The Difficulty of Thanking People When You’re Autistic

I made a list of all the people that had a meaningful impact on my life as I wrote my book Life as a Late-Identified Autistic.

That kind of thing is normally reserved for the “Acknowledgments” section of a book.

However, when it came to writing my own acknowledgments, it was extremely hard to express my gratitude in a concise manner. I could write an essay about each person.

Furthermore, I want to make sure the reader and the person I’m thanking fully understands why I’m grateful, which means I want to provide lots of context and examples.

But who wants to read a 20 page acknowledgment?

I also felt like I then had to weigh each acknowledgment against the other.

I worried, “What if the person thinks someone else’s acknowledgment is better? What if they wonder why I didn’t thank them for something that I thanked someone else for? What if they think I must like them less or be less grateful?”

Illustration from my book Making it Through Chemotherapy

This mental examination is a very autistic thing of me to do.

When it came down to it, it was just too much pressure.

But don’t worry, I found a way out of it.