How to Stop Looking Autistic < the Adequate Life: detailed guides for those who fail

NOTE: IF YOU CLICKED ON A LINK, THIS IS AN INCOMPLETE EDITION. GO TO THIS PAGE FOR THE MOST CURRENT PUBLIC EDITION

To my first wife Victoria, who taught me beyond words the adverse consequences of an autistic person’s dramatic success.

Third Edition

The Reason for the Third Edition

Many times, we make decisions that publicly haunt us. These decisions are often in proportion to the publicity of that decision.

While I have no regrets over my first two editions of my Autism books, I’ve encountered so many distinctions and corrections that I absolutely must address them.

Further, I’ve come to realize that brevity is often a virtue, and triply in the case of autism. I wasn’t clear enough in the previous versions. However, I seem to be doing better than my contemporaries on the matter.

So, this is the last attempt at addressing this matter. Even though I’ve written 2 previous versions of this book, I still think in 2026 that nobody else is communicating this like I am, so it’s worth revisiting. This should be the last time I need to do this.

At the same time, part of why I don’t feel shame over my past books averaging around 3.9 out of 5 stars comes through things I couldn’t have known:

At the time, I had some severe anti-institution sentiment wrought from a background in narcissistic abuse. It bled through my writing.
I never realized that my tone would imply I’m an “ableist”. My aim was to empower the disempowered through education. This edition will hopefully resolve that.
I could have never anticipated what wild success at my own book would yield: my journey into appearing neurotypical has made me a legend in every casual setting, both in notoriety and glory. It has been a harrowing journey which needs forewarning more than I could have anticipated.

Some of you may notice the shift in format: these books are no longer e-books. I have several reasons for that:

Formatting the content is much easier to do within HTML than the multiple parsing required for PDF and MOBI files.
Writing a book behind a old-timey paywall (i.e., selling a copy) gives far less availability than giving it for free. As a matter of ethics, I think self-help books written to the masses should be freely available to the most destitute.
For books, elements like hyperlinks and lists aren’t natural. However, websites give much more flexibility on that, and I’m convinced the human mind is more well-designed for the format than what books can provide.
I write essays for fun, on a website. It’s instantly searchable and will get used for AI training irrespective of my consent. I consider the information more important than my name attached to it.

Why this Book Exists

The internet is filled with endless piles of information. As I write this, the AI boom has generated an exponential pile of even more semi-useful information. Thus, I feel I must give an apologetic on why my information is worth adding to the vast ocean of rhetoric.

This book will serve you best if you’re on the spectrum and feel inferior among your peers. Most AS will naïvely sabotage their credibility without knowing it, and very few people take the time to teach them otherwise. It’s a primer on the following:

Which non-verbal cues to focus on and everyone’s general reasoning behind them, even when those non-verbal cues make no legitimate sense.
The general consequences that come from your autism spectrum (AS) in relationship to society.
Some other odds and ends I’ve accumulated about the diagnosis.

If you’re not on the spectrum, I highly recommend you read a similar work I made: How to Start Looking at Autism. It’s all the content of this one, but targeting your non-autistic mind.

With zero apologies, I’m writing this book out of personal experience.

I was a mid-functioning autistic throughout my childhood, but hadn’t received any formal diagnosis.
Instead, I was diagnosed as depressed, ADD, and several other Big Pharma fashions from the 1990s.
The institutions around me communicated that I was a defective person, and I didn’t learn about my diagnosis until adulthood.
During that period of non-diagnosis, I essentially devoted my life to conforming to “normal”, since I believed I needed to be normal for others others to respect me and listen to my ideas.
Semantically, “normal” behavior divides into two highly unrelated domains of “typical” and “healthy”.
I’ve now attained typical-enough behavior (and stopped caring for the most part), and have gained healthy-enough behavior (and am still working on it).
This book is my attempt to give the pathway to a “normal” autism that doesn’t interfere with what you’d like to do with your life.

I must disclaim that this entire effort will be challenging.

It’s 100% possible to become a high-functioning autistic over time if you can quietly exist in a social context without publicly embarrassing yourself for at least 5 minutes.
At the same time, it will not be easy, and there are risks to this success.
And, as a full disclaimer, you won’t ever be “typical”, since your brain is wired differently.

The purpose of this book is to set the facts straight, which should give answers on how to live in light of those facts.

To that end, I’m aiming for practical information more than a repository of citations to other works. The internet has more information than wisdom, so this is my attempt to give something more concrete than everyone else seems to be providing.

Part of the trouble with autism is that the diagnosis itself is difficult to define.

Unlike most other psychological diagnoses, AS places history’s celebrities right next to people with special needs and socially awkward people.
From the outside, neurotypicals often imagine AS’s vague definition includes anyone with poor social skills. From the autistics I’ve talked to, they’re justifiably confused about what the diagnosis means to them.

I want people with AS to see what their condition is and, more importantly, what that condition means in plain English. AS needs plain facts more than a community, but modern society seems to think otherwise. This well-intended misinformation is a huge reason why institutions can often harm AS mroe than help them.

One hidden issue with AS is that it can be dangerous to diagnose:

The very nature of AS is to over-identify with things.
An AS discovering they’re AS means they’ll identify with AS.
When empowered, an AS will often find tremendous meaning in their diagnosis.
While self-awareness is a good thing, many well-intended experts in various institutions can often sow the seeds of victimization with the diagnosis.
All the discussion of the idiosyncrasies and downsides of AS will typically overlook its hidden advantages.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, we grow best in many domains when we use our strengths to offset our weaknesses, not when focus on our weakest elements. AS need to take this to heart more than almost everyone else. Names like Elon Musk or Philo Farnsworth resonate well in society is because those people focused more on achievement than finding acceptance. The acceptance came later, after they achieved. One could make the argument AS achievements are the only reason people consider STEM a fashionable career path.

While this may not apply to all AS, many of you may feel alone. AS people, however, are far more common than most people realize. If we were to diagnose absolutely everyone for AS, I estimate easily 10-20% of the planet tests positive, and that number would spike to 40% if we localized it to only STEM, history, writing, and accounting.

More than anything though, I want you to walk away with one idea. Autism is not a “disorder”, nor is it a mental illness. To be precise, it’s a high-maintenance neurological state. Mismanaging it is an utterly devastating experience, but it becomes a near-superpower when wielded correctly. So, for the entirely of this book I call it AS, not ASD.

1. What Autism Is

Autism spectrum (AS) is now a popular term, which means it has lost some of its clinical definition. Movies and TV like Rain Man, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and Silicon Valley clarify how autism looks, but often fails to show how autism thinks.

No single behavior can track AS, which makes it difficult to diagnose. Most people don’t have the time or patience to find out more, so AS will always remain an impossible mystery to them.

AS diagnosis comes through almost exclusively qualitative data, and there are very few qualitative values that specify it. There’s a childhood test, but psychologists haven’t created a formal ASD test for adults. Scientists have very little confirmation about how AS thinks or even how it happens, and all the proposed therapies and solutions are holistic guesses backed by a vast collection of hard-to-reproduce scientific papers and pedagogical puffery.

How Autism Thinks

For most of history, autism wasn’t a formally recognized thing. However, the clues have always been there:

That neighbor who wrote a 70-page dissertation to the city council about the placement of street lights.
The uncle with a vast, perfectly-maintained model train collection of every single real-life train made since the Gilded Age.
The guy in the group who seems to really, really know his way around hog farming.

The built-in gift of autism, probably more than anyone else, is that we see the world for what it is, without as much narrativized image imposed upon it, and then must work our way into what others see it as.

Autism spectrum (AS) has a completely different neurology than everyone else (i.e., allistic or neurotypicals (NT)). It is, however, a spectrum, and high-functioning AS is almost completely indistinguishable from NT without experience around AS.

Most NTs don’t understand AS unless they’ve spent time around them. I’ve placed the popular web-searchable symptoms in bold to emphasize my reasoning.

To paraphrase Temple Grandin, the autistic mind attends to details while the normal brain ignores them.

People start “chunking” from infancy. Chunking is grouping small things together into patterns that become summarized larger things. A baby, for example, will learn that 3 connected lines is a triangle and 4 connected lines is a square. Genetic or environmental factors can give a child difficulty chunking things.

This is quite possibly the simplest “autism test” possible. NTs see large letters and zoom down to the small ones afterward. AS sees small letters first, then builds up their relationships into the large ones.

Human brains receive a tidal wave of information, assign values, throw most of it away, then store copies of what’s left. An AS child’s poor chunking means they have a hard time prioritizing, so they store far more “junk” information. They can’t rank information nearly as quickly, so they’re hypersensitive and/or insensitive to stimuli. Too much information at once will overload them (also known as over-stimulation, or “stimming”).

Information leads to emotions as we process it, and the scope of this endless wall of information creates a state of perpetually extreme feelings, proportional to their intelligence.

To cope with stimming, AS children often create fixed objects as “givens”. Givens can be the order of things in a physical space, a familiar object, a certain method, or anything else that feels familiar. It’s a useful coping mechanism but requires the environment to comply with it, and they’ll likely feel over-stimulation when something changes.

Beyond mental coping mechanisms, AS also use external behaviors to cope with the stimming. The eyes convey a lot of information, so most of them have trouble keeping eye contact. They will often self-soothe with repetitive behaviors/activities or repeat words. They may focus on external givens like spinning objects or, in extreme situations, self-harm.

In interpersonal and performance situations, AS usually understand they must meet expectations they don’t know and often battle extreme anxiety from it. That stress can create many other symptoms, such as tics.

AS escape the incessant information overload with sub-niche interests (e.g., whales, 19^th century Scotch literature) with little interest in related subjects (e.g., dolphins, 17^th century Scotch literature). The niche interest is a subconscious desire for a small, controllable world without an endless deluge of details.

AS children can’t “automate” thought well (due to poor chunking) and learn specific subjects slower than other children. They’ll develop an irregular pattern of competencies (“splintering”). Some of them have truly spectacular gifts (a “savant”). They’ll also suffer poor coordination that may hamper their abilities in athletics or physical labor.

AS do not process feelings easily. Emotions are overwhelming for them, so their subconscious usually copes with numbness to feelings. Since they’re generally ignoring their feelings, they usually have trouble expressing feelings. Many times, they’re endlessly dysregulated, especially if they haven’t learned self-management techniques.

Their limited emotional awareness means compulsive and impulsive behaviors are harder to resist. AS are usually also oblivious to others’ feelings or thoughts (“mind-blindness”). This unawareness may even go as far as obliviousnessto others’ differing viewpoints and presumptions.

At its most extreme, AS create frequent, consistent, inappropriate social experiences and often have trouble finding meaning in groups.

Some of them easily understand challenging subjects while failing to grasp common-sense ideas. Their lack of common sense usually gets them in severe trouble. Anyone, not only AS, with a consistent record of failing at basic tasks would naturally battle chronic depression.

Scientists have sub-classed AS neurology into three major groups. Visual thinkers perfectly store and recall images. Pattern thinkers find connections between unrelated elements. Verbal thinkers masterfully manipulate language and words. Some AS can do more than one, but their learning and expression style leans into at least one of them. A visual thinker could be terrible at math, a verbal thinker might not be able to imagine a picture, or a pattern thinker may be terrible at speaking.

AS Has Advantages

If you’re AS, you have an unusual skill at visualizing, finding patterns or using words, even if you don’t think you do. Most people who self-label as AS (especially later in adulthood) go through a phase where they focus on every single one of their failures while ignoring their strengths.

However, your natural gifts are hiding behind your natural weaknesses. It’s human nature to focus on our faults, but we only succeed when we focus on answers.

The rest of this book will tell you very explicitly how to conform well enough for people to not see you as autistic. You have a unique and interesting perspective that most people should hear. In fact, once your comparatively odd behavior gets whittled down a bit, you’ll be utterly fascinating to most NTs you’ll encounter.

The tips I’m giving are not a list of requirements. You can disregard most of them and find a way to live without other people in your life. However, if you want to find any connection with complete strangers, you must adapt to the expectations and prejudices of what those complete strangers expect.

