Happy Autistic Pride Day! While there are many challenges to being on the spectrum, there are also so many things to love. And ultimately, if I wasn’t autistic, I would not be me! Read on for some of my favorite aspects of being autistic.
Remember, every autistic person is unique! The following observations are purely personal, and neither universal to, nor restricted to, autistic folks.
Glimmers
I’ve mentioned glimmers before, but I have not yet fully described what it feels like to be caught up in such an overwhelmingly joyful sensation. Perhaps one of our cats settles on my chest and starts purring. Maybe my friends surprise me with a Hello Kitty stuffy. Or my fitness class includes a song that just pumps me up. From the outside (if I’m not masking) one of these glimmers might look like: shaking my hands in little fists, squealing, jumping, or spinning. Maybe I run down the hallway on my tiptoes, not unlike our cats during 4am zoomies. I used to hold these things in, and it’s a relief to just be myself when it feels safe to do so.
I can also get caught up in something funny that sends me into uncontrollable giggles. This one can be tough, because I will laugh well past the point where others have moved on, and perhaps feel a little embarrassed. The T-shirt game on JackBox was particularly effective at sending me to this place during the pandemic, for example. I feel like I can’t control my face, my eyes water, and my skin flushes. It’s an intense combo of glimmer and emotional overwhelm, but overall a fun one that can relieve a lot of tension.
Building opportunities for glimmers and sensory seeking into my day has been so effective. My home office is now entirely pink with multicolored lights on the wall and blackout curtains. My cubicle is covered in sea creatures and entirely color coordinated. Even painting my nails an iridescent purple can be a source of a small glimmer when I feel overwhelmed in a place I can’t easily adjust or escape from.
Noticing the Small Details
I have a confession. Sometimes I notice something small around me on a walk or a car ride when I’m in a group. In the past, I would always point it out to others. Now, I sometimes save these details just for me, so I can experience them as quietly and calmly as I like. Some of these things are in fact glimmers: a neon sign or the light hitting a window in a certain way. Other times, it’s a small interaction between strangers, or a flower bed I know took someone a lot of effort to design. Such things can take on extreme significance to me in a way that’s hard to explain.
While I might enjoy some of these things silently, I’ve also started giving more compliments. It’s always apparent to me when someone has put effort into something that gives them joy. Maybe their glasses, shoes, bag, and nails all match. Or they’ve arranged their meeting notes in a bullet journal style with some extra creativity. How do I make sure my compliments are respectful? I like to focus on things that the person has agency over, and avoid anything too personal.
I see this detail-oriented processing style as part of being autistic. It’s not that no one else is able to notice this kind of thing. It’s more that the intensity of my thoughts amplifies the meaning for me.
Words, Words, Words
I love language. What a profound thing for humans to have developed so many sounds and systems for meaning! To me, words are like a huge palette of colors. I enjoy picking just the right one to express what I want to say. And to be able to read a direct account of someone else’s experience from a completely different time and place? Miraculous!
I’ve come to see my fascination with language as both an extension of detail-oriented thinking, and a special interest. I’ve always collected words from school and reading, and I would try them out on my parents to solidify the new additions.
As a professor of Ancient Greek and Latin, I got to share my love of the written word with others. Not only was I teaching the languages themselves, but also writing credit courses. Helping students learn to express themselves clearly in writing was such a meaningful experience.
That’s not to say I don’t have communication challenges. I’ve had to learn that other people might not always see the full meaning behind my careful word choice, or become confused by other factors like body language.
Questioning Everything
I suspect the reason I tend to ask “why” so much has to do with bottom-up processing. Let’s say that I notice a new cultural norm. I see others doing it, but I don’t understand it. From a bigger picture perspective, it might just be something that people do without thinking about in order to fit in. For me, it is a source of mystery.
That’s because I need to understand the details of things in order to see the full meaning. So when I saw a new trend or behavior, I didn’t instinctively get it.
Social Norms
This happened a lot around 6th grade when norms shifted for me as a girl. Why would anyone care what my hair looked like, for instance? Why is one TV show cool, and another not? So much seemed arbitrary to me without a detailed explanation. The girls in my neighborhood all liked the Spice Girls, for example. How did they find out about this new music? Why was it the latest thing? And why weren’t my beloved Monkees cool? Sometimes I’d be able to latch onto a specific answer. “Ew, he’s old,” said one girl when I showed her Davy Jones. OK, perhaps old things are not cool after a while. It didn’t make sense, but it was a rule I could at least rationalize. To be clear, it didn’t stop me from loving the Monkees. It just stopped me from mentioning them to those girls anymore!
In retrospect, the most confusing thing was the presentation of opinion as the new rule in such contexts. I didn’t understand that people were expressing preferences and value judgments when they used such final language. It took me a long time to realize that.
So why is questioning things something I still value? Perhaps it would have been easier to go with the flow. But I am grateful to myself for preserving everything that was unique about me, even if I sometimes hid it from those who didn’t understand. I also see great value in questioning why our society and culture are the way they are. So often we end up uncovering harmful roots, like racism and misogyny, that still inform present practices.
Just Being Me
Finally, I value myself as a unique person in this world, and being autistic will always be a part of that. I am dedicated to speaking up for greater acceptance of neurodiversity and moving away from deficit-based thinking that doesn’t include autistic voices. That’s why I love Autistic Pride Day: it was created by autistic folks, for autistic folks.
As always, thanks for reading! If you want to stay up-to-date on the latest posts, and access OM, my free meditation tool, be sure to subscribe.
What do you value about being you? Let me know in the comments!
