Hey everyone, it’s Jack/Noodle here. I’m 2 weeks into my final year of university and I’m already exhausted and feeling sleepy from hearing the assignments for this year. I decided to take a step back from this and update my blog with a deeply personal post which I wasn’t sure how to write, but since today felt particularly awful and it rained this afternoon and now I’m well fed, had a milkshake and have a plan for a load of jobs over the next few days I thought today would be perfect for a deep post around something many neurodivergent people struggle with and that is socialising and I thought I’d use sparks to show the positives in my “social” life and also share the negatives in my life (not blaming sparks for this, the positives of this band hugely outweigh any bad things)
Me and my fellow nuerodiverse friends, not real as I’m respectful of privacy
So to begin I will say it is very common to find an autistic person who struggles in socialising or keeping friendships. Whether it’s difficult keeping up with social gatherings, unable to relate to people or how confusing people are the list goes on. For me, I am select mute which often leads me not talking to new people, often it takes a while to speak or I wear a mask to be able to speak; in recent times I’ve combated my mutism and been able to speak to new classmates and teachers and a while back at an event I helped run, I spoke to a local MP who was curious about my secret wife, a badge machine. Another thing I struggle with is, knowing what is good/bad to speak about. Often I wish social rules were set out in a book or people were clearer in explaining them. Like I often don’t know when to stop talking about sparks or how to “join” a conversation and usually I love saying hello to most people in the room in class. Today I tried “joining” a conversation and people laughed at me, I didn’t get the joke as I was just curious what people were eating and wanted to engage in a social interaction.
In my life currently, I have 2 amazing friends who some of you are probably already familiar with (they also read my blog, so hello) and both are nuerodiverse so we clearly explain things and listen to each other and when we’re overwhelmed we sit together and can be quiet or ramble about anything. I also love making them things because I care about them so much it hurts my stomach because I want them to know I think of them.
Me when my friends exist around me :)
Now for my connection with the amazing band, Sparks.
Sparks are like a sanctuary for me, whether it’s because I’m going to see them or I miss them or I want to feel less isolated from humanity I listen to this amazing band. My favourite songs to listen to are:
Cool Places (reminds me of when I see both of them together and we do fun things)
Lucky Me, Lucky You (reminds me of how lucky I feel having two AMAZING friends who deal with me)
All That (reminds me of the times I’ve had so far with them)
Gee That Was Fun (perfect song to listen to after hanging out)
Music You Can Dance To (reminds me of how most days we just sit and talk about cool things especially music)
When I’m With You (reminds me of how fun friends are)
Whenever I feel alone, sparks takes me away from the bleak grey streets I’ve grown up on and into a sunny and colourful land. I often feel like sparks can make one feel like they’re in a safe space, almost like a disco but it’s just you and music and a disco light. When I’ve had a bad day I let sparks take me to the colourful world and everyone’s appreciating me even though I’ve only made food and cleaned today. When I feel the cold feeling of being unable to communicate to society I write my words or I zone out to sparks as I travel the cosmos where aliens and other misfitting humans sit together, I can tell most of them don’t judge me because I cried the sight of a pile of dishes I know if I leave won’t get cleaned, or because I had to leave class early as I felt myself imploding due to mental decline.
Me embracing the joy sparks give me in giving me cool people to talk to.
When I began getting into this amazing band, I hid I loved this band and I would be like “don’t be silly, I listen to these punk bands” and laugh it off and then I grew curious of more music by this band and learnt there was an official facebook group. I wasn’t sure how to leave my mark or introduce myself as people usually are so quick to look at me and not see anything worthy. But I began this blog, I wasn’t actually sure how long I’d write here or if anyone would read. But then I met a lot more like minded people to the degree one of my posts was used in sharing sparks and the social isolation and self acceptance of I married myself on a podcast. I started seeing I had been using socialising in the group as a way to gain ideas and insights. For that I’m so grateful.
https://youtu.be/HrObdb6Cuq0?si=uYmnUUNnYxml9mhv (Link to said podcast)
Sparks is more than a band, you can find a chosen family and like minded people who draw or sing or write or are working in jobs where sparks allows them travel away from 9-5. I often see so many using this amazing band as an escape where we come together and we create beautiful art or write beautiful stories about how sparks helped us meet fate. For me, sparks gave me fellow weird arty friends who are always checking I am okay and share fellow ideas or bands.
Thank you everyone so much, I have been Jack/Noodle and I decided tonight to pour my heart to you because I wasn’t expecting to be still writing this blog. I’ve even used this blog as an example for my work. I hope to catch everyone next time
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