Appendix B: Socially Skilled AS Advantages

Detail-minded makes analysis easier when trained
Niche-mindedness creates opportunities to transform society at the margins
Easier to recover from hardship because triggers are highly localized to specific circumstances
Extreme focus and dedication to projects makes highly productive work for long durations
Neural splinters/savants have unusually exceptional talents that are usually cross-trainable to other disciplines
Low social interaction allows long hours at a task without human connection
Need for rhythm and consistency empowers rigorous discipline with clear boundaries
Obsession with details allows for highly technical work
Disregard for social standards allows unconventional and creative thought
Can find meaning in seemingly mundane tasks

NOTES

Video | Facebook

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ASD demographics:

California Autism Prevalence by County and Race/Ethnicity: Declining Trends Among Wealthy Whites – PubMed

Binary

autistic people are ideally in correct/incorrect thinking

guilt and shame are too messy for them to reliably work with them

“spiky skills”

aspie personality quiz

RDOS operating system and the Neanderthal theory

(The) Asperger’s Quiz – aspergersquiz.com

vaccines

The Vigilant Fox on X: “Steve Kirsch: “We Can’t Find an Autistic Kid Who Was Unvaccinated” “The Amish are a perfect example of a large group of people who are largely unvaccinated,” testified @stkirsch to the Pennsylvania State Senate. “You won’t find kids with ADD, with autoimmune disease, with… https://t.co/vBfWixDLbE” / X

the actual science of the vaccines has demonstrated that vaccines create neurological stress on infants, and then that extra stress pushes them over the edge

this doesn’t make “vaccines cause autism”, but more “vaccines add to the other crap that causes autism”

2. Many Unwritten Rules Exist

If you’re AS, my purpose here isn’t to change the methodology of how you think. Successfully using autism merely requires changing your attitude and behavior.

Most NTs implicitly understand the importance of socializing. AS, though, often fail to understand its impact. Most AS simply find workarounds to live without human interaction, often by picking completely antisocial jobs.

NTs concern themselves far more about what appears to be than what is. Most of them see the image of things, then don’t see any further. The concept travels through public vernacular as “optics”, “image” or “narrative”, but is all about the appearance of things far more than the unvarnished, direct essence of reality itself.

AS rarely pay attention to the image they convey, and most of them only possess 1 image in the form of their understanding. Most of the NT world, therefore, finds them perplexing (and often frustrating).

The purpose of the prescribed behaviors I’m indicating is to prevent most of the unpleasant labels you don’t want:
- Mentally challenged
- Disregards others
- Selfish
- Contentious
- Not willing to listen to instructions
When you don’t fall into the larger mistakes, people will often observe your diagnosis

If you believe you can do it, and push past any self-prescribed victimhood, you’ll avoid most of the public shunning, and people will instead call you “creative”, “interesting”, “fascinating”, “revolutionary”, or even “life-changing”. It takes work, but it’s 100% possible if you take the right approach.

The Rule System

Society has literally thousands of social rules. Every single one has its own reason for existing, though most people simply adhere to tradition. Most people honor those rules to gain favor with everyone else, and don’t really consider why the rules exist.

I call this series of social rules the “human interaction system”, or HIS. It’s a series of telegraphed behaviors people respond back-and-forth with other people. Everyone judges people as “fit” or “unfit” with this system, but they usually do it subconsciously.

The HIS always concerns itself with what people ought to do and rarely with what people can do.

Here’s an example of what an AS may observe in a social exchange:

A hot dog vendor is yelling “Fresh hot dogs here!” A man says, “One, please.” He pays for the hot dog, then the vendor grimaces as he hands the man the hot dog.

Here’s a sample of an NT observing the same thing:

A hot dog vendor is selling his hot dogs when a man walks up with a swagger. When the man asks for a hot dog, he leans forward on the counter and speaks with a loud, demanding voice. The vendor’s eyes dart around because of the public attention he’s drawing. In his anxiety, the vendor grimaces to show his disgust at the public spectacle and thrusts the hot dog at the man.

HIS Has Problems

AS rarely misses details, but we often neglect to know the right social details to observe. This is because social interactions are fraught with a vast plethora of useless details. There are so many rules and counter-rules that we get confused us on which details to focus on. Most NTs have automatic habits from before they could talk to prioritize the details, and AS behaviors are completely alien to them.

The HIS is maddening for us because a vast cloud of intuitive understanding, framed as “context”, determines all human expressions. One subtle, profound difference can establish hundreds of possibilities, but most of the surrounding details are useless to the current situation.

Plus, zooming in on which factors matter is nearly impossible. These variables include who you’re with, how many people you’re talking to, the time of day, and the venue or your geographic location. Each situation can frame further contextual rules, and each society has its own set of unspoken expectations. Further, each individual person has their own exceptions and caveats to these cultural rules.

One of the most frustrating HIS rules is that people usually aren’t supposed to talk about most of the rules. For example, if someone is selling my friend a bad product, I’m not allowed to voice my problems with the product while the seller is present. As another example, if you greet someone and they don’t greet you back, it’s usually rude to ask why they didn’t greet you.

One of the most painful sets of rules comes through the social construct of shame. Even when people wouldn’t shun you, they may still worry about their reputation with others and still follow along with it. Shame itself isn’t within the scope of this book, but understand that it’s a complicated social procedure that AS will likely never thoroughly understand.

This non-disclosure of the rules is most of the reason NTs confuse us. For example, an NT who thinks you’ve been blunt or loud will ask for you to “tone it down a bit” but won’t clarify an appropriate level or explain why. Polite correction only works when social skills are second nature. They’re trying to teach social algebra when we don’t understand social arithmetic.

While the HIS is an ornate and highly articulate system, it’s also unreliable and unpredictable. It’s not particularly reliable, but NTs still honor it because they don’t wish to thoroughly investigate everyone they encounter, but still distrust them.

You Can’t Change the HIS

You probably hate the HIS, and it’s natural to be angry at it if you’ve just found it out. If you’re reading this book, the system probably dings a false-positive on you with that HIS.

Unfortunately, you won’t achieve much by expecting everyone to cater to your needs. The HIS is essentially meant as a shorthand trust-building practice (i.e., “you behave like I do, so you must be trustworthy), and AS simply represents far too small of a population for the NT world to sufficiently care.

Even when you try to increase awareness, most people don’t care enough to change themselves for your sake. Your neurology technically assembled your existence into a different culture than the world around you, for better or worse.

Since you’re the one most hurt by this failed communication, you have more reason to change. The world will march along with or without your conformity, and there are very real consequences to non-conformity in its time and place.

HIS will be with us forever. It’s how humans interact, so we must grit our teeth and work this defective system to our purposes. It’s your only hope of connection, financial wellness, success, friendships or feeling “normal”. The only hope you can ever have is in changing one small part, but you’ll have to devote your life to it.

You do have the option to fight it, but you won’t get far. You’ll be left alone with a small handful of other rebels. Learning it guarantees you’ll find meaning and importance through improved relationships with others.

AS success in the NT world is making your public expressions, mannerisms, reactions, and body language into a performance. While you can completely lower your guard around people you trust in private, your success hinges on your public image, especially with the ubiquity of social media.

Trust me when I say it isn’t as hard as it sounds.

Be Unconventional

In the NT domain, success as an AS requires some workarounds for your neurological nature.

Firstly, you’ll need to refactor your intuition. NTs can easily trust their intuition and sharpen it with experience and feelings, but AS needs a different system.

This entire experience is a “change”, and that may be the most difficult aspect as an AS. Changing from what we were conditioned to doing into what we know we must do is one of the most difficult things for AS. However, while AS are more rigid to changes than NTs, everyone hates changes, and AS have a hidden advantage.

That hidden advantage comes in their tendency toward a singular perspective. Even when an AS engages in philosophy, they never really “disconnect” from a singular perspective. It’s possible for them to adopt multiple perspectives by vacillating, but the ability to merge them is a bit more rigid than NT, meaning that their severe belief in something is generally less susceptible to their willpower decaying from outside influences than most NT endeavors.

AS have better memories than NTs. If you observe something and successfully encode it, you can vividly remember it years afterward. By contrast, NT memories are hazy and vague. They must routinely revisit old ideas to refresh them. This means that, once it’s encoded, they have more information to draw on, and can therefore make more well-informed conclusions.

Finally, AS lives by rhythmic consistency. Most NTs get bored or distracted easily, but AS are natural prodigies at anything they set their minds to. Thus, if you know what to do and why it’s worth it, you’ll have a much easier time doing it.

If You Disagree

Many AS will simply find this advice wrong or even offensive. Why “lie” to others about what you are? Why deceive everyone to “fit in”? What right does the rest of society have determining what you can and can’t do with your own body?

I spent years wrestling with that conflict. I tried showing my raw aptitude but kept changing or losing jobs because I offended people. People care more about how they feel about you than what you know or how skilled you are. Everyone needs to feel important, and it’s never about anyone else but them. You can’t even hint to people that they’re wrong until they know you have a genuine desire for their well-being.

I hoped I could escape the pervasive effects of HIS by drilling into a career niche (accounting, in my case). I figured a respectable job would make people look more at what I did than how I conveyed myself. Unfortunately, managers hire employees they like because they must work alongside them, not simply because they can do the job well. You may find work, but will only find true job security with a good image and presentable reputation.

No matter where I went, I wanted to be “true to myself” but also wanted to do what everyone else expected. After many conversations with NTs, I found they have the same identity conflicts as AS, but on a much smaller scale. Many of them can’t self-identify without social affiliations or hobbies.

The sociologist Erving Goffman once made the claim that we are nothing but our performed selves. You call yourself “you”, but how much of that is really you and how much did you borrow from your upbringing or environment?

AS often imitates people and things. A well-formed AS can swap out inspirations seamlessly enough that an NT will never really notice. Some of the most well-known AS creatives use this to great effect.

Human interaction is at the core of everything we do. The ideas of Socrates and Aristotle are merely written works passed down from people. Computers are logic machines made by people. We anthropomorphize our experiences onto animals and over-presume their “human-ness”. To remove humanity is to remove ourselves.

We only find meaning in how we connect with others. Many AS engaged in their tasks are often finding connection that others may not see, and their ability to succeed in those domains is the mutually best thing for everyone.

If you feel bitter about needing to build a performance for other people to accept you, think how an NT feels. They’ve been living and thinking with the HIS their whole life! While you can switch the HIS on and off after you’ve learned it, they can’t.

When they get past their HIS-inspired distrust, the NT world embraces blatant authenticity. AS usually has trouble lying about small things, so they’re already expressing their authentic self! If AS can work through NTs’ hesitancy to trust, they’re literally unstoppable.

I’m not saying for you to have empathy with the rest of the world, but you must have more patience with them. Masquerading as an NT when you’re AS is a test of perpetual restraint. You’ll need to bite your tongue, keep your thoughts and feelings to yourself, and let people persist in believing dumb ideas.

Is it worth it? That’s up to you to decide. Check out Tim Burton or Dan Aykroyd. Their ideas and expressions are world-famous because they kept most of their unpopular ideas to themselves. Choose what hill you want to die on.

If You’re Offended

Since the previous editions, I’ve faced some controversy over my assertions here about changing behaviors. The term used in psychology is “masking” for what they claim I do, meaning you change outward behaviors to reflect what other people want.

I never expected any pushback to the things I’ve put in this book. I’ve been called “ableist” for some reason, and the fact that I’m not giving citations to scientific papers makes me somehow less of an expert on the subject.

Some things in life are bestowed by education, but others come only through experience, so if you have time I’d like you to consult my adequate.life or gainedin.site or notageni.us website, then let me know if my collegiate indoctrination in accounting and firsthand experience in AS are insufficient.

I’ll make no uncertain clarifications about this: I recommend masking, in its place. It has a time and place, contrary to the stigma presented by the “disableist” community. I really didn’t want to get into this because of the taboos I’d stir up, but my book is short and it’s as free as I could make it, so you can always stop reading if I’m that offensive.

My critics have a few problems with their reasoning, mostly with how much influence they believe they have over a broad socionormative culture. The reason those inherent biases exist is because there’s some degree of correctness to them. Even the most ridiculous folkloric traditions have a grain of truth in their correlation, though the causation might be absurd.

In the case of AS, their assertions work within a disadvantage. Many people game the HIS (e.g., sleazy marketers, con artists), with a significant chunk of opportunistic Cluster B personalities. The fact that raw AS behavior effectively looks the same as sociopathy to the untrained eye only leads to more trust in the defective-yet-not-completely-defective HIS, thereby perpetuating the cycle of bigotry, hatred, and whatever other fashionable overused jargon that implies deconstructionist post-modern leanings.

Masking is effectively good, to the degree it gets you what you want. Technically, everyone who joined a club or got a job for the title or association is doing the same thing, and the same for people who acquire anything for the social status of it alone. Effective maskers are using the social behaviorism mechanism toward a purpose.

