Why a Diagnosis Matters While I would never suggest pressing a diagnosis on someone who isn’t ready for one, I am so glad that I was diagnosed with autism at last. There are many reasons why a diagnosis was helpful. Let me mention a few here. 1. For most of…

Having No Filter One of the things that NT’s complain about most in dealing with autistic people is that we “have no filter.” We say exactly what we’re thinking all the time, without regard for if those words are socially acceptable or if they might hurt someone else’s feelings. I…

What Autism Teaches Us About Gender There is a lot of talk in the autism community about whether or not men and women manifest autism differently. For a long time, there were statistics that said that four times as many men as women had autism, which made it seem like…

Everything Good In My Life Comes From Autism One of the autistic things I love most about myself is my lists. I love lists, especially lists of ten. So I’m going to tell you the ten best things in my life that I wouldn’t have if it weren’t for autism…

Autists Can’t See What We Can’t See One of the realities of growing up autistic, in a largely autistic family, was how impossible it was for me to see the skills that I lacked. I lacked social skills that meant I got bullied, I got the impression from my largely…

Autistic Hyper-Focus I am very good at getting tasks done. I like lists of things to accomplish and I find it extremely difficult to go to bed without finishing my list. I have spent a long time trying to figure out how it would be possible to let go of…

Is Mr. Darcy Autistic? I love Mr. Darcy, but the more I’ve learned about my own autism, the more I think I love Mr. Darcy because he has the same traits. Mr. Darcy has very rigid ideas of moral codes and about obligations socially. Does rigid seem a good way…

Autism and Sensory Overload To an autist, sensory overload can’t be described with words. You don’t think, “this is sensory overload, let’s deal with it by getting somewhere quiet.” You don’t usually have time to prepare. It is everything, all at once, so overwhelming that it takes you over. It…

“You Can’t Be Autistic” I think you mean when you tell me this: “I can’t believe you are autistic because you seem so normal. You don’t act anything like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. You don’t rock back and forth or memorize meaningless statistics or mumble to yourself in public…