Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity

by Devon Price

“What I got from this article was this girl made herself so close to death that her family were afraid they were going to lose her, and now she has all this love and support around her. And she doesn’t have to achieve anything, because she nearly died,”

Dorian says this community was filled with self-destructive people who were often a bad influence on one another, but also that it was the only nonjudgmental place they had access to, the only space where they could truly let their pain show.

denied myself food because I wanted to look “androgynous,”

Clinical research has found that somewhere between 20 and 37 percent of diagnosed anorexia nervosa sufferers are Autistic.[24]

driven by Autistic people trusting internal cues less: they didn’t trust their own feelings of whether they were in control or not, so much as external benchmarks of success in the game.

Though Autistic people tend to be hypersensitive to sensory input, most are relatively numb to physical pain.[33]

half of all Autistics suffer from alexithymia,[34] or the inability to recognize and name emotions.[35]

Recovery is predicated on aligning your life with your values, and you aren’t going to be able to align anything until you know who you are.”

High control groups famously prey on people who are lonely and desperately seek a sense of purpose. Their repetitive rituals, seemingly close-knit social bonds, and ironclad rules about who is “good” and who is “bad” appeal to isolated people who yearn for connection and structure.

Autistic adults as having an elevated vulnerability to financial exploitation, domestic violence, relational

abuse, and emotional manipulation.[43]

When a person from a highly stigmatized group absorbs and believes some of the negative stereotypes applied to their group, they’re suffering from what researchers call self-stigma.

You want a good instrument to be sensitive.

found that Autistic adults actually had a greater variety of interests and more numerous interests than their non-Autistic peers, and made far more social media posts about their interest that were designed to provoke conversation, compared to neurotypical people.

values. That’s when she first developed her Values-Based Integration exercise, which she’s now led many Autistic clients through.

Self-stigma is a liar; you’re not cringey, “too much,” a baby, or a cold-blooded creep. You’re a marginalized person with many beautiful and unique qualities.

Unmasking means we stop trying to be an appealing “brand.”

your space must be designed to accommodate the reality of your life, without shame or judgement.”

Most workers are only capable of truly focusing and being “productive” for about four hours per day.

“Reframe failure as data,”

gather up the dirty glasses and bowls from around the house, soak the filthy pots and pans, make space on the dish rack, wash and dry everything, put everything away, all while coping with nauseatingly gross odors and wet shirtsleeves that make upsetting static travel up and down our arms.

We may not recognize, for example, that a request to “clean the bathroom” includes scrubbing the shower, floor, sink, and mirrors, not just tidying up.

As long as we haven’t abused anyone or violated their rights, it’s okay for our actions to make others unhappy.

Maskers are highly dependent on the opinions and feelings of other people.

It also impedes us from connecting with people in a genuine way.

because when we are around people, it’s as if we have no thoughts or feelings of our own.

In order to be known, we have to come out, but we’re usually coming out in a harsh cultural landscape where it’s likely that people won’t actually

It isn’t your responsibility to get everyone on the same page, or to subject yourself to judgment and stigma unnecessarily.

It’s much easier to believe that you deserve accommodation when you have people around you who act as though that is true.

They yearn to be accepted yet doubt that they can

You may not even recognize the positive attention you’re getting is socially appropriate, because you’re so used to being mocked or picked apart, or else being swallowed up in intense or abusive relationships.

was because they wanted to fix me for their own amusement, or because they thought I was useful.

It’s challenging for Autistic people to tell the difference between friends who genuinely like us, and superficial acquaintances who are responding favorably to our masks.

by age thirty no differences between non-Autistics and Autistic people were evident.

“social deficits” of Autism aren’t really deficits at all; they’re just differences in our communication style that neurotypicals don’t adjust to.

When neurodiverse people push for more explicit messaging, everybody benefits.

“Like they’re not going to be done, and you cannot expect that from me. If this is a problem, we cannot live together.”

Food was prepared communally, or by specialized workers, because it was a labor-intensive, time-intensive task. Fast food and street carts have existed since ancient times! Traditionally, most private residences did not even have dedicated kitchens, because people were less isolated and the responsibility of food prep was spread across the community. It’s perfectly okay that I need help staying fed. If I were living in a time and place where individuals weren’t held responsible for all their own food prep, my struggles with such things wouldn’t be disabling at all.

“I am the kind who thinks about people obsessively.

an Autism-accepting world is broadly accessible to a wide array of people, not just Autistics.

“People say that the internet is a world for Autistics, built by Autistic people,”

We also crave friendship and belonging to the same degree that allistics do.

As Reese Piper put it, “It’s neurotypicals who categorized autism as a social disorder.” Autistic people don’t actually lack communication skills, or a drive to connect. We aren’t doomed to forever feel lonely and broken. We can step out of the soul-crushing cycle of reaching for neurotypical acceptance and being rejected despite our best efforts. Instead, we can support and uplift one another, and create our own neurodiverse world where everyone—including neurotypicals—is welcome. In the final chapter of the book, we’ll

Autism Speaks, which presents Autism as a terrible affliction that steals children away from their parents and which desperately needs a cure,

world with more flexible norms and less stigma is a more accessible world, with fewer disabilities and far less human suffering.

health is tied to the state and employers’ desire for productive, inoffensive conformity.

It’s not enough for Autistic people to be tolerated at stores and restaurants. We need to be given equal footing (relative to neurotypical people) in volunteer positions, in the workplace, and in our churches, community centers, and gyms.

Rather than forcing Autistic people (and others) to prove and re-prove that we truly are disabled, and truly cannot work, universal basic income would be doled out to everyone, symbolically and practically asserting that all humans deserve to have enough money to live, no matter what.

We have to fight to create a more just, accepting, and supportive world for all people if we wish for everyone to be free to unmask.

Family, friends, and even complete strangers did their damnedest to convince me I owed society my womanhood.