Change is the only true constant in life. Recently, two innocuous, unrelated things happened to me on the same day. They collided in my mind, creating a cusp that I’m now teetering on the edge of. A cloud and a questionnaire have forced me to reconsider how I define myself as a person. I’ve tried to record my experience of this change in the hope it might help me connect with you now.

Four years ago, when I got my Asperger’s diagnosis, it felt like the conclusion of a lifelong quest: I’d always known I was different, and now I knew why. I had my answer, my reason. I was relieved, but also afraid. I didn’t see myself as disabled at all, but I knew people without experience or understanding might see Asperger’s as a label and make assumptions.

At the time I made only one change: I moved from crowded London back to rural Scotland to be near family. This simplified life, but otherwise, I carried on as normal. I tried different things for work, short-term temporary contracts, before landing a dream job I thought I’d keep until retirement, in a local charity shop. I loved it, and really invested in my new life: things were going really well. Until it all changed.

Head office brought in a new retail manager. There was all sorts of extra paperwork. New competition opened up next door, affecting donations and takings. Within three months I’d lost all my autonomy and was under constant pressure to increase sales. I got stressed, flustered and short-tempered. I couldn’t sleep, compounding my constant worries. I felt like I was drowning, trying to keep up with everything and everyone. I hated myself for failing. My mind was chaotic: I was on edge all the time. The tiniest problems would reduce me to floods of tears. In the end I was completely overwhelmed and just shut down: locking my door, turning off my ’phone and hiding from the world in bed.

The doctor signed me off for three weeks with anxiety and doubled my medication to help me sleep. I had calmed down, but all my joy and enthusiasm was gone. When I went back to work, head office insisted on an occupational health assessment and then proceeded to ignore all the recommendations that were made. I carried on for a while, but it was obvious they wanted me out, so I handed in my notice. I’d lasted nineteen months, which was actually a personal best for me.

After six months off my savings have run out: I’m re-entering the workforce. I like work. It’s good to be busy and feel useful. But my new job comes with a lot of paperwork, contracts and proof of my eligibility to work in the UK. There’s also a medical questionnaire for HR. It feels intensely invasive, but I answer with my usual candour. Then I reach a section about disability. I’m struck by two questions: “Are you registered disabled?” and “Do you consider yourself disabled?” Both questions deal with one issue, but they approach it from different perspectives. The first asks how society sees you: an external view. The second asks how you see yourself: an internal view. Like the two faces of a coin, these two perspectives are inextricably attached, yet opposite at the same time.

“You’re disabled under the Equality Act 2010 if you have a physical or mental impairment that has a ‘substantial’ and ‘long-term’ negative effect on your ability to do normal daily activities.”

Reading this definition planted a seed of doubt in my mind. I begin to question my definitions. Could my being unable to maintain regular employment without succumbing to crippling stress be classed as a “substantial negative effect”? My propensity to dissolve into tears as a coping mechanism has always become an issue in every job, no matter how hard I work to make up for it. Persistent emotional breakdowns due to stress have become “normal” for me over the last twenty-five years. The older I get, the more “longterm” this situation becomes. I’m suddenly confronted by the fact that my “normal” doesn’t match most other people’s. Could there be a possibility that, by this definition, wider society might class my experience of Asperger’s as a “disability”? Could they be right?

The only reason I was even entertaining these notions was the riddle of a cloud I’d solved a few hours earlier. Living on the edge of the Atlantic means I’ve experienced some serious weather: the wind here can be epic. Growing up in this environment nurtured my love for endless skies and vast cloudscapes. Later, years of city living dampened my appreciation. With only narrow strips of sky, clouds became unremarkable; just scudding between buildings, like a TV on in the background while you do something else. Until that morning.

I’d sat down in my armchair to drink my morning coffee. Directly in my eye-line, framed by the central section of my window, was a beautiful great cloud. I could only stare. The longer I did, the more the bright sunshine illuminated every detail of its boundary in space. A heap of bulbous billows seemed to emerge from the cloud’s fluffier, wideset base, captured like the beginning of an explosive dust cloud frozen in time. Different shades of white and grey resolved to purples and yellows before my eyes as I studied its textured surface.

Most striking, however, was its absolute stillness. It was as though it had been painted straight onto the glass, to be curated into this sublime gallery experience, especially for me. I couldn’t look hard enough as my gaze was transformed into that of a great painter: I could feel a work of art straining to burst forth from my talentless heart. The cloud almost filled the restricted field of the frame, hanging so utterly motionless it began to seem solid, and immovable. The inert crispness of its distinct form gave it an uncanny weightiness, even as my mind told me it was just water vapour. I was enchanted.

