Why I "act autistic"

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Here is the revised version of my document of why I act autistic when I do.


Why some autistics do or don’t do certain things
It is not because we are incompetent at anything!
1. We tic because we are trying hard not to say something embarrassing, so we concentrate so much on it that we say it. And/or our tics are stimming.
2. We speak in a formal way to show others that we’re not losers, that we have our own culture.
3. We are good with computers because it’s easier to socialize on a computer… less
attention/energy needed, less dangerous, and we often use writing to explain what we can’t explain on the spot.
4. We may be easily peer pressured, because we are really sensitive and don’t want to hurt another’s feelings and know we can make ourselves like what they like.
5. Sometimes we are not easily peer pressured. We are smarter than our peers’ propositions. Either because we know a lot so we know it’s best for us not to take part, or because our special interests are “smarter”.
6. We have social anxiety because we don’t want to bump into evil, so we don’t look in people’s eyes… because we think that if we do, there is evil/deadness in them.
7. We are not physically fit, because in team sports nobody wants us on their team, and/or our special interest currently doesn’t involve physical fitness.
8. We dislike certain textures because it’s just hypersensitivity to what we touch and ingest… it’s a good instinct to have to avoid injury/poisoning!
9. Sometimes we don’t let others get a word in edgewise. We feel that what we are talking about is more important than talk about an overdue library book or a ski trip everyone found boring.
10. We learn to read and write early to show we have intelligence despite our shortcomings that get our caretakers so annoyed, and we also learn to read and write early to show we have our own culture away from the people who are trying to raise us.
11. We don’t blindly trust people. This is because we don’t look at their expressions to see if they can be trusted.
12. We don’t get others’ facial expressions/body language/tone because we don’t look, we don’t want to see their dead eyes, or we’re focused on something more stimulating than that, whether that stimulation is in or outside our heads.
13. We are hyper- or hypo-sensitive to pain. Sensitivity is good for survival provided it causes no mental trauma, and hyposensitivity is a “turn it off and focus on something happier” instinct.
14. We are often atheists. We don’t understand that WE could be hallucinating rather than the
people who have those near-death experiences with the afterlife. We don’t understand that other beings may cause us to hallucinate normality so we don’t see so-called supernatural things. When we believe, we can see where it came from; we need to know that if we believe something it’s obviously there in one way, because we believed it. Often we don’t know this, and often we have to figure it out for ourselves.
15. We don’t seem to have intuition. It’s different kinds of intuition a lot of us have.
16. We don’t lie, or we suck at lying, or both. We feel guilty about lying so we don’t try. The honest part of you will win over the need-to-deceive part.
17. We use strict routines sometimes because we are productive people, needing to do something or get it done or both, with no interruptions, especially if interruptions involve losing one’s train of thought.
18. We don’t remember faces/names/visual things sometimes. This is because we don’t pay attention, for many of the reasons above.
19. We stim because we need stimulation, and this gives us stimulation better than nothing when we aren’t provided with enough.
20. We have meltdowns or start skipping important things because again, we need to keep our train of thought and production up in the important things we are figuring out or doing.
21. We may identify with animals more than with people, because certain animals will be loyal to us no matter what, or don’t pick on us.
22. We are often the last to get the point of a joke, because we are not paying attention for various reasons, or because we have a whole lot of other stuff going on in our heads that we need to sort out before thinking about some joke.
23. Our minds are also often too busy to care what others think.
24. We often can’t explain ourselves on the spot. This is our fear of them thinking we don’t have a good explanation, or us knowing more than we are able to communicate.
25. Sometimes we say something that makes sense but wasn’t something we intended to say.
26. We often don’t make eye contact (fear of seeing evil in the eyes, social anxiety, not paying attention, etc).
27. We seem to lack empathy. (See the stuff I wrote in these lists about objects and animals, also let me add that we don’t get more empathy when you scold/shame/humiliate/scare/hurt us for lacking empathy… you doing that shows YOU lack empathy.)
28. It is hard sometimes for us to change because old habits die hard and our minds might be too full of other stuff we need to do or think out to concentrate much on changing. We are used to our old survival habits and simple mistakes that even though we know better or no longer have to or are forced to do these things, it’s hard to stop.
29. We don’t seem to learn from our mistakes. We don’t want to stop just because someone tells us to, even if we know they’re right because we know why we SHOULD stop. This is because we don’t want others to think we can be bossed/pushed around. It’s a poor way of showing it, admittedly… we should just ask why and we have the right to a truthful answer.
30. We don’t like change because we are faster, we need to do something constructive now, and there is no time to stop to change tasks. If there was no need to stop between tasks, and there was a perfect flow in it from one task to the other, then maybe we would find it easier to change tasks.
31. We are inattentive. We are understimulated, and/or just taking our mind to a place where it is better and/or we are treated better… like stimulated more.