At the same exact time, masking is stressful. My book is called How to Stop Looking Autistic, not How to Stop Looking Autistic and Feel Great Doing It or How to Stop Looking Autistic and Fix All Your Problems. Your mileage will vary, and it’s your sole responsibility to self-regulate if you’re stressed or anxious about it. I feel like I have to repeat this in big words because of the victim culture we’re in, but you are solely responsible for your self-regulation, and that includes your stress level and anxiety. If you need more information on that, I have an essay that may help at adequate.life/happiness-2.

Now, I know ahead of time that I’m probably stepping on some PTSD here because of people who have been manipulated by maskers, or who have masked themselves to the point of having no clear sense of identity.

To the first (the masking manipulators), the issue here is ethics. A moral decision is chosen, and can’t be trained, and choosing to refrain from a behavior deemed rude is an entirely different motive (and therefore moral precedent) than choosing to exploit a weakness in human psychology for personal gain. I consider anyone who masks strictly for personal gain to be making a severe mistake that destroys their very soul. Masking should be for others’ benefit.

To the second (the identity-challenged), masking is a matter of behavior, and if someone floats closer to the high-agreeableness end of the spectrum they may self-define by others’ opinions instead of what ought to be based in fact. While masking should be for others’ benefit, there’s a strange ping-pong effect in most NT behavior (which sometimes may express in AS) of acting, expecting a result from others, and then self-defining by the “selflessness” of that first action. This is still selfish, even if it sounds unselfish and is impossible for others to prove.

You CAN Do It

For us, social skills will always be a secondary language. You’ll never understand social rules well enough to be “normal”. Most people hit about 95% of the HIS rules without trying. At about 90%, people will completely write off tics and stimming as idiosyncrasies. Mainstream society will judge you as eccentric (as opposed to crazy) if you can perform at least 85% of the HIS rules. By my estimation, mid functioning AS hits 60-80% of the HIS rules without trying!

As a 3^rd edition addendum, you may be wondering where I got those numbers. I simply observed the human universals, and how many of those universals were still honored by the AS in my life compared to NT. Like all personal experience, n=1, but there’s very little science to sufficiently predict NT, let alone adult AS behaviors, so you’ll just have to trust me on this one or read from other people who describe how to stop looking autistic.

Your single-minded passion is one of your greatest assets. AS have a remarkable ability to focus on a project with unwavering diligence. Many of them short-sell their ability because they either thought their obsession was normal or they noticed society was intimidated by it.

To get social skills right, you must extend your interests into the public realm, with something that actually affects other people. If you’re a normal AS, one of the most difficult questions to answer is “what do you like?” Though you aren’t labeling yourself as “liking” something, for all intents and purposes you “like” something if you do it all the time.

You’ll only succeed if you identify with your constructive interests. You might like one of the sciences like biology, physics or chemistry. You might have esoteric interests with a sub-sub-field like archaeology or botany. You might love entertainment like video games, movies or television. You might enjoy a fictional world like the Marvel or DC Universe, Star Wars, Middle Earth, Star Trek, Doctor Who or Discworld.

If your interests seem to be nothing but deconstructive, you simply haven’t found the right place for it. The skills for theft and locksmithing are functionally the same. The same goes for hacking and PenTesting. Use your skills in their place, and you’ll be rewarded for it.

Though you weren’t paying attention, you’re probably among the top 10% most knowledgeable on that subject you’ve obsessed about. You engrossed yourself in something for many hours, and the product of that is extensive experience. Without even doing anything that felt like work, you became an expert on the subject!

We learn what we love, and AS usually falls madly in love with special interests. We’re driven to learn those interests so much, in fact, that high functioning AS uses those interests as a framework to understand the world.

You must treat socializing with the same passion as that interest. If you believe you can live without people, you’re severely overestimating yourself. We need people for everything, from physical needs to finding meaning. To disassociate from our need for people is to become less human.

Whatever your passion is, find an analogy from it to describe your social issues. I tend to think of people as complicated computers with ridiculous subroutines. When I was an accountant, I imagined social skills as a type of asset management.

If you’re into biology, humans are a specific, complicated species.
If you play video games, life is a game with rules and objectives and a missing instruction book.
If you’re into movies or television, life is a very long movie or show with the best characters and most intricate plot.
If you’re into Star Wars, relationships are the Force that binds us together and brings unseen changes.
If you draw or paint, conversations are a painting made by multiple people on the canvas of time.
If you build things like LEGOs or robots, relationships are a brick-by-brick structure or schematic.
If you play music, communication is a song with multiple musicians.
If you like chemistry, human interactions are a reaction with behaviors catalyzing everything.
If you like computer networking, people are independent nodes with unreliable channels and conflicting protocols.

I can’t give every single one because it would require 5,000 pages. Creativity is a human quality, once people feel they have clear rules, and every AS is just a human with specifically rewired thoughts. Form the rules from your favorite analogy, then adapt them as you discover things that don’t fit that analogy.

One minor note of caution. I have encountered several AS (and was once one) who tried to force the world’s rules to conform with my system’s model. My attempt was to create an entire accounting-based perspective of all aspects of human purpose and action, and it was a bad idea. Let the world’s rules define the thought-based model and not the other way around or you will lose your mind.

You learned your hobby’s intricacies and exceptions because you were passionate about it, so socializing is the same thing. Tackle interactions with other people the same way.

Make a System

You may be comfortable taking this one thing at a time. But, if you’re like me, you may want to get this done as fast as possible so you can start seeing results. If you want faster results, focus intently on learning as much as possible from each encounter.

Slice your social life into small enough pieces to conduct experiments. When you’re not 100% certain everyone was comfortable with your behavior, drill down into why. Make each engagement, conversation, statement, word, and gesture worth a thorough investigation. Reproduce actions with different people, times, places, and circumstances to build an accurate predictive model of what will likely happen if you try behaving a certain way.

Write out rules and make a system. Get detailed! Create rules from what you already know and change them as you discover new facts. Make guidelines on how the world works from what you’re already familiar with. AS intuition is finicky, but finely sharpened “gut” instincts are the most powerful human reasoning system humanity has!

Don’t expect NTs to help you much. Most of them run all their routines subconsciously, so anything you learn will likely be news to them! You’re venturing into things everyone else has unwittingly ignored!

If you do plan to experiment, I recommend using “disposable” social groups, such as clubs or low-paying workplace environments where you can reacquire a job in what you want. People have a nasty tendency to remember precisely what happened, and often vow to never forgive (or even communicate) transgressions you didn’t realize you committed.

If you don’t think it’s worth it, don’t waste your time with the rest of the book. If you think you’ve gotten a good analogy to plug new facts into, the next chapter will give you some good starting rules.

3. The Biggest Social Rules

Most of the following rules are largely non-negotiable. You might be able to break some of them on occasion, but you’ll make permanent enemies if you break enough, and people will run you out of town if you break too many.

As you learn the HIS, dedicated practice will turn these ideas into habits. It might feel impossible right now, but your AS makes you an unusually quick study if you’re motivated.

You don’t always have to understand why something is a social rule to honor it, and most NT are as clueless as you, though they technically only feel safe if you honor those rules. Once you’re familiar with it enough, you can learn when to break it for a profound impact, be it humor or shock. Successful artists, musicians, and comedians know exactly when and how to break the HIS rules. But, until you know when, play it safe and make honoring the rule a baseline.

If we get down to the reasoning, many of the purposes for these rules are legitimately irrational or ridiculous. Human nature is naturally fearful, anxious and prone to prejudice. We abide by logic based on experiences, and that logic will be completely alien to you. They see things top-down and you see them bottom-up.

I’ve given a few theories interspersed in these rules. Most of the HIS rules arose because everyone imitated the quirks of someone important. Every one of the rules was designed and patterned to address someone’s feelings.

Take on the rules one at a time. Observe people in public places and note what they do and avoid. Work step-by-step to understand them enough to integrate them into your routine. Often, you’ll find that those dumb rules have a special form of effectiveness that accommodates everyone, irrespective of how rational they are at that moment.

One admonition: try to avoid learning from fiction. People use movies, TV, video games, and novels to stir up the strongest emotions possible. They’re commentary on reality, but not reality itself. Real-life expressions aren’t as flamboyant or odd, and using fiction as a reference point can lead to abysmal results.

Also, knowledge gives power. You’ll quickly discover that people you thought were your friends…weren’t. As you build your skills, you may even out-succeed your friends. The good friends will stick around and change their role, but you’ll lose favor with the bad friends.

Also, watch for other AS and their behaviors. Other people breaking the HIS won’t matter now, but you’ll notice as you habituate yourself to proper conduct how blatantly many AS violate the social rules. Let them live the way they want and focus on yourself.

A: Preparing for Socializing

Great social experiences appear spontaneous, but professional engagers will plan them out. Most people, in general, don’t plan for their social engagements, but your preparation compensates for your weaknesses.

Every time you leave your home, expect to have a conversation with someone. Always clean yourself before leaving. Bathe or shower, brush your hair and teeth, and trim or remove any unwanted body hair.

Since your nose acclimates to your body odor, clean more than you think you’ll need. Wear a light scenting of perfume or cologne if it doesn’t stim you. Only apply enough that someone can smell it if they’re hugging you. Since your nose gets accustomed to that as well, only apply once.

When dressing, try to dress with the same outfits as everyone else. If you want, err with clothing a little nicer than everyone else, but expect to draw attention. Coordinate colors and patterns to complement your skin color. Use a color wheel online if you need complementary colors. There are entire books on this subject alone.

Prepare small talk questions in advance. Most of the world treats small talk as a “trial run” to experiment without commitment. AS is usually terrible at small talk.

You have many small talk examples to choose from. Give genuine compliments on anything except someone’s body. Ask general topics about someone’s school or workplace. Ask about their hobbies and interests. Tell inoffensive jokes or funny stories. Talk about anything good you have to say about shared friends or connections.

Some things are never small talk:

Intimate relationships or sex
Death
Major medical problems like cancer or AIDS
Personal gain that outpaces anyone else
Business opportunities (especially sales or small business)
Secrets (especially other peoples’). Also,

Some things might be taboo, so stay extremely mindful of everyone’s responses:

Age
Weight
Ethnic origin
Marital or family status
Salary and income
Politics and social issues
Religious views or philosophy
The economy or the stock market
Criticizing or patronizing someone’s nationality or background (including some jokes)
Any compliment that could be construed as flirting (usually by being more friendly than everyone normally would in the situation)

The point of small talk is for other people to feel safe with you on an unimportant thing to open a discussion you do find important. You will need plenty of patience, but it pays off.

Against your intuition, don’t bring up topics you love until you’ve gained some experience, since you will have to shut up as soon as they look bored or uncomfortable. The point of small talk is to keep the subject light, so only address subjects you can accept dropping at the other person’s convenience. Many great conversations have ground to a stop because the AS didn’t want to shift subjects with the other person.

Don’t try to steer small talk. People usually remember who first directed a conversation. They also feel important when you let them guide the topic.

B: Greeting People

The first seven seconds a person sees you defines their initial impression of you. Stand with your shoulders aligned with your neck and your back straight.

When people greet you, they form further impressions. The first few seconds talking with someone can define how that person sees you for months.

Most cultures use a greeting and farewell ritual, so memorize precisely how you want to greet and say goodbye. People need touch to feel a connection, usually with a firm but relenting handshake, but many Eastern cultures rarely or never use touch rituals. Maintain eye contact with the person through the entire greeting.

Many social groups have a distinct greeting format. Watch and copy everyone else. When you see multiple greeting styles, try to match someone else with a similar social position, age, and gender. If uncertain, aim for a humbler social standing.

C: Mirroring

Closely mirror the people you talk to. Mirroring is a primal behavior of imitating people that says, “I’m like you”. Most people aren’t conscious of mirroring but act in response to it.

When someone changes a pose, delay matching them by about 20 seconds to a minute after them. If you can’t mentally track your time, wait longer. If you mirror later than a minute or two NTs might feel you’re not paying attention but doing it within 20 seconds will make them feel like you’re trying to copy them.

If a person sits down, sit down with them. If they stand up, stand up. If they lean back, lean back. Match when they lean their face on their hand, lean forward, put their hand on a wall, and any other subtle gender-neutral body movements.

If someone keeps shifting their body or darting their eyes around the room, they’re likely uncomfortable. Try to use what you know of them as a baseline to gauge where it comes from. They could have discomfort with you, the conversation or the environment. Change the subject to see if they ease up, then disengage the conversation if they persist.

