Neurobeautiful“How are you doing?” I asked, curious how she was feeling about new responsibilities at work.
She flapped her arms in classic autistic fashion, her face looking overwhelmed but full of hopeful determination, like a baby bird trying to make it out of the nest, or a fish trying to swim upstream.
“Staying afloat,” she …
Most of my autistic friends live on the other side of the country, and I’m a little jealous that they regularly give each other recommendations for doctors and dentists and mechanics based on how clearly and directly each professional communicates.
If you’re a professional of any sort, you can gain autistic business (and there are …
Someone asked me if I consider autism a disability, and I said:
“Superman can’t handle kryptonite. That’s a disability, right? That’s how I think of autism.”
But I like this answer from Kirsten Lindsmith better:
“Autism is a pervasive, full-body difference that involves varying levels of disability, depending on both the situation in which an …
“If autism is a spectrum, where do you draw the line between autistic and non-autistic?”
“Spectrum” doesn’t actually mean a scale from autistic to not – it means the broad and colorful variety of ways that autism can appear in different people. Still, the question remains: Are some people “more autistic” or “less autistic”?
I’m …
“What does it look like for autistics and non-autistics to show love to one another in situations where their needs conflict?”
This is a tough question, but I believe awareness is the foundation of kindness. It’s hard for autistics to be kind when we don’t understand the effect of our actions, and it’s hard for …
“How did your family react?”
My close family could see how happy I was to finally understand myself, and they celebrated that with me. But they also cautioned me against sharing my excitement too widely, because they didn’t want me to be hurt by negative stereotypes that people have about autism. So I decided that …
“How did your diagnosis affect you?”
The diagnosis itself didn’t impact me much – it only affirmed what I already knew. I mostly wanted a diagnosis so that when I talk to people about autism, I can spend less of that time convincing them I’m actually autistic.
What really affected me was learning that I’m …