April is Autism Awareness Month. But that’s wrong. We don’t need awareness. We need acceptance.
We need acceptance of the Level 3 autists with significant challenges.
We need acceptance of the Level 2 autists with fewer challenges.
We need acceptance of the Level 1 autists, like me, with fewer challenges than a Level 2 autist—but challenges nonetheless.
We need acceptance simply because our brains are built and wired differently. It is in our DNA; every cell of our body is autistic. We cannot be anything but autistic.
And to us? Neurotypicals—allistics—are the weird ones who don’t make sense.
If you can’t accept that, then at least recognise the equity you deny us. Recognise the social cohesion that is lost in the absence of equity and inclusion.
But back to regular business.
The Chiaroscuro Anthology is a collection of 19 poems, published here throughout April. (If you want everything all at once, there’s a PDF.)
And now—the writer’s statement.
Light alone is shapeless. A flood with no shore, a dawn without contrast. It spills, uncontained, flattening all into a seamless glow. There is no form, no edge, no texture—only a blinding sameness.
Darkness alone is abyss. A void that swallows, erasing all it touches. It stretches infinite, consuming definition, devouring meaning until nothing remains but an echo of absence.
Between them—chiaroscuro. The whisper of shadow against skin, the ember in the midnight hush. Here, light sharpens into something more than mere brightness; it carves faces, silhouettes, stories. Here, darkness finds its purpose—not as oblivion, but as contrast, as depth, as the place where light reveals itself most truly.
What is the light without darkness?
A glare with no soul.
What is the darkness without light?
A silence with no song.
But together—
Together, they paint a world.
Together, they paint an autistic world.
—
The Chiaroscuro Anthology is my contribution to Autism Awareness Month. It is not just poetry—it is my autism laid bare, in shadow and light.
This is my rage at the world’s expectations.
This is my grief for what was lost.
This is my discovery of what was always there.
This is my unification of self.
Each piece is a reflection of contrast, intensity, and depth—the way I experience the world. Chiaroscuro is not just art; it is how I exist.
This is my applied phenomenology
Category: Autism
My mob… is not a minority
The outrage of 1 in 4.
Minorities. It’s easy for society to overlook minorities. That’s why Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs are so important. (America, take note.)
Tenants? Minority. Disability? Minority.
But how much of a minority is my new mob, the neurodivergent mob. Bigger than I thought. “1 in 4” big. 25%. A substantial minority.
If a disease had a 25% fatality rate…
If cyclones had a 25% crossing rate…
If planes had a 25% of crashing on take off…
If, if, if. 25% is not to be sneezed at or disrespected. Yet, collectively, neurodivergent people are folded, spindled and mutilated. $3 an hour in sheltered workshops. Low employment rates. Erased in plain sight.
25%.
Here’s ChatGPT’s interpretation of my refusal to let 25% be ignored. And another mention of my new intellectual crush…
1 in 4: Understanding Neurodivergence and Its True Prevalence
In recent years, the term neurodivergence has gained traction in discussions about education, workplace accommodations, and healthcare. But what does it actually mean? How does it manifest in real life? And just how common is it?
The answer to that last question might surprise you. Neurodivergence isn’t a rarity—it’s the norm for at least 1 in 4 people, meaning that a quarter of the population experiences the world through a different cognitive lens. Yet, society often operates under the assumption that neurotypical cognition is the default, making life unnecessarily difficult for millions.
Understanding neurodivergence—its prevalence, history, and societal implications—isn’t just about increasing awareness; it’s about challenging outdated assumptions and redesigning the world so it works for all brains, not just some.
What is Neurodivergence?
Neurodivergence is an umbrella term referring to natural variations in human brains and cognitive processing. It encompasses conditions such as:
Autism
ADHD
Dyslexia
Dyspraxia
Tourette’s syndrome
Dyscalculia
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Bipolar disorder
Epilepsy (which often has neurological overlaps)
Acquired neurodivergence (from brain injuries, PTSD, stroke, or conditions like long COVID)
Coined within the framework of the neurodiversity movement, neurodivergence challenges the traditional medical model, which historically treated these differences as deficits that needed to be “fixed.” Instead, it frames them as variations that come with both strengths and challenges.