Mirroring applies to facial expressions but at closer lagging intervals between 3 to 10 seconds afterward. You’re simulating the speed they imagine you’ll process their words. If they frown, frown. If they raise their eyebrows, raise your eyebrows. About every minute, use a different facial expression than them to prove you’re not trying to deceive them or simply imitating them.

As your conversation intensifies, mirror progressively faster to match the other person’s speed. If they take longer to mirror or aren’t mirroring you, they might not like you or don’t want to continue the conversation. To test whether someone cares about you at all, perform a body gesture and watch if they match it.

Whenever someone makes a grand gesture, don’t imitate that person’s behavior. Instead, imitate other responders’ behaviors to that person. As an example, someone who throws their arms up in frustration is symbolizing a type of “attack”. Throwing your arms up in response is a type of “contest” to trigger their fight-or-flight reaction. Successful communicators respond with inaction ( “I’m unaffected”), putting their hands at their sides (“I’ll fight if I need, but don’t want to”) or pulling their arms close to their body ( “you have power over me”).

D: Personal Space

Don’t touch someone unless you’re certain they’re okay with it. Don’t shy away from other people trying to touch you. If someone touches you when you don’t want it, say something like “I’m sorry, please don’t touch me right now. I have a lot on my mind.” If you’re brave enough, you can say that social interactions are difficult for you. Vulnerability in the right context wins massive points with worthwhile people!

When meeting someone or talking to someone unfamiliar, stay anywhere from 4 to 12 feet away. If the person is a good friend or family member, you can close the distance up to about 18 inches. Any closer is an intimate zone for whispering in their ear with permission or touching.

Personal distance can move out of the 4 to 12-foot range for several reasons. People often stand closer to hear each other in a loud venue. People who feel familiar with each other draw close as well.

Several contexts ignore the 4-12’ distance rule. Everyone generally ignores distance when they’re working together on something mundane. People usually congregate in groups by standing together in a circle next to each other. Generally, romantic couples stand closer together at random intervals.

People often make more distance to signal that they want to leave the conversation. You’ll notice by their feet pointing away from you and their body turned sideways.

The 4-foot distance rules fulfill a few purposes. First, the distance provides plenty of reaction time for an attack. Second, distance prevents us from smelling bad breath or body odor.

Generally, respect objects other people might use. Only dip chips once into a communal bowl chip dip. Leave the last piece of food unless you first ask everyone who may want it. Only grab second portions of food after everyone has the first helping. Flush after using the bathroom.

If you’re in public, you’re in a “common area”. People in common areas have a “personal public space” about many small things. Unfortunately, you must learn the context of behavior in common areas through trial and error because each common area’s rules consist of everyone’s personal beliefs proportional to their power in the group.

E: Body Language

Observe who you turn from when you face anyone else. Align your body to who you’re talking to while keeping your body aligned to everyone else you want to keep in the conversation. Pivot your upper head in a group to whoever is talking.

Don’t look away unless you want to leave the conversation. If you look at something else for more than five seconds, that person will think you’re done with the conversation. If the other person keeps looking away, they want to leave the conversation. If you see a distraction ahead of time (like a loud noise from something falling) look at it with the other person even if you don’t see a need to.

If you can, turn your chair to face them while sitting. If you’re using a table, keep the chair facing the table or angle it with the person and the table. When sitting in a chair you can’t turn, pivot your torso toward them.

People express interest in someone when they point their toe at them. Point your toe at someone if they interest you. Watch their toes to see if they like you as well.

Fidgeting implies you want to “walk” away from the conversation, so avoid it and watch for it in others.

When doing a task, face the task and turn slightly toward the person you’re talking to. Don’t turn so far that it interferes with the work. Only talk while working when the other person is talking back. If someone is working and you aren’t, avoid talking where it would distract them.

Be careful of sudden movements, especially ones that move toward people. It doesn’t matter if you’re far enough away that you won’t touch them. Most NTs have instincts that react to all sudden movements as if it were a wild animal attacking. Try to avoid drawing attention with large gestures, flapping your hands or shaking your body.

In general, make your movements deliberate. You can compensate for AS’ poor coordination by thinking ahead with premeditated gestures. I did well in high school sports by reacting to any movement from the corner of my eye. If possible, try to avoid careers that require rapid reflexes like first responders and military infantry.

AS naturally move from complete stillness through a rapid maneuver, but NTs need more “priming”. Make fluid movements by slowly beginning the movement, transitioning to full speed, then slowing the movement to a stop. For example, get up from a chair by grabbing something (even if you won’t use them), leaning into the movement, then slow down as you straighten your body. Warn people by looking at what you’re about to do before you do it, especially if it crosses into another person’s personal space.

F: Facial Expressions

Since the face is 10% of a body, an AS will logically conclude it contains 10% of the nonverbal cues. But, NTs see about 75% of nonverbal communication through the face, mostly in and around the eyes.

The rules of smooth movement also apply to facial expressions. Only make quick transitions in your face or eyes when you’ve become excited or shocked by something. NTs see any rapid facial transition without extreme feelings as a form of lying.

As an AS, facial expressions are the most challenging and rewarding. The slightest variation in muscle movement distinguishes between a wide range of feelings. For example, a smile can progress in intensity to convey satisfied, amused, happy, overjoyed, ecstatic, then manic.

Eye contact is challenging to master because it will stim you without practice. People usually don’t notice if you alternate looking at their nose and mouth. Don’t stare at their mouth much unless you want that person to think you’re attracted to them.

Eye contact may be our greatest weakness, so don’t ever expect to get it correct. All you need is to get it close enough to reliable that nobody feels it’s out of place. The easiest way to maintain eye contact for prolonged periods is to look at the whites of their eyes instead of their pupils.

When talking with someone, look at their eyes or face about 85% of the time. Below 75% eye contact will make them think you’re disinterested, but above 90% will make them think you distrust or plan to hurt them. Staring without looking away stims NTs from an animal instinct that you’re hunting them.

Redirect the remaining 15% of eye contact in a circle away from them. I focused for months on repeating a cycle of left, then down, then right every 3-5 seconds. NTs usually move the circle inward as they intensify the conversation, so imitate inward movement when you’re comfortable with the habit. For the greatest effect, synchronize breaks in eye contact with them saying something that provokes thought.

People often look one direction to recall memories, another to recall images, a third to form stories, and a fourth to form images. Vary the directions your eyes travel to imply you’re pulling from many sources of thought. I used to look hard to the right all the time until someone told me I looked like a compulsive liar.

Once you’ve become accustomed to eye contact, avoid stimming by learning to stare at people without perceiving. If you’ve accustomed yourself to moving your eyes around, most NTs won’t be able to tell.

Your ideas will distract people from your body language, but not your face. Your face gives them context for what they should feel. If your eyes dart around, they’ll think you’re concentrating or are uncomfortable. If an NT’s eyes dart around, they want to leave the conversation.

Never stare at some things, not even absentmindedly! Looking at someone’s body part, especially if they have a physical disability, will make them think you have a problem with it. Only stare at someone for more than a few seconds if you want to get their attention, even from across the room. You can only stare at the opposite gender’s chest or butt if that person has already reciprocated from your direct romantic effort.

To express feelings, exaggerate your face to convey them through the region around your eyes. AS tend to under-express compared to NTs, so magnifying your facial expressions will give context for how people should feel around you.

Learn to smile when you’re happy. Practice in the mirror until it feels photogenic and natural. A natural smile uses all the facial muscles and should show crow’s feet at the sides of the eyes.

One-on-one settings are the correct time to express negative feelings like sadness and anger, but not in groups that don’t directly confront those feelings. Don’t express stronger feelings than the rest of a group. If someone looks sad, don’t smile unless you’re trying to cheer them up. If everyone looks happy, don’t express sadness or discouragement. If the group seems to have mixed feelings or is talking about two or more subjects, it broke into sub-groups when you weren’t paying attention.

If you’re in a big group, pay attention to where other people are looking. They’re often observing another person or group and became disinterested at that moment with what you were saying. Don’t take it personally and drop the subject. I know you want to keep on that subject but trust me when I say that you must drop it if you want to continue your relationship with them. You’ll have plenty of opportunities to share with them later in the unforeseeable future.

Observe and learn how to express specific moods. You’ve likely been misinformed in how you appear. My growing-up years expressed “rage” when I actually meant to convey “distress”!

Be careful with laughter. Inappropriate laughter can devastate a reputation. If you can scale the laughter down to a smile, you won’t get in trouble for it. Think of something either tragic or painful when you need to stifle your laughter. If you observe something funny when nobody wants to hear it, write it down and share it later. Present-tense pain is usually tragic while past-tense pain is often funny.

G: Speaking

Speech sends far more information than text. People understand ideas through many parts of speech. NTs watch how someone pronounces words, speaking speed, volume, choice of words, emphasis on specific words, and the words’ relationship to other nearby statements and words.

Try to analyze the different parts of speech and how they can change implications. The more you understand the mechanics of speech and language, the easier you’ll follow what everyone else is feeling.

Time your speaking to not interrupt anyone else. Let a few seconds of silence persist before responding to make sure. When responding, always start your sentence with either a summary of their idea or a transition modifier like “speaking of which…” or “now that you mention it…”

Only transition to something unrelated to their statement by requesting to change the subject. Sometimes, related ideas to you are completely unrelated to others, but you’ll only discover that by trial and error.

Because people want to feel important, learn to ask more questions. Express curiosity in something they like or do. If you can’t find anything, try to discover what they like or don’t like, then work off that. If you learned more about someone than they did about you, they’ll feel more important and, naturally, will like you more.

Some people run their sentences together back-to-back or only want someone to listen to them speak. Either learn how to interrupt them when they conclude an idea or find someone else to talk to.

AS often ignore their volume, especially when they’re excited about a subject. Speak so your listener can hear you but nobody else can. Always match your voice to the environment, not to the person you’re speaking to.

Watch your voice pattern. Many AS project their emotional energy by beginning sentences loudly, but NTs are usually unsettled by it. Start your first word quietly, then keep a consistent volume throughout.

When you’re finished with a sentence, pause for a half a second. End your statement by moving the tone upward for a question or downward for everything else. Let silence persist once you’ve finished your thought. 95% of the things you say will be original ideas to an NT, so be patient while they process it.

Always incorporate the other person’s thoughts and opinions into your statements! A conversation is a back-and-forth exchange. People are reading far more than you realize, so learn to be more concise and considerate of their time.

Your ability to listen is your most critical communication skill. If you can quote or paraphrase what someone said, they know you were listening to them. Focus on remembering their ideas more than their words.

People find you interesting when you decrease how much you speak. This is counter-intuitive, even to most NTs! By listening, you show them that they’re important to you. Everyone needs to feel important. Our understanding of meaning and purpose comes through how we feel important. Try to talk less than 50% of the time, then aim for less than 30%.

Scale your proportion of speaking to the group’s size. If you’re with two people, limit yourself to 33% of the time. With three people, 25% of the time, four people at 20% of the time, and so on.

When you find someone with the same interests as you, most of them will be less interested in it than you. Respect their desires and keep the conversation as light and casual as they want. Discuss more in-depth if they want to stay on the subject but get ready to drop it and move to whatever they bring up.

Some NTs will revisit a previous subject, but never try to steer the conversation back to a past topic. The NT very likely knows you love that topic and doesn’t want to talk about it.

If the topic moves outside your interest or knowledge, ask questions instead. You’re talking about their interest, so don’t share what you know. Never correct them unless they ask you for advice, even when they’re completely wrong or misguided. Everyone has the right to believe what they want, even if it’s wrong, and you can dismiss yourself if you don’t want to hear it anymore.

Be curious about what that person likes. Find creative ways to intersect what you both enjoy. For example, you may like cars while the other person likes bicycle races. The two fields have plenty of similarities and differences to fill a long conversation, especially if you can find a fun way to combine the concepts.

Most people have no issue with what you say, but often how you say it. Generally, add fillers like “this is just my opinion, but…”, “I don’t know if you’d agree, but…”, and “While this may come across as rude…” It prepares people for a possible blow and you’ll see immediate improvements in your engagements.

Getting accustomed to shifting topics is difficult. AS find most topics boring and deep fascination with a few. You can only survive in the NT world with bite-sized chunks of what you like. After searching long enough, you’ll find others who share your passions. Unfortunately, finding those people is a matter of happenstance, so never stop meeting new people!

