Dear John,

This lie comes from two different directions.

One of them is the “autism deniers” who don’t think there’s any such thing – that all the differences between you and “normal” people are you being fussy or naughty.

The other is from the “autism affirmers”, who would say that autism is just a different way of being. I was one of those until fairly recently, and I’ve still got a lot of sympathy with it as a point of view. I still prefer the way I communicate, for example. There’s still a lot of truth in it, which I’ll write about later.

What changed my mind is discovering that although autism has as many different sets of symptoms as there are people with it, there are four consistent clusters of symptoms.

• Difficulty in social interaction, particularly with non-verbal communication
• Language use, especially difficulty understanding imprecise and nonsystematic language.
• Systematising tendancies, especially with routines and wanting predictability.
• Difficulty in sensory filtering, leading to the distinct possibility of sensory overload. Some people manage this with repeated actions – stims (e.g. rocking).

Many people now think that the sensory issues might actually be primary. Yes, on a lot of these issues you’re just different from others, and there’s nothing objectively worse about your way of doing things. There are even some things that are better! And I know that most of the time for you, the sensory issues seem relatively minor, largely because you avoid situations where they might be a problem, but their existence shows that there is actually something wrong with you. In your case, it’s mostly to do with hearing and sound. This is why in any large gathering of people you always want to sit on the edge. This is why you can’t hear people talk if there is music playing or are other discussions going on in the same room at the same time. This is why so many events that are designed to facilitate social connection actually leave you feeling out of it.

All the best,

Future John