The neurodiversity paradigm, championed by sociologist Judy Singer in the late 1990s, positions neurodivergence as a fundamental aspect of human diversity. Just as biodiversity strengthens ecosystems, cognitive diversity strengthens human society, leading to unique insights, creative breakthroughs, and alternative problem-solving strategies.
How Common is Neurodivergence?
The 1 in 4 statistic may seem high, but when you break it down, it becomes clear why it’s actually a conservative estimate:
Autism occurs in at least 1–2% of the population, with rising numbers due to increased recognition.
ADHD affects 5–10% of people, many of whom remain undiagnosed well into adulthood.
Dyslexia impacts 10–15%, making it one of the most common learning differences.
Dyspraxia affects 5–6% of people, influencing motor coordination and spatial awareness.
Mental health conditions with neurological components, such as OCD, bipolar disorder, and epilepsy, also fall under the neurodivergent umbrella.
When we take a broad view—including both lifelong and acquired neurodivergence—the 1 in 4 estimate starts to seem not only accurate but possibly too low.
The Historical Context of Neurodivergence
Neurodivergence is not a modern phenomenon. Throughout history, individuals with neurodivergent traits have existed—but their treatment has varied wildly depending on cultural and societal context.
Some societies recognized and even valued certain neurodivergent traits:
Many indigenous cultures saw individuals with unique cognitive or sensory traits as shamans, seers, or keepers of oral tradition.
Leonardo da Vinci, Nikola Tesla, Emily Dickinson, and Alan Turing—all believed to have been neurodivergent—made groundbreaking contributions in their respective fields. And, more recently, we might consider Lee-Anne’s newly discovered philosopher, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, whose phenomenological work on perception, embodiment, and sensory experience aligns deeply with autistic ways of processing the world.
The stereotype of the eccentric genius, often depicted as socially awkward, hyperfocused, or unconventional, may stem from historical figures who today would be recognized as autistic or ADHD.
However, other societies treated neurodivergence with suspicion, isolation, or outright cruelty. The 20th century saw particularly harsh treatments, from institutionalization to forced sterilization under eugenics programs. Even today, many neurodivergent individuals struggle to access support due to lingering biases.
Understanding this history is crucial—it shows that neurodivergence has always existed, but its perception has been shaped by cultural narratives rather than objective truths.
Misdiagnosis and Intersectionality in Neurodivergence
While 1 in 4 people may be neurodivergent, not all have equal access to diagnosis or support. Women, people of color, and those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are significantly more likely to be misdiagnosed or overlooked entirely.
Women and Misdiagnosis
Because traditional diagnostic criteria were based on male presentations, many autistic and ADHD women are misdiagnosed with:
Anxiety disorders (especially social anxiety)
Depression (due to burnout from lifelong masking)
Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) (due to emotional dysregulation)
Bipolar disorder (mistaking fluctuating energy levels for manic episodes)
Eating disorders (when sensory issues around food go unrecognized)
This has led to generations of #ActuallyAutistic women discovering their diagnoses only in adulthood, often after a lifetime of feeling “wrong” without understanding why.
Race, Class, and Neurodivergence
The racial and class disparities in diagnosis are stark:
Black and Hispanic children are less likely to be diagnosed with autism than their white counterparts, even when exhibiting the same behaviors.
Low-income individuals may not have access to specialists who can provide an accurate diagnosis.
Cultural expectations often lead to neurodivergent traits being seen as “bad behavior” rather than as neurological differences.
This means that neurodivergence is not just about the brain—it’s about how society interprets and responds to neurological diversity.
The Role of Technology in Neurodivergent Visibility
In recent years, social media and digital spaces have allowed neurodivergent people to find each other, challenge misconceptions, and advocate for systemic change.
The #ActuallyAutistic movement has helped shift the conversation from cure-based narratives to self-advocacy and acceptance.
