Do you mind a bit of musing?  I thought not.  Buckle up, then.

As I said not terribly long ago, I worry.  I worry that I am too small a person for too big a job.  I worry that I will never be good enough or eloquent enough or find the right words to tell you what autism is really like.  I worry that I will step on toes, because most of the bloggers I interact with are mama-bloggers, and while I don’t for one second even fathom that I might know what’s better for their child than they do, I worry that at some point I’ll come across like I think that I do.  I worry about fitting in.  And I worry about continuity; when I read other blogs, there are links and themes that run from one post to the next to yet another… and I worry that all I have for you are windows.

Are windows enough?  They’re all I have.  So, tonight, as we close in on 1 AM and I sit here without my glasses on, I will offer you one more window (the 370th one since I began writing this blog over two years ago).

One of the things we work on around these parts is emotion identification.  This often takes the form of watching the ever-popular sitcom Friends, which frankly, has always gone a bit over my head.  But, with someone there to watch with me and explain the funny parts (which, on more than one occasion, has bordered on rather awkward, by nature of the show), well, I do alright, and if I’m in the right mood (which is often), it’s fun.

But I was thinking (and, I tell you, my fingers were literally trying to type while I was laying in my bed… you think a loud, I think a type, right?) that perhaps my issue is not one of lack of empathy, feeling, or knowledge, but rather… a difference of language.

What do you call the corner of exasperated and defeated?

It sits at the crossroads of frustrated and confused.

It’s when you need big, open spaces but you have tight corners.

And it’s when you want starry skies but you have a thick, dense, low fog.

It’s squinting through murky waters to see what’s just beyond.

It’s feeling like your fingers are tied down (or for you, like your mouth is taped shut).

I could go on, but my point is this: I know exactly what I’m feeling, and I can (if I’m typing) perfectly describe it to you.  No, I can’t sum it up in one nice little word like you might, but I can certainly explain how I feel, can’t I?  And, correct me if I’m wrong, but can’t you get some semblance of sense out of what I just described?

It’s rare to none you’ll probably ever hear me use feelings words verbally, and it’s none to forget about it you’ll hear me really describe it like I just did out loud.  My brain just doesn’t work that way… it works with my fingers instead of my mouth.

But if you’re willing to let me type, go ahead and ask me what I’m feeling.  Give me a moment to ponder.  I have no problem letting you know.

I just can’t promise it’ll be what you’re used to, eh?  (Have I mentioned that my typing is picking up Canadian bits and pieces?  It’s like copying someone’s style of speech, 0nly autisticly.)

Alright, folks.  The blinds are down, the curtains drawn.  And, back to that musing, I suppose the way I experience life is as a serious of windows.  My memory isn’t the best anymore, and my sensory system is uh, whacked, and that leaves me with very little continuity in things.  I function in boxes and windows.

Perhaps a blog and the windows it offers you are an appropriate medium by which to share myself and my life.

Now, would someone tell my fingers to go to bed already?  Take two, we shall.

About the Author: Lydia Wayman is a young woman with autism and the author of two books: Living in Technicolor: An autistic’s thoughts on raising a child with autism and Interview with Autism. This piece first appeared on her blog, Autistic Speaks, and is reprinted here by permission.

If I could, I’d tell you that I’m so over age appropriateness.  You say Disney and American Girl isn’t age appropriate for me?  Well, excuse my language, but I say you can shove it.  I would, if I could, ask you what the point of encouraging age appropriate interests is.  Is it to make friends?  I have many, even more than I can keep track of sometimes.  Is it so that people will like me?  Hate to break it to you, but people already do like me (not everyone, but, well, obviously, right?).  Is it so that I can be normal?  And to what end, I would ask?  If I’m comfortable with it, you should be comfortable with it, and that’s that.

