Can you define autism without listing symptoms?

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Oh oops. I guess this further supports my analogy as I did not read your comment the way you wrote it. Different thought processes=communication difficulty. Well then again most people have that problem when reading anything, all you get is the words no tone or body language (not that I would understand it anyway or that there was tone to perceive). Flat effect, what can you do.

BTW I write, speak, and think in analogies. Autistics get analogies just not the ones NTs use. They probably don’t get ours either though!

I don't think I can define autism without listing traits. To me the traits are the only objective thing about autism. Like they say, if you've met one Aspie, you've met one Aspie. There simply isn't any common core that defines us all, as far as I know.

Nearest thing I've found to that was a bad dream I had in which everybody was chronically sick of me, I tried to explain myself but it was hopeless, I couldn't communicate my position to them in any kind of a coherent way, and they clearly had no intention of giving me a chance. I approached a man who was busy working at a desk, and told him it was good to meet him. He looked briefly at me, shot me a disdainful glance, shook his head, and continued with his work.

You reminded me of all the animals and insects which visit my garden and quite happily live in harmony. The only problem they have is when my dog spots them - she has a natural tendency to chase things which move.

A few months ago a hedgehog walked up to me and looked up as if it wanted something or wanted to say something. I stood there and I did speak and asked what was the matter as this is unusual behaviour for a wild animal. It stood there for a while looking up then turned and went back under the fence. It was such a profound moment and I will never forget it.

I had a moment with a silverback at the zoo a few years ago - he just stared at me but with a neutral calmness and I remember thinking blimey, all these people and he chose to look into my eyes. Of course he may have had been thinking if he got over the wall he would eat me first.

LOL

That sure feels like me vs society.

Ok I have another one.

We take the scenic route but get there in the end.

The only two things that seem definitive to me are sensory sensitivities + processing challenges. What makes those two things relate? Synaptic connections?

Viewing the world in a different way

Autism is like living in an analogy while everyone else is living in real time.

Or like ghosts living in another dimension.

Yes, exactly!! ! I usually feel like I'm aware of a few extra dimensions, and not fully inhabited in the one most people exist in.

ghosts smoothly sliding on this planet in a beautiful but harmful solitude
whose souls are strangers to others, strangers to time, strangers to lies and sometimes strangers to themselves
deeply in love with their passions, when they find it
feeling everything intensely like a feather being moved by even a tiny breath

Neurodiverse exceptionality, expressed in many different ways which vary widely given within group difference in personality, individual talents, aptitudes, family history and educational levels, with some common factors such as dislike of loud noises, telephones as a communcation medium, small talk and ignorant stereotypes/myth-making about AS abilities especially those that ignore individual differences.

This makes me think of the Chaos Walking Trilogy by Patrick Ness. I read it before I realized I was on the spectrum and I felt like the Spackle in the book were me. Now that I'm remembering it, I feel like that even more so. I think it was meant as a teen dystopian series, and the first one reads like it, but by the third book, it was just so deep in explaining me. The Noise, the Spackle.

Ah book references