a really dark situation that I was in.

Allow me to explain...

I was living with someone that I couldn't consider any less than a monster. Someone that I had loved...or thought I loved.

Difference number 1 between people with Aspergers and normal people:

1.) We love differently than other people.

I'm going to continue to keep lists like this throughout the stories of my life. I honestly think that it's my abandonment issues bundled with my autism that makes me feel like I need to allow abusive people in my life. Maybe it's because I grew up in an abusive household.

I feel like it's probably a combination of all my issues. But I allowed this person into my life and ignored ALL the red flags, and I can promise you that this was not the first abusive relationship that I was in. Luckily, just the last.

I met this guy when I was in the midst of a break up with someone else. Someone I will tell the story about at a later time. Someone that ultimately was also toxic to the point that I needed to get away.

Alas, I had to get out of this apartment with my ex. It was an all around bad situation. I was willing to do anything to get away.

I eventually found a full-time job with paychecks that would make up just enough to live, and I started hustling to be able to afford things like transportation and housing. I was working hard solely for that fact that I NEEDED to leave.

Now, I'm going to let you know that living with my ex was tough. Even though I was the one who decided to leave, I was still very lonely. My days were mostly spent waking up, carpooling to work, working at this awful collections agency in Phoenix, carpooling home, and either listening to music or watching a movie by myself until I fell asleep.

None of these tasks felt truly fulfilling as a human being. Yet I continued my mundane human activities in hopes that I could eventually leave this cockroach infested apartment that I shared with my ex-boyfriend.

One day we got word that we would be moving buildings and combining forces with another group of people in the field of telemarketing/sales/collections at my work.

A few days passed at the new building, and honestly, it was rather exciting. This was one of my first jobs. And although the pay was low (a measly $12.50 an hour), they had pool tables and old school video games in the break room.

I recall one day taking a smoke break by myself.

Honestly, at that point I only really knew one person from work well enough to make conversation. And I feel as if people could read my vibes of being socially retarded and choose not to approach because of it. However, this boy decided to sit down and make a conversation with me.

Fact number 2 about people like me:

2.) Bad people like to prey on people with issues and disabilities. I've noticed that they actively seek them out.

This was not my first instance dealing people who thought that they could take advantage and manipulate the feels of others because they felt like they were weaker than them. I was merely desperate and lonely and refusing to acknowledge all of the red flags being raised in my face.

And honestly George, if you're reading this...That's all that it was.

Desperation and loneliness.

Anyway, this short, lanky, nearly balding 20-year-old boy started complimenting my tattoos.

I tentatively thanked him, in which he asked, "Do you want to see my tattoo?"

I gave him a quick once over to come to the active realization that there were no visible tattoos on his body.

I started to get nervous.

This dude proceeded to take his shirt off.

He then continued to show me his Legend of Zelda tattoo. The full Majora's mask.

"Wooow," I said in my Owen Wilson voice.

Not so much impressed as I was embarrassed for the fact that this boy was so proud of his only tattoo that he was unbuttoning his shirt at work to become fully topless just to show this girl with a greasy face and that was wearing an atrocious pink sweater in the middle of summer.

However, the fact that another human being was talking to me IRL. I had been lacking social interaction that wasn't either toxic or brief.

Even if it was surface level, this human being seemed genuinely interested in talking to me.

I looked at my time after a bit of small talk about video games and the weather and realized that I needed to clock back in from break at work. Without saying a goodbye, I turned and started to walk away.

I noticed that he started to follow me. I started to get anxious again until he caught up with me and said with the utmost charisma, "What's your number?"

I had never witnessed so much confidence in anyone, let alone such a small person. I didn't know weather to be flattered or anxious. Someone was actually interested in me? I mean, I was certainly out of his league. He wasn't hideous, but he wasn't gorgeous either.

He fell somewhere in the category of painfully average. Now, that being said, I'm not more than average. But he was much different than me. He was confident and didn't seem to know his place, which I both admired and despised at the same time.

I paused for a second and smiled, but didn't have time to decline and explain, so I gave him my phone number. I asked him if he was on Facebook and to add me so that way I could stalk before I decided to start texting him and make any life-altering decisions.