And if I could, I would say that that I’m so over normalcy.  Ask Chloe what “normal” means… she’ll tell you that it’s “just a setting on the washing machine.”  I would argue that “normal” is of no value outside of its statistical meaning, which is the mean or standard deviation of 0.  If “normal” means chasing down boys, going to bars, and trying to “get ahead”… all the while being unable to articulate your personal beliefs, values, and sense of self… well then, I rest my case, I would tell you.

If I could, I’d tell you that the peace that silence brings me is like a starry night and an open field.  It’s huge, it’s wondrous, it’s freeing.  I’d tell you that speech is harsh, cold, and metallic.  There is beauty in silence.  Rather than run from it, try embracing it.

If I could, I’d tell you that I’m still stuck on some aspects of theory of mind.  I simply cannot grasp that other humans have brains like mine that think thoughts like mine (this, coming from the girl who literally authors blog posts while she sleeps and dreams of typing).  I can’t grasp that people can think while other humans are present.  I ask, again, how does the world not explode?  I also get myself entirely confused when trying to figure out the essential aspects of a story which I must relay to another person in order for them to understand me.  I say too much or I say too little, but rarely do I get it just right.

And if I could… oh, I’d tell you.  I’d tell you that sometimes I feel like I ought to be doing a much better job of telling you what it’s like on the inside, so to speak.  I’d tell you that I have no direction, no idea where my writing is going, just that I need to write.  I’d tell you that sometimes I think that a more interesting, more relatable, or even a more autistic person ought to be writing, and not me.  I worry… I’d tell you.

I’d tell you… forgive the analogy, but something (I can’t seem to quite get what that something is) is like a woman in labor, here.  Whether it’s a revelation, a relationship, I do not know, but something is on the horizon.  I can feel it.

I’d ask you how people are meant to sleep at night when the world is in such pain.  Perhaps I don’t show much empathy, but I literally lose sleep over hunger, pain, death… of people who have no faces and no names, of animals, of life itself.

And, I do apologize, but I would implore you… I would say, “Educate!”  Tell just one person today something, anything about autism.  Shatter a stereotype.  There’s a whole world out there, and it’s ours for the taking, but we have to get past our shyness and educate.  My place is at my keyboard, and I thank God that I have found these keys and taught these fingers; where is your place?

I would tell, I would ask… I would even implore… but there are just no words, or none good enough.  But then, words are all we have.

About the Author: Lydia Wayman is a young woman with autism and the author of two books: Living in Technicolor: An autistic’s thoughts on raising a child with autism and Interview with Autism. This piece first appeared on her blog, Autistic Speaks, and is reprinted here by permission.

They say that dog therapy is good for children with autism. Besides the want of a family pet, that was the reason we got the dogs in the first place. But the dogs always seemed like my dogs and my husband’s dogs. They really never attached to the boys. Oh, that is not to say that the boys were not higher in the pack than the dogs. The animals knew that instinctively, but they just didn’t go out of their way for the boys’ attention. Now, the Labradoodle even cries at the edge of the older one’s bed if he is not getting up fast enough to play with him. The Wheaton rolls around on the younger one to wake him altogether.

The boys have always been empathetic to others, and have done a lot of charity work, but it’s nice to see a daily dose of caring for living, dependent creatures. They evoke a different kind of understanding of compassion that is very fulfilling.

Some of our latest discussions have been about animal cruelty and how the boys just don’t understand it at all. The younger one has always been somewhat of an animal activist. I remember that, when he was in middle school, I could not take him into the butcher’s because he would just fall apart. One day, he saw on the label that the chickens were “young,” and all hell broke loose. He started bawling so bad I had to have the butcher tell him that it did not mean the chickens did not have a long good life. He stopped crying long enough so that I could buy dinner, and the butchers went in the back and had a laugh. I also had to stop him in the A&P from trying to break open the lobster tank. He was going to save all the lobsters. I am actually really proud of his concern for animals and how they are treated. Because of some physical issues, I have not allowed him to go vegetarian, but I know that is the choice he is going to make in his life.

