One of the earliest lessons of my childhood was that I wasn’t a desirable or good friend. I didn’t understand why that was, but I knew that I didn’t do things other friends did and I didn’t like things that most other people did. I was always picking the wrong…

I recently listened to a podcast where a well-intentioned person insisted that humans have largely forgotten their innate emotional intelligence and that only 7% of information is communicated through words. …

As an adult, I’m aware that compliments aren’t always compliments, but as a kid, this was baffling to me and I was quickly confused by taunting and bullying kids who pretended they were saying nice things to me when they were actually mocking me, about my hair (your hair looks…

I’ve been investigating this new diagnosis that is often autism-adjacent and recently it occurred to me that it might apply to me more than I originally believed. My childhood was filled with me being told to follow rules and me trying to follow rules. I was called a “teacher’s pet”…

“The worst flaw about anyone is if they don’t have a sense of humor, especially about themselves.” I’ve heard this in a number of situations as an adult, and sometimes I let it go because it’s too complicated to explain. …

If you’ve been diagnosed as autistic, I bet that you have a family member you think is more autistic than you are who insists that they aren’t autistic and they can’t see the traits that you think are SO obvious about their autism (which is very similar to your own)…

(A memoir about an autistic childhood in a family of autists, soon to be available on Amazon Kindle). A Big Girl When I was a kid, I remember how highly my parents seemed to value independence. Who can blame them, really, given how quickly they had eleven children, and how…

What I Write About When I Write About Autism One of the primary tasks I consider my duty as someone who writes about autism is to be articulate, human, and empathetic. I’m trying to break the stereotypes of the autistic person, though I’m well aware that there are many autistic…

A friend of mine once relayed to me the story of a doctor who explained that “autism” is an extreme form of introversion. There are extreme extroverts on one side of the spectrum, then extroverts, then ambiverts, then introverts, and then autists. This is not a very useful way to…