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

by Bianca Toeps

We close ourselves off to stimuli, and then get blamed for not having any empathy.

Although I told her about my autism, the fact that she can tell feels like failing.

Question: What should I do when an autistic is stimming? Answer: Nothing. Let them. Unless the autistic is hurting themselves or others, of course. In that case, try to direct the autistic towards another, less dangerous stim.

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.

And sorting, categorising and calculating simply makes most autistics very happy.

Support the autistic person in their quirky hobbies and obsessions; these are the moments they’re at their happiest. Whether it’s a K3 show or an afternoon of plane spotting, embrace it. Don’t laugh at anyone, don’t mock people. Don’t say “You want to see that movie

again?” or “You already have five hundred Star Wars figurines!”, but look into it and find out what makes that one particular figurine so special. People who are as happy as a child when indulging in their hobbies, that’s something I really love to see.

But if I’m not in the mood, being touched is the most horrible thing in the world. So anybody who literally wants to give me a little push, as in “go on, your turn”, or who puts an unexpected hand on my shoulder, can expect an imaginary punch.

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,

This is also referred to as the autistic burn-out: someone who was previously able to speak in coherent sentences, suddenly can’t utter a single word or bursts into tears at the slightest change. It’s the result of years of asking too much, of hiding and of “acting normal”. The person in question shuts down and seems to become more autistic. But that’s not the case: The person was always this autistic, they just ran out of energy to hide it.

Usually the person who seems to be functioning just fine, the one who appears to be doing well in society, is fighting to just keep their head above water.

Autistics who get better at learning how to “act normal” only end up spending more and more energy doing so.

Are women better at camouflaging, or do they face more severe consequences if they don’t?

People who have recently been diagnosed with autism often don’t even know their own boundaries anymore; the uncomfortable feeling is so omnipresent, that listening to it seems like an impossible task.

Another misconception I’d like to clear up is that people with autism supposedly lack empathy. I for one am very intuitive, and 90% of the time I’m open to other people’s emotions. The other 10% of the time I’m so lost in my own thoughts and obsessions, virtually nothing else gets through.”

Most autistics prefer to be called just that: autistic. A lot of parents and professionals on the other hand, are taught that it’s better to say ‘person with autism’ – so-called person-first-language. They think that by addressing us this way, they’re saying we’re a person too, not just our autism. Many autistic people disagree, because they feel that ‘autistic’ is who they are: their autism is an essential part of their being. That’s identity-first-language. To them, ‘person with autism’ sounds like ‘person with a disease’. Something that needs a cure. They don’t need a cure, they need understanding. And I totally agree with that.

I have accepted that I’m different, and I have found solutions that work for me.