Multi-Faceted Autism: One Man’s Experience
Autism is different.
Autism is different. You can’t separate it out from the rest of me. It would require a whole new brain—a different ratio of grey to white brain matter! I wouldn’t be the same person on any level if I weren’t Autistic. I wouldn’t process emotions the same way, I wouldn’t engage with my hobbies and interests on the same level, I would not think the way that I think, I wouldn’t remember information the way that I remember! I would be a completely different person, and this would erase not only the difficulties that come with being Autistic, but all the things that I do like about myself. This is something that I think people who talk about ‘curing’ Autism don’t understand—you can’t separate out the good from the bad. A brain is Autistic or it isn’t, and if you had the ability to wave a magic wand and make an Autistic brain not, you would be changing everything, not just the parts that “look like Autism.”
I am a lot of things.
I am a lot of things. I use different labels when I interact with different groups, and those labels carry different levels of importance. To some people, it’s important that I am a writer, but not that I am a Star Trek fan. To others, it’s important to know that I love Star Trek, but it’s not important to know that I bake, or what kind of people I date. But there is no group where my Autism ceases to be a part of my identity. As an Autistic writer, I process and plan and connect things a certain way. I write Autistic characters, and I describe sensory details based on my experiences. As an Autistic Star Trek fan, I engage with the material in certain ways. I relate to certain characters (Spock, Data, Bashir) more than others. I read and memorize bits of trivia, and I find comfort in having a special interest that I can turn to. As an Autistic baker, I crave or dislike certain sensory aspects of the process. I like to know the science behind how everything works in the kitchen, and if I am used to doing things a certain way, I don’t like change. Having to use a different oven might stop me in my tracks, even if it’s not that different from the oven I used when I learned to bake. And as an Autistic person in general, it’s very important to me that the people I befriend or date understand how Autism impacts my life.
You might think…
You might think “Well, a lot of neurotypical passionate Star Trek fans obsess over trivia, and a lot of neurotypical writers draw from experience when writing sensory details, and a lot of neurotypical bakers enjoy the feel of dough or prefer a routine,” and that’s all true. (I mean, except for the part where you thought there were a lot of neurotypical passionate Star Trek fans.) Being Autistic doesn’t mean I’m an alien species, or a robot. Autistic people have a lot in common with neurotypical people, and there are things we can all understand. But there are also ways in which our experience is, even in quiet ways, fundamentally different. Because it isn’t just the one thing. It’s the way that every aspect of the experience connects.
