Well, a little bit yes, but mostly no — My discovery three years ago that I had a neurodivergent brain rocked the foundations of my being. I had finally stumbled across the words to describe and give shape to something I always knew to be true on some level. …

Because us autistic folks shouldn’t have to keep explaining — If you’ve spent time in any kind of work environment, at some point you’ve probably seen someone cast out the throw-away line: I think they’re on the spectrum. Or perhaps they’re hedging their bets with: they might be a bit on the spectrum. It seems everyone in the workplace has…

It can be the catalyst to look deep within yourself — If you’ve ever come through the other side of a bad relationship, chances are you’ve wondered why you wasted months or years of your life with that person. A few years ago, I was in a relationship that was bad for me in many ways. But it took me a…

Deep recovery comes with being true to who you are and what you want — When I hear fellow autistics say “I’m in burnout”, a number of questions come to mind. I wonder how long they’ve been in it and how they’re recovering from it. Is it their first burnout or just the latest in a cyclical pattern? Most of all, I wonder if they…

Dimming the lights doesn’t fix interpersonal complexities — Last year I parted ways with an employer I had been with for nearly 20 years, convinced that I was unemployable. Like many autistic people, my inability to sustain employment had nothing to do with my skills and experience. Many neurodivergent people experience unemployment due to barriers to obtaining and…

Whether you’ve unmatched or been unmatched, there are good reasons for keeping the content. — After a dating apps hiatus last year, I decided somewhat half-heartedly to give Bumble a try. But even with low expectations, the experience has been underwhelming. It’s further cemented my belief that dating apps are a blunt instrument for finding people you connect with. It’s even more ineffective when the…

A lot of the time it depends on how well it’s communicated — Advice from neurotypicals about how to manage us autistics will usually mention that we don’t cope well with change. We don’t like it. We like everything to be the same. Always. This unnuanced version of our experience is based on what is perceived from an external position. It’s about how…

I don’t know how to be ordinary in these ordinary situations — I’ve got through life knowing that there are certain situations that I struggle with even though others seem to breeze through them without a second thought. I’ve been around long enough to know that there is no easy way through them so it is best to avoid them altogether. It’s…

We’ve worked hard to compensate for deficits in neurotypical communication — An unfathomable chunk of the world’s resources has been dedicated to teaching autistic people how to communicate in socially appropriate ways. We owe this deficit-based view of autistic people to the DSM-5 which stipulates a deficit in social communication as one of the criteria for an autism diagnosis. The idea…