She was a professional and trying to find something to engage me. Something to do with autism that maybe I could elaborate on since I had, in the midst of the ongoing family trauma, indicated to my doctor my suspicion that I could possibly be autistic. 

The psychologist and I were facing each other in the basement of my GP’s office. The basement was the lower level of an 18th century canal house in the middle of Amsterdam and the young woman was a psychologist specialized in addiction. I was a mess, but not an addict.  She asked whether I had any special interests. 

*

Despite the tears and exhaustion, I perked right up. I could tell her about my soap collection. Since she had asked. It was very much on my mind and it was a collection that no one knew about. My soap collection was out of control because of the pandemic. The grocery stores and pharmacies had been the only choices for “shopping live”. No one was coming to my house. I could collect bars of soap at the supermarket or order online as many bars of soap to my heart’s content without having to explain the matter. I fantasized about building a “brick” wall, using soap bars, on the shelf in the bathroom. I carefully assigned different associations to the various bars of soap. One was about the novel I was working on, one was about my father’s novel that I was working on, one was about a house I onced lived in, one was about advice someone had given me, etc. Every morning I would opt for a theme that I had previously assigned to a bar of soap, a theme based on the perfume of the bar of soap. Standing in the shower, my hand wavering above the selection of bars of unwrapped soap, I focused on what I was going to do that day, starting with my choice of soap, a matter considered with great concern, care and love.

*

It was obvious. My bathroom did not have enough soap dishes. I bought more soap dishes.

*

I could tell by the psychologist’s reaction that my sudden change in demeanor and my unusual and elaborated subject matter was quite unexpected. Needless to say I was thereafter referred for assessment for possible admittance to evaluation for autism. However, I do believe that I have never discussed my soap collection so quite in depth with any other person. All further discussions in assessment and evaluation were on other matters. Special interests? That box had been ticked. 

It is amazing to me now that I even masked my autism in my own home, censoring myself. What was wrong with a collection of bars of soap? Was it so outrageous? Was a fully packed shelf, filled up with a wall of bars of soap, not artistic? Was an aversion to liquid soap socially unacceptable? 

*

“I like that,” a friend said as she gazed at the bottles of olive oil in my kitchen. The supermarket had held a sale on a certain brand and so I bought every type available, lined them up by color and eventually decided which ones I liked best (the pale green and the deep brown). Perfectly reasonable.