If you could draw a picture of what autism is like to you

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What would you draw?

I'm thinking I'm drawing a picture for autism either for My book or just to draw a picture or even to make into a poster.

Just off the top my head I think I would drop picture of people wearing the same color shirt and one person wearing a rainbow shirt.

But I'm not sure about that. Anyway what do you guys think do you have any suggestions?

If you've ever seen a Vincent Van Gogh painting, it seems to me that it seems like how an autistic person would see the world in one of his/her best moods.

I would paint a room like Van Gogh's room--if I were good enough.

If I saw a group of people with the same colour shirt and one in a rainbow shirt in a picture aiming to be a graphic representation, I would assume it was trying to highlight the ration of LGB:Heterosexual.

I would find it bizarre if someone tried to take one of the most well know identifiers of a culture (not saying that LGB is a choice, but that in places a culture has developed around the sexuality) and equality campaign I would find it odd or confusing.

I think autism would be very difficult to draw in a picture because there is so much variation.

For me personally, I think I would have either a picture of scenery (leaves?), buildings or an isle in a supermarket that was very sharp (often photographers tone that down because people don't need that much detail). Or, I would agave a shot of some people playing roller derby in an over exposed setting with the focus in a strange place for neurotypicals.

I thought of this today encountering my problems where I'm trying to be normal, so do and say things normal people expect, but I overcompensate and overdo it, which is even worse.
If I was to draw a visual representation of this kind of experience of autism, I would depict a series of very ordinary views, the kind of situations you might see every day - a street, a shop, a bus, an office. Everything perfectly normal - and bisect it with a thin line that shifted the top from the bottom a few millimetres. So it looks normal at first glance or from a distance, but when you get close you realise everything is disconnected and disjointed, not meeting in the middle.

Unfortunately I am not the best at drawing.

However, if I could show an image, instead it would be an object in water, slightly refracted, showing the difference in perception that people on the spectrum have.

Not right Not wrong just slightly different in our own way.

a jigsaw puzzle reprezenting a brain

I was thinking of a magnifying glass, then noticed that the wrong planet logo has that already!


I like magnifying glass as it explains my experience of Autism quite well. Its like only ever being able to look at the world through a magnifying glass. You see and often examine a smaller area exceptionally well, often developing insights no one else notices. But your field of view can only see a small area at any one time, there is a lot of difficulty combining these close views into a wide range overview, to see the "big picture".

Switching from one point of gaze to another, is very difficult because it is affected by ASD related difficulties in task switching. What someone here called "reticulating splines". Im not sure how to embody this deficit into the image.

The WP logo features an alien looking through the magnifying glass, I guess a lot of AS'ers can feel like aliens at times. But I think that is a misnomer because autistic people have always been a fundamental component of humanity.

I would prefer to depict a small child looking through the glass, or perhaps a child within an adult, looking through the glass. Because Autism is a developmental disorder and the way we mature is very different, for myself I would describe myself as having the permanent mental age of 5-6.

the Mandelbrot set

a prisoner behind bars, because we are forever trapped in our own minds

Someone alone in a crowd of people. Someone sitting in the corner of a party and watching. Someone hesitating at the door into a crowded room, debating whether or not to just leave.