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Autism Awareness Quotes

Browse 67 quotes about Autism Awareness.

Autism Awareness Quotes

“I need to use the restroom," Sherry says. She looks at Annika. "Would you like to come with me?" "No," Annika says, grimacing and using the same tone you'd use to turn down an elective root canal. Sherry looks at her in confusion. "No?" Annika pauses. Removes the napkin from her lap and smiles. "Actually, yes. I should probably go now, too." I keep my expression blank, but inside I'm laughing. Annika's honest response to what is essentially one of the most common female conventions is priceless, but she says it so sweetly- without a trace of sarcasm- that I may be the only one who realizes she didn't arbitrarily change her mind. It just took her a few extra seconds to shuffle through her brain for the appropriate social response. No wonder she was so tired after I took her to my company dinner. It must be exhausting, and it makes me feel extra protective of her.”

HonestyAutism AwarenessAnnika RoseAutism Anxiety
Book:The Girl He Used to Know
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“The normal pipeline for an adult autistic is being overwhelmed, tired, then reaching burnout, depression, and guilt. But change is possible. These are systemic problems that we encounter, and the solutions we bring are going to be individual. Autistic people are wildly diverse, and what strengths you have won’t look like someone else’s.”

AutismAutisticAutism SpectrumNeurodiversityNeurodivergenceAutism AwarenessNeurodivergentAutistic AuthorAdult Autism
Book:The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult
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“Maybe the most surprising thing is that the proficiency of so many autism experts ends at diagnosis. Once that diagnosis is made, especially for adults, the expert’s job is over, and they have no idea how to guide you in handling that information.”

AutismAutisticAutism SpectrumNeurodiversityNeurodivergenceAutism AwarenessNeurodivergentAutistic AuthorAdult Autism
Book:The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult
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“If coming out as autistic as an adult is hard, it’s only because of the resistance of those around you. It doesn’t change the actual challenges you have in your job, your relationships, or your perception. Which is just such a perfect fact because the challenges you’ve always faced haven’t been due to the autism either — not really. They’ve been due to the way the world has been structured based on neurotypical thinking and socialization. In most cases, autism is a social disability, not a medical one.”

AutismAutisticAutism SpectrumNeurodiversityNeurodivergenceAutism AwarenessNeurodivergentAutistic AuthorAdult Autism
Book:The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult
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“We did our best to fit in, be typical, or control the narrative, and kept this ruse up for years and then decades, usually developing some really unhealthy coping skills to deal with the resulting anxiety. Expectations were always high, and we worked harder and harder to meet them, exhausting ourselves and deteriorating our quality of life.”

AutismAutisticAutism SpectrumNeurodiversityNeurodivergenceAutism AwarenessNeurodivergentAutistic AuthorAdult Autism
Book:The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult
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“They’ll explain why you can’t be autistic by producing the very evidence you would use to prove that you are — how smart you are, how social you are, your expert and intense eye contact, your terrific grades and amazing knowledge about niche subjects, your charm during social events. All things that were hard-fought parts of your masked identity.”

AutismAutisticAutism SpectrumNeurodiversityNeurodivergenceAutism AwarenessNeurodivergentAutistic AuthorAdult Autism
Book:The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult
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“After all, simply saying “We’re all on the spectrum” is a cognitive roadblock. It’s absolutely efficient, in an energy consumptive way. We see this method used all the time when people use thought-terminating clichés to end a problem-solving process and settle their thinking: It is what it is. Don’t rock the boat. That’s not how we do things here. It’s above your pay grade. Let’s agree to disagree. YOLO.”

AutismAutisticAutism SpectrumNeurodiversityNeurodivergenceAutism AwarenessNeurodivergentAutistic AuthorAdult Autism
Book:The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult
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“We should also address this term neurotypical, as it is too often used as a substitute for the word normal, even though this was not the original intention. Simply stated, it refers to someone whose neurological structure developed in a way that is typical of the field of study.”

