In my college days at the University of Minnesota I'd go to the Mall of America with friends because the light rail made it super convenient!

In order to get to the light rail, you had to take a city bus from campus, this is where this story starts. Spoiler: we don't even make it to the mall. It was a sunny fall afternoon and the city bus was PACKED with people. My two friends found seats, and I stood next to one of them and just chatted. This bus ride is at most 5 minutes long, it's very short. Suddenly, one of the seated men stood up and started charging my direction, shouting obscenities.

This is what I remember: I remember him coming at me. Then nothing but RED. My next memory is him sitting back in his seat and me standing over him screaming at him about how horrible he was acting. I stop, I look up at the full bus who are all in wide eyed shock at the whole ordeal. Then I just burst into tears.

What I'm told actually happened: My friend said the man approached me ready to swing. I took a step backwards anticipating the hit, but his knuckles just barley pinched my lip to my teeth. I then started yelling at him, driving him back to his seat where he sat down and looked at the floor.

I found out later that this is a rage response from autism, granted it was an extreme situation. That guy could have had a weapon! Luckily for me he didn't.

My friends told me I shouldn't have reacted, but they don't understand how little control I had. This is definitely something that is not talked about in autism enough. I normally have a freeze response, but there is a rage response, and some experience it more than others. I made this based on that memory, I wanted to make it funny so the situation would feel less traumatic to me.