One catalyst for discovering that I was autistic was my hyper-focused interest in bonobos. The more I learned about these primates, the more fascinated I became. I discovered that we share 98.7% of our DNA with bonobos and that they’re matriarchal, meaning the females lead and guide the group, which is unheard of for other primates. I also discovered that there has never been a confirmed case of a bonobo killing another bonobo. In fact, they are affectionately known as the make-love-not-war primates because they use sexual intimacy and closeness to secure bonds and resolve conflict; literally, they will hug-it-out. Learning this caused me to fall in love with bonobos. My brain exploded with questions: since we’re cousins, what does this mean for our species? What if we were a little less chimp-like and a little more bonobo? What would a matriarchal human society be like? What would happen if we focused on meeting the needs of all humans to reduce scarcity? Would it lessen conflict and help heal our generational trauma, ultimately rewire our nervous systems toward peaceful resolution? What would a healthy, sexually open, and intimately connected society look like for us? Would it help reduce deaths within the LGBTQIA community?
These questions intrigued me, especially given that I had spent the last decade working on a series of manuscripts. They relate to human conflict and the possibility of consciously evolving away from greed, aggression, and an individualistic self-absorbed mindset. The core idea is intentionally growing into a species that gravitates toward peace, cooperation and having an altruistic drive toward interdependence with our surroundings. After learning about the unique traits bonobos possess, I spent the next couple of years learning all I could and then applying it to what I know, making connections where I could and rabbit holing to learn even more. I discovered that bonobos and chimpanzees evolved from a common ancestor, which evolved from an ancestor which humans, chimpanzees, and bonobos all share, making us all evolutionary cousins. The differences we see between bonobos and chimpanzees can be directly contributed to evolutionary advantages and disadvantages. Even though they both lived within geographic proximity to each other in Africa, the Congo river kept them divided. The bonobos lived in relative isolation from other primates, while chimpanzees lived in conflict with each other and with gorillas, competing for more limited resources and territory. Bonobos had the resources and the space they needed to exist with minimal risk of conflict. This allowed them to share without the danger of starvation and instead, focus on strengthening bonds. With a focus on social cooperation and inter-relational bonding, female relationships became the most important relationships and over time, they became the leaders of the groups. The evolution of bonobos is in their DNA. When bonobos experience competition or conflict their cortisol level rises greater than that of their chimpanzee counterparts, triggering a passive anxious response How they resolve these social stressors and conflict is through closeness and bonding, which releases oxytocin and calms their nervous systems. Whereas, when chimpanzees experience conflict their testosterone rises, which leads to aggressive behavior. The differences between bonobos and chimpanzees have everything to do with the circumstances and conditions they evolved under over the last couple million years.
The thought that still lingers in my mind is this: as a species we have the awareness to know evolution is a process that doesn’t stop. It is happening now as I type this. We have the conscious ability to influence our own evolution by the choices we make now. Now we have the capability to move away from our chimp nature and toward our bonobo nature through nurturing the qualities that calm our collective nervous system on a species-wide scale. The possibility of this reality haunts the deepest part of my soul because I see the damage we are doing to ourselves, other species, and the planet; and I desperately want that to change.
I feel a kinship with bonobos; in many ways I feel very much like a bonobo in this world. I thrive in close connections, but often feel isolated by a world that doesn’t understand me. I am still in touch with the playful, child-like part of myself, feeling her with the purest of joy. However, I often refrain from outwardly expressing it because the message I have received from society is that play is not for adults. Like bonobos, I don’t shy away from others who are not a part of my group. My entire life I have been drawn to people who are different than me, wanting to learn and understand from our differences because for me, there is beauty in what distinguishes us from each other.
Bonobos are amazing beings, and it breaks my heart that they are endangered due to human conflict and struggles. When I learned this, I wanted to help, so I began researching and discovered an amazing nonprofit called Friends of Bonobos. They work with the world’s only bonobo sanctuary, Lola Ya Bonobo. Together, they care for and rehabilitate injured or orphaned bonobos with the goal of releasing them back into protected reserves within the wild. I have donated what I can, purchased bonobo shirts and sweatshirts from their store, and I have shared many of their posts and tagged them in a few of my bonobo autistic special interest posts. It went on like this until about a month ago when I saw that Friends of Bonobos was having a contest. The winner would get two tickets to see singer Lana Del Rey in concert at Fenway Park in Boston, and they’d get bonobo swag. Say what? I was in! I entered the drawing and to help my chances of winning, I made a video, shared on two different platforms, tagged Friends of Bonobos and waited.