AutismAutisticAutism SpectrumNeurodiversityNeurodivergenceAutism AwarenessNeurodivergentAutistic AuthorAdult Autism
Book:The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult
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“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.”

AutismAutisticAutism SpectrumNeurodiversityNeurodivergenceAutism AwarenessNeurodivergentAutistic AuthorAdult Autism
Book:The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult
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“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.”

AutismAutisticAutism SpectrumNeurodiversityNeurodivergenceAutism AwarenessNeurodivergentAutistic AuthorAdult Autism
Book:The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult
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“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.”

AutismAutisticAutism SpectrumNeurodiversityNeurodivergenceAutism AwarenessNeurodivergentAutistic AuthorAdult Autism
Book:The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult
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“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.”

AutismAutisticAutism SpectrumNeurodiversityNeurodivergenceAutism AwarenessNeurodivergentAutistic AuthorAdult Autism
Book:The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult
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“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.”

AutismAutisticAutism SpectrumNeurodiversityNeurodivergenceAutism AwarenessNeurodivergentAutistic AuthorAdult Autism
Book:The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult
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“These other people have diverged from our expectations of neurological development, and from this we get the term neurodivergent. But this is a broad label that is not synonymous with autistic, the way that rectangle is descriptive of but not synonymous with square.”

AutismAutisticAutism SpectrumNeurodiversityNeurodivergenceAutism AwarenessNeurodivergentAutistic AuthorAdult Autism
Book:The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult
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“People used to think the brain’s primary function was to take in the world around us and perceive stimuli. While that’s something it does, the brain spends a lot more energy filtering stimuli out, allowing us to discern the important ones from the unimportant ones.”

AutismAutisticAutism SpectrumNeurodiversityNeurodivergenceAutism AwarenessNeurodivergentAutistic AuthorAdult Autism
Book:The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult
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“It’s a common quality of autistic thinking that we aren’t sure which details are considered necessary by others when making a point or telling a story. What’s funny about that — and we will dig into this later — is the certainty that the reader or listener has a better idea of what these details are than the person doing the explaining and that it just so happens that the correlation between the included details and the patience of the listener is one to one. This raises no red flags at all. It just “is what it is.” This makes sense because their attention has to be engaged — but it also seems unfair.”

AutismAutisticAutism SpectrumNeurodiversityNeurodivergenceAutism AwarenessNeurodivergentAutistic AuthorAdult Autism
Book:The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult
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“Divergent Dynamite (The Sonnet) You only know my infinite radiance, you got no clue to my innate hurricane. Day in and day out I struggle autistic, Genius is outcome of a mind broken. There are cracks across my heart, nothing can bar the pouring rays. Light is but suffering harnessed, Genius is brokenness harnessed. There is no end to my exuberance, limits of typicals don't apply to me. I am but an enigma of unbending tenacity, every breath is testament to impossibility. Divergence is nature's way to expansion. Divergent dynamite I, am living evolution.”

GeniusAutismAutisticAutism SpectrumNeurodiversityNeurodivergenceAutism AwarenessNeurodivergentAutism Spectrum DisorderAutistic Scientist
Book:The Divine Refugee
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“Sonnet on The Spectrum (Diary of An Autistic Neuroscientist) We, on the spectrum, are often misconstrued as rude or audacious. Problem is not that we feel too little, but that we feel too crippling much. Sensory overload is our biggest struggle, an eternal battle against daily situations. Storms that the normals experience only in tragedy, are our life's everyday occurrence. Sidelining the stormy torment of the spectrum, the world romanticizes with autistic savants. I never could communicate with my parents, and they never knew what my struggle was. We autistics have difficulty communicating, till we speak on a matter of interest. Then we can jabber like any neurotypical, bursting with joy in our nerves and veins.”

