My experience of living with autism

Anyone who has read my “About me” page would already know that in around 1992 (when I was 4 or 5) I was diagnosed with “high functioning autism”.

Please note that this is only my experience and it will not be exactly the same experience as that of anyone else who is autistic. We are not all like Rain Man or Sheldon Cooper or The Good Doctor or the guy from Atypical. In fact, those are all stereotypical representations of autistic people (because it makes for interesting TV) and they do not represent most of us. If you made a TV show about my life, it would not be very exciting. There is a reason I’ve never been a blogger — I never knew what to write about.

By the way, a quick note about the term “high functioning autism”. The term is not officially used anymore because many people consider it offensive to label some autistic people as “high functioning” and others as “low functioning” and I can see where they’re coming from.

This infographic gives a bit of a context:

This was before they started using the term Asperger’s (short for Asperger Syndrome) which was an official diagnosis used from 1994 to 2013. However the term Asperger’s is also no longer used because Hans Asperger (whom it was named after) apparently did some rather cruel experiments back in the day.

So from 2013 onwards, the official medical term has been Autism Spectrum Disorder. I believe they have Levels 1, 2 and 3 and that I would most likely be Level 1, meaning that I function similar to how a neurotypical person (i.e. someone who is not autistic and does not have ADHD or anything else that falls under being “neurodivergent”) would. That is, in the sense that I have held own a full time job for over 12 years, I’ve been driving a car for years, I don’t have major sensory issues around flashing lights and loud noises, I don’t need a carer (in fact my family all live interstate) and I’ve never once had a meltdown in public.

That being said, I still face challenges in my daily life that most people don’t. When I am interacting with someone, it is probably difficult to tell what I am actually thinking unless I verbalise it. And (someone said to me once) this tends to be a turn off to most people. It often weirds people out if you don’t use a lot of facial expressions and they can’t tell what you’re thinking.

Also, eye contact is another thing that I have always struggled with. I can give people eye contact when I’m speaking to them but I have to remind myself to do it. Whereas most people are trained to just do it without thinking (although there are exceptions — shy, nerdy types are less inclined to do this and they may not necessarily be autistic). I struggle with intense eye contact though because it generally makes me uncomfortable, because it feels like I’m staring at the other person and I’m not used to that.

So while I am able to function in society, I will always be seen as different to most people and it is what it is. Some things I struggle with include:

· Making friends, especially close friendships with people. I do many surface-level friends and acquaintances but I haven’t had a best friend in a long time. I had one best friend once but I moved away and we’re just old friends now.

· Dating and everything about it. Anyone who has seen Love On The Spectrum would know what I mean by this. I could probably write a whole article about this subject if I wanted to.

· Loud environments. While I don’t have sensory issues, I often struggle to enjoy being in loud environments like noisy bars and nightclubs, especially when I’m trying to talk to people

· Limited attention span. Sometimes in a social (or work) setting, I will tune in and out while someone is talking and miss what people are saying. I hate this about myself and I feel like people often hate me for it. I’m aware that it’s considered rude. And because of this, I’m often that person who doesn’t know what’s going on. In other words, I often have issues with paying attention to people for long periods of time but I don’t have ADHD as far as I know (but that doesn’t mean I can’t have one or two of the symptoms).

The funny thing is that I also often get annoyed when someone else does the same to me (when they look around the room or they look like they’re not interested in paying attention to you).

· Understanding humour. This may not be a typical comment from an autistic person but I actually do enjoy comedy. Whether it’s stand up comedy or comedy movies or sketch comedy or British comedy or American comedy or adult humour or dad jokes. But often I will need a moment to process the joke. It’s often happened that someone has made a joke while talking to me and it’s taken me a moment to process what they meant. And of course if you have to explain the joke then it’s no longer funny.

Also, if they’re being subtle about it, it can take me a moment to realise that they’re being sarcastic. Although as an Australian, we tend to love sarcasm. It’s just how we communicate. I even use it myself. But people can usually tell if I’m being sarcastic.

· Career advancement. I’ll explain what I mean by this. If you give me a job to do, you tell me what you want done, when you need it done, and how you want it done, then I will happily do it. In fact, that tends to be how I work. I’m good at tasks that are process driven. You learn how the process works. You repeat the process a number of times and you get good at it.

It’s why I liked maths when I was growing up. Because that’s what maths is. You either follow the process correctly and get it right or you don’t and you get it wrong. Whereas with English, if you write an essay, it will not necessarily be right or wrong, it’s just you’re interpretation of something. And don’t get me wrong, I can do that too. I’m writing this article for example. But it’s not as straight forward to me as following a process and just doing a task.

That being said, I do have a brain and I can use my initiative when I need to. But I have absolutely no interest in getting involved with office politics, learning how to play the game, or spending most of my free time obsessing over my career and how to climb the ladder. I come in (when I’m in the office, we used to be in the office 5 days a week but now we can WFH 2 days a week), I do my job and then I go home. And I will not feel bad about not being someone who is super focused on career advancement (not that there’s anything wrong with that if it makes you happy).

I’m also not very good at job interviews or convincing people why they should give me a job that I have no experience in (I applied for such jobs on a number of occasions because I wanted to do something different). In fact, I sort of gave up on applying for new jobs a few years ago. But I’m not too worried about it. As long as the mortgage is getting paid, I’m living comfortably and I don’t hate going to work… I can’t really complain, I guess.

I actually like my colleagues and my job pays me well and I love that I don’t have to think about work when I’m not at work (in the evenings and weekends). I work to live, not the other way around.

That’s probably enough for now. But if you any further questions, I’m happy to answer them. I may even expand on my experiences further in another article. Thanks for reading.