Funny, You Don't Look Autistic: A Comedian's Guide to Life on the Spectrum

by Michael McCreary

I was diagnosed with autism at the age of five. I wasn’t diagnosed as a comedian until much later,

This is also not a book about some universal experience of “being autistic.” Everyone with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is different, and I believe I can speak for all of us when I say that I shouldn’t speak at all.

I was taught how to “act normal.” I learned to hold the door for people. I learned to tell the truth, but to understand when it was okay to lie for politeness. I learned to use my manners, not to swear, to respect personal space, and to stop talking when it was time for somebody else to have a turn. And then I got to school. And I discovered that no one else had learned these things.

Even my own understanding at that age was a little muddled. For instance, when I was a kid, I thought my autism somehow tied into my lactose intolerance. Really, my folks had stopped giving me ice cream because it made me depressed for some reason. But somehow, those two completely unrelated things had formed a connection in my brain. So, for the longest time, when people asked me what autism was, I’d say, “It means I can’t have milk.” My other default line was: “Can I take the cheese off that pizza? I can’t eat it because of my autism.”

The simplest definition is that autism is a neurological variation. In less fancy language, it’s a difference in your brain and how it’s wired. You see and process things differently from people who are the norm—what we in the ASD community call neurotypical. Autism deals in extremes: you have a lot more of something and a lot less of something else.

Imagine you’re playing a game of Dungeons & Dragons where you have different attributes, like strength and dexterity. Now imagine you have 100 percent of one attribute and 15 percent of everything else.

People sometimes use terms like “high-functioning” and “low-functioning” to describe folks on the spectrum, which can be wrongly taken to make assumptions about people’s intelligence. Really, what they’re meant to tell you is to what degree someone can get through their day independently, or how much assistance they might need in their daily lives.

“Autism isn’t real.” Correction: Stop reading the YouTube comments section.

I got taken out of high school to go play an extra on Degrassi, which is like getting out of jury duty to go play a member of a jury.

Here’s the real payoff, though: after my court case, I noticed the wording on the transit website had changed. It now said, “Pass expires on the first of the next month.” Yeah, no duh, thinks pretty much everyone who reads it. But remember, every time you see a label or warning sign or disclaimer telling you something that seems incredibly obvious, it’s there because someone, somewhere, tried to do that thing.