Caring for animals and concern for those who are defenseless are such wonderful empathetic emotions. They say animals are intuitive about good, caring people. Follow the animals. They know whether they are loved and they feel it from my boys on a daily basis.  Don’t let anyone tell you that those with ASD can’t love and feel emotion. We parents know better — and it’s not wishful thinking.

About the Author: Elise Ronan is the mother of two young men with Asperger’s Syndrome. This piece first appeared on her blog, Raising Asperger’s Kids, and is reprinted here by permission.

Yesterday I turned off twitter and left the house for a long walk to burn some very much unneeded mental and spiritual energy. But I consistently found myself walking too rapidly for my own good. Not only was the small journey less enjoyable than it could have been, but it also left me with tendinitis in my left Achilles and far more than my usual rheumatoid arthritis pain. Today, I can barely move about the house. Clearly, I did not leave twitter for a vacation soon enough!

I have some theories about my autistic tribe. Well, let me be more correct in my terminology: I have hypotheses about the people of my tribe. I will list the relevant ones here and then go on to what I consider to be some likely effects thereof:

1. I think that, contrary to popular belief, we may not be unemotional but, at least sometimes, hyper-emotional.

2. I think that, contrary to popular belief, we may not be lacking in empathy, but that at least some of us, some of the time, may have too much empathy.

3. I think that we may have leaky membranes separating us from the external world, and that as such:

A. Factors of that outside world may leak into us easily as we lack defenses.
B. Our internal state may leak factors of us uncontrolled into the space about us.

I think these hypotheses may be true of at least some members of my tribe, because they are true for me, and also because others have expressed similar thoughts. So these ideas are somewhat more than my projection of my specific personality onto others. These specific points of consideration are true for at least some of us.

These matters of our being and operation do have real effects upon us. They certainly have an effect upon me. During the past few days, several people on twitter have made statements that seem to be aimed more at the generation of heat than light. My problem with these statements is not that there is essential disagreement between us. I do not take issue with disagreements between people. The problem has been the method by which some have expressed their beliefs. In so many of these comments, there has been  a generally insulting tone toward anyone would disagree. And this tone has caused me trouble. When someone hurls a wide statement against anyone other than believers in a narrow and specific belief, then anyone not within that belief group is likely to be slighted or worse. That group of persons who would be scorned for disagreement has included me.

I find that I can ward off the negativity of only so many of these sorts of statements. After a while, after the reading some number of these things, I find a negative energy creeping into me. I find myself feeling the harm of undeserved criticism and the downside of emotions that I cannot even name. I find myself feeling anger toward anyone who would make such a comment in such a blanketing and hostile way. I find myself wanting not to argue in a formal and civil way, but rather to hurl some snide statement back at the one whose statement caused me harm.

And you see it did cause me harm. I am a spectrumite. My life is not so easy and not so rewarding as are the lives of a great many “normal” people. I live with doubt, and anxiety, and fear, and all manner of negativity each and every day. I live on the precipice of self-loathing, and depression, and despondency. Negativity I have; negativity I am sensitive to. Negativity leaks in so easily and sets off even more negativity.

For I do not like anger toward others, especially when I am the one harbouring it. I do not like the idea of vengeance, but even more when I myself feeling a primal drive toward it. I do not like that some external conditions can set off my imperfections and drive me toward a lack of concern for others and toward a dislike for them. I fear that the porous membrane that allowed the hurt to flow into me so easily is now allowing my hurt to flow out and onto others. I dislike my negativity because it hurts me and because it can hurt others — even more so because when it hurts others, it hurts me for having done it.

And of course there is this: so many of my tweeps are fellow spectrumites. And they are trapped in a world that does not work much better for them than it does for me. They have all my issues to deal with and that includes pain entering them and flowing from them so easily and with so little control. And the hell of it is that I fear that we hurt each other all too often and too deeply. How we seem to need the emotional flywheels and buffers of NTs! How worn out and decayed I can feel sometimes after time spent on twitter. It isn’t that anyone actually tried to hurt me. It just happened.