If you do find someone who shares your passion, don’t let the opportunity to connect slip by. If you’re at a social event, swap contact information and find someone else to mingle with. Healthy networking strikes at opportunities while they’re available. Build on them later when the event has passed.

If you’re telling a story, only give details that support a one-sentence main idea. AS often give a plethora of details that confuse the listener.

For example, if you’re talking about how you discovered the venue, don’t say:

“My friend Bob knows Tim who runs this event, and two weeks ago he bugged me for the 31^st time to come to this. I finally relented and am now here.”

Instead, say:

“My friend Bob, you might know him, was interested in it, so I came here after he kept bugging me.”

Keep some things unstated. Err on the side of silence. Try to only say things a politician would say. Never say anything that would offend someone within earshot.

You can’t completely avoid offending people. You’ll sometimes learn inappropriate statements the hard way. If you can learn how to never make the same mistake twice, you’ll grow from it regardless.

NOTES: masking and behaving neurotypically

Autistic in the Neurotypical Gauntlet – NeuroClastic

A 2020 Resolution to Unmask and Live Unapologetically and Authentically – NeuroClastic

Are You Being Bullied? On Gaslighting and Depression: Part 1 – NeuroClastic

I have autism and I’m weird. I had no idea I had this effect on other people.

Five not-so-brief tips on how to travel as an Autistic Person – NeuroClastic

On Representation and Communication: On the intersections of being Black, Deaf, and Autistic – NeuroClastic

From Up Here by Tito Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay – NeuroClastic

Weavers and Concluders: Two Communication Styles No One Knows Exist – NeuroClastic

“That’s SO RUDE!” Is It, Though? (Helping To Bridge The Gap Between NT & ND Communication Needs) – NeuroClastic

Poetry: Assessment – NeuroClastic

Autistic Communication Is a Feature, not a Bug – NeuroClastic

The purpose of human cultures – NeuroClastic

Free PDF Download of NeuroInclusive Social Story: On Chatting and Infodumping – NeuroClastic

My changing perceptions of “challenging behaviour” – reflections of a social care professional – NeuroClastic

Four Words: You Need to Change – NeuroClastic

4. How to Persevere

You’re guaranteed to fail, at least at first.

Facing Rejection

You will mess up. When you do, learn to fail well. Use humor at your expense. When I see disapproving faces from failing one of the rules, I often say “oh, I knew I was forgetting something!” Other times, if everyone is comfortable enough, I’ll blame my lack of coordination on a flat surface. If you don’t feel comfortable with humor, transition the focus to something else. If people press you on it, apologize without qualifiers and promise to not do it again.

People communicate they’re done talking in more ways than swaying, making distance, and darting their eyes around the room. They’ll set objects between both of you. You’ll begin noticing a specific tone of voice that indicates the stress pattern when people feel uncomfortable.

People leave conversations without explanation for a variety of reasons. Sometimes you’ve been offensive. Other times they don’t want to risk rudely cutting off the conversation but have other things to do. They might have appointments to keep or want to meet other people at the same event. That person could be an introvert and get as drained from social experiences as you!

Most NTs are terrible at ending a conversation they don’t like if someone didn’t notice their hints. The correct way is to say something to the effect of “Excuse me, I have to go.” They’ll usually fabricate a reason to leave. That reason will usually be a lie about something they want to do or why they must leave. You’ll learn to spot their lies, but don’t call them out. If they cared about their relationship with you, they’d be honest.

If you detect social distance, don’t follow them or wait for them to finish what they said they’d do. If you feel any uncertainty, trust it and move on to someone else. People often lie, so don’t presume everything they say as fact. Frequently ask why they’d say something to understand them more.

If you’re having trouble staying in the conversation, tell them that you must go. If you’re staying at that venue, look for someone else familiar and say you want to talk to that person before you leave. Since you’d rather talk to that person than who you’re talking to, you’re not lying.

Processing This

Once you’re aware of how much NTs lie, you have every reason to become bitter. I imagine every AS must battle it before they can integrate into society.

The cure for bitterness is to focus on good things and move on from the bad. Though some people are lame, there are wonderful people out there, and they’re absolutely worth your investment. Spending extra time thinking of the people you like the least will give them power over you.

As you develop social skills, your opinions of friends and associates will vacillate. Before long, some people that had rejected you will go out of their way to connect with you. You’ll also likely lose some lifelong friends as you out-achieve them.

Keep making theories about how people work. Some of your theories will get complicated. Within a few short years, your theories will be about 95% as reliable as what NTs use! Of course, you’ll know how social behaviors work instead of their gut intuition, so consider that an advantage.

This journey isn’t easy. I’ve given you what to do, but not much on how to overcome your greatest hurdles. The next chapter focuses on how to reach your goals.

5. Your Hardest, Specific Struggles

For AS to accept and conform to the HIS, we must face a few battles at the same time. There aren’t any simple solutions, but you can overcome most of them with well-focused habits. Changing habits is difficult, but the rewards are worth it.

A: Stimming

Even when you can follow all the rules, you will face sensory overload. You’ll have stim reactions. Most of them will be unacceptable in public. Avoid anything that drags you below that 90% HIS, including barking, yelling or rocking back and forth.

You can’t avoid stimming, but you can accommodate it by observing and avoiding nervous breakdowns before they happen. This takes practice and self-awareness.

We stim when we can’t process mental information fast enough. Some triggers are many small elements at once (crinkling paper, swarming ants, specific textures, TV static). Other triggers drain our ability to think (decision-making, loud noises, things competing for our attention).

Adapt your lifestyle to accommodate your weaknesses. NTs do it all the time, so you can too! Avoid concerts if you hate large crowds, find indoor or urban hobbies if nature overwhelms you, avoid anything you fear.

Of course, we can’t avoid some things. We still must go to work and school, attend church, do our chores, cook our food, run our errands. If you can’t avoid the experience, dedicate personal time to build a resistance to it. No matter how overwhelming, you can train your mind like a muscle to transition into situations.

These limits are your opportunity to find creative solutions! In my own life, I watched back-to-back videos of concerts until I became accustomed to the thousands of movements in crowds. Though I still struggle with visual stimuli, I’ve compensated by learning how to stare like I’m focused, but without processing it.

You’ll never eradicate your stimming. When you encounter a trigger, travel to a predetermined “safe place” as soon as possible. Politely excuse yourself to avoid further stimming from others noticing you. The bathroom is the easiest spot because it’s quieter than the venue, consistent, usually available, and you can use it every few hours without others getting concerned.

Most AS stall stimming by manipulating something or “scripting” quotes. As you get better at coping, try downsizing the scope of what you’re doing. If you hold a deck of cards, move to a card or miniature deck. Replace uncommon items with commonplace items. Use simpler quotes that are less conspicuous. I had to transition through holding a yo-yo, a collectible coin, spinning my wedding ring, picking at my nails, and finally twiddling my thumbs. I also went from quoting lines from textbooks to saying, “it’s all good” and “works for me!”, and now I just quietly say “hmmm”.

If you’re stuck stimming somewhere you can’t leave, have a predefined expression. I often look like I’m thinking to hide when I’m overwhelmed. Try to fixate on an immovable object to bring some much-needed security. When you have experience focusing, transition to thinking of philosophical constants beyond the physical world.

You can remove the social effects of stimming even if you don’t remove the triggers. As you become more comfortable with people, you’ll notice a stronger tolerance for uncertainties and overload.

If an NT doesn’t give you grace over your weakness, they’re oblivious to themselves. An NT in a room with the heater on full-blast, bright strobe lights, and 15 unrelated songs playing at 110 dB would be as stimmed as any AS.

B: Anger at Stupid Social Rules

Working hard to follow rules you don’t like to please people is often irritating. It’s maddening when you don’t understand where they come from or why they exist. Even with tons of experience, we’ll never “get it”.

I’ve honored most of the HIS rules for about a decade and researched quite a few of them. Society made most social rules canon long before we were born. If you investigate where most of them came from, they had a purpose at one point but make no sense now.

Further, the rules are often petty. Some apply to specific contexts or one-time circumstances, or are excessively punitive. Others come through or for specific cultures. While some groups don’t care if you break most of the rules, others will excommunicate or kill you over one minor infraction. I became a convicted felon because some people believed my blatant honesty and desire to do the right thing in the face of an uncertain situation was a bellweather of severe deviance.

Most people only understand the rules through subconscious intuition. Almost all the rules are variations or suppressions of animal instincts. Some rules accommodate people suffering from past trauma. The most inconvenient social rules are designed to circumvent irrational fears.

The social rules are an unspoken social contract that gives a sandboxed “test zone” for people to verify others’ trustworthiness. This system mislabels all AS as dangerous who don’t get that 85% HIS Score.

We have no choice. AS won’t become acceptable with “autism awareness” campaigns. People may become aware of autism, but they won’t automatically become more patient with you. In fact, this added “awareness” about AS has generated enough myths that I think it’s hurting us more than helping!

The solution is to channel that anger into something useful, and prove you can succeed. You have high-quality knowledge in your mind right now and society needs to hear it. The only way we can change this HIS is by adapting it from the inside.

I’d love for us to scrap everything to form a more rational system from the ground up. Unfortunately, every attempt at a universal human anything are stories of failure (e.g., Esperanto), mostly because society in general is resistant to change.

C: Discrepant Behavior

Some specific people will stim you as soon as you look at them. Something will feel…off about them. They might say they care while their eyes show rage. They might lean in for a hug while their body is stiff. They will ask you to trust them while you can tell they distrust you.

You’ve discovered a discrepant human being. These people give tremendous trouble to an AS. Some of them are mentally unstable while others have Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). They represent a significant minority of the planet. While they’re more frequently in religion and politics, many of them scrape their way into leadership everywhere.

Some people are always discrepant while others only do it occasionally. People are inconsistent for three major reasons:

Reason 1 – They want you to like them but can’t be honest with themselves. They’re trying to avoid hurting your feelings but also don’t like you. If they were honest with themselves, they’d dislike you, but they’ve spent so much time communicating vaguely that they can’t even think straight! Your mental life is far easier than theirs. Don’t waste your time trying to understand them.

Reason 2 – They like you but get offended by you. People often like your ideas while finding something about your behavior offensive. They’re anxious because they don’t know how to confront you. If you sense their anxiety, they can often tell you know and will become more anxious. Don’t be afraid to express your feelings with them, but don’t expect openness in return.

Reason 3 – Their personality is literally split apart. Some people have gigantic walls between what they’re thinking and what they’re doing. Watch for a jittery and uneasy disposition they seem to carry even when they’re not talking to anyone. Avoid these people.

Whatever you do, don’t let them stim you. These people are usually obsessed with their public image. If they see you in a moment of weakness, they might shame you to redirect attention away from themselves.

In any of these cases, the safest decision is to give them distance. Avoid them or go somewhere away from them. Observe how they behave with others from a distance, then try to engage them in private to see if they’ve improved. If you are related to or work for one, try to spend as little time with that person as possible.

D: Nobody Seems to Care!

AS usually have abandonment issues. They’ll feel like nobody cares about them or their ideas. I can testify to two decades of feeling completely alone with nobody to talk to or share life with.

What you’re feeling is far more severe than reality. What you may feel as “rejection” from others could very well come from mere confusion. Most NTs don’t know how to respond to what they don’t understand.

Your thoughts will be alien to NTs, even the ones you’re friends with. Look for people you can trust. The world won’t understand you, but the few people who care to learn about you are worth your investment. Acceptance doesn’t need understanding.

It’s possible you may spend a long time without someone who identifies with you, but it’s not just an AS problem. Most NTs feel like nobody fully understands them. Since AS are a unique and eclectic group, you may never find someone who shares how you think.

However, that’s not the only way you have to look at it. The topical, bottom-up nature of AS thinking forms into extremely specialized preferences. While you won’t find complete synchronous thinking with anyone, each person has something in common with you!

Keep working hard at whatever you excel at. You can relate to others in that field and have something to show for your time. Your successes will draw successful people to you. Learning social rules ensures you’ll become sophisticated enough that nobody will ever detect your autism.

NOTES

kelly mahler – burnout

While Autistic Burnout is highly unique to each person, some have sent us questions about how autistic burnout happens. Here is a general overview of how it could develop from a way-too-common lived experience. What else would you add?
Step 1: Compliance is demanded.
“Quiet hands.” “Be flexible.” “Don’t overreact.”
Translation: Ignore your body.

Step 2: Authentic needs are suppressed.
You are forced to earn your comfort, to not feel “too much”, act normal
Regulation and felt safety becomes a privilege not a right.

