Autistic Insights Ongoing Series (twenty entries total)

Lara Schaeffer began the Autistic Insights series in early 2024 through her profile on LinkedIn. She has been an active advocate and supporter of autistic individuals through this account since July 2022, and has gained over 14K followers since that time.

Lara intends the Autistic Insights series to highlight one aspect of autism at a time, and aims for a non-autistic audience to be among her readers. In this way, she hopes to educate them about lesser-known aspects of autism, foster empathy, compassion, and understanding for autistic people, and continue to work to de-stigmatize autism in general.

ONE 

If you have an autistic employee or co-worker, or anyone close to you in your life is autistic, it's important to be aware of something that commonly affects many of us: autistic inertia. 

While some people are comfortable with interruptions at work, others, whether neurodivergent or not, simply prefer to focus without being disrupted.

But for an autistic person, interruptions while in high productivity mode can be especially jarring and invasive.

I usually explain autistic inertia by referring to starting a large, lead ball rolling…it can take some effort, but, once rolling, that ball moves forcefully (and, speaking of a real person, moves with clear drive and mission). 

A sudden, unanticipated interruption to forward progress easily throws it off course or may stop it entirely…and then starting again requires the summoning of another great effort.

After diving into a project or starting an intensive task, many autistic individuals like to work without interruptions to fully embrace the productivity that focused concentration brings. 

Speaking for myself, I can get a bit bothered when interrupted during deep thinking or brainstorming.

Even a friendly greeting or casual remark can throw me off, making it feel like I need to catch up. In tougher situations, the process of getting back on track can snowball, leading me to lose more time being frustrated about the effort needed to resume.

When allowed to work on my own, I am not only less stressed but also a more productive and valuable worker.

Autistic inertia is not a flaw; rather, it’s just sometimes part of being autistic. 

TWO 

When working with an autistic person, a situation that many people will encounter at points in their careers, it is crucial for everyone involved to navigate the differences in autistic communication.
 
Truth and honesty hold significant value in the lives of many people, and they are particularly important to most autistic individuals. When expressing our opinions or views, an emphasis on truth and honesty can sometimes make our input seem a bit blunt or overly direct to others.
 
The majority of the time, I would bet, the autistic person did not mean to say something offensive or impolitic, but instead was remarking on a situation, stating a fact, or providing an answer in a simple, truthful way, and with little sugar-coating.
 
Try to accept what an autistic person has to say without reading into it innuendo or meaning that the person likely did not intend.
 
As a distinct aspect of autistic communication, it is important to recognize that many individuals with autism find verbal speech challenging, particularly during times of heightened sensory or mental stress. The societal expectation of speech can create significant pressure to communicate verbally even when we may not desire to, when it proves difficult, or when it may simply be beyond our capacity at the moment.
 
During challenging times, I personally find myself sometimes putting up my index finger as I pause as a signal that my thought is not complete. As an affirmative response, I often use a simple, universal "thumbs up" gesture. Alternatively, when intending to convey the opposite meaning, I may use a mouth or head gesture, or a subtle wiggle of the hand to indicate a "so-so" or "not really" sentiment.
 
Not pressing the person for more words right away is important to help them feel accepted and their capacities in the moment respected. Later, even relatively soon, the person may be better able to articulate what is on their mind. 

Or, perhaps an exchange of written communication could be initiated which would allow the autistic individual their own time and space to convey their thoughts or ideas.
 
Autistic communication differences are not flaws; rather, they are just sometimes part of being autistic.

THREE 

One of the essential truths about autism involves variation and degrees.
 
The term "autism spectrum" is not used to classify individuals as more or less autistic than one another.
 
Instead, this term developed by necessity because of the very wide variety of traits and tendencies both within the autistic population as a whole AND within each autistic individual.
 
While autistic people, as a group, exhibit distinct traits and qualities that set them apart from non-autistic individuals, no single autistic person possesses every trait or quality associated with autism.
 
Perfect pitch or exceptional skill with numbers or eidetic (better known as photographic) memory; higher than average sleep needs versus lower than average sleep needs; high tolerance or desire for physical touch or pressure versus great sensitivity upon being physically touched…
 
…all are just a few examples to demonstrate that no single autistic person ever will harbor every possible autistic tendency. And, to be clear, the existence of just one of those tendencies alone certainly does not indicate an autistic neurotype.
 
Separately, each autistic person’s individual traits, strengths, and weaknesses usually vary in intensity and frequency depending on many factors throughout their days and lives. For me, one of these is my sensitivity to sound.
 
At times I can easily enjoy a loud, even very loud situation (concert, rushing waterfall, roller coaster), especially when I go in knowing that the noise is part of the experience. But sudden, unexpected loud noises can negatively affect me for hours, sometimes greatly. And, at times, voices in low conversation several rooms away from me or just the ticking of a clock on the other side of a large room can keep me from being able to concentrate on challenging material or keep me from being able to sleep.
 
Greatly varying traits among autistic people as well as within each autistic person are just part of being autistic!