There is an underlying pain to much of autistic conversation. So often, it is the pain of what a person is going through. But this I can easily handle. When we stand with one another against the blows of the world, I feel the pain and the strength of togetherness. There is hope in such pain. The pain I cannot deal with is that which leaks into me and then evokes within me not the warmth of care and a desire to help, but rather the pain of coldness and rage. The pain I dislike is what I feel when my own imperfections are triggered: it is the pain of feeling myself reduced.

So I am going to take a twitter vacation for a little while. Some of the aspects of the twitter atmosphere have poisoned my very soul. I need some time to clear my self.

About the Author: Laura Nagle is in her mid-fifties. Although she was diagnosed as autistic while still in elementary school, she has no memory of it. Until she self-diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome several years ago, her life had been a blind exploration of autism. She firmly believes that she might have been able to accomplish more with her time had she been aware of her deepest self and been able to develop a life to fit. She presently owns a small architectural business in Williams, Arizona and is living without assistance. Her goals are to be part of the founding of autistic culture and to use her life’s experience to assist others on the spectrum to live better lives.

Twitter Vacation first appeared on her blog, Laura Nagle — Professionally Autistic, and is reprinted here by permission.

about the endless rooms in my attic brain full of
my memories in Super 8 film rolls coiled up and sleeping
which have been magically appearing since I was a year old;

or the rooms of computer hard drives storing facts, numbers,
and encyclopedia notes numbering somewhere in the octillions;

or the glass-shatter heart that sometimes fractures if I breathe,
or suck in air from the shock or suspended surprise
of someone else’s pain, or when one of my own free-floating
pieces of celluloid with razor blade edges slices my fingers
when I yank it out of my film projector and try
to stuff it back into the canister it escaped from. The handprints

won’t tell you that our family’s collective lips are sealed
about our green strangeness, the unuttered word
that I alone out of the clan speak: autism. The handprints

won’t tell you that I shut my eyes and imagine
the lost, the mute, and the gaunt lit with pain
and pulling razor blades out of their throats
appearing as time-delimited half-tones behind this wall:
Tommy the pinball wizard;
my grandmother made of cedar beams, Indian blood, and elocution;
and a lizard poet, white knuckled, hanging on
to a rollercoaster of pain for dear life,
just to name a few. But the handprints will tell you
that I am human.

I wonder if you can see them: sometimes, I know
that on your side, you only see graffiti-infested concrete,
slapped and glued with headlines about
how our hearts are hollow, how we live as alien mutants
among you in a universe of uncertainty, and how
the word “never” seems to creep into your speech about
us. And you wonder why I erect a glass wall? Some days,
I am forced to pour concrete and hide behind
the wall of cold cinnereal while I listen to the noise
coming from the other side and my eyes
flood and create another ocean: but eventually,
I raze the walls that I construct, and all that separates
me from the world is a stately barrier of glass.

Place your hands on the glass and line them up
with mine: can you feel
the warmth from breath and skin, sweat and
rhythm, blood like tom-toms pounding and marching
all through my body? This is how we can be,
hand to hand, eye to eye, toe to toe, once I feel
I can approach the glass. We touch, and it can melt away
into a membrane, or it can eventually evaporate
and become a ghost that we used to look at each other
through: this is the understanding I need, and the vision
that you need. But as long as you insist on concrete
slapped with pity, pithy headlines, and ignorance,
you will never feel my handprints. You will never
feel my warmth. And you will be convinced that I am a
comic, hollow being that can never feel. And all
the while, I will be drowning in another one of my oceans
behind that wall.

About the Author: Nicole Nicholson is an adult with Asperger’s who prose appears at Woman With Asperger’s, and whose poetry appears at Raven’s Wing Poetry. Glass and Concrete appears here by permission.