Step 3: Masking becomes a way of life.
You hide your overwhelm. You pretend to be “okay.” You pass.
It’s not coping. It’s performing–and it drains everything you have.

Step 4: The nervous system starts to shut down.
Fatigue. Disconnection. Shutdowns.
You’re still performing, but inside, you’re crumbling from unmet needs.

Step 5: Autistic burnout.
You can’t function. You lose speech, energy, joy, daily activity, even self.
This is collapse. Not from who you are, but from what the world demanded you be.

Meaning

a trick for a meaning crisis:

organize all the tasks by the way they are meaningful (e.g., contributes to others, prevents loss, )
prioritize what is most meaningful, with respect to the groupings
you should see what is most meaningful to pursue

NOTE: MANY ASPECTS OF STIMMING CAN CREATE EXISTENTIAL BREAKDOWN

RSD

Living with Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria – NeuroClastic

Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria is an intense emotional response to perceived or actual rejection, criticism, or failure. It’s commonly experienced by people with ADHD, autism and other neurodivergent traits.

self-care and emotional first aid

It’s critical to self-regulate

dysregulation is unusually more severe in AS, and therefore it’s more important to perform
barring other AS, the very nature of the disorder means most people won’t understand you, but that’s okay

Tips for Autistic People to Help Recover from Burnout – NeuroClastic

An Autistic Hiker’s Perspective on Self-Love – NeuroClastic

Tal Anderson: Finding My Voice through Acting – NeuroClastic

Ask Myk: On Self-Love in an Ableist World – NeuroClastic

What Is Authenticity and How Does It Change With Age?

Autism: Healing from Trauma in Nature – NeuroClastic

Rediscovering the language of life – NeuroClastic

Life with Autism, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and Cats – NeuroClastic

The Autistic pace of life in the ocean – NeuroClastic

Who Am I? Printable Resource for Connecting with Your Core Self – NeuroClastic

Coming back to life – NeuroClastic

Bad Poetry, a Mask, & Truth – NeuroClastic

Autism in Motion: Ecopsychology and Autism – NeuroClastic

A Letter of Support – NeuroClastic

Healing from Autistic trauma – NeuroClastic

On Autism and Adolescence: An Open Letter to My High School Classmates – NeuroClastic

stimming and sensory overload

Trichotillomania: When Stimming Turns Self-Injurious – NeuroClastic

The Autistic Experience of Sensory Overwhelm, Meltdowns, and Shutdowns – NeuroClastic

Autistic Meltdowns: From the Inside – NeuroClastic

The Return of an Old Stim – NeuroClastic

Appreciating Life When Overwhelmed by Death –

Autistic People Care Too Much, Research Says – NeuroClastic

An Open Letter to the Loved Ones of Someone Living with Anxiety & Depression – NeuroClastic

The Anxiety Demon – NeuroClastic

When Autism and Grief Collide – NeuroClastic

Moving While Autistic – NeuroClastic

How to Reduce Autistic Barriers to Moving

College: The Highs and Lows For An Autistic Student – NeuroClastic

A Creative Take on Sensory Processing: Part Two – NeuroClastic

6. The Risks of Success

Our connections with others are the only way we can thrive. It’s also how we reap from our success.

You need a networked group to find a place in society. Choose people that give both encouragement and constructive criticism. Try a club, church, or anywhere else where people meet. Only attend groups that encourage you and draw you out of your comfort zone. Try to find groups with people who lead it that have succeeded more than you.

Keep testing groups to find one where you can meet its needs and it can meet yours. Cycle through many groups if you need to. Each new group is a chance to learn and retry. I’ve cycled through about 35 networks so far and still find people who expand my view of the world!

You probably use Reddit, Facebook, Twitch or some other social network, but don’t limit yourself to online-only. We need in-person connections, but it takes consistent practice to hold a real-life conversation. Use social networks like Meetup and Craigslist as a springboard for face-to-face encounters.

Social skills are completely trainable. The most successful people, in any attempt, weren’t the best qualified. Instead, they poured their willpower into building their skills for years. This requires faith in yourself. Aim for adequacy, not perfection. Get input from other successes. Read any popular books on social skills. I made a website (https://adequate.life) on what to do and another one (https://gainedin.site) on why.

If you’re on the AS, you can build amazing things! You might be able to craft an entire fictional world with intricate detail. You could be the engineer that solves the world’s food or energy crisis. You could develop an algorithm that magnifies data transfer. Neurotypicals must exhaust themselves to get to your level of natural talent. The only barrier to your success is that HIS Score!

The greatest social accomplishment as an AS is when the NTs don’t notice. For myself, I knew I’d arrived when I stopped hearing constructive criticism that I was “awkward” or “overbearing”. Shortly after, people started saying my ideas were “profound” or “creative”. Now, people are fascinated by me and I’m fast becoming moderately influential without even trying!

If you succeed as AS, people who know you well will completely forget you’re someone with special needs. Once an NT confuses you as another NT, you’ve outranked the average person in aptitude because of where you started.

Overcoming the downsides of AS will make you more focused, regimented, determined, straightforward, and analytical than most of your peers. If you can avoid reminding people that you’re on the spectrum, you can be as unique and adventurous as you want!

And, if you don’t believe me, thousands of others already have traveled this road. They’re usually the geeks, nerds, scientists, and inventors who took an inhuman level of interest in something. If you’ve read a few autobiographies about someone outside of business or political success, odds are you were reading about the positive side of AS.

NOTES

asd and narcissism

make sure to add a section about the risks inherent to narcissism

basically, you’re a MAJOR risk to them, and they see you as an enemy/risk to their power
detecting them is actually pretty easy (give a rundown)

the reason NPD hates ASD:

they say literally anything without filter, and NPD has an insanity about receiving any form of criticism
- further, ASD don’t mean anything ill-intended by it, so NPD can’t attack their motivations
ASD don’t live and exist with facial cues and responses, while NPD do
- by design, ASD are therefore hard to read, and that irritates NPD because they thrive on reading others’ bodily cues

indicate:

in a reductionist way, history has actually been the story of powerful narcissists who have martyred ASD who didn’t realize what they were getting themselves into (e.g., Copernicus, Luther)

asd, conceit, and self-identity

Why I Choose Autistic Pride – NeuroClastic

The Joys of Working Within Your Tribe – NeuroClastic

the image of pretention:

most ASD can over-intellectualize their feelings

it’s a survival mechanism to avoid the stimming making them overwhelmed: makes order of chaos
at the same time, it comes across as someone being a know-it-all
every neurotypical will likely imagine that person is a conceited know-it-all at one point or another: don’t take it personally if they do

making friends

Connection in the Face of Rejection – NeuroClastic

Bridging Communication: Conversations with Neurodivergent People – NeuroClastic

An appeal to young autistic people to see the vulnerable, lonely souls who belong to our community but don’t know it yet – NeuroClastic

An Open Letter to Autistic High Schoolers – NeuroClastic

Resolution for Inclusion: Autistics need deep, quality friendships – NeuroClastic

Autism and Friendships: Adding Color to your Spectrum – NeuroClastic

Autism and Friendships Part 2: 30 Ways to be a Friend to a Person on the Spectrum – NeuroClastic

Autism and Friendships Part 1: The Polish of a One-Winged Albatross – NeuroClastic

making friends – detecting warning signs

An Introduction to Creepology: How to identify predators – NeuroClastic

NPD IS COMMON TO PAIR WITH ASD!

making friends – romantic relationships

How Do You Ask Your Crush Out? – NeuroClastic

Asperger’s and Marriage: He’s Always Looking for Debate – NeuroClastic

Why Your Asperger’s-Neurotypical Relationship Is Failing – NeuroClastic

Professional Cuddling: A Safety Guide for Autistics – NeuroClastic

Relationship Rubik’s Cube – NeuroClastic

Hiki: A Dating & Friendships App that Autistics May Actually Want to Use – NeuroClastic

Asexual & Aromantic Archives – NeuroClastic

masking success

FROM FB photo
The irony is that ASD may be the most sincere believers of the facade.
Everyone is programmed to mask, at least somewhat. Most NTs can also see that it’s masking, so they give a range of responses to those who publicly unmask.
In some ways, the tragedy lies in the ASD, who has been believing they can stand to the standard. It’s like seeing your friends on Facebook, then assuming your normal and sometimes lousy life is an accurate comparison.

this may be a good place for me to drop that my unmasking created a felony

people pleasing

why high-functioning AS are people pleasers:

1 chronic rejection sensitivity – so hypersensitive with nervous system that they try to “head it off” to avoid a confrontation

this feeds well into NPD
2 conflict avoidance – knowledge of being out-of-step so they avoid confrontations
arguments are often about the argument and not the thing itself
it’s just easier to “go without” to make the other person happy
3 desiring positive feedback but can’t detect it
unable to pick up subtle cues of appreciation or gratitude
it’s simply easier to do favors and then see their feedback

shared understanding

Co-creating Autistic / ND communities – NeuroClastic

Repairing the human cultural immune system – NeuroClastic

Nurturing shared understanding in a deceptive world – NeuroClastic

The social architecture of collective intelligence – NeuroClastic

Understanding human collective behaviour – NeuroClastic

Top 10 Things You Should Know About Apraxia According to a Nonspeaker

Cultural evolution towards human scale – NeuroClastic

Hozier, Monomania, Monsters, Melville, Literature, Layers, & Movement – NeuroClastic

THIS CAN CREATE OTHER ISSUES, SUCH AS ONE-TRACK CULTS

unlikable

Facebook

the irony is that they are usually more sensitive to rejection

succeeding at autism guarantees being a little fish in a big pond

it is why I am a convicted felon

Appendix: Famous AS

NOTE: Many of these are likely AS, since they often have been undiagnosed.

Hans Christian Andersen
Aristotle (probably)
Dan Aykroyd
Marty Balin
Benjamin Banneker (probably)
Susan Boyle
Dan Aykroyd
Tim Burton
Lewis Carroll
Henry Cavendish (probably)
Charles Darwin (probably)
Tony DeBlois
Emily Dickinson
Paul Dirac (probably)
Albert Einstein (probably)
Bobby Fischer
Bill Gates
Temple Grandin
Daryl Hannah
James Hobley
Thomas Jefferson (probably)
Steve Jobs
Linus Torvalds (probably)
James Joyce (probably)
Stanley Kubrick
Courtney Love
Caiseal Mór
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (probably)
Michelangelo (probably)
Isaac Newton (probably)
Matt Savage
Jerry Seinfeld
Satoshi Tajiri
Nikola Tesla (probably)
Andy Warhol
Wilbur and Orville Wright (probably)
Ludwig Wittgenstein (probably)
William Butler Yeats (probably)

20 Musicians With Autism That May Surprise You | Pink Wafer

30 Successful People on the Autism Spectrum

NOTES

resources

maybe consider an updated resource list of various groups and organizations that could help

the Sunrise Program, for autistic kids

MISC NOTES

handmade notes

Identity for ASD is essentially a distilled mechanism of values, experiences, and sensations. Their phenomenology cannot sufficiently capture and believe the illusion of social interaction necessary for true social integration.

A huge problem with the ASD awareness community is that they portray ASD as a victimhood. The people who feel as if they are a victim violate the principles of finding meaning (i.e., they’re responsible to do something). The book I’m writing is a plain depiction of how to find meaning as an autistic: by being the best possible self you can muster in a skill you’re awful at (i.e., social skills) for the purpose of capitalizing on your greatest strengths (i.e., your unique perspective and natural talents endemic to your neuropathy).

The ASD must constantly assess the constraint of what other people are thinking and care about

their mind-blindness means they don’t have an intuition for it
without it, they will endlessly talk about things other people don’t care about, dragging down society and incurring irritation by their peers

The “social complete contract” to an ASD is absolutely impossible for an ASD to understand
everyone misses some of it, but ASD will always miss more than everyone else

ASD doesn’t know what they want because they have trouble believing their wants are even attainable
it’s an existential problem of social alienation from the earliest formative years of a baby’s development

When infants are not nurtured, their GI system fails and they die
Autistic people have GI problems their entire life

Autism spectrum is the extremes of low extraversion enough to not detect social cues, high conscientiousness, and high neuroticism.
their meltdown with ANY change in things is a demonstration of the conscientiousness going wrong
the variance comes from the other two: openness to experience and agreeableness, which is why no two ASD are the same
the conscientiousness comes from [trauma], the neuroticism comes from biology

A child is supposed to enjoy playing, and this is no exception for autistic kids
however, ASD children tend to play with relatively “boring” things (e.g., organizing, reading, building things quietly)
in general, just give them STEM stuff, but not too much or it’ll stim them and they’ll want less toys

Max, an Autistic Journey – Steam
While ASD requires a very rigid routine, the secret is to break that routine and modulate it
This is VERY controversial, but by adapting and modulating the rigidity, an ASD can life a VERY meaningful and productive life!

