Ozempic is the on/off switch I’ve been looking for

I spent ten days preparing for my court case, telling myself each day that tomorrow I wouldn’t need to prepare anymore. But when I get so focused on something I can’t get enough of it. I bound out of bed in the morning because I’m so excited to think about it and have new ideas to organize. And then I thought: this is why autistic people are so effective at what they do. But also: this is such a dangerous skill to have. Because it’s destroying my life. Where is the rest of my life while I’m doing this

This happened at Harvard. A decade where I obsessed more and more about autism until I had read more papers than anyone in my department. I would write a paper every night. I couldn’t stop working. And what I remembered about that is how ineffective it was. Because this kind of brain is only effective if there are people around to provide guideposts.

So for court prep I tried using AI for guideposts. But every time AI wanted to put one up, I was like, fuck AI, and went back to obsessing. I realized I could make all different types of timelines and every timeline would show a different thing. Then I remembered Gantt charts. I was so happy.

Natalie wanted me to do her nails. She has a rule that I have to switch to her favorite person when I do nails, and she checks with a little test; this time she made her hand really stiff, and I didn’t care. She said, “You’re the wrong person. The person who does my nails cares about a stiff hand.”

I didn’t want to switch because I wanted to take a perfunctory break and go back to the court case. That’s why nobody would want a Nobel Prize winner as a parent— if you can’t stop doing your exciting research to do a manicure, you’re a sucky person.

It reminds me of food, before I took Ozempic. I spent my whole life trying to untangle my eating. There was the urge to throw up, which I now know is related to sex abuse. There was nervous eating, which is ADHD. And then there was the obsession with not getting fat, which I think comes from being competitive, though I’m honestly not sure. I could never separate them – eating was just the too-loud background music to my entire life. And then Ozempic turned it all off. I didn’t realize how much of my energy I used to try to not think about food until the urge was just gone. I want an off switch like that for everything.

With the court case behind me, I was mother material again. So Natalie invited me to her symposium. But before she left she said, “Show me what you’re planning to wear.”

I knew she wanted me to wear pants because the person who wears skirts is not a grown-up. We learned this together when we walked from the soccer field to get our passports and I had to stop at the Gap to buy pants. Natalie asked why I was throwing out the skirt. I told her I hated it. She said, “You wear that skirt all the time.” But in that moment I could not imagine wearing a skirt again.

At the symposium there were about 400 posters, kids standing attentively waiting to talk about their research. My brain was swimming. New ideas coming fast from every direction, no single thing holding me hostage.

Then I got a text. The judge posted my decision. I lost. The housing organization lied in documents and perjured themselves at the hearing, but the court found this did not directly cause damages to the plaintiff. The judge said it’s a civil rights matter. I spent ten days on a case that didn’t belong in small claims court. Such a rookie move.

The case was really about paperwork. The organization was supposed to be doing a housing application for me, but they totally forgot about it and then blamed all the late application on me. The problem is that some days I am completely on top of paperwork and other days I can’t remember that it exists. This was the reason they were helping me but also the reason they could blame me for anything.

I couldn’t do paperwork at Harvard either. I was writing paper after paper but I could never figure out how to get myself paid. I would try for a while, then forget it was something I was doing, then have to start over. So the head of my department filled out my paperwork every week. She said don’t worry, it’s not a big deal. I told her I have autism. That’s what I tell people when things get crazy, so they have some explanation.

But I’m giving autism a bad name. Autistic people can predict what they will pay attention to. Not knowing from one morning to the next what I will care about, or who will show up to care about it — that’s DID.

Right now I can’t imagine wanting to do research at Harvard. But I know I was so excited when I was accepted. The same is true with the court research – I am not interested but I know I was. I get frustrated, but I have to let each of the people in me be themselves. I think I am not seeing myself as clearly as Natalie does. But I tell myself the more I switch when she asks me to the more I can understand who is who.