32. We are clumsy… social anxiety is explained in the “weird moments” section, also “why we are inattentive”.
33. We sometimes don’t seem to show emotion for others. Often we were used to holding back because our mean caregivers didn’t deserve our affection, and so old habits die hard for us in this circumstance.
34. We are obsessed with fairness because we have bad luck more than usual and it seems unfair.
35. We sometimes have foreign accents when we aren’t foreign. Sometimes it’s because we’re pretending to be someone we would rather be.
36. We often refuse treatment for autism due to pride. Also, we don’t like them thinking autism is bad, and some treatments for it are abusive. Furthermore, we DON’T NEED TREATMENT… it is NOT A DISEASE OR DEFECT.
37. We often have obsessions, also called fixations or special interests. Because stimulation is needed, escape is needed, community where we’re loved is needed. Some obsessions have communities.
38. We repeat things seemingly for no reason because we are stalling until we can find something to say next. This is social anxiety. Other times we don’t think the person we are talking to is listening so we feel the need to pound it into their head. If we say something five different ways, it is to make sure the people we say it to understand what we meant.
39. We often don’t want to make friends or get noticed because when people talk about us, they talk about our embarrassing moments too. Then our friends remember them, and any new friends now know about them. Something we often don’t want.
40. We rigidly follow some rules. We are moral watchdogs because of the way we’ve been treated, especially by do-gooders.
41. We often dress weird. Sometimes it’s caring about the bigger things in or outside our minds, sometimes it’s sensory issues, other times we try to be different to punish the ones who tell us what to do or pick on us, other times we try to be different but have a system so we are seen as having art skills and not be seen as totally random. Sometimes it doesn’t seem to work.
42. We often have sensory issues with touch. Sometimes it’s sensory over-or under-stimulation, other times it’s hypersensitivity to what we touch and ingest (see the food section).
43. We love some objects more than we love some people. A cute teddy bear rather than the rage in a NT’s face, for example. Especially if the NT is railing that he hates autism! The bear is alive in a sense, and nice to look at.
44. We often can’t take some or all criticism. Often because it’s wrong or done by know-it-alls who think/do to us all of the awful things on this site in the “About the anti-autistics” section. Then we get criticised for not being nicer to them!
45. We sometimes can’t take compliments. We don’t want people to think we are arrogant.
46. We don’t seem to do well in life—school, work, friendships, family, etc. We are actually trying to devise a plan to be different from and better than the others and/or make up for lost time.
47. We are often picky eaters. Cravings and anti-cravings are necessary instincts so that we get what we need and don’t get poisoned, and are heightened with some of us.
48. We are embarrassed easily because we tend to do things different from how others are doing them and we might mess up what they are doing in the process. This causes them to scold/punish/shame us more than the average person is scolded/punished/shamed.
49. We are often paranoid, due to the crap happening to us that is in the “anti-autistics” part of this site.
50. We often talk too loud because we are lonely/understimulated and need to hear noise.
51. We have weird moments—social anxiety causing us to look at the door and then at the person and then at the door, going between fight/flee/play dead/reason, etc. movements, which seems disorganized… we also need stimulation sometimes so we will need to move, even if it seems weird at the time. Others move weirdly to relieve odd sensory problems (banging one’s head to relieve pressure, etc).
52. We often have such good rote memories. Because we have no life because we are rejected because we are autistic. What happens next is because not a lot goes on in the life, there is less to have to remember. So more space for our special interests. We also use this as a way of impressing people and making ourselves seem intelligent even though we think we are not. But we don’t want others to know that.
53. We also sometimes have non-emotional attachments to objects. Sometimes it’s security—“They won’t take THIS away!”—etc. so at least we feel like we have that one little right to keep whatever it is.
54. We sometimes have funny/different/“inappropriate” expressions and/or funny/different/“inappropriate” tones. Sometimes it’s a stim, other times it’s daydreaming/reading about something not related to the conversation going on in front of us.
55. Sometimes we don’t marry fast/young/at all (not trusting after others’ cruel rejection or our requirements for how we want to be treated not being met).
56. Others of us do marry fast/young/soon/at all (to prove we can do it, or because we are blown away by someone who is so nice and genuine after years of meanness and lies, or because we want kids because we’re lonely or want another autistic around, someone to understand and who will understand us.
57. We often aren’t interested in the same things as our peers. We may need more stimulation than them, or we’re already wrapped up in our own obsessions as they just start developing passions).
58. We are often ashamed of our diagnoses. We know a lot of people think autism is bad, so we don’t tell them for fear they will think we’re like THAT.
59. We often don’t know the same things as our peers. We aren’t interested (see the section about us not being interested in the same things as our peers).
60. We often get depressed and/or anxious and/or easily angry. We often get bothered every day by the things people do to us that I wrote on this site.
61. We often don’t respect authority figures. Authority figures often do a lot of the bad stuff I talked about on this site.

