General Discussion

Last edited Tue Sep 23, 2025, 01:36 AM - Edit history (1)

Autism is a spectrum because people are affected by it in different ways and to different degrees across a number of criteria.

I spoke early, wrote and read precociously, did fine in school but the sensory issues and the energy drain from social masking started walloping me from college onward. I almost had to give up the career I love because trying to work in an open plan office left me feeling exhausted, shell-shocked, and shut down on the weekends.

I would mask all week, get to about 4pm on Friday and then lose the ability to speak, connect thoughts or do anything besides pace in the hall and stare out the window counting tree branches for the entire weekend. This made it almost impossible for me to eat a healthy diet or keep my house reasonably clean. It's always amazed me how anyone finds the time or energy for social relationships.

Someone dropped a book next to me unexpectedly at work and I felt a compulsion to run into the bathroom and kick the wall until my toes broke. The COVID lockdowns saved my career because I finally got a full-time work from home job and my stress levels dropped through the floor. As soon as I was working from home, I got promoted twice because I could finally concentrate on what I was doing without interruptions.

I can hold down a full time job, and appear "normal" for a certain number of hours a week but that takes a massive toll on my well being. I can't go to restaurants, bars, concerts, or other crowded public places without shutting down. I have basically no social drive. There is a very limited range of types of clothing that I can wear for any length of time. I do all my shopping online or at 7am to avoid people. I have to take a full day off to get a haircut or go to the dentist because the background music, blowdryers and people touching me make me shut down. I find it almost impossible to talk on a telephone without working myself up to it for about an hour. My whole life outside of work is scaffolding that allows me to do my job and if one piece of it falls down, everything falls to pieces and it can take days or weeks to recover.

So sorry, but I resent the insinuations I've seen in some threads on DU today that:
a) it's a trendy diagnosis for bored blue-haired Gen Zers on Twitter
b) it's not "real autism" unless you're non-verbal and in 24/7 care
c) high functioning autistic people could be "normal" if they just put more effort in. The fact that they can mask means they we don't need to support them or take their issues seriously
d) just because you acknowledge some benefits of being autistic and proudly identify as such that you are being Pollyanna-ish and naive about the severity of the impacts for some and how difficult that is for their caretakers
e) caretakers of "real" autistic people know more about the autistic experience than people who are actually autistic but "high-functioning"

Functioning is context dependent. Tony Attwood, an internationally renowned autism researcher's view is that the "cure" for autism is to put the autistic person alone in their room and 100% of their symptoms go away. What creates the disease? Dealing with environments that are not designed for autistic people and having to socialise with people who don't understand the autistic person's way of communicating. Put me in a noisy and crowded enough room and I am literally mute and paralysed even though I am "high-functioning". Put another non-verbal autistic person without sensory issues in the same situation and they'd be having the time of their life.

My "cure" for my own autism is to play to my strengths, avoid or minimise situations that make it hard for me to regulate, manage my energy levels and to find acceptance and love for who I actually am, which is an autistic person doing their best in a world not designed for them. Not a victim, not an afflicted person, not an object of pity or a guinea pig, a cross to bear or someone else's life lesson or project.

I think all the parents and people who "work with autistic people" and therefore think they know everything about autism would do well to take a breath and remember that they are dealing with a person and that their life has value even if they are always going to live it in a way that is different to what the caretaker would define as desirable. Because sorry to tell you, there is no version of your child or your student that is "them but not autistic" just like there is no version of "you but with a totally different personality, way of thinking, and way of processing the world". All we can do is embrace who we are and not let others define us.