But You Don’t Look Autistic at All (Bianca Toeps’ Books)

by Bianca Toeps

social reality is a construct, a set of rules that the players determine together.

Children with autism are often taught not to trust their own feelings,

Autistics among each other usually have far fewer communication problems.

the autistic brain is hyperactive.

According to the Markrams, more connections are being made in the autistic brain and brain cells respond more emphatically to each other. There’s a stronger response to stimuli, thoughts run rampant quicker. In short: the world is extremely intense for autistics.

our hyper-fanatic brains make sure we remember that scary, nasty experience very well and will try to avoid it in the future.

‘calmness, cleanliness and consistency’

Brain scans show that in autistics, heightened activity can be measured in their emotional circuits when they’re shown pictures of eyes or faces.8 So making eye contact actually is more intense for them.

The notion that people with autism might experience more stress due to a day that’s been planned down to the hour (because the more that’s been planned, the more that can go wrong) is lost on them.

Although generally, you can’t tell by someone’s looks whether they’re autistic, I often recognise potential autistics by their posture. It’s a bad posture, head forward, knees back and shoulders that are way too tense. The muscle tension throughout the whole body is very high,

But autistics aren’t crybabies. They are people trapped in a world at volume 10.