Fluttering leaves in the foreground of my garden broke the spell. There was wind, which ignited my curiosity: how could the cloud be so still in the presence of a breeze? I simply had to reconcile this question: I’m compelled to figure out how things work in order to feel satisfied and calm. I needed more information, more clues to solve this mystery. I wanted a better view of my cloud in its wider context.

My usual walk takes me down to the beach, but this time I turned the other way. I climbed to the crest of the hill, revealing my favourite vista. I could see our house nestled amongst its trees in the village, the beach curving below, the sea and more islands beyond, hazily stretching all the way to the horizon. The landscape was lush: green fields, hills purple with heather, the sea a deep blue. The white sand of the beach was marked by tide lines of black seaweed. Wind turbines were spinning; a red tractor ploughed in the fields. Grey stone houses punctuated the landscape, with the occasional window reflecting a flash of sun.

From my lofty vantage point, right up under the flat bases of the clouds, their shadows were clearly visible across this familiar patchwork. My cloud still hung like a crisp meringue in the uninterrupted expanse of the sky. I could hear the birds chattering their songs, a bumblebee buzzing about his business with the dandelions, the slow steady whirring of more windmills turning behind me. The Sun’s warmth and this soft drone of life soothed me into a state of meditative contemplation. My cloud seemed to loom large over me. The threshold of its shadow had advanced across the landscape. Thus, the penny dropped!

I had been facing into the lightest, gentlest wind the whole time: the cloud was moving directly toward me. This fluke of trajectory had disguised its stately progress through the sky. My relief was instant and palpable. Trust in my own senses was restored. A single cloud had shown me that only by changing my perspective and taking the time to really observe life was I able to solve the riddle of its imperceptible movement.

This lesson was still fresh in my mind as I came to fill in the medical questionnaire later that day. I didn’t expect to find an existential crisis in some routine paperwork, but the cloud and the combination of the two questions met in my mind and got me thinking. That cloud was a metaphor for me, for my life. Internally, living with Asperger’s is like existing inside a cloud. Everyone and everything they do is confusing, I’m totally surrounded, without any reference points, or anything to anchor to. I’m lost in my own grey fog, with no idea where my boundaries are, or what shape I am.

From an external perspective though, other people have a clear view of me. They can see I have a distinct form and plenty of edges. They can see me coming. My presence sometimes casts a shadow and leaves them cold. Sometimes I can blot out their sunshine with my grey mood. Sometimes I can be thunderous and stop a heart with one bolt of lightning. Sometimes I blanket them in a thick layer of frost and snow so my heart can hibernate beneath, just to survive. Eventually, I rain tears over everything to relieve the pressure that has built up inside me. Neurotypical people have a way to describe people like me that makes sense only to them: mentally disabled.

I’m not here to argue for or against whether their label is fair or accurate. But if they’re going to make me tick a box and choose, just so that they can feel more comfortable, maybe there’s something in it for me. By realising there’s a stark difference between how I see myself and how others see me, I’ve discovered that my diagnosis is not the ending I thought it was. It turns out I didn’t complete a race: it was just the first stage of a triathlon. I became so good at performing “normal” for everyone else, masking my true self, that I tricked myself into believing it was true. Work has always proved it’s impossible for me to maintain that façade permanently: I’ve never managed it yet, so maybe now it’s time to admit I never will.

I see now that the potential ramifications of my diagnosis have been gradually moving towards me for a long time, looming ever larger in my consciousness. Maybe it’s time to make a real change. Maybe I’m ready to see myself from an external perspective, just like I saw that cloud. Maybe it’s time to define myself in a way other people can recognise and understand by accepting a label I wouldn’t choose for myself. Maybe acknowledging the reality of how people perceive me from a neurotypical perspective will turn out to be the key to striking a balance between my internal and external struggles, as I continue trying to connect with people and participate in life.

The concept of synchronicity allows for people to find meaning by connecting random events. Seeing that cloud on the same day I read those two questions was just a coincidence. But it was my Asperger’s brain that linked the two things in such a way as to find a valuable insight in their combination. Adopting a label and admitting I need help to function in a society geared towards neurotypical minds is not me moving into what some might consider the shadow of disability. This change is me stepping out into the light so everyone can see who I really am, and all the beauty I hold within my form.