All The Bad Parts of Autism

How does a diagnosis of autism damage self-esteem? Well, I suddenly had to take a really good, hard look at all the things that had been niggling at me for years and that I’d tried to ignore or tell myself they didn’t matter or that *I* was the one who was better and that the way normal social people did it was inferior. I had to grapple with the things that had been preventing me from functioning in society in normal ways and that I’d just stepped back from. I’d been using being a stay-at-home mom for years as a way to insulate myself from all these problems.

What are the problems?

1. I can’t read people’s faces or body language very well at all. Being a writer (and a careful reader before that) has forced me to learn what the very basic gestures and expressions mean, but the nuances are often lost on me. Before my diagnosis I though that I was good at this, but it turns out I was just very anxious about it and trying so very, very hard.

2. I often interpret literally. Often I’m considered abrupt or rude because of the honest way I communicate. I don’t mean to be rude, but so much of social communication seems to demand mind-reading. And that only works well if your mind is like mine, which it usually isn’t.

3. The world is full of rules that no one follows. I can follow rules just fine. But even as a teen, I began to see that no one…