For most of my life, I’ve been baffled by the way that neurotypical people categorize things as “easy” or “hard.” What they consider hard is almost always the easy part for me. While the things they consider easy are hard for me. This has been a perpetual problem because when…

I am gullible. Deeply, constantly gullible. I’m the kind of person who went to a joke museum and read some signs about a special animal who poops gold — and had no idea it was a joke. I’m the kind of person who will go along with any kind of…

Telling Your Employer About Your Autism — Do You or Don’t You? I haven’t told my employer about my autism and it’s something that I frequently think about. I’m good at a certain set of skills precisely because of my autism. I’m bad at another set of skills because of…

Sometimes it feels like I’m required to perform disability in order to be allowed to claim that I’m autistic. This is often a double bind for me. I’m too functional, many say, to be counted as autistic. So I don’t deserve any accommodations for my autism because I don’t need…

I don’t think I understand what having a good cry is like. People have often said to me throughout my life that it helps to have a good cry. They recommend having a good cry. But for me, as an autist, crying doesn’t DO anything to help me deal with…

You’re Faking Autism Sometimes when people accuse me of faking autism, I want to laugh. You think that saying I’m autistic gives me some kind of advantage? People are sorry for me and then what? They’re extra nice to me? I get my essays about autism published because I have…

Most people who know a little about autism know something about the “mind-blind” theory of autism that concludes that autists lack empathy because child autists supposedly struggle to understand the concept of other people’s minds not having the same obvious information that they themselves do. Other popular theories of autism…

Autists Laugh at Tragedy When I went to visit Princeton in 1990, as a prospective graduate student, I remember meeting the professor who had been in charge of the search committee. I thought that he knew that I was only nineteen, that I had only graduated from high school less…

I used to think of myself as an energetic person. I even prided myself on the idea (possibly a fact) that I did more in a day than most three other people could do. I was always “on,” always going, always planning, always finding ways to multi-task, to do things…