I didn’t have any theory of mind until I was 13.5. I have a very poor autobiographical memory, but I remember the acquisition vividly. I was in gym, attempting to serve a volleyball, and I turned to Sarah, monologuing in my head about something (a strategy I had developed last year to help me with thinking) and she was thinking. I had a mental stream of consciousness in my head. So did she. I looked around the gym. So did everyone.

I was thinking about them. They could think about me.

I would never feel safe again.

A lot of things changed with that realization. I’d never gained any information from eye contact, but now it terrified me. I’d been abused by my peers, but now I realized that there was a persistent mental component as well. That they wanted to hurt me. They thought about me being confused and scared, and they liked it. I’d been doing very well without any sort of therapy or medications for almost a year—I was back at the doctor’s within a month, got another new therapist, and soon started medication. My panic attacks began to last upwards of 36 hours. I started banging my head. I damaged my eyes. I started gouging out my skin. I got a staph infection, and I almost died, twice. I am covered in scars and discolorations.

I am told that I was not, before this discovery, an anxious child. I generally felt safe.

(Inside, if not out.)

I owe a lot to my discovery of theory of mind. I just can’t think of one positive.

I can’t pass the Sally-Ann tests, even now. The language confuses me. But I do know, now, that other people have minds, and they can think with them. About whatever they want. About me.

Which means I will never, ever be safe. I never was.

After all, it’s not just that other people have minds. It’s that they can think things I don’t. They can be thinking about me without my knowledge. But it gets worse.

They can be wrong.

Maybe because I’m autistic, and people think (there we go again, theory of mind) that this means I am a robot. I would love to be a robot, personally. I am always very concerned with accuracy. The thing that upsets me most about “autism science,” isn’t actually the dehumanization and the consequences—it’s the bad science. The most terrifying and distressing thing in the world to me is something being incorrect.

Maybe it’s because I’m autistic, and thus a robot. Maybe it’s because I’m autistic, and therefore a simpler, lesser, smaller brain and in desperate need of order. Maybe it’s because I’m autistic, and therefore abused, and I know the consequences of acting on mistaken beliefs about someone, know them in my bones.

It’s terrifying.

My ability to acknowledge other minds means that I can converse more effectively than I could before. It also means I am never, ever safe. It means that I can see people being wrong, and I can see other people accepting and believing and spreading the misinformation, and I have to keep quiet. But to me, danger and anxiety and this is wrong are all the same.

So I am never safe.

I have theory of mind, now. I’d like to call it something more accurate.

Maybe theory of war.

About the Author: Julia Bascom is an Autistic writer, and Just Stimming… is her internet home and the official depository of her collected writings about disability, disability justice, and growing up and living as an Autistic girl. Julia started writing when she was twelve and now makes speeches and presentations on Autistic identity and culture, as well as contributing to the blog LOVE-NOS.

Theory of War first appeared on her blog, Just Stimming…, and is reprinted here by permission

You giggle when I wiggle my eyebrows at you or cross my eyes. Sometimes all it takes is a smile to get a full belly laugh out of you.

You point out booboos and tell me they’ll be okay. You kiss my bruises and my scratches and offer to get me a bandaid for everything whether it needs one or not.

My tears bother you. You don’t like to see Mommy cry at all. You will wrap your little arms around my neck and hug me tight. You sit in my lap and let me sniff your hair as I regain my composure.

No one can tell me that you don’t have empathy. You love me like no one else. You are so sweet and caring. Even when you’re in the middle of a meltdown and your body is moving like a tornado, you will melt into me. You like nothing more than to be curled next to me as we sit on the couch together.

Early in the mornings on the weekends, you come to my room and wake me with little hands in my hair or a tiny voice that asks around fingers in your mouth if you can climb up. You lay beside me with your cold feet stuck to my legs, your arm around my head, your hands and face buried in my hair. You bring your stuffed animals and we all snuggle in together as you take each one and tickle my cheek with it.

