There are many ways of doing things, many pathways to successful ends and outcomes. Since some things don't come as easily to autistic people as they do to neurotypical people, they will tend to explore the more indirect routes of social existence, the long and winding roads to wherever it is best to be. The problems come in the confrontation with successfully socialized others who never fail to point out how you are doing it all wrong. Such people play the percentages, especially those who work in the dominant social institutions. I had constant problems with teachers at schools, who simply thought I was being deliberately contrary. I struggled badly at school and was always somewhat off the pace, a middling performer in the second stream. By a miracle I survived to make it to sixth form college. The further you go in education, the more you have responsibility for your own learning. Once I was allowed to take control of my learning and proceed in my own time and space I flew - my academic results got better and better the further and higher I went in the education system. At the higher levels my independence and idiosyncratic tendencies became virtues.
The world of employment was a nightmare from the first. Beginning with my careers officer in secondary school my dealings with employment advisers of all kinds have been disastrous, a dialogue of the deaf. 'Most people' will advise with respect to 'what works' for 'most people.' They may well be right. The problem is that autistic people are not 'most people.' Time and again I have been confronted by advisers who are experts in probabilities and generalities but utterly incapable of seeing particularities and peculiarities.
You learn to close your ears to people who think they know better. It is those people who are in need of advice and education. Not that they will see it that way. To them, the successfully socialised, they are the ones who are in the right, doing things the right way, and it is the others, the people who are struggling and in need of help and support, who are in the wrong. The logical corollary of such a mentality is that people are failing on account of their own errors. In addition to all the difficulties facing autistic people is the blame and shame successfully adapted neurotyticals heap upon them whenever they seek help and support. You reach out to others only to be constantly told that you are the author of your own problems - see the error of your ways and change! It is no wonder that many people stop reaching out.
If I appear stubborn it's because I have learned that people on the outside who think they know better are experts only on the little they know - that works for them and "most people." When you are not one of "most people," the advice they offer is worse than useless.
And I never go a day without praising myself for getting so much right against the odds, and winning so many little victories in the teeth of adversity and 'advice.' The people who see only error, oddness, and incongruity see nothing, least of all the uncanny ability to get all the right results by employing all the wrong means.
The take-home for autistic people
My advice to autistic people is this: never ever let the disapproval, criticism, condescension, and disdain of others harm your own sense of self-worth and have you questioning your own judgement. You are the expert on yourself, they are experts by way of nothing but their own experience - which is to say that they know nothing about you at all. Have the courage to trust your own judgement; you are wiser and smarter than you may know, and certainly wiser and smarter than those who think they know better.
I would also give a final piece of advice, to myself as much as to anyone else: don't waste your time and drain your energies in fighting constant battles against uncomprehending 'experts.' It is debilitating and you need your energy for more creative endeavours leading to positive outcomes. It is not your job to educate the know-nothings who already think they know it all. It may be irritating. And, like many autistic people, I tend to 'debate' injustices and calumnies over again in my head until some kind of reconciliation is attained. You cannot but feel the urge to argue back, and it is not something that you can easily suppress. But you can waste so much of your precious time and energy on people and issues that are not worth it. Learn to identify the phenomenon, learn the ability to detach yourself from it, to take time and space to pause and think, and make the decision not to become absorbed in it - objectify it, freeze it, isolate it, distance yourself from it, leave it behind, move on. The same with respect to people. You will 'click' with some people, cherish them. With others you will be constantly at cross purposes. They are not worthy of your time and talent. They may be impossible to avoid, especially when you are having to deal with various social bodies and institutions. 'This is not a fight you can win,' I was once told by a tone-deaf employment adviser in 2010. She was right. She was doing everything by the rules and regulations, which were stiff and straight when my predicament required a certain bending. She knew I was right, but simply had no scope to bend to accommodate my idiosyncracies. Such is life in the social world for autistic people. I was working myself into a fevered frenzy pressing the rightness of my cause, and she stated the simple truth simply - 'society' is not for bending, and doesn't care in any case. You ask for accommodation only to be told to adapt.
The injustice of it all is depressing and debilitating.
To avoid collapsing under the weight, I frequently remind myself of how incredibly good I am in living well in adversity, valuing and enjoying the things I like, finding ways of compensating for the things I lack, and becoming so good at it as to overcompensate! Too much of a good thing is simply marvellous!
For years I would allow myself to become embroiled in head-to-head arguments and conflicts. I have a fairly pugilistic nature and tend to march to the sound of the guns. I loathe injustice and bullying and condescension and feel the need to take up the cudgels whenever I come across these things. If I don't respond I will tend to have the fight and the argument anyway, in my own head as the battleground. Self-knowledge is liberating. It's good to know that other autistic people have the same issue and know that they do exactly the same thing. It's good to know, too, that you don't have to accept the invitation to every fight that comes your way - you can let it go and move on without the need to feel frustrated at the continued existence of some wrong to be righted. My old Director of Studies at university noted my tendency to take on every fight that came my way. He told me that my time, talent, and energy is better employed elsewhere - 'there's a lot of rubbish in the world, you can't take it all on.'
Identify it, objectify it, alienate it, move swiftly on!
Rather than allow yourself to be upset by the 'advice' of those who think they know better, remind yourself of all that you get right in the most unpropitious circumstances, praise yourself, and treat yourself to whatever it is that you enjoy! You are doing well. Learn to remind yourself of that. Feel free to tell and remind others, too, but remember always that you don't need anyone's approval and validation - you know better than they do.
