Madi’s Reviews > Life on the Bridge: linking my world to yours as an autistic therapist > Status Update

Anyone who professes a commitment to ongoing improvement understands not only the need to tolerate criticism but also the duty to seek it out in various forms, from various perspectives.

While many in the neurodivergent community use their own related stories to show empathy and compassion, not everyone will see it that way. Because everyone seems to have a different perspective on this, I’ve learned to just default to saying something that provides recognition to what’s just been said before sharing something related to myself.

As an autistic person, you can wander around your world, making decisions, trying to do your thing, and no one gives you any instructions on how to do life without making people mad!

Some of us may learn to mask how we feel in an attempt not to look weird to other people. Masking is a term that’s commonly used to describe what autistic people do to hide what feels normal to them for the benefit of other people.

Most people get automatic transmission on their emotional navigation system. I get the manual version: stick shift, clutch, and about 15 gears. Can I do it? Usually. But it’s quite a different process from how most do so in the background of their minds without needing conscious focus.

Autistic people have a hard time identifying unwritten social rules. If they can’t identify them, then they can’t follow them either. Too often, nobody takes the time to teach us about these cultural rules we’re all expected magically to absorb, know, and follow.

There’s something seriously disorienting about having very clear intentions and personal values, yet being perceived by those around you as anything but what you’d hoped to show.

I have noticed that people frequently ask multiple questions in a row, often adding new questions to add context to the first one. Many of us on the spectrum find this overwhelming, leaving us confused about how to even start an answer.

Ambiguous or incomplete communication leaves us unsure about how to respond. When communication is direct, leaving no room for guesswork, autistic people have the best chance to understand.

So hear me, please, that I’m not saying autism never has its perks, because it absolutely does. But usually, in my own opinion, describing it as a superpower simply doesn’t do our stories justice. If you wouldn’t say a particular phrase about any other group of people, you probably shouldn’t say it about autistic people.