You are fascinated with bugs and like to watch them crawl around fly all over the place. You will watch a necklace rocking back and forth on a display for as long as it moves. You love to watch the wind blow in the trees and make the leaves shake. You love to roll cars on the edge of the table and watch the wheels turn.

You like to line your breakfast up across the table in front of you or stack it in perfect little piles. You are fascinated with buttons and can’t keep your hands away from them. You hate for your sister to ride her toy towards your feet. You’re terrified that she might try to run them over. You will chase after the huge spiders that have been getting into the house but as soon as one comes toward you I hear shrill squeals and feet pounding against the floor as you run away.

I took you to the Monster Mash at your new school. You stayed close to me and your Mamaw because the kids running in circles was just too much for you. You found a little boy with a “Scream” mask and you were so fascinated with his mask that you walked right up and touched it. He was startled at first but then he figured out you were harmless and so he played with you and your brother. I could tell he recognized that you were a little different but he put the effort into playing with you. I’m so grateful he looked past the little boy jabbering incoherently at him and saw your curiosity. He made your brother giggle and squeal as he would sneak around and poke his head out at him. He wasn’t afraid and was actually enjoying the game. He loves to be chased, after all.

I’m proud of you for not having any meltdowns even though I know that was overwhelming for you. You all did so well. You are all doing so well. Mommy is proud of you. So proud of you all.

About the Author: Forgotten is a mom to three children, including five-year-old twin boys with autism. This piece first appeared on her blog, Fairy Tale Forgotten, and appears here by permission.

From that time on, I became an adamant opponent of all wars of aggression. Do you remember the first Gulf War? When the U.S.-led coalition had won, and the Iraqi army, along with many civilians, was retreating from Kuwait, U.S. warplanes followed them and picked them off, one by one, despite the fact that firing on a retreating army is contrary to the rules of international warfare. The photos were all over CNN and the newspapers. It was called the Highway of Death. Like shooting fish in a barrel, CNN called it. I especially recall one photo of a bombed-out Chevrolet, the body of a young man half in, half out. Beside him was an open cat carrier. He had just been trying to get home with the family pet.

Most people in America thought that our actions were brave, heroic, splendid. I live near New York City, and I went down to see the big celebratory parade for our returning soldiers. People were  clapping in transports of ecstasy and shouting “US is No. 1!” as though it had been a football game.

Yeah, that would have been the Pittsburgh Steelers playing a death-match against the local high school team.

Several months ago, President Obama told the U.N. — without a trace of irony in his voice — that “peace cannot be achieved through violence.” Now, I voted for Obama twice and may do so again; I  only point him out as an example of typical thinking. It is only violence when they do it. Most people have plenty of empathy when 3,000 people like us were killed  on 9/11, but none at all for the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and others who were subsequently killed “in retaliation.” People from places like Iraq and Vietnam, people who are homeless, people who look or act strange — well, the empathy of most people is not for the likes of them. Most people have plenty of empathy, but only for people like themselves.

About the Author: Charlie Devnet lives in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, with her cats, Boots and Heather. She was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome at the age of 54, although she had suspected it for a long time. Her whole life has been spent on the outside, looking in.

Who is the Empathy For? was written expressly for Autism and Empathy.

The court heard that Duffy has Asperger’s syndrome and lived a “miserable existence” drinking alcohol alone at his home in Reading.

She said his condition meant he was not aware of the effect he was having on his victims.

*Twitch*

What an absolute load of urchin’s gonads. I could feel tingling when I read this story about something not being right, but I attributed that to the “Yuck, what a horrible human being” feelings I was getting, and wondering whether the reaction was a bit over-the top in terms of it being a freedom of speech issue. But no, it was my usual “Please, don’t let him be one of us” tingling that I get whenever someone with symptoms of Asperger’s ends up doing something reprehensible and making a splash in the news.

But let me explain why, in fact, Mr. Duffy’s autism is not a suitable defense in this case. And I promise it will go beyond, “I have autism and I don’t take joy in the pain and suffering of grieving people.”