Once I got home for the weekend, that day, I started talking to him on Facebook. My phone ended up busting which saved me from letting me let myself let it get too deep. You know what I'm saying? However the context of the conversation was mostly him talking about how devastated he was with his ex. Not really something that you lead with when you are, at the very least, trying to fuck someone.

However, I sympathized with him and was just happy that I was talking to someone about something other than my miserable life. For some reason, there is something wrong with me, and I'm attracted to people that have more toxic lives and bigger problems than I do.

I'm unsure whether it's because I enjoy fixing people, or if it is because I am just wanting someone to make me feel better about myself and my shitty problems.

My need to fix someone had grown into living with someone who I was unsuccessful with fixing. It honestly hurt that I couldn't curb his behavior, and looking back, I have decided that George was a rebound. I hate that I was that person and that he was able to even be in my life due to vulnerability.

I continued to talk to him and get sucked into the unstable toxicity that was his life.

He eventually invited me over, and I ended up going because honestly, I had nothing better to do.

We ended up smoking cigarettes and talking in his front yard for what felt like an hour before I even entered his house.

"Do you believe in aliens?" I'd ask and he'd go into a long winded explanation about why he felt they were real. We talked abut ghosts, and cults, and the supernatural.

He then proceeded to tell me that he was psychic.

By now, you guys are probably laughing at my dumb ass. Yes, he stated that he, along with some other people, had super natural powers. I was starting to like him and know that I would begin disliking him if I went into a line of questioning forcing myself to, in turn, admit that this guy was crazy. I changed the subject to something more sane. Not because I didn't believe in that stuff, simply because I didn't believe that he was capable of possessing super natural powers.

Kendra, why you didn't question his sanity and turn back that minute makes you silly.

He then gave me the guided tour of his house. It was certainly middle class and messy...but it was a home. A seemingly normal home.

When we got to his room, his attention then shifted. It honestly was the first time and should have ended there. Instead of continuing with what we were doing which was hanging out and getting to know each other, he sat down at his desktop and proceeded to turn it on.

I was confused, to say the least.

Then another young man proceeded to walk into the room and sat on the floor. While George ignored me, he introduced himself as Nick and asked me questions about myself. I told him my name, my favorite genre of music, etc.

He asked me about my favorite video game. I told him that it was the old-school Paper Mario.

Then he turned on the Wii U, setting me up to play Paper Mario. I got more excited than I should have. I played the game with who I discovered was his step-brother for several hours before I decided to go home.

Flash forward a week; for some reason, I decided that I wanted to date this loon. Although, he continued to talk about his ex-girlfriend(s) and how much they supposedly hurt him.

We ended up dating, but I bonded much better with his brother and we quickly became close friends.

It wasn't long before he decided to introduce me to his friends. I then met a girl who went by the name of Madison. She and I hit it off right off the bat, however, her intentions were questionable. She was a bubbly blonde if I had ever seen one. Someone who was trying too hard to fit in with the boys and the group which we would consider "nerds." but I decided to look past that because having some friends sounded like a nice thought.

There was one night where we decided to play a game of Cards Against Humanity the night we all met. I had just gotten my first car, which was a huge mistake that I will get into later.

There were multiple times that this girl made me uncomfortable. But with my poor judgement, I asked her if she wanted to go for a ride in my new car and talk. She agreed.

I then began to tell her how I was stuck in the situation I was in with my ex and how I was still living with him. I went into detail about how toxic it was and how much I wanted to leave, but how I didn't have the means to do it myself.

She then said, "Wow, yeah, I'm looking for a place of my own as well.

"It almost feels like we were destined to meet each other, huh? I want my independence, and you want to leave the situation that you're in"

I knew very well that in my time of being an adult that roommates don't work. However, I was desperate. Desperate and in need of leaving the toxicity that I called my home.

So I agreed, under the condition that it would just be us and she would stay till the end of the lease regardless of how well we would get along.

Within the next few weeks, we decided that we would get an apartment together. It had gotten to the point that I NEEDED to leave.

We viewed several apartments that I viewed as affordable and she was just too picky. We would view one that I could possibly afford on my own if she bailed on the lease, and she would find something that she didn't like about it.

She then decided on a set of apartments that we could barely afford together, and definitely not on my own. However, since she seemed to have her mind made up, and I had that underlying feeling that she wouldn't waver, I agreed.

That was the start of the worst year of my life.

To be continued...