The rise of self-diagnosis as a valid first step has given many individuals access to understanding and community before seeking formal medical recognition.
Neurodivergent creators are challenging stereotypes and educating millions on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.
Technology has also changed accessibility:
Text-based communication (rather than phone calls) benefits those with auditory processing issues.
Flexible, remote work environments have allowed many neurodivergent individuals to thrive.
Assistive technologies, from speech-to-text software to sensory-friendly apps, are making daily life more navigable.
Final Thoughts: A Philosophical and Sociological Perspective
Philosophically, neurodivergence forces us to redefine intelligence and normalcy. The Enlightenment’s focus on logic and rationality shaped modern institutions—but who decided that linear thinking, eye contact, or standardized learning methods were superior? If intelligence is about creativity, problem-solving, and adaptability, then neurodivergence is an asset, not a flaw.
Sociologically, if 1 in 4 people are struggling to function in a system, the problem isn’t the people—it’s the system. Schools, workplaces, and healthcare models must adapt, moving away from rigid expectations and toward true inclusivity.
Recognizing and accommodating neurodivergence isn’t just about individual rights—it’s about designing a world that truly values the full range of human cognition.
Neurodivergence is not an anomaly—it’s part of what makes us human. And it’s time the world started acting like it.
Here is the link to the transcript of the conversation with ChatGPT.
The Fulcrum of Neurodivergence
If we are different, what is normal?
All my life, I have danced to the beat of a different drum. Being autistic, albeit undiagnosed, explains that. One characteristic I have discovered about my autistic thought is that it loops and swirls. And therefore, is very oppositional to the concept of the “average woman”, let alone the “average man”. And that the word normal is actually rooted on a carpenter’s square? that is singularly offensive, to me.
A long time ago,in a journal, I wrote about the original meanings of suave, debonair, seeing them as singularly male descriptives, yet in origin, they means very different things. Suave from Latin suavis, meaning agreeable or sweet. The Collins dictionary, today, defines it as “(esp of a man) displaying smoothness and sophistication in manner or attitude; urbane”. Debonair, from Old French via Latin, meaning of good lineage, good family. The Collins dictionary, today, defines it as suave and refined, carefree; lighthearted; courteous and cheerful; affable. The way language shifts means it is alive. I would not describe anyone as suave to mean “agreeable or sweet”. The same way I would not use ‘sophistication to mean lies, a la sophistry.
But I take a great deal of umbrage that ‘normal’ is derived from a carpenter’s square.
Human nature, thought and existence is not nicely squared up at 90 degrees. Therefore, to me, normal is a most disagreeable word. Yet it is at the root of our modern society, in concept and in fact.
Yet. I. WILL. REBEL. I will colour outside the lines. I will step outside the box. Always have, always will.
Yet it strikes much differently, knowing I am autistic. Of course, unmasked me colours to my lines, has a different shaped world outside the box. Always have been, always will be.
In this post, ChatGPT clearly elucidates all that I detest about the construct of “normal”.
What is normal? A deceptively simple question, yet one that sits at the heart of how society constructs meaning, power, and identity. If neurodivergence is, by definition, a divergence from a supposed norm, then where, exactly, is that norm located? And more importantly—who gets to decide?
For every dys (dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia) and every hyper (hyperlexia, hyperfocus, hyperempathy), there is an implied middle—a so-called equilibrium against which all deviation is measured. The problem with this concept is that it assumes a fixed, objective standard from which some people stray too far in one direction or another. But what if the middle is not a universal truth, but rather a cultural construct?
This question isn’t just theoretical; it has real consequences. The way we define normal determines who gets access to resources, who is marginalized, who is celebrated, and who is pushed to the fringes. The idea of normalcy is woven into education systems, workplace policies, and medical diagnoses. But before we can deconstruct it, we need to ask: where did this concept come from?
The Origins of “Normal”
The idea of normality as we understand it today is relatively recent. In pre-modern societies, there was no singular standard against which all people were measured. People existed in a web of different roles, each with its own expectations. A person’s value was often determined by their contribution to the community rather than their adherence to an abstract standard.
