WHAT IS IT LIKE FOR AN AUTISTIC PERSON TO WANT TO BE NEUROTYPICAL?

• Autism is like standing outside and looking through the window. It looks like they are having fun. Parallel lives. You love having fun too. You want to join in, but something holds you back. A thousand butterflies. 🦋

• YOU NEED OTHER PEOPLE TO AUTOMATICALLY INCLUDE YOU.

SOMEONE TO SHOW YOU HOW TO OPEN DOORS. You stand outside looking wistfully through the window. Someone notices you. “Are you coming in?"

• EXCITEMENT? You try to tell yourself this is what excitement feels like. Stage fright? It feels like a very stressful sort of excitement. Butterflies in the tummy? 🦋Excitement not stress? A nameless internal tension is thruming.

• You try to be brave. You haven’t got a ticket. You don’t know where you would sit. You don’t have anyone to sit with. You know you will want to have a drink, but you don’t know how you would choose. Everything is too difficult.

• CATCH 22, contradictions. You want to run away to a safe place. But if you do that you cannot be part of the fun. Nail bitingly stressful. No shapes or sizes to the stress. Just a mind-numbing head-ache fog.

• THE GESTALT SWITCH. You follow them in. You find that the door was open, and you didn’t need tickets. You start to be able to plan for next time. You plan some default decisions. Next time you chose soda and lime. You may be hit by sudden shyness as you notice for the first time that you have not dressed yourself for a party. It never entered your head before. Next time? You will plan what clothes and shoes to wear.

• SELF AWARENESS. Your really-good comfortable walking shoes seem inappropriate. 🎩Unless you catch a relection of yourself, you have no thoughts about what you look like.🩰 Your only awareness of your clothes is whether you are too hot or too cold, or whether a label is chaffing your skin. You know about the interface between the your skin, and contact with the rest of the world, which is your clothes outwards. Your clothes are not you. You are more than skin deep.

• YOU HAVE A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE. 👠👡You see some fashion victims tottering around on dangerously high heels, or tight trousers, or 💫bling tops with scratchy sequins on. How could they stand those clothes touching them? You are the opposite of a fashion victim. You might wear drab clothes that are comfortable, but you don’t see yourself. You see past yourself and see everyone else.

• EVERYONE ELSE IS A PACKAGE DEAL. 🧩 You see them as a full set. A piece of a jigsaw puzzle. Height appearance, location, who they are with, the sounds and smells surrounding them.

• If you meet them out of context🧩 you might not recognise them as the same person. They will recognise you every time. You learn to greet everyone in a friendly way. If they let on to you, you have time to trawl your autistic brain to remember who they are.

• I NEED FRIENDLINESS. Good general vibes. I don’t want to be a drag, or a cling-on. You need other people, but other people don’t need you. You have no idea what question you are pondering about. It is nebulous, all part of the fog. Help please. Most of all, I want other people to take my hand and show me how to open those doors. If you don’t ask, you don’t get. I am not helpless. I have learned that I have a tongue in my head, I can ask. Nothing to lose. Only fear.

• SENSORY OVERLOAD. You see everything in stark high relief. You want blinkers, or earplugs, or filtered spectacles so it is not overwhelming. Perversely, you might enjoy THE WHOLE

• EXPERIENCE of showbusiness, or your specialist subject. You think in joined up sentences and moving panoramic pictures. You become animated. Lively attractive. Then you are in your element. In the zone.

You learn. Your mind is not set in stone. You can become happy in your own skin. You learn your limitations, and set your own boundaries. It makes sense all round. It is logical, good social manners, and when you feel comfortable enough. you can build your own social niche. I am a butterfly. I do not belong to one group or another.

After a long time people who know and like me make a space for me. I have that sense of belonging. Community. I am lucky that people sometimes adopt me, like I am a distant relation in an extended family.

You learn that 5 minutes is a long time to captivate an audience. You turn your shaggy dog stories into neat anecdotes. You do not want to be a bore.

I want an intermediary who understands all worlds. Some who can gently prompt me when I have no idea what I am neglecting. It has not entered my head. I have no concept of wanting to be different. I always ‘knew’ I was different. Most of my ‘difference’ was in a good way. I do love myself, but some of it is bravado.

• BEMUSING. I did not understand why some apparently simple things were so emotionally draining and difficult for me. I figured out that we all had strengths and weaknesses, and that was part of the package deal.

• I AM A CHILD OF THE UNIVERSE. I do not try to analysis or dissect life like a psychologist might. I have a holisitic perspective. Everything touches everything else. If one thing changes there is a knock-on effect. 🎲 You have to take your chances.

• I am happy to be me. I am a good horse whisperer, but not so good at second-guessing people 🥰 It is not good to be alone for too long. I need people about me, just getting on with whatever they are doing.