FOUR 

Many autistic people, particularly those in professional settings but not in leadership roles, commonly share a specific problem: having our sincere questions viewed suspiciously or even as signs of disrespect.

I personally have fought this problem off and on my whole life. Long before I knew I was autistic, I learned from trial and error that my inquiries were often poorly received (no matter what well-meaning people may say about no question being a bad question).

Little by little, my professional mask grew to include suppressing my questions to avoid judgment or mistreatment. 

Except, either from my own ‘limitations’ or from my sense of right and wrong connected to my professional integrity, I still am sometimes compelled to ask. 

After all, safety could actually be at stake, or I might have noticed something which is either bringing genuine confusion to me…or which, because of my empathy or processing skills, I realize could be misunderstood by others, and as a result could stall or stymie a project or goal.

So I have plenty of experience of asking questions since learning that I apparently ‘shouldn’t,’ and of being treated poorly when they are posed to or among the wrong people.

Since my diagnosis/identification, I have repeatedly heard and read fellow autistics and other neurodivergents rightly expressing discontent about the treatment we receive when we ask questions, particularly from those in leadership positions.

More often than not, we ask questions because 

❓we are both observant and detail-oriented

❓we foresee a potential problem, or

❓we see irregularities or exceptions that we believe are significant enough to be raised.

And (in the case of the latter two scenarios), because, as a group, autistics like to help.

In any of these cases, our sincerity makes poor reactions to our questions particularly hurtful and contributes to the small traumas we and other neurodivergent people accumulate on a daily basis.

And, you might say it make us all the braver to continue to question when we feel it is the right thing to do, despite knowing the risks to us.

Autistic questioning is not a flaw; rather, it is just sometimes part of being autistic.

FIVE 

A particular dynamic can cause autistic individuals a special type of trouble interacting with people at work outside of our own teams.

It’s NOT “small talk” or initial conversations with others…even though those are often especially uncomfortable for autistic people because of the communication differences which partially define our autism.

Regardless of those truths, many of us try very hard for a baseline competence with small talk because we have learned it can be important in the workplace.

Once we get to know people better, often after several months have passed, some of us find some success building relationships with some of the people we work more closely with, like people on our teams or those with whom we share responsibilities and thus work time. 

In fact, it can be common for autistic people to be valued in relationships because of the loyalty and kindness that are so important to many of us. 

And, from our perspective, aside from what is gained from the relationships, having just a small group of people to learn the preferences and styles of can feel manageable and lead to our feeling somewhat socially successful.

But it’s the middle ground of relationships, with people whom we have already met a few times but don’t have natural reasons throughout the course of our workdays to become closer to, that can be an awkward, troubling space for us. And that middle group of people is usually by far the largest!

Adding to the challenges we feel when interacting with this group, a secondary problem can emerge: these “middle ground” people see our conversations with the other two groups, where things are easier for us either out of practice and habit, at the one end, or feelings of comfort and acceptance at the other, and might infer that we do not speak as easily with them because of reasons such as dislike or arrogance.

When that happens, the gulf between us grows and grows, and our discomfort and lack of easy conversation can grow along with it. 
Still, please understand that uneven social abilities and preferences are not autistic flaws; rather, they are just sometimes part of being autistic.

SIX 

Autistic individuals continually get messages that we are different from others. These messages are often accompanied by reactions that can range from judgment and criticism to bullying and ostracism.
 
Even if these messages are subtle, and even if those sending them aren’t intentionally being unkind, noticing small details and picking up on patterns are among autistic strengths. And when you can tell, over and over, that how you behave is undesirable or unwanted, the pain, hurt, and shame can be intense.
 
That’s why some autistic individuals adapt their behaviors from a young age to stand out less. It doesn’t feel good to be treated poorly or like you are different, so some of us did what we could to seem more like the others.
 
This behavior is commonly known as “masking,” and it can be completely subconscious and unintentional, especially in children. Masking our autistic traits, for many of us, has been an attempt to protect our mental and emotional health.
 
In addition to trying our best to act like others, many of us internalize our discomforts in a further attempt to avoid standing out. 
 
So we both try to socialize even when we don’t feel like it and keep quiet when noises or smells or lights bother us.
 
Masking our autistic traits also makes it less obvious to others that we are, in fact, different from the others, and that we experience discomforts which at times are great. So great, for some, that when by ourselves it takes quite a bit of time to recover and recalibrate. And so great, for others, that meltdowns, occasionally lashing out, and other unwanted behaviors are inevitable.
 
And that, in turn, has led to many of us not being identified as autistic until recent changes in understanding and awareness of autism.
 
Just because you may not be able to tell who is autistic simply by looking doesn’t mean autistic individuals do not struggle (and often struggle to a high degree). And even if, through large effort, an autistic person is managing to cope in a particular situation, that does not mean they are not actually facing great challenge or even suffering. This goes for adults and children both.
 
Masking is not an autistic flaw; rather, it is just sometimes part of being autistic.