A week later, as I was waking from a nap, I reached over to my phone as I always do and saw an email which read “Congratulations! You’ve won the Friends of Bonobos X Lana Del Rey Raffle!” I sat up in my bed as chills ran through my body. What? I won! I continued to read, “We are thrilled to inform you that you are the winner of the Friends of Bonobos X Lana Del Rey Raffle! You have won 2 tickets to Lana Del Rey’s sold-out show at Fenway Park in Boston on June 20th, 2024!” This is awesome! I can’t believe it! But this was only the beginning. My eyes widened when I read the next part, “When we discovered that you were the winner of the raffle, we were thrilled! As a longtime supporter of our organization and bonobo conservation, your passion and dedication have always inspired us. We are wondering if you would like to join us in the charity suite? Friends of Bonobos staff and supporters will be there, and we didn’t initially offer this to raffle winners because, well, we didn’t expect one of our own supporters to necessarily win. No pressure at all, if you’d rather be in the regular seats to enjoy the show – totally your call!” NO WAY!!! I get to meet the people doing this amazing work? I can’t believe it. “What? What?” I said out loud as I jumped up from my bed. I was beyond thrilled. My hands began shaking back and forth. No words could aptly describe the excitement flowing through my body. As I jumped up and down. I raced through the house on a mission to tell someone, anyone. It was exhilarating. Chills hurried up and down my spine in waves of disbelief. This was a dream come true.
I held that excitement until the day of the concert, then hours before I was set to leave nervousness set in. Over the last couple of years, I have been able to identify why this happens. Going to meet the staff of Friends of Bonobos was something I’d enjoy and yet, on a physical level I knew that the newness of faces and surroundings, the socializing, and energy of the room was something that would naturally overwhelm me at first. My autistic brain does a poor job at filtering out stimuli. Anytime I walk into a room full of people, it feels like a six-foot ocean wave smacks me in the face and takes me under water. Now imagine experiencing that while people are trying to interact with you. In those moments, I am using all my resources to tread water and not drown while holding some semblance of a conversation. Understanding this while simultaneously learning to accept myself fully, I went into this event telling myself that I will not hide, but lead with my authentic, autistic self. This meant I would let my love of bonobos lead the way. It was this love that brought me this amazing opportunity in the first place.
As expected, I walked through the suite door, and I was hit with an instant wave of overwhelm. There was an extra layer of anticipation added because I knew I was going to be perceived; I was there as a special guest, which meant I would be greeted on arrival. I was surrounded by strange faces, competing voices, new sights and sounds, and the constant movement of a dozen or so bodies that didn’t have a familiar pattern or flow while feeling the expectation of being noticed. I expereinced an exuberant mixture of intense emotions and stimulation at once. My brain went into overdrive. The difference between pre-diagnosis and post-diagnosis is that I now know what is happening. I no longer gaslight myself out of what I am feeling, or demand more from myself. I give myself the space to feel what I need to feel so I can move through it.
I wasn’t there more than a moment when the Executive Director, Ariel Rogers, walked up to me and introduced herself. I can’t remember if we shook hands or hugged. I was physically present, but it was hard to focus. My brain was processing a high amount of information. In my body, what I felt energetically was similar to the sensation of gushing water rapidly running from my head down into my hands and feet. What I do recall was Ariel asking if I would like anything to eat or drink. I did my best to break through the bombardment of my senses to concentrate on her words. I felt myself pausing to think about what I wanted before saying yes to both food and drink. She directed me to the refrigerator for a beverage of my choice and said she would order a veggie pizza for the room. I remember acknowledging her response with a head shake and possibly an “Okay. Sounds good.” Directly after our brief exchange, I realized I didn’t thank her for the opportunity and filed away the importance of thanking her once I was settled in my body.
After sitting down with my drink, I gave myself permission to just be with my surroundings. I could feel my overwhelm begin to ease as I quietly noted unique details about each person and watched as faces slowly transformed from strange to familiar. The blending of the chattering voices developed a recognizable pattern based on the individual personalities of each speaker. I felt the rhythm within the highs and lows of conversation: the softness of uncertainty, and smoothness of confidence, the pitchy openness of excitement and the low rumbling undertones of private sidebars. I let the moment filter through me as I watched everyone. Eventually, I could feel my insides calm. I began to understand the flow of the people in the room, right down to the dog loving older woman who was the suite attendant. It was from this understanding I could focus on getting to know the amazing people around me. I am now able to socialize.
In the readiness, there was a switch that happened within me. It felt like putting on a mask, but it wasn’t the same type of mask as with autistic masking. It was a mask of self-assurance where confidence kicks up and I know I can walk into a situation handling it. I know that my brain’s CPU has the bandwidth to manage genuine conversation. Feeling that switch, my focus shifted to reconnecting with Ariel. She was sitting in the outdoor box seating of the suite. As I walked through the doors separating the inside from the outside, I was hit by a wall of hot and humid air encompassing the ballpark. It was a blistering ninety-degree evening, which was unusual for mid-June in Boston. Okay, hot I thought as I strutted over toward Ariel. She was sitting in the back row of seats. I gently tapped her on the shoulder and asked if I could get a picture with her. “Of course,” she said and then asked if I would like one with the whole team. I responded that I would love that. She pulled out her phone, handed it to her daughter and gathered the team together for a picture. She was warm and friendly. They all were. It stood out to me how very bonobo-like they were in their generosity and friendliness.
