The Autists: women on the spectrum

Yet the autistic woman is not masking with the intention of being deceitful. Her true self is invisible even to her own person. She is masking to fit in, and doing so unconsciously. Often, she doesn’t even understand that she has been camouflaging herself until she gets her diagnosis. Before that, she thinks her struggle is everyone else’s, too. At

The rigid criteria that are used in the name of rational organisation assume that all employees are the same. And the more you assume that all people are the same — and thus interchangeable — the worse the conditions become for the autists, who are different from the majority.

School is an artificial environment in which society has decided that children should be able to function. It’s loud, crowded, and unpredictable, and students with a neuropsychiatric diagnosis are often bullied. Refusing to go doesn’t appear all that strange. Why would anyone want to be part of such a setting?

Some doubt the power of fiction to touch us to the core and influence our feelings and behaviours. They have never seen an autistic girl watch the same episode of a tween show on repeat, memorising each line so she can speak to her friends in the schoolyard.

One can be separate from the collective yet a part of the world. For some people, standing on the sidelines is enough. Some of us are happier watching.

Among these traits: not enjoying talk about feelings and relationships, preferring to sit alone in one’s room and immerse oneself in one’s own interests, having a hard time grasping subtext, and not being able to sugar-coat one’s words.

As a woman, I have come to understand that I’m expected to speak in code. That is what most people do. For this reason, I’m often interpreted as speaking with a subtext, even when there is none.

Parents of autistic girls who keep it together at school speak of difficulties simply getting school representatives to believe in the diagnosis. The teachers don’t see the girls breaking down at home after the end of the school day.

Among American autists with a university education, 85 per cent are unemployed.