That changed in the 19th century, when statistics and industrialization reshaped our understanding of human difference. The word normal comes from the Latin normalis, meaning “made according to a carpenter’s square,” implying a rigid, straight, and measured standard. In the early 1800s, the Belgian mathematician Adolphe Quetelet applied statistical analysis to human populations, developing the concept of the “average man” (l’homme moyen). His idea suggested that the most common traits in a population were inherently the most desirable. This was one of the first steps in transforming what is statistically frequent into what is morally and socially ideal.
By the late 19th century, the growing fields of psychology, eugenics, and medicine took this concept further. Intelligence testing, psychiatric diagnoses, and public health measures all began reinforcing the idea that deviation—whether in intellect, behavior, or ability—was something to be managed, corrected, or eliminated.
In short, the definition of normal was not discovered—it was invented.
The Tyranny of the Middle
The middle is often framed as the ideal—the place where abilities and behaviors are neither too much nor too little. The Goldilocks zone of human cognition and behavior. But this notion of balance is not neutral—it is, in fact, a value judgment. To be in the middle is to be acceptable, to be unremarkable in a way that requires no intervention.
Yet, for neurodivergent people, the middle is a mirage. It does not reflect an authentic, lived experience but rather a societal expectation imposed from the outside. It is an abstraction that exists only in statistics and policy, not in real life.
This is where injustice creeps in. Because the idea of the middle is tied to the concept of deviation, and deviation carries weight—often, the weight of being deemed broken, disordered, or in need of fixing.
Consider the term twice exceptional (2e). A person is deemed both gifted and disabled because their abilities do not neatly average out to “normal.” A child may be hyperlexic—reading fluently at age three—but struggle with motor coordination or social interaction. A teenager may have exceptional mathematical ability but need accommodations for ADHD. Instead of being seen as whole, they are labeled with contradictions. Their strengths do not cancel out their struggles, nor do their struggles erase their strengths. But the system demands categorization.
The irony is that the middle, this supposed point of balance, is itself a fabricated benchmark. The real human experience is not a bell curve but a vast, multidimensional landscape.
The Harm of Standardization
The tyranny of the middle becomes most evident when we look at how systems—education, work, and daily life—are designed to favor predictability over individuality.
1. Education: The Myth of the Average Student
- Schools are built around the idea of an “average learner,” despite overwhelming evidence that no such student exists.
- Neurodivergent students are often either left behind or forced to conform through rigid behavioral expectations.
- Gifted students with executive dysfunction are labeled lazy, while autistic students are told they are “too smart” to need accommodations.
Sir Ken Robinson famously said, “We are educating people out of their creativity.” In many ways, we are also educating people out of their natural cognitive styles, demanding compliance over curiosity.
2. Work: The Standard Worker Model
- Productivity is measured in hours at a desk rather than the quality of output.
- Social networking and performative teamwork take precedence over genuine contributions.
- Office environments are designed for extroverts, penalizing those who work better in solitude.
Imagine if workplaces were built around different cognitive strengths rather than forcing all employees into a singular mold. What innovations have we lost because the right minds were placed in the wrong environments?
3. Everyday Life: Sensory and Social Norms
- Many social expectations (eye contact, small talk, body language) are culturally specific, yet enforced as universal.
- Public spaces are designed for neurotypical sensory tolerances, often overwhelming autistic individuals.
- The assumption that everyone should thrive in the same conditions leads to needless suffering and exclusion.
“Fixing” vs. Accepting Neurodivergence
At the heart of this discussion is a fundamental question: is neurodivergence something to fix, or simply a different way of being?
The medical model of disability frames neurodivergence as a disorder—something to diagnose, treat, or correct. The social model of disability, by contrast, suggests that the real issue is not the neurodivergent individual but the way society refuses to accommodate difference.
