One thing is true of us all. We only know our own experiences of the world and the intricacy of what is going on in our own minds. We may interpret and filter what others share with us about their minds and their inner world, perhaps through the ways they behave, or in what they choose to share with us through the written or spoken word, but that’s as close as we will get. Of course all of this is filtered and interpreted based on our own brains processing system and life experiences.
This being the case, it leaves a lot of room for unknowns, and a great deal of scope for error. A common mistake many of us make is we over assume that others think and feel the same way as we do. I think this way, therefore others do too. For many of us, we make automatic assumptions, and these automatic assumptions prevent us from recognising the truth. Not everyone experiences the world as we do.
Yes, there are many differences across each and every one of us, but for most people, they fall into the largest group who do experience the world similarly – the neurotypical brain type, which is the predominant brain type at around 80% of the population. I was not one of these but interpreting my own brain as if I was.
I was late diagnosed Autistic in 2021 at age 45, and until that point, fell into the trap of thinking everyone experienced the world as I did, and everyone had the same cognitive experiences as I did, because I didn’t know I had an Autistic brain that operated differently to around 98% of the population. I’d also been lulled into thinking I was one of the majority – the predominant neurotype – when that wasn’t the case, so this was adding to the problem. I was neurodivergent, but desperately attempted to live to neurotypical ideals and standards.
Post diagnosis I would learn…
- Not everyone sees the world as brightly as I do, which can be overwhelming.
- Not everyone is living with unpleasant intrusive-thoughts or has them regularly.
- Not everyone has ritualistic script running through their mind constantly.
- Not everyone has to practice all conversations and be prepared for each one before it happens.
- Not everyone feels extremely cold all of the time or is hyper-sensitive to cold or touch.
- Not everyone feels other people’s emotional pain as if it is their own.
- Not everyone thinks in vivid detailed pictures and has a hyper-phantasic experience.
- Not everyone feels desperately uncomfortable when they are in a close proximity environment.
- Not everyone has a plan for every day and a specific order in which they must do things, without fail.
- Not everyone spots the minutiae and subtle details in the world.
I think this way, therefore others do too. Wrong! Working this out can be the first step in recognising there is something substantially different about our own brain. Where someone is unidentified Autistic, they have yet to work this out, and the assumption of same is a barrier to self-identification. A barrier that quickly falls away after identifying the truth.
I meet so many people who display (sometimes very obvious) signs and traits of being Autistic, haven’t yet worked it out, and ask “But doesn’t everyone do that?” when I share an example of my experience of the world. Autistic traits are human traits, so this is understandable, but many are amplified in Autistic people e.g. social masking. We all mask to some extent, but this is not the same as Autistic social masking (mimicking others presentation to be accepted and to fit-in). I then see the light bulbs in their head just starting to flicker, the cognitive dissonance followed by the acknowledgement that what they always believed may be wrong. This is often the start of them self-identifying that their brain is different. I have just shared an experience (highlighted few people experience this), I am an outlier, a minority, and their experiences happen to also match this. They are asking themselves “If not everyone experiences this, then am I different too?”.
Like I did, until this point, they are just presuming everyone experiences the world as they do. The comments you will hear are “Well everyone experiences that”, or “Doesn’t everyone do that?”, the first defence against this new information. The counter-argument is often difficult to accept because the truth – learning you have an Autistic brain – is a big thing to process, especially in a society loaded with ableism, where the person themselves will likely have internalised this too. In such a statement, without ill-intention, they dismiss and devalidate others experience of difference, like my own, but if they are yet unidentified Autistics themselves, they have just dismissed and de-validated their own experience of difference (and perhaps the life challenges they too have experienced) pushing themselves further away from the truth, and back into the main group – the predominant neurotype – which they are not.
This is just one of many ways we can be diverted into thinking we are not Autistic, for those who actually are. It is also an example of the negative impact of failing to identify Autism. Failure to identify Autism impacts the unidentifed Autistic, and the identified Autistic. Many of us miss the truth for a long time, as our own brains talk us out of it. It is when the challenges and evidence becomes insurmountable that things begin to change.