There seems to be this pervasive myth that autistic people cannot relate to the emotions and feelings of other people. No, that is not the attitude of someone with autism. That is what a sociopath is like, not an autistic. They are not the same thing, though Mr. Duffy here proves they are not mutually exclusive. Most autistics are perfectly capable of understanding the distress and pain of other people. We just don’t express it the same way that most people do, or we may miss out on a person feeling pain or anguish because we misunderstand the signals, or we don’t understand unless the person says very clearly, “I’m upset because of xyz.”

That’s not what happened here.  Regardless of whether you have Asperger’s Syndrome, are completely socially clueless, or were raised under a rock, it is common enough knowledge that the type of behaviour he exhibited is not acceptable for a mourning ritual. Even if there were a slight chance that he was unaware of the grave nature of his cruelty, I’m 100% sure the feedback he received would have reminded him of it. He knew what he was doing was wrong, that it was distressing people, and that it was causing them emotional anguish. He just didn’t care. He prioritized his own amusement and getting the negative attention over consideration for them.

Duffy’s defense therefore isn’t just lazy and evidence of poor researched on the nature of autism. It’s also dangerous. Each time something like this happens, it jeopardizes the ability of tens of thousands of openly autistic adults who are not sociopathic creeps to lead healthy, normal lives among their non-autistic peers, because they have to field ignorant questions from their coworkers, friends, and acquaintances about Asperger’s Syndrome 101, and explain that they are in no way like that awful man.

I should know. I’ve done it repeatedly. There is no law that says that we have to disclose our disabilities, but guess what, most of us cannot effectively “pass” and it comes out sooner or later. I’d appreciate that when it does, it doesn’t mean that people I associate with will automatically have the wrong idea about me because a lazy defense attorney and an irresponsible news media jumped on this story.

Duffy may lead a miserable existence, which may have contributed to him being an irredeemable troll, but you know what makes me have a miserable experience? People looking for a quick scapegoat and using the disability that I share with him to absolve him of any responsibility for his actions. Keep this fact in mind the next time there’s a criminal who just happens to have Asperger’s Syndrome hitting the news.

About the Author: Nominatissima is an undergraduate student at the University of Victoria studying history and social justice issues. She is on the autism spectrum, diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome at the age of fifteen. This post first appeared on her blog, nominatissima, and is reprinted here by permission.

I’ve been talking with some other students, and their opinion of him is not unlike that of Percy Weasley towards Albus Dumbledore: “Oh, don’t get me wrong, he’s brilliant, but half the time I don’t know what he’s saying;” “He’s very bright, but the class is difficult for me. I don’t really get how he lectures;” and “My God, he’s all over the place! His mind must be a crazy hurricane!”

I’ve not noticed this, though. Everything he says makes perfect sense to me, and I’m able to understand the lectures and the points he makes with ease. I’ve already done three assignments for his course, and gotten great marks on them, so I know it’s not just me  thinking I understand what he’s on about.

Jaime very astutely observed once that the way my mind works “is so logical to you that you don’t need to really explain or think about how you get from Step A to Step Z. You just do, and then you can’t understand why other people can’t see the blatant logic behind it.” Methinks Professor K is the exact same kind of thinker, which is why he and I have such a great rapport, and why his NT students struggle to keep up with some of his lectures and assignments. Without any real verbal one-on-one communication, our minds synced up, and the lectures and assignments came naturally to me, because his way of thinking mirrored my own.

This experience makes me realize just how truly silly it is to claim that autistic people have no empathy and can’t relate to others intuitively. Moments like this one demonstrate how wrong that assumption truly is.

About the Author: Nominatissima is an undergraduate student at the University of Victoria studying history and social justice issues. She is on the autism spectrum, diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome at the age of fifteen. This post first appeared on her blog, nominatissima, and is reprinted here by permission.