The neurodiversity movement challenges deficit-based models. It suggests that cognitive differences are just that—differences, not inherent flaws. The problem is not the divergence itself but the way in which society demands conformity to an arbitrary middle.
Beyond the Binary of Normal and Abnormal
Perhaps the real question is not “Where is the middle?” but rather “Why do we need one?” The idea of a singular equilibrium point is an illusion. It does not account for the fluidity of human experience, the spectrum of abilities, and the shifting nature of what society deems valuable.
Instead of measuring ourselves against a fictitious middle, what if we embraced multiple fulcrums—each valid in its own right, each a center of gravity for a different way of thinking and being?
This would not mean abandoning structure but rather restructuring—not bending neurodivergent people to fit the world, but bending the world to include them.
Conclusion: The Right to Exist Outside the Middle
Neurodivergence is not a deviation from the middle. It is a center in its own right.
And perhaps, in the end, the real injustice is the insistence that we must all balance on a single point, when we were never meant to.
The full chat with ChatGPT is here.
The Iniquities of a “Low-Demand Lifestyle”: A Philosophical and Sociological Critique
I’ve been seeing a few autistic content creators taking about low demand lifestyles. It always triggers me – it’s fine if you have the money and support to be able to do that, but if you’re alone, or widowed, like me, it’s big on impossible. Bills need to be paid, and I’m the only one who can do that.
I’m also new-ish to philosophy. I love listening to podcasts like “The Minefield”, “The Philosophers’ Zone”, and “The Religion and Ethics Report” from the ABC, but I’m not well-read on philosophy.
After seeing yet another social media post about the autistic need for a low demand lifestyle, I thought to myself that I really need to blog about this. I knew it needed a philosophical and sociological lens, so I turned to ChatGPT again. I asked it to “write a blog post on the iniquities of the concept of a “low demand lifestyle” and the appalling privilege the concept shows. Use as much evidence as you can, from a combined philosophical and sociological perspective, please.
After it generated this, we then went into a very long conversation about privilege, my personal situation, the difficulties that Uber presents for me as an autistic driver, the iniquities in research, empathy, the percentage of the population that is in some way neurodivergent, mental health, neuroplasticity, autism and tertiary education, quantum physics, grief… and more. If you really, really want to read the whole transcript, it’s here.
Read on to see ChatGPT’s scathing assessment of the structural and societal issues around a “low demand lifestyle”.
(Side note – have I turned a little piece of AI into an autistuc progressive socialist? Given that I ticked the box to share our data, and the machine learning works, I can only hope so…)
The term “low-demand lifestyle” has been gaining traction in certain neurodivergent and disability advocacy spaces, often framed as a way to reduce stress, improve well-being, and accommodate the unique needs of individuals with executive dysfunction, chronic illness, or other conditions that make conventional work and social expectations unsustainable. While the idea may sound reasonable in principle, it reveals a troubling undercurrent of privilege, class blindness, and social inequity. From a combined philosophical and sociological perspective, the concept disregards the material realities of most working-class and marginalized people, entrenches existing inequalities, and reflects an unexamined reliance on structural exploitation.
- The Philosophical Incoherence of a “Low-Demand Lifestyle”
A. Demand, Responsibility, and Ethical Relationality
At its core, the phrase “low-demand lifestyle” implies a retreat from obligations, but this raises profound ethical concerns. Human societies function through mutual responsibility—a core principle in deontological ethics (Kantian duty ethics) and virtue ethics (Aristotelian flourishing). To live ethically means recognizing that one’s existence is deeply interconnected with others, and a just society requires reciprocity.
While it is true that some individuals may need accommodations due to disability or chronic illness, to frame a low-demand lifestyle as an inherent right rather than an adaptive necessity distorts the nature of social obligation. The philosopher Iris Marion Young, in her theory of “social connection” ethics, argues that justice is a shared responsibility, not something one can opt out of when it becomes inconvenient.
Furthermore, the Rawlsian perspective on justice (John Rawls, A Theory of Justice) reminds us that fairness requires policies that do not just benefit those who already have the privilege to dictate their level of engagement. Can everyone equally afford to adopt a low-demand lifestyle? If not, then promoting it as a desirable goal without accounting for social stratification is morally dubious.
