NeurobeautifulThere are no rules. Seriously. There are only “IF + THEN” patterns to notice.
I think a big way that neurotypicals can help autistics is by gently pointing out patterns that we miss.
Like, IF we talk at length about our interests, THEN some people might believe we don’t care about theirs.
Like, IF we …
We need to talk about the myth of the pandemic lifestyle.
Last year, I somehow got the impression that most people, with the exception of essential workers, were baking bread, bingeing shows, organizing closets, and lounging around.
The sound: quiet. The setting: safe. The vibe: peaceful. Just them and their house, spending some long-neglected quality …
Among all the features of autism, cognitive overload is the hardest for me to describe. Here’s why.
There are two ways for me to write about how something feels. Either I catch it in the moment, whipping out my phone to type a play-by-play, or I replay it later in my imagination, observing and describing …
There’s a short film called “The Silent Child,” which is not about autism. It’s about a deaf girl, and an aide who introduces her to sign language.
Ultimately, it’s about a fruitless attempt to convince hearing parents that their daughter needs a language of her own.
I relate to the aide. From the very first …
When I look around a room, I see lines – or at least, I feel them.
What I mean is, the edges of furniture and frames don’t stop at the corners. They continue across the room, like straight spiderwebs, intersecting other lines and piercing various objects.
This makes it very easy to notice when things …
Many people believe they’re autistic – and are accepted as such by other autistics – but have trouble getting a diagnosis, because they don’t match the narrow criteria in the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.”
I am not one of those people. I meet every possible criteria, and scored off-the-charts on every test I took for …
I’m conscientious to a fault, because I can’t figure out when it’s safe not to be.
In between “Everybody does that” and “Nobody does that,” there’s a gray area: “Many do that, and most get away with it.”
In high school, I wish I’d known that my gray area could have included skimming through required …
I keep seeing memes and anecdotes that treat “returning grocery carts” as a litmus test for goodness – whether someone is willing to help others with no benefit to themselves.
They underestimate the cost for someone on the autism spectrum.
For me, it is painfully uncomfortable to guide the beast back to its stable, wheels …