Item #37 is becoming an ever-growing trend on the Internet. Think about social networking sites, forums, fanpages, etc. They consist of individuals with a specific thing or things in common. Wanting to be part of a community where others share similar interests isn't relegated to the realm of ASD; it's very much a factor of what drives humanity to form social connections.

I don't think you can generalize AS like that. That may be "you" but the only thing I know for sure about "we" is that we're all different. I don't think your reasons apply to every case of AS.

While I can relate to a majority of what is posted, I can't relate to all of it, and feel "we" is a generalization. It also makes me feel like I'm part of a sub-human culture. I don't normally explain myself to everyone I meet, therefore some of my quirks may be taken the wrong way, but who gives?
I don't want to have to explain myself to people, and tell them every little strange thing I do/ experience. I think many people on the spectrum might instinctively isolate themselves, but that doesn't mean we all like the isolation.

I guess I don't want some NT person to read something like this and think we're all like this, when a lot of us have worked years on specific ASD quirks, only to find ourselves lumped into categories once more so we're all seen in the same light like farm animals.

I don't want to be a tourist attraction, or a bizarre zoo where people can come in, observe me for a while then assume they know everything about me. Every aspie/ autistic person is different, just like every NT person is different and should all be respected that way.

Yup. The only reason I believe in labels is I make my own.

But, cool you got your personality coded so confidently.

I speak formally because it's the easiest way for me to speak. I have to try hard at colloquialisms.

I don't have any social anxiety; I don't look at people's eyes simply becaue it's never struck me as a place I should look.

I won money for winning a 5k fun run once.

Something tells me microfibre isn't exactly going to cause me a horrible injury, yet I still vomit if I touch it.

Personally I am more hyposensitive to pain if I'm focusing on it, rather than the other way around.

I stim to calm down and get rid of excess energy, not to get myself 'stimulated', so for me the word is a misnomer.

I could be doing a lot more important things than melting down. I meltdown because of stimulus overload.

I have a life. Thanks.

I could go on but I think you get the point. Sure, there's some things on the list that resonate, but mostly not. Like others have said, it's quite a generalisation to use 'we', but it's interesting to see your perspective on things, so thanks for sharing.

I SAID dont take it generally, I said SOME autistics, not ALL.

Yeah but you also said we 61 times and I think that's what people tend to focus on. Relax.

True. A lot of people find it weird to chat with me, because I start each sentence with a capital letter and I use punctuation everywhere it is necessary (whereas most other people just type in loose strings of words).

In fact, a guy once asked me "Why are you always so formal on IM?"

Anyway, most things on the list are true, but then again, every person has their own unique traits.

It's not an act, it's a performance of brilliance.

Honestly, this is much better than the DSM, I think most ASD will relate to the majority of those items.

I relate to most of them. I don't look in people's eyes because:

a) I don't know how much would cross the line to staring and
b) it makes talking and listening more difficult, and that's already hard enough.