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Yes, I can make eye contact, and I can adjust my face and voice to reflect the emotions I’m feeling. But it all takes concentration, and sometimes I get it wrong—for example, making more eye contact than my listener finds comfortable. “Masking” is a word for the performative effort required to get it right, which makes it tiring for me to socialize.
everything I find deeply exciting falls into one of two specific categories.
phenomenology, which involves noticing and analyzing how various experiences feel from the inside,
what makes me autistic is not my outer actions, but the inner neurology that produces them.
By default, everything is intense, which has been called “Intense World Theory.”
An overloaded brain makes it harder to talk.
In the rush of the moment, I can’t always find the right words. But if I figure out a script ahead of time, I can usually follow it. My life is full of situations where I react awkwardly, prepare a script, and do better the next time.
When I’m writing, I often ramble a bit before stumbling on the main idea. I might delete the first half of a draft, move the last sentence to the beginning, and make other adjustments before finally sharing it. Now, imagine what that sounds like when I try to do it verbally, in real time. It can seem like I’m jumping all over the place! But it doesn’t feel that way. From the inside, it feels like one coherent idea—an idea that I’m refining, expanding, and improving.
A key feature of autism, which distinguishes it from similar neurotypes, is the tendency to waver between overstimulation and understimulation, depending on the environment and the day.
This is a paradox of autism: Too much stimulation can make my nervous system feel dysregulated, but so can too little. At best, dysregulation feels like something is not right—like I was born for cozy fires with friends, and I’m not living my destiny. At worst, it can feel like my whole world is falling apart.
Moreover, this is a paradox of stimming: When I’m already overstimulated, stimming calms me by drowning out the harsh feelings with nice, predictable ones. And when I’m understimulated, it awakens my senses to focus and be present.
Cerebral needs take at least two forms. If my mind is overstimulated, then picking can be a calming, meditative activity. If my mind is understimulated, then picking can be a fascinating, exploratory activity. In the moment, I can’t always tell which state I’m in. But if staring at a candle is helpful, then I was probably overstimulated, and if researching a special interest is helpful, then I was probably understimulated.
It becomes more of a problem when the effort is one-sided. 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. So, I look for opportunities to translate my language:
Solid expectations mean that my brain is not naturally prepared for transition, and unexpected changes can hit like a load of bricks. Everything is easier to handle if I have time to mentally prepare, but if I don’t see a major change coming, it can feel devastating. Heartbreak in particular has often surprised me, because my struggle to read nonverbal cues has hidden the clues leading up to it.
But hiding boredom out of politeness is a neurotypical custom. When I’m with autistic friends, and one is talking, those who are genuinely interested keep listening, and the others spontaneously start side conversations with no hard feelings. It’s considered rude to fake interest, and kind to encourage others to pursue what stimulates their minds.
People might think that the timing in autistic conversations is awkward for everyone involved—speakers who get interrupted, and listeners who can’t figure out when it’s okay to interrupt. But figuring that out from tone alone is what neurotypical minds do.
It’s hard to do all that and also make eye contact and smile at people, so my default demeanor could easily be perceived as rude.
wish everyone understood that my actions reflect what’s happening in my senses, not what’s happening in my heart.
For example, many of them interpreted my frequent questions as a sign that I wasn't listening.
probably work harder than I need to, because I haven’t mastered the art of what to prioritize and what to rush through or skip. I’m conscientious to a fault, because I can’t figure out when it’s safe not to be. In between “Everybody does that” and “Nobody does that,” there’s a gray area: “Many do that, and most get away with it.”
For me, though, sharing an analogous story is an expression of empathy—a tangible proof to back up my claim that I can understand how someone feels. It’s also an invitation for them to compare and contrast, telling me how their experience differs, so that I can understand them better.
When I do something that gets misunderstood, my first instinct is to explain why. The same is true when I can’t do something—or I can, but only at great cost to my mental or physical well-being.
Being autistic deepens my focus on listening and processing, at the expense of calculating an acceptable level of eye contact.
Some have shutdowns, becoming inexpressive and withdrawn.
A meltdown doesn’t always mean that I’m upset. Often, it simply means that I’m depleted.
Ask yourself, “What new information did I encounter right before the meltdown?”
In the human sense, inertia also means a natural drive to continue. Here’s what that can look like in practice, for me:
Flexible mode means I’m prepared for surprises and interruptions. I know they can come at any moment, so I stay alert. And when they happen, I can handle them. Safe mode means I’m able to focus, without fear of interruption. I feel protected, because I know that if I begin a complex thought process, it won’t get cut off.
The problem with flexible mode is that it doesn’t allow me to think very deeply, or do the kind of work I find most meaningful. It also takes a lot of energy, and creates physical tension in my body. The problem with safe mode is that it makes me more vulnerable. If something breaks my concentration, it’s extra upsetting, and it makes me lose my ability to think and speak clearly.
If I look and listen but don’t plan , then I’ll hear what you’re saying, but won’t have a response ready when you stop talking.
If I listen and plan but don’t look , then I can carry on a conversation, but may appear distracted.
If I look and speak but don’t plan , then I can only get out the words I’ve already planned. To plan more, I have to look away.
If I speak and plan but don’t look , I can be quite eloquent, but I may miss your unspoken reactions.
If I plan and look but don’t speak , it feels like an inefficient pause in the conversation. I prefer to glance away so I can...
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neurotypical people follow their intuition in most social interactions, basing decisions on years of observation without ever putting those lessons into words. I, on the other hand, need words for everything.
enjoy feeling feminine. But I hardly ever feel that way around neurotypical women, who tend to express femininity in ways that I find unnatural and unpleasant to imitate. Long nails, hair in place, even vocal volume, graceful movements, perfectly timed interruptions—I can’t keep up, and it’s exhausting to try.
I have frequent opportunities to cultivate bravery, because so many activities are difficult or uncomfortable for me.
I used to make a big effort to push through anxiety in uncomfortable situations—I saw that as a kind of self-empowerment,
I now recognize that there’s a difference between “stretching my comfort zone” and ripping it open.
I’m also trying to budget my energy. This means limiting how many draining activities I do in a day, preparing for those activities through other ones that fill me up, and intentionally recharging my energy after it’s drained.
Aversion: I put off a task because I expect it to feel unpleasant. It helps to combine it with something I enjoy, like music or tea.
It affects how I process information, which in turn affects everything else.
notice tiny details. If anyone needs help double-checking something, I’m a great person to ask.
Since I’m so focused on details, I sometimes miss the big picture. I need help to prioritize and ident...
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do my best work when I avoid interruptions. If I lose my train of thought, it takes some time to get back on track. But I’m capable of ve...
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take instructions very literally, not reading between the lines or guess...
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have trouble processing audio, so meetings and phone calls can feel draining for me. I need time before to prepare, and time after to recover.
Since I try to follow rules closely, I get confused if they’re ignored in practice. I like knowing exactly what’s expected of me.
Dysregulation, on the other hand, is what happens when the tables turn and your emotions control you. It’s not that you're “letting” them, it’s that they're just too powerful to handle—running wild, unregulated. They take over your heart rate, movements, breath, and voice.
Autistic brains follow different rules, and thrive better in environments where we have freedom—to move around, avoid eye contact, write instead of speak, ask lots of precise questions, and stay away from spaces that are too loud or bright. Treating our experiences as valid—not as “too sensitive” or “too literal”—frees us to focus more attention on what makes us come alive.