Autism v3
Contact Autism Speaks once I make a v3

NOTE: CONSIDER MAKING THE BOOK AVAILABLE FREE ONLINE

ADD and ASD pair well together:
racing random thoughts mix well with procedural slow-to-understand thinking
ADD people who care about ASD people’s thoughts can easily pivot back-and-forth between neurodivergence and neurotypical

Where your eyes settle means a LOT to people
Do NOT directly read a woman’s shirt unless you’re trying to express interest, especially if you’re male
If you want to read it, ask what the shirt says, then wait for them to talk about it

Discuss “masking” and social modulation

some people condemn masking, but habit modulation is NOT masking
essentially, ASD has the same problem as Cluster B: they have to invent the social standards for the purpose of conforming to the mainstream model of society

It’s absolutely, entirely possible that you can mitigate the symptoms of ASD by integrating your shadow

i.e., own that you feel something severely, and that nobody else technically cares as much as you
without that, most of the practices outlined in [chapter referring to masking practices] will work, but can also foster further CPTSD
(make sure to bring up CPTSD)

Indicate how ALL of the masking and fake behavior is a secondary response

At the core of it, ASD are severely emotional people, and they simply have to cope with a society that places a specific requirement of normalcy to maintain coexistence
It’s an unpleasant ultimatum: conform, or become a pariah/heretic/outcast/exile
Even when you succeed, you can still fail. Your success will mean nobody will realize how far you had to go to get there (felony story?)
meaning comes through overcoming, not in the results. ASD find meaning in simply appearing normal. Then, specializing and excelling in the rest of life becomes almost trivial. It’s a bit of the reverse from NTs, who can only look down or up at ASD.

ASD is a product of trauma

not to blame ANYONE, since it was during infancy
often, it could just be the high emotional maintenance requirements, mixed with parents who could not have known better

Many, MANY “heroes” of STEM were ASD

Dijkstra, Stallman, Torvalds
it takes a strange scope of single-minded obsession to do what they did
you can usually tell because they don’t suck up any of the glory, and keep pressing on toward the ideal

neurological disorders aren’t necessarily “defined” clearly
ASD overlaps severely with quite a few others diagnoses:

dysregulation
CPTSD
ADD
depression
in short, ASD may be connected, or may not, but the irony of ASD people is that they define themselves by ASD, since ASD over-identifies with things

discuss the issues with reciprocity and how ASD functions with it

indicate how the give/take is difficult in different ways for different ASD
most ASD have to do it by trial-and-error

autism has trouble building patterns

therefore, people are difficult because the changes can be traumatic
it means there’s no easy way to abstractly work with things, and it is simply memorizing and reproducing back
the ability to atomize smaller chunks is the only way to get through it

ASD could possibly be described as endless adjustment disorder over the smallest things

MISC ARTICLES

AGE OF AUTISM

has an interesting take, I will need to absorb

Verbal and Written Communication: The Disconnect – NeuroClastic

What It Means to Be Open-minded in a Divisive Nation – NeuroClastic

I Don’t Regret You – NeuroClastic

What Is It Like for An Autistic Parent to Raise a Non-Autistic Child? – NeuroClastic

Father, Interrupted… – NeuroClastic

Emotions Go Both Ways, Unless It’s ABA – NeuroClastic

Hockey Rules and Other Opinions – NeuroClastic

Unintentional Bullies – NeuroClastic

Fresh Starts: After the meltdown – NeuroClastic

Parenting Outcasts You’re Not Biologically Related To – NeuroClastic

The Hidden Strength of Autistic Moms in a Neurotypical Mom Culture – NeuroClastic

When a Non-Autistic Child Is Raised by Autistic Parents, Their Experiences Are Similar to Autistics Raised by Non-Autistics – NeuroClastic

Nurturing healthy Autistic relationships – NeuroClastic

The Evil Twin – NeuroClastic

Autism and Relentless Analogizing: We make analogies about making analogies – NeuroClastic

The Identity Theory of Autism: Values are not opinions to Autistics. We are our values. – NeuroClastic

Worldwide #ShineOnMax Candlelight and Rocks Vigil – NeuroClastic

Hypermobility Pain Hacks – NeuroClastic

Why Autistic Kids and Adults Develop Intense Fears and Phobias – NeuroClastic

Asperger’s and Empathy: Shifting Away from Dated Misconceptions – NeuroClastic

Allism Spectrum Disorders: A Parody – NeuroClastic

Aspergese 101: On Taking Things Literally and Mind Blindness – NeuroClastic

Part 1: Autism & Empathy – A Case Study – NeuroClastic

Part 2: Autism and Empathy – Feedback – NeuroClastic

Part 3 – Empathy & Philosophy: the Neurotypical Response – NeuroClastic

Part 4: Empathy & Philosophy – Different Perspectives – NeuroClastic

Part 5: My Personal Journey Through this Empathy Series – NeuroClastic

Three Simple Steps to Better Self Care – NeuroClastic

Very Grand Emotions: How Autistics and Neurotypicals Experience Emotions Differently – NeuroClastic

The Ultimate Empathy Gap: Can Neurotypical-Autistic Pairings Truly Work? – NeuroClastic

Hate, Supremacy, Love, Autism, & What Makes Us Human – NeuroClastic

Destroying the “Lack of Empathy” Myth in the Wake of Bleach Enemas & Autistic Abuse – NeuroClastic

Expanding my comfort zone – NeuroClastic

Autism: Autistic Empathy is Different – NeuroClastic

Autistic Body Language – NeuroClastic

My Neurotypical Friend Meg – NeuroClastic

The Identity Theory of Autism: How Autistic Identity Is Experienced Differently – NeuroClastic

Co-creating ecologies of caring and sharing – NeuroClastic

This Little Mask-Erade Is Over – NeuroClastic

It’s the Most Alienating Time of the Year – NeuroClastic

A Life Illuminated – NeuroClastic

Life-Saving Advice for Those Who See – NeuroClastic

Searching for Identity in a Neurotypical World – NeuroClastic

Forming Myself in Their Image: A Tale of My Shoggoth – NeuroClastic

My Metaphorical Penis – Tools, Toys, and Identity – NeuroClastic

The Painfully High Price of Autistic Masking – Part 1 – NeuroClastic

Self-Love and Autistic Survival – NeuroClastic

Why Autistic Women Seem Two-Faced – NeuroClastic

The Accidental Autistic – NeuroClastic

10 Reasons We Need Autistic Pride – NeuroClastic

Poetry: Unmasking As Autistic Pride – NeuroClastic

What Autistic Pride Means to Me – NeuroClastic

Autistic Solidarity: A Personal Reflection – NeuroClastic

10 Signs I Was Transgender But Didn’t Know It – NeuroClastic

Be Yourself: How Do You Do It? – NeuroClastic

On Autistic Facial Expression and Being A Woman – NeuroClastic

Why I’m Not a High-Functioning Autistic – NeuroClastic

Elements of Executive Function: Road Trip Without a Map – NeuroClastic

What CAN be misunderstood WILL be misunderstood – NeuroClastic

Take the Long Way Home: Late Diagnosis and Becoming an Autistic Elder – NeuroClastic

Autism and Gender – NeuroClastic

Autism and Sexual Vulnerability-One Woman’s Story – NeuroClastic

Between Labels: Living neuro-confused in a neurotypical world – NeuroClastic

He Killed My Cat: On the dangers of dating while autistic – NeuroClastic

Autism & Movie Talk – NeuroClastic

Autism & the flitting phenomenon – NeuroClastic

Faith and Neurodivergence – NeuroClastic

Removing the Mask in Lockdown – NeuroClastic

Imposter Syndrome: Life Behind a Mask – NeuroClastic

Masking and Mental Health Implications – NeuroClastic

$5 Million Grant Awarded to Make Autistic People Mask in Job Interviews – NeuroClastic

Don’t assume I’m masking – NeuroClastic

The Glass Room: Being autistic in a neurotypical world – NeuroClastic

Unmasking as a Parent: Parades in peril – NeuroClastic

Sia’s Film, Music: Who to Ignore, Who to Listen to, and Why – NeuroClastic

Autism Awareness does not prevent Autistic Masking. Autistic Acceptance does. – NeuroClastic

But doesn’t everyone wear a mask? – NeuroClastic

Autistic masking is why I have no friends – NeuroClastic

Shutdowns – NeuroClastic

Why Being Called “Dramatic” Is Both Completely Wrong and Psychologically Damaging to Autistic People – NeuroClastic

Autism and Meltdowns: One Autistic Woman’s Journey – NeuroClastic

What I Wish Neurotypicals Knew About Meltdowns – NeuroClastic

My Problem with Autistic Meltdowns – NeuroClastic

Swallowed Whole: Inside an Autistic PTSD Flashback – NeuroClastic

My Problem with Autistic Meltdowns: Part Two – NeuroClastic

Grocery Store Aggressive Meltdowns and How to Deal with Them – NeuroClastic

Ode to Joy – NeuroClastic

Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) Parenting: Taking You on a Guilt Trip – NeuroClastic

15 Life Hacks for PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance) – NeuroClastic

My Best Friend’s Suicide: Stop Calling Us Normal – #NoDejahVu – NeuroClastic

PDA: Pathological Demand Avoidance Archives – NeuroClastic

Perceptive Observational Analysis: The Autistic Way of Navigating & Connecting Knowledge – NeuroClastic

Covid19: Why I believe we should all be anarchists and communalists – NeuroClastic

The relational nervous system of open knowledge flows between human societies – NeuroClastic

Pattern Recognition Archives – NeuroClastic

Autism and Food: How to Eat an Elephant – NeuroClastic

Poetry: AuDHD – NeuroClastic

Executive Functioning Archives – NeuroClastic

A Letter to Autistic Teens: Know What You Deserve – NeuroClastic

A Letter to Autistic Teens – NeuroClastic

On sense and sensitivity: sensory phenomena in autism – NeuroClastic

The Jar Principle: On Over-Stimulation & Social Exhaustion – NeuroClastic

An Open Letter to Non-Autistic Friends & Family – NeuroClastic

Where Did I Park? : The Neurodivergent Musician – NeuroClastic

A Creative Take on Sensory Processing: Part One – NeuroClastic

A Creative Take on Sensory Processing: Part Three – NeuroClastic

A Creative Take on Sensory Processing: Conclusion – NeuroClastic

A Funhouse of Horrors: 8 Ways Autism, OCD, Dyslexia, Sensory Processing Disorder, & Synesthesia Intersect – NeuroClastic

Emotional Overload and Aspie Understanding – NeuroClastic

Sound and Fury – NeuroClastic

Autism and Pregnancy: A Birth Experience – NeuroClastic

Sensory Survival: Living with hypersensitivity, overwhelm, & meltdowns – NeuroClastic

Wanting to be Alone and Together: A Paradox – NeuroClastic

No, Really, I’m Fine (on Alexithymia) – NeuroClastic

My Autist Manifesto – NeuroClastic

Virtually Real: VR and the Autistic Brain – NeuroClastic

Gender Presentation – An Autistic Perspective – NeuroClastic

Poetry: Autism Is Invisible – NeuroClastic

How “The Golden Rule” Harms Autistic People – NeuroClastic

Autism and Pica – NeuroClastic

Why Accessible, Community Driven, and Neurodiversity-Friendly Events Are So Important – NeuroClastic

Autism and Food Aversions – NeuroClastic

The Horror of Task Interruption – 12 Neurodivergent People Explain the Unbearable Feeling of Being Ripped Away from Their Thoughts – NeuroClastic

Raising Autistics: Children are people, not property – NeuroClastic

50 Reasons why an Autistic Adult may be in a Bad Mood – NeuroClastic

The Sonic Bliss of Quintessential Autistic Gear: Noise Cancelling Headphones – NeuroClastic

Neurolurker diaries: holiday confessions – NeuroClastic

Sensory Processing and Parenting – NeuroClastic

The alexithymia & autism guide – NeuroClastic

Alexithymia: The forest and the trees – NeuroClastic

Processing Grief through Movement – NeuroClastic

Spectrum Critters Comics: What is Masking? – NeuroClastic

Spectrum Critters Comics: Quiet Confidence – NeuroClastic

Spectrum Critters Comics: Your Voice – NeuroClastic

Suicide Prevention: the Autistic Occupation Edition – NeuroClastic

Sensory Processing is Only Half the Story: Movement Differences in Autistic People – NeuroClastic