AutismAutisticAutism SpectrumAutism AwarenessAutism AcceptanceAutism Spectrum DisorderAutism MothersAutistic ScientistAutistic ChildSavant Syndrome
Book:The Humanitarian Dictator
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“We, on the spectrum, are often misconstrued as rude or audacious. Problem is not that we feel too little, but that we feel too crippling much. Sensory overload is our biggest struggle, an eternal battle against daily situations. Storms that the normals experience only in tragedy, are our life’s everyday occurrence.”

AutismAutisticAutism SpectrumAutism AwarenessAutism AcceptanceAutism Spectrum DisorderAutism MothersSensory OverloadAutistic ChildAutistic Brain
Book:The Humanitarian Dictator
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“That curtain never came. The end credits should have run, but the days kept on happening, my alarm kept going off, and new challenges kept popping up. Furthermore, I had a sense that this “I finally did all the things, give me my American Dream award” moment wasn’t the final, dramatic crescendo of an orchestrated symphony. I knew this because I was a fake.”

AutismAutisticAutism SpectrumNeurodiversityNeurodivergenceAutism AwarenessNeurodivergentAutistic AuthorAdult Autism
Book:The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult
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“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 5 The Autistic’s Guide to Self-Discovery sprouted from the ground when George Washington chopped down a cherry tree to ratify the New Deal at Gettysburg, accom- panied 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.”

AutismAutisticAutism SpectrumNeurodiversityNeurodivergenceAutism AwarenessNeurodivergentAutistic AuthorAdult Autism
Book:The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult
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“Having Asperger’s is like having an enhancer plugged into an outlet in our brains. Asperger’s is an accelerator, amplifying the perceptions that we have on the world and the ambiance around us. Like going to the store and buying a device to plug in or install on something in order to make it run faster, Asperger’s will deepen everything’s significance, causing us to take things to a more intense level. Those of us with Asperger’s need to take our time on certain things, which causes us difficulty in accomplishing simple tasks. We learn to diligently persevere and be more prudent and careful. "Juggling the Issues: Living with Asperger’s Syndrome is an anthology explaining these topics through the eyes of someone with Asperger’s. This is more than a researcher giving an outline of what we face and what we can do. Instead, this is one of those books told by a person who has Asperger’s and has dealt with certain difficulties in order to experience achievements over the past twenty years. I have personally overcome and am still overcoming a lot of the trials that come with having Asperger’s.”

InspirationalPsychologyAutismBiographiesAutism SpectrumAspergersAutism AwarenessYoung AdultsAutism AcceptanceDisabilities
Book:Juggling the Issues: Living With Asperger's Syndrome
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“There was one time when Papa asked him, 'Bunso, why do you love me?' We were surprised when he answered, 'I love you because I love you.' I guess it means that for Bunso, love needs no explanations, no buts, no ifs. For him, love is love, plain and simple. For him, both the quantity and quality of time that we give him are acts of love and he does his very best to reciprocate by being the most sweet and affectionate little boy that he is right now.”

ParentingAutismAutism SpectrumAutism AwarenessAutism AcceptanceAutism Spectrum DisorderAutism Mothers
Book:I Love You Because I Love You
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“I may be experiencing struggles, doing more sacrifice, and adjusting to the needs of Bunso like other moms who have kids with special needs. At the end of the day, I know that there is a reason why God has given me Bunso. Perhaps He knows that I can love him unconditionally. Yes, I can and I do truly. I am so glad that he loves me too beyond words can express.”

LoveAutismAutism SpectrumAutism AwarenessAutism AcceptanceAutism Spectrum DisorderAutism MothersAutism OutlookInspirational Quotes About Love
Book:I Love You Because I Love You
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“I never allowed my Autism/Asperger's to have the prerogative to neither tear nor slow me down. I earned a degree in chemistry, juggle for elementary schools, play piano for seniors on Sunday mornings, and been mentoring children/teens from K-12 at Royal Rangers almost every week for six years and counting.”

InspirationalPsychologyAutismBiographiesAutism SpectrumAutism AwarenessYoung AdultsAspergers SyndromeAutism AcceptanceDisabilities
Book:Juggling the Issues: Living With Asperger's Syndrome
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