Dear John, Hi there! I suppose I’d better introduce myself. I’m you, or rather I’m who you will be in

Dear John,As you may have noticed, all these letters are titled with what we might describe as “interesting lies”. Some

Dear John,You’ve already noticed that you aren’t “normal”, or “neurotypical” as we’d say now.You usually try to describe that by

Dear John,Now I know that you don’t like being told that you’re bad at stuff, so it’s important to be

  Dear John,Now I know how you’d respond to this statement. You’d either reject it outright as clearly nonsense, or

Dear John,When you were 8 or so, someone at school who was well-meaning but incompetent told you that looking at

Dear John, When “normal” people communicate with each other, there are loads of different data streams going on. When a

Dear John, This lie comes from two different directions. One of them is the “autism deniers” who don’t think there’s

Dear John, This has been said far too many times to children to encourage them to aim high. It’s obviously

Dear John, This statement is just wrong – absence of empathy is a characteristic of psychopaths and/or narcissists, not autistic

Dear John, So is autism a disability or not?   I’ve resisted that label for a long time; I think

Dear John, I’ve already said that we are valuable because we were created in God’s image. But what does that

Dear John, I’ve writen about quite a few autistic traits I still can’t do much about, like eye contact.  

Dear John, So is autism your fault?   There’s an old prayer of confession that goes as follows: Almighty God,

  Dear John, People often use autism (or any other type of neurodiversity, real or claimed) as an excuse for

Dear John, In thinking and writing about autism, I keep on coming back to the Bible story of Adam and

Dear John, So you’re broken. The natural human reaction to that is shame, which sometimes issues in loud denials. I’ve

Dear John, Back to the Bible story. In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve rebelled against God, and so were kicked

Dear John, Like many kids, my parents told me about Father Christmas. As a real little scientist, I thought some

Dear John, This can be something of a stereotype. I think that when it’s true it’s because we can often

  Dear John, One of the great advantages of being autistic is that you’re immune from some of the psychological

Dear John, There’s a proverb you really like, but you often get it badly wrong.  To understand why you are

Dear John, The most famous people with autism tend to be exceptionally good at something – often maths or some

Dear John, Albert Einstein (or someone – sources vary) famously said “Education is what remains after one has forgotten what

Dear John, There’s a stereotype that autistic people aren’t religious. At your age, I certainly wouldn’t have described myself as

Dear John, There are all kinds of factors which mean that you lean towards self-sufficiency. You are a man, very

Dear John, Yes, you need others but the reverse is also true. Your skill set means that you have a

Dear John, This one is blatantly untrue and offensive, isn’t it? But it needs saying. Here’s an example, which I

  Dear John, Right, so this one is clearly nonsense, isn’t it? There’s no way that God is autistic. And

Dear John, So I’ve said that I’ve learnt lots of skills and so on, so that I don’t come across