What I Mean When I Say I'm Autistic: Unpuzzling a Life on the Autism Spectrum

by Annie Kotowicz

We need to unpuzzle the past to heal our hearts, and the present to see who we are.

But little autistic girls are often more conscientious than other kids about doing what’s expected, so I never considered that possibility.

I don’t have an easy way to toggle between battle and surrender, control and acceptance, vigilance and ease.

to see the Internet as part of the real world, and treat online friendships as real friendships.

the metaphor of a mask can be misleading. It sounds like I’m being deceptive, or changing who I am to fit in, whereas I’m actually just trying to wear my true feelings on my face. I see it more like a language—a way to communicate.

Communicating across neurotypes is like communicating across cultures—one side shouldn’t have to constantly adapt everything about how they communicate just to be understood.

Maybe they found it enigmatic that I did flirty things for non-flirty reasons, like getting excited about common

interests or holding eye contact for too long. My complete incompetence at the neurotypical dance of flirting left them with mixed signals.

Through learning about autism, I came to know myself. Through knowing myself, I came to accept myself. And through accepting myself, I was more prepared to enter a healthy relationship when an amazing person for me came along.

more information is needed to interpret our words. But processing information at the moment it’s delivered is a neurotypical expectation. When I’m with autistic friends, we’re constantly asking one another what we meant—was it this meaning, or this other slightly different meaning? Carving up our communication, uncovering its deeper layers of precision, is a satisfying art form, as well as a safety net of mutual understanding.

be mindful that someone’s internal state may be different than you expect, and different than you’d feel if you were acting like them.

Autism was the missing piece of the script that I now use whenever I need help,