The Hidden Rooms in my Mind – NeuroClastic

Neuroception 101: How the mindbody scans and adapts for safety and danger – NeuroClastic

Show Us Your Brain – FREE Resource for understanding your “brain story” – NeuroClastic

“Control Issues” and Autistics: Understanding & Navigating a Basic Autistic Needs – NeuroClastic

Blind and Autistic: How Dueling Disabilities Makes Me a Bridge – NeuroClastic

Autism and Going to the Doctor: How it feels from the inside – NeuroClastic

Autism and Christmas – NeuroClastic

Autism: Not Such a Hidden Disability with Apraxia – NeuroClastic

What autistics mean when we say this world is not made for us: How fun activities push autistics into the margins – NeuroClastic

Name Synesthesia: Sorry, Rhona, and no offence, Gary – NeuroClastic

On Autistic Special Interests and My Love for Plants – NeuroClastic

One Who Cares – NeuroClastic

Are Those Colors For Real? – NeuroClastic

Ten Things We Love about Being Autistic – NeuroClastic

Autistic Spectroscopy: Exploring what the “spectrum” means – NeuroClastic

Dungeons and Dragons and Not Hating Myself for Five Freaking Minutes. – NeuroClastic

Thank You for the Music: On the autistic joy of pursuing special interests – NeuroClastic

Neurodivergents Deserve A Place in the Art Community – NeuroClastic

Lining Up and Arranging and Color Coding Objects, Oh My! – NeuroClastic

A Strategy to Help Autistic Kids be Less Afraid of Storms– Or Anything Else – NeuroClastic

Collaborative niche construction – NeuroClastic

How To Bond With Your Autistic Child Through Your Special Interests – NeuroClastic

Self-Harm Archives – NeuroClastic

Why AAC is a Human Right for NonSpeaking Autistics and Disabled People – NeuroClastic

Double Standards: ABA vs. Facilitated Communication – NeuroClastic

The “Severe Autism” Concept is Behaviourism’s Final Stand – NeuroClastic

Access to Communication is a Human Right – NeuroClastic

A Letter to Pro-Cure Autistic People – NeuroClastic

Game-Changing Research in the World of Communication Rights – NeuroClastic

Nonspeaker Perspectives on Representation – NeuroClastic

Airplanes and the Autistic – NeuroClastic

We are capable and deserving of an education – NeuroClastic

Forgoing and Going: The best and worst feelings autistics feel – NeuroClastic

Tiny Typing Kids: A letter to young nonspeakers – NeuroClastic

Include all Conversion Therapies in Legislative Ban – NeuroClastic

Countdown towards a ban of all forms of conversion therapy – NeuroClastic

Autistic Listening: you cannot tell if I am paying attention – NeuroClastic

REVIEW: The Reason I Jump – An Unusual Film With a Very Important Message – NeuroClastic

Poetry: Letter by Letter – NeuroClastic

Mental Health Therapy for Nonspeakers – NeuroClastic

AAC: Augmentative & Alternative Communication Archives – NeuroClastic

Growing up with Selective Mutism – NeuroClastic

Selective Mutism: I Have No Mouth. But I Must SCREAM – NeuroClastic

Selective Mutism – Just because somebody can’t speak, doesn’t mean they don’t have a voice – NeuroClastic

Our Journey with Selective Mutism – Bekki Semenova and Stella – NeuroClastic

Chronic catatonia? Order yourself into action – NeuroClastic

A poem that shouldn’t exist and isn’t a real poem anyway – NeuroClastic

The Autistic Gaze: Rumble Fish [film] – NeuroClastic

Mutism Archives – NeuroClastic

Apraxia Archives – NeuroClastic

The Autistics’ Question – NeuroClastic

A Nonspeaker’s Letter to Young Autistics, – NeuroClastic

The Right to Privacy for Nonspeaking Autistics – NeuroClastic

The Big Gag: Autism science and autistic heresy – NeuroClastic

Catatonia Archives – NeuroClastic

(Un)Diagnosed Adults On The Autism Spectrum – NeuroClastic

What’s in a Word: Asperger’s and the APA – NeuroClastic

Is It Trauma or Autism? Or Both? – NeuroClastic

Today I Cried: On the Rejection of Labels – NeuroClastic

A Systematic Approach to Living into My 90s – NeuroClastic

Misdiagnosis and mistreatment of autistics in the mental health system – NeuroClastic

The Coveted Driver’s License. On Driving (or not) While Autistic – NeuroClastic

Are you a #NeuroLurker? – NeuroClastic

Coming Out to Family and Friends as Autistic – NeuroClastic

Butterfly in a Blender – NeuroClastic

Autistic People React to the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) – Part 3 – NeuroClastic

Autistic People React to the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) Test – Part 2 – NeuroClastic

From pseudo-philosophical psychiatrists to openly Autistic culture – NeuroClastic

Autistic ways of being, trauma, and diagnosis – NeuroClastic

Autistic mutual aid – a factor of cultural evolution – NeuroClastic

Why Adult Autistics Aren’t Being Diagnosed: A Human Rights Crisis – NeuroClastic

What Autism Means to Me – NeuroClastic

If I Would Have Known I had Asperger’s – NeuroClastic

A Song of Hope, A Man Abused – NeuroClastic

Isolation & Self-Help After an Autism Diagnosis – NeuroClastic

Reactions to Late Autism Diagnosis – NeuroClastic

My Mother Never Told Me: On surviving a lifetime of abuse not knowing I was autistic – NeuroClastic

How To Get Diagnosed #ActuallyAutistic in Just 26 Years – NeuroClastic

My Late Autism Diagnosis: I Was Angry – NeuroClastic

5 observations on my late diagnosis – NeuroClastic

Recently Diagnosed as Autistic and Realizing My Own Prejudice

Newly Diagnosed ASD Shame: I’m Not Really Autistic, Right? –

How I Came to be Diagnosed with Autism at 55 Years of Age – NeuroClastic

Jane Eyre, Autistic Heroine – NeuroClastic

Autistic Body Language is not Always Communication – NeuroClastic

My family’s autism services are working for us, so we will probably lose them – NeuroClastic

An interview with Soma Mukhopadhyay, pioneer of rapid prompting method (RPM) – NeuroClastic

Difficult Community Dialogues: On ABA, Evolution, Weaver Communication, and Intersectionality – NeuroClastic

The Human Rights Case Against Harmful Behaviour Modification for Autistic People – NeuroClastic

Challenges and discrimination for autistic children in school – NeuroClastic

Education about Autistic culture, the ND paradigm, and the ND movement – for medical professionals, by Autistic people – NeuroClastic

Helping Your Autistic, ADHD, or Dyslexic Child (or Self) with Reading Fluency – NeuroClastic

Real Progress Takes Time, So Don’t Give Up – NeuroClastic

The Joy of Communication – NeuroClastic

What is ABA? A Resource Guide for Parents of Autistic Children

The Strategies of ABA – What Parents Should Know Before Making a Decision – NeuroClastic

Social Stories for Autism and the Harm They Can Cause – NeuroClastic

Autism, Fire Alarms, & School Fire Drills – NeuroClastic

Angry, Mean Autistics Invading Autism Groups, Upsetting Parents – NeuroClastic

My Brain Is Autistic – NeuroClastic

The Autistic Boy in the Unruly Body: A NeuroInclusive Story About Apraxia – NeuroClastic

Education Archives – NeuroClastic

Autism Research Archives – NeuroClastic

The Social Convention of Holiday Gifts: An Autistic Nightmare – NeuroClastic

Peer to Peer school program in Lincoln Park teams kids with, without autism – The News Herald

Autism / Useful Notes – TV Tropes

ADHD Accommodations Guide | Hacker News
ADHD Workplace Accommodations Guide – ADDA – Attention Deficit Disorder Association

“Autism is a spectrum” doesn’t mean what you think (2019) | Hacker News
“Autism is a Spectrum” Doesn’t Mean What You Think – NeuroClastic

Autism Fact Sheet | National Autism Association

Genius Ditz – TV Tropes

Idiot Savant – TV Tropes

Autistic people outperform neurotypicals in a cartoon version of an emotion recognition task

Autism and Empathy: why you’re wrong about it – Unapologetically Autistic

ELI5: Non-Verbal Autism? Is this some sort of inability to speak or a subconscious refusal? : explainlikeimfive

note the contention about non-verbal ASD

Allistic and 10 other Important Autistic Terms Explained Well

Autism and Sex: How Autism Affects Sexuality and Intimacy

Asperger’s and Adult Relationships: Dating, Romance, Tips

Can a Person With Autism Fall in Love? | Psychology Today

3 Relationship Strategies for Adults With Autism | Psychology Today

How Does a Person with Autism Date successfully?

GitHub – CodeBrauer/awesome-developer-comics: Curated list of comics, memes and cartoons developers will love.

How to Get Out of an Autistic Thought Loop | Psychology Today

5 Ways to Deal with Adult Autistic Meltdowns | Psychology Today

Ableism – Wikipedia

Arresting Ableism; Insight and Experiences of a Nonspeaking Autistic – NeuroClastic

The Gatekeeping of Diagnostic Dinosaurs: Autism, neurophobia, confirmation bias, and internalized ableism – NeuroClastic

Doing More by Doing Less: Reducing Autistic Burnout | Psychology Today

Unmasking autism – unlearn shame and nurture a more inclusive world : Life Kit : NPR

aspergirl-git/awesome-autism: A curated list of awesome resources for Autism Spectrum Disorder and Asperger’s Syndrome

Identical twins both grew up with autism, but took different paths | Hacker News
These twin brothers are identical, but their autism isn’t : Shots – Health News : NPR

The Neurodiverse Survey Experience

Home | ASMRtags
ASMR Videos

Neuroticism: 12 Emotion Regulation Skills & Worksheets

The Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire (CAT-Q) | Embrace Autism

Autism no puzzle, nothing wrong with us – Altogether Autism

autism coded – Qwant Search

What You Didn’t Know About Autism – YouTube

Love on the Spectrum (American TV series) – Wikipedia

Life, Animated (Film)

Why is everyone suddenly neurodivergent?

What You Didn’t Know About Autism

Facebook

Video | Facebook

it is difficult to understand, but the truth is that nobody understands anyone else really but pretend to, so the pretending is ehat everyone expects, and that becomes the standard everyone holds to
in other words, EVERYONE is somewhat masking!

Unmasking Tips for Autism: How to Stop Masking

Seven Steps to Unmasking as a Neurodivergent Person – LA Concierge Psychologist

Autistic Not Weird – Insights from an Autistic Teacher and Speaker

Facebook

RAADS–R | Embrace Autism

description

Have you heard of autism and think you have it?
Are you on the spectrum and tired of others looking down on you for it?
Have you struggled with depression and feel like you’ll never make it in public?
This guide to autism is written with you in mind.
You CAN be normal and CAN succeed with others, and this relatively short book describes exactly how.

The Reason for the Third Edition

Why this Book Exists

1. What Autism Is

How Autism Thinks

AS Has Advantages

NOTES

Binary

Diagnosis

Levels

obsession and addiction

asd and computer screens

asd are talented

aspie personality quiz

vaccines

2. Many Unwritten Rules Exist

The Rule System

HIS Has Problems

You Can’t Change the HIS

Be Unconventional

If You Disagree

If You’re Offended

You CAN Do It

Make a System

3. The Biggest Social Rules

A: Preparing for Socializing

B: Greeting People

C: Mirroring

D: Personal Space

E: Body Language

F: Facial Expressions

G: Speaking

NOTES: masking and behaving neurotypically

4. How to Persevere

Facing Rejection

Processing This

5. Your Hardest, Specific Struggles

A: Stimming

B: Anger at Stupid Social Rules

C: Discrepant Behavior

D: Nobody Seems to Care!

NOTES

kelly mahler – burnout

Meaning

RSD

self-care and emotional first aid

stimming and sensory overload

6. The Risks of Success

NOTES

asd and narcissism

asd, conceit, and self-identity

making friends

making friends – detecting warning signs

making friends – romantic relationships

masking success

people pleasing

shared understanding

unlikable

Appendix: Famous AS

NOTES

resources

MISC NOTES

handmade notes

MISC ARTICLES

description