MILD AUTISM
I mask, I mirror, I mimic; I prepare, I rehearse, I practice; I learn the rules and think my way through life - always the intellect before instincts; I check, I modulate, I regulate. I work at a high level of intensity to ensure I look 'normal.' And I succeed so well that people think me perfectly 'normal,' even highly able, so much so that they make extra demands and task me with additional challenges. Being so talent I should be able to meet them, they reason. It has let to conflict and the odd walking out at work. I express the difficulties I may be having most reasonably, only to have them ignored; I work so hard, I prepare so well, that I execute tasks with what seems like perfect ease - so my complaints are taken as an attempt to slack off and evade work. It's the opposite - I have been pushed to the edge and am appealing to people to give me time and space. They simply don't see it. They see the swan floating gracefully on top; they don't see the hell-for-leather paddling going on below. And the collision between appearance and reality is always debilitating and dispiriting for autistic people, forcing them to attempt, for the umpteenth time, to penetrate the impenetrable skulls of the uncomprehending.
Lesson: try to get people to look beneath the surface.
And good luck with that.
