My Autism

My amazing friend Chip has kindly contributed to our blog. His words and thoughts seem to bring to life so much that affects so many of us. Thank you for sharing with such openness and honesty.

April 25, 2024

 There’s a saying in the autistic community.

“If you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person”

Autistic people are very different from one to the next. We all have similar struggles , communication, recognizing emotions, both in ourselves and others. Regulating those emotions is also a common challenge.

I believe autism affects all of us in exactly the same way but for reasons unknown to me we all are able to deal with these affects differently. I’m not a doctor, I’ve done no studies other than living an autistic life and observing family members that are autistic as well. 

This doesn’t make me an expert on autism in general but it does make me an expert on my autism.

My autism isn’t readily apparent. I am a very high masking individual. I’m not high functioning. To describe me as that is to diminish my needs.

I have been diagnosed as a level 3 autistic individual. Here in the US that is the most severe diagnosis of autism. In need of very substantial support. If you were to interact with me you would not suspect I am severely autistic. If you know me you would never believe this to be the case either. As I said , I am very high masking.

I, with great difficulty unbeknownst to others, can hold a job. I can have a seemingly intelligent conversation with you, seemingly because I am just regurgitating words and phrases I’ve learned that are applicable to a great many subjects. I very often have a limited understanding of these words and phrases other than how they seem to fit into the language of a particular subject.

I am not what I seem because of my high masking ability. This isn’t done in as much of an effort to deceive but to survive the world I live in.

I am of above average intelligence, this is how I am able to mask my autism when my needs are being met.

Describing my needs is as difficult as it has been to recognize them.

I need to not have negative interactions with people, ofcourse this isn’t practical when living in our world. People disagree. There are many people who cannot disagree peaceably and will react with aggressive language or actions. This type reaction causes extreme emotion within me to the point that I cannot represent myself accurately. When giving so much effort to regulating these extreme emotions my higher cortex does not function as well ,limiting my thought and speech processes. The only control I have at that time is fight or flight. Flight is what I consistently choose. This flight can take the form of me removing myself physically from an area or when there’s no where to go I will retreat into myself. I become mute and won’t  make eye contact as to have no further contact with the person causing this reaction. Regulating myself from this type interaction can take hours, days , weeks or even months to fully recover.

So one of my needs is for people to be nice to me. In today’s world that is as much a very substantial need as I can think of.

Another one of my needs is to have a place of solitude to retreat to when overloaded . Whenever I encounter too much stimuli for too long of a period of time I will go into burnout. It’s as if my brain is shutting down and simple functions like speaking or recalling familiar words escape me. I need a quiet place to be where I can reboot the system. This is not easily done in my work environment that requires I be present and physically working on machines. So this is another substantial need I have.

Normal activities away from work are extremely difficult for me too. Socializing , paying bills or even grocery shopping can become difficult tasks for me to perform. Life is full of so much responsibility. I can’t explain why these responsibilities are so overwhelming to me other than to say it’s because I’m autistic.My autism separates me from most people, with the exception of my family. A loving wife and children that support me and depend on me is a  big need of mine. Life before my family was barely life at all. This is my most substantial need. Love and appreciation, I’m so fortunate to have this need fufilled. Without it I am capable of little more than a minuscule existence.

As I said, describing my needs can be difficult but when my needs are being met I am a very capable person. As capable as most anyone. Take those needs away and my ability to function in society is very much diminished .

My autism makes me , me.

So now that you’ve met me , you’ve met one autistic person.