Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity

by Devon Price

• Provides daily structure and soothing rituals • Soothes self-doubt and fears about being a “bad person” • Promises salvation from the present, unjust world “Fawning” and Compulsive People-Pleasing • Earns the Autistic person praise • Offers a false promise of acceptance • Simplifies complicated relationship dynamics • Flattens social interactions into one easy rule: always say “yes” • Validates the Autistic person’s belief they should ignore their feelings and needs • Minimizes conflict and reduces anger

there’s no shame in having used imperfect strategies in order to survive.

Dorian says they had many clear Asperger’s Syndrome traits. They inhaled books and sat off alone in the corner at family gatherings. They

spoke “like a thesaurus” and did well on IQ tests, but found daily classwork hard to keep up with. But like so many other masked Autistics, they were seen as a “girl,” and were assumed to be gifted and a little weird, rather than disabled.

Our apparent high intelligence puts us in a double bind: we are expected to accomplish great things to justify our oddness, and because we possess an enviable, socially prized quality, it’s assumed we need less help than other people, not more.

In one study of Autistic agency, Autistic and non-Autistic people were both asked to manipulate a cursor on a screen as part of a computer game.[30] Random time lags and movement glitches were added to the game, so that players didn’t always have full control over what the mouse was doing. Players were told to attempt to win the game, and were also asked to report when they thought they had control of the mouse and when they didn’t. Neurotypical people were pretty accurate in judging when they had control of the mouse. They

a lag or glitch rather than their own hands. Autistic players instead struggled to tell the difference. They tended to believe they were more in control of the game when they were winning, and that they were not in control when they were losing, even when the two were unrelated. In particular, this result appeared to be 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.

interoception.

After all, masked Autistics are socially conditioned to silence the physical needs we do notice. If I have to suppress my desire to pace around the room and sing songs to myself because doing so makes me look like a “freak,” how am I supposed to know that listening to hunger or tiredness is fine?

alexithymia,

Growing up, we’re told how neurotypical emotions look and feel. We’re encouraged to track other people for signs of discomfort or disapproval, so we can change our actions and become more pleasant or compliant.

So when we’re upset or uncomfortable, we often fail to recognize it until we’re nearly on the verge of a complete meltdown.

In digital communication, Autistic people get the time we need to carefully process a message, google any terms that are unfamiliar, and carefully reflect on how we might want to respond.