After the picture, Arial and I sat in the middle row of seats and chatted for a bit. She started off saying how us meeting was serendipitous. When they decided on the raffle, they made the choice to offer regular seats to the winners since there was no way of vetting who might win. When they saw I had won there was an immediate email sent within their organization posing the idea of inviting me to the suite. Unbeknownst to me, I had stood out due to my engagement with their social media and Ariel had been personally following me for some time. I wasn’t aware of that at all. She went on to say that she had been taken by my authenticity and self-awareness on social media.
I elaborated on how being undiagnosed autistic for most of my life nurtured a hyper-awareness. As autistic people, we are used to being seen as different, or getting things wrong. The ongoing pressure from society inadvertently nurtures a deep self-awareness. Being undiagnosed, it was a constant struggle for me to get it right and appear normal by society’s standards. I always had a voice in the back of my head pondering what is wrong with me? My diagnosis was the answer. I no longer struggle to get it right. There is no right or wrong; I live with a different neurotype that requires a different understanding of who I am and how I interact with the world around me. My self-awareness is a gift I can give to the world. I can share the differences that I see in me to help others understand their own differences or a loved one’s differences. What she said about me being self-aware was a gift because I hadn’t thought about it on that level.
It was the third time in one month that someone I didn’t personally know or hadn’t spoken to in years shared the impact I had on them. In each case, they spoke of my authenticity, vulnerability, and the love I share as inspiring. Learning that me just existing as myself inspires people was a reminder from the universe that the impact we have on others is often unknowable but always there. The ripple effect of human interactions should never be ignored and as I sat in that seat listening to the Executive Director of my favorite nonprofit organization talk highly of me, I felt immense gratitude. I felt a spiritual kindling in that moment, as if the open air were alive with particle of love dancing about in celebration that two compassionate and loving human beings had this moment to connect. It felt a bit surreal in a magical sort of way.
We spoke a bit more and I shared the understanding I had about myself needing time to adjust when I first arrived at the suite due to the large group of people. I also pointed out how I forgot to say thank you and took the time then, in the open air, to say thank you and express my appreciation for inviting me to the suite.
The rest of the night had a magical charged energy in the atmosphere. A line of thunderstorms rolled through Boston and the concert had gotten delayed. As hail and rain poured down, I watched thousands of concert goers take shelter squeezing themselves into the concourse for safety. I couldn’t help but feel grateful that I was up in a suite. Knowing how loud and over stimulating the concourse is with a normal flow of foot traffic, the idea of spending hours with that many people would have been too much for my nervous system to manage. As one hour turned into two, I was able to have multiple interesting conversations with people in and outside the organization. At one point, standing outside our covered box, Ariel asked me directly, “So when are you going to visit the sanctuary at Lola Ya Bonobo?” I smiled. My face lit up as I said, “That’s my dream.” I asked her if she had been (assuming she had) and what it was like to have a bonobo look into her eyes. As she spoke of her experience, I felt every cell in my body vibrate. I wanted to stim, but a lifetime of masking didn’t allow for it. Even so I was lit up with excitement. I am speaking with someone who has been there, who has been face-to-face with the bonobos, who is speaking about their real-life experience. In that moment, I felt closer to my dream than ever before.
At 10:30 pm, the concert started. It would end up only being an hour long. That was okay to me. I had my experience. I met the people doing the important work of saving bonobos. I met the people who inspire me every time I see a post or get an email from them. As the music started, and I stood there leaning against my seat next to Ariel, I let it all soak in. Being around these people who share my love and excitement for bonobos made me realize this is the job I want. I want to help bonobos more than I presently do because it’s my passion. I know I’d dedicate myself to the cause of helping to save and rehabilitate bonobos. I do already. My natural talents for writing, art and design, and my ability to reach people’s hearts and minds, and inspire them toward goodness and compassion are all assets; they’re invaluable. This is the bigger dream: I want to make a bigger contribution to this amazing organization.
It might not be tomorrow or the next day, but there will be a day when I’m a part of the team at Friends of Bonobos and someone asks to have their picture taken with us and I lean in with the team smiling ear-to-ear. I will smile knowing just how serendipitous this moment is as I reflect on the autistic joy that made it all happen. For this night and every night to come, what I have is the memory of swaying back-and-forth to the music, tapping my hands on my thighs, singing what lyrics I know to the song “Sad Summer” and thinking there is nothing sad about this wonderous night. To everyone reading this: I bonobo you.