The Loop Remains Unattended

Christmas is coming for me again, looping endlessly as far back as my memory can reach.

Over and over, I prepare for it, searching for the right outfit. But it is never about clothes. It is about assembling a version of myself, a personality carefully chosen to survive the holiday gatherings, to pass unnoticed, to belong just enough.

A loop of smiles, a loop of small talk, and the loop of never feeling good enough, each one dancing in circles, and endless waltz. It reminds me of the waltz I once saw while reading about chaos theory.

Do you want to know why chaos theory feels like a waltz to me?

Imagine the universe as a four-level house, and you live on the second floor. Above you, on the third floor, the universe is moving, dancing with precision, repeating patterns, rehearsing a choreography so intricating it overwhelms the observer. From below, the audience calls it chaos, labels the outcomes as unpredictable. But choreography is not random; it follows rules timing and structure. So, I wonder, are those movements truly unpredictable, or are we just standing on the wrong floor to see the pattern?

But what if we lived on the fourth floor, and that floor were made entirely of glass? From there, we could see the choreography moving perfectly, organized, sublime, even poetic. It wouldn’t be chaos at all, it would be order, precision, perfection. But you need to see it to understand it, right?

I think my mind is like that waltz. The loops belong to the second floor of my brain, and even I don’t dare to go up to the fourth floor.

Christmas comes again. Sometimes I feel the need to stop masking, to be just myself and say, hey people, can everyone welcome my real self? But I don’t know, I don’t dare. The loop starts again. Christmas here we go, again?

Before Christmas arrives, in three days, ten hours and twenty-two seconds. I count the time like a ritual. Maybe within that precision I can find an idea, or even a solution.

Three days, Ten hours and Twenty Seconds After Christmas Eve.

Numbers Stacking, Slipping, Refusing to Settle, Circling My Mind in Uneven Patterns.

Mission failed.

Costumes worn: 3.

Smiles faked: 10.

Small talk while dissociated: maybe 5.

Personalities used: at least 3.

Okay, December is not over. We still have two more family gatherings. We still have the New Years`s Eve Party, oh no, a party. People, noise, fireworks and my misophonia almost dragging me into the ninth circle of the infernos.

But how will I survive this loop? How do I interrupt the initial impulse of the universe, the one that positions me, year after year, in the exact same coordinates of time, expectation and performance? This waltz, this recursive structure, how do I observe my own choreography without collapsing back into it, without remaining trapped on the second floor forever, mistaking repetition for inevitability?

I know December is chaotic for almost everyone, presents, forced socialization, spending almost an entire salary in three days. But you don’t create a person designed to be likeable to everyone. You don’t deal with the noise, the smells, the touches that overstimulate me. You don’t live Christmas as an eternal repetition of your worst nightmares.

And how do I know you don’t live the same loop? Because you read me before. You read how my brain sees the world, and you called me AI.

Because apparently there’s nothing more cliché, nothing more neurotypical, than calling an autistic person “AI” when we speak or write differently right?

So , Merry Christmas to you, from the autistic android I’m accused of being. And let me ask you something, do you have any advice that isn’t another hollow stereotype, something that might actually help?

Okay, android, chaos theory, parties, Christmas parties, how do we jump from one place to another? My mind glitches after wearing too many personalities just to survive in this universe. Even here, inside my own words, I am still masking.

Do you want a cozy Christmas tale so I can be accepted as a writer? Then let me smile and wave, loop and glitch, dressed up as Snow White or some other sanitized fairytale, while something darker rots underneath.

Let’s put the chaos into a fairytale and make some warm cocoa. Maybe then our brains can find a solution. Let’s begin the tale, and the loop of these days.

Christmas was still okay when I was a little girl. But when I was sixteen, the shadow of his hands erased me completely on that 24th of December.

That night was not a jolly night. That night exiled me into a multiverse inside my head, filled with endless loops and fractured characters. That night taught me my pain would never be heard, and that all I was expected to do was smile and wave.

That night taught me how to put on a mask the next day, how to become a character. My first character said : “They are my mom and dad, they love me, everything is fine, ignore the bruises, ignore the tears that spill without permission, ignore the swallow truth, just smile.”

The loop began there, frozen inside a Christmas family portrait.

How do we fix this loop? How do we shut down this neurological multiverse? But I still have to put the mask back on. Maybe the irregular way I write isn’t typical for you the way it’s for me, but do I need to be typical, so my words don’t sound like AI to you, my friend?

Maybe I need a better costume so you`ll sympathize with my autism, with my chaos, my jumps, my looping memories. Let me perform Rain Man, or cosplay The Good Doctor, so I can package my pain into something you recognize, something you`ll buy through your approved cliches. Oh no, it`s almost New Years Eve. One day, seven hours, twenty-two seconds.

Okay, maybe I can find a solution today. An outfit that reflects my personality, I feel safest in my goth skin, so clothes that exposes a fragment of my real self: check. I bring my laptop and my Nintendo so I can disappear into my own world without performing interest in a small talk: check.

The traumas that were born on Christmas Eve are coming with me too, uninvited and painful: check.

Maybe today is the day.

“Good night family,” I say, “Today I will be…”

This transmission has been interrupted by multiple neurological interferences.

The response of the human carrying this brain remains unstable. The mission is unclear.

The outcome has not been authorized. Please remain seated, lower your expectations, and wait until the dissociation passes, if it passes, so the performance will clarify all of this, or it won’t.

Everyone is still watching, waiting for something happen, and nothing inside that brain moves toward them…