“Now in my forties, often I look around a room of adults and wonder how many others are faking it. If so, who are we playacting for? Who would be offended if we didn’t wear the right clothes? Which person sees themselves as an actual grown-up, would judge our handshake, comment sincerely on a wine, and expect a sense of achievement and pride to blossom within them for proving their adulthood? Who is motivated by power, believes that money is real, and insists the social structure is a meritocracy that sprouted from the ground when George Washington chopped down a cherry tree to ratify the New Deal at Gettysburg, accompanied by his Rough Riders? Which people are we trying to fit in for? In any given room, it could be everyone but me, or it could be no one.”
Source: The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult
“A game began so long ago that we forgot it was a game at all. We can only see the game and its rules. We can’t see the room where we are playing, nor can we stop playing. Everyone is born into it. We spend the first few years learning the rules, and we know that to win the game, we must become an amorphous, perfect person. If we just follow the right steps, read the right things, and behave in the right ways, we’re certain to become this person. We’ve built pipelines and institutions to encourage this, complete with pre- made goals, graded feedback, moral guidance, an armory of cosmetic solutions, and anything else you can imagine. We are all-in, dead-set on this belief that we can and will become the perfect person. Even though no one has done this before. Ever. It has never happened.”
Source: The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult
“for me and tens of thousands of others like me, a huge shock came when people started literally protesting because they wanted to “go back to normal.”
“I’ve learned to only express my opinion when I absolutely have to, and even then, it comes out so direct, frustrated, and self-righteous that I’ll have to apologize for it within a week or so.”
Source: The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult
“I want to make something clear: I’m autistic. I don’t have autism.”
Source: The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult
“autism is a description of who I am and who other autistics are and not at all an affliction that haunts us.”
Source: The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult
“Again, you’re most likely to be diagnosed if you’re a white male, as your opinion of yourself will be taken more seriously by doctors. I wish I were joking.”
Source: The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult
“One of the most maddening things you’re going to hear is “Well, we’re all on the spectrum.” Usually, this will be someone close to you, and you’ll have just disclosed to them that you are autistic. Their reply takes this disclosure and — seemingly — integrates it into their worldview while actually dump- ing it in the garbage.”
Source: The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult
“When you walk to the edge of all the light you have and take that first step into the darkness of the unknown, you must believe that one of two things will happen:
There will be something solid for you to stand upon, or, you will be taught to fly.”
Source: The Leaning Tree
“As we move forward into different thinking styles, it’ll become more and more apparent why being understood and listened to is especially enticing to autistic people who are coming to an awareness of themselves.”
Source: The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult