2 April 2026 · LinkedIn
8 years ago, I wrote a short story about aliens encountering humanity. Because I myself had felt like an alien all my life, I found writing their characters I found surprisingly easy.
Not with everyone, but with most people I encountered: just on the outside of the joke, if not unwitting target. Confused at what people would say, but smiling along: their words not adding up.
We, Autistic people, often learn those mannerisms over time. Research suggests the gap in social cognition narrows as we age - partly because we learn, and partly because neurotypicals get worse at it too. By our fifties, the difference is negligible. But until then it's awkward interaction after another, slowly coming to understand instead of intuit the culture in which we live as neurotypicals do, and what is expected of us.
This comes with a lot of friction; sometimes some trauma. Especially in high school: the social rules change overnight, and we are thrust into a deeply uncomfortable environment. We cling on to people, sometimes the wrong people, who we might feel "get it". We find embarrassment easily; fumbling situations, missing opportunities. Maybe someone diagnosed early can navigate it differently, understanding their own differences and challenges and guided better to adapt to them, but in my experience coming to the realisation later in life, it's a tough break.
It doesn't stop cleanly after school. The rules get simpler, in most circumstances. Cliques matter less; success is not won by belittling others to prove popularity, and the environment gets a little less distressing. But, those frictions are still there.
The vague instructions that don't mean anything to you. The critique of overmuch detail when you're trying to explain and be understood. The decision paralysis when you're faced with even a small ask that you feel pressure to finish to another person's definition of perfect.
Our neurodivergence shows in career paths: in pivots, in a need for intense focus on a particular area, in a struggle to contend with the politics.
It gives superpowers, to be sure: those pivots around Special Interests give multi-disciplinary synthesis, that same focus makes leaps of progress, and brute forcing through politics gets things done. But the friction is felt.
The world isn't built for minds like mine, and so we adapt, and force ourselves into an always mildly-uncomfortable mould, all the more likely to burn out for it.
I hope one day that gets better. I intend to do what I can to help it, and build a better world for my daughter, that she may not experience the same frictions I have.
#WorldAutismAwarenessDay
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