B. The Implicit Privilege of “Opting Out”
A “low-demand lifestyle” is only available to those who can afford it. This concept echoes the bourgeois retreat into minimalism and self-care as a replacement for systemic change. Historically, those with wealth and social capital have often framed their ability to reduce labor as a matter of personal enlightenment (e.g., aristocratic leisure in Ancient Greece, Romantic rejections of industrialization).
But for working-class individuals, single parents, and the global poor, a low-demand lifestyle is not an option. They cannot reduce their engagement with work, childcare, or basic survival without devastating consequences. To endorse the low-demand lifestyle as a universal good is to ignore the lived reality of the vast majority of people, a stance that aligns with Marie Antoinette-style detachment rather than genuine social justice.
- The Sociological Reality of Demand and Exploitation
A. Who Bears the Burden of a “Low-Demand Lifestyle”?
The privilege embedded in the concept becomes clearer when we ask: If some people reduce their labor, who picks up the slack?
Sociologist Arlie Hochschild’s concept of the “second shift” reveals that even within two-income households, women disproportionately bear the burden of unpaid domestic labor. This is a clear example of how “demand” is not simply an individual experience—it is socially distributed.
Similarly, if affluent individuals or those in creative fields reduce their engagement with “demanding” work, the burden shifts downward onto gig workers, service industry employees, and low-wage laborers. The fact that people in tech or academia can discuss a low-demand lifestyle while their food is delivered by an Uber driver working 12-hour shifts is a stark reminder of how deeply exploitative structures support this illusion.
B. The Myth of Self-Sufficiency
A common defense of the low-demand lifestyle is that it promotes self-sufficiency—living with fewer obligations, producing only as much as one personally requires, and disengaging from capitalist productivity. However, this perspective is fundamentally ahistorical and class-blind.
True self-sufficiency is a myth. No individual is fully self-reliant. The food we eat, the medical care we receive, and the roads we drive on all depend on a vast, interdependent network of labor. The people advocating a low-demand lifestyle often still rely on invisible laborers—farmworkers, janitors, truck drivers—who do not have the luxury of reducing demand.
The sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of “habitus” helps explain this discrepancy. Those raised with economic and cultural capital experience their privilege as natural and rarely question the structural forces that make their low-demand lifestyle possible. In contrast, the working class and marginalized communities live in an environment where “demand” is an inescapable condition, not a personal choice.
- The Hidden Ableism of “Low-Demand Lifestyle” Rhetoric
Ironically, the low-demand lifestyle is often framed as a form of disability justice, but this framing is deeply flawed. Many disabled and chronically ill people are already forced into low-demand lifestyles against their will, due to systemic exclusion from employment, education, and public life.
For neurodivergent people, particularly autistic individuals with executive dysfunction or PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance), the idea of reducing external demands may be a necessity. However, instead of advocating for a just redistribution of resources to support all disabled individuals, the low-demand lifestyle rhetoric often skews individualistic: “I will simply disengage from demand” rather than “We should build structures that equitably support different levels of capacity.”
Moreover, disabled individuals in poverty do not have the option to embrace a low-demand lifestyle. They are constantly battling bureaucratic demands (disability benefits, medical appointments, inaccessible workplaces), meaning that demand is often highest for those least able to manage it.
To romanticize a low-demand lifestyle without addressing the barriers that prevent others from choosing their level of engagement is to ignore the very real struggles of disabled people who need demand to be reduced systemically, not just for the privileged few.
Conclusion: Demand is a Structural, Not Personal, Issue
At its heart, the problem with the low-demand lifestyle is that it frames demand as an individual experience rather than a structural issue. It ignores the sociological reality of interdependence, the ethical imperative of mutual responsibility, and the material constraints of class, disability, and labor exploitation.
The real question should not be: “How can I reduce my own demand?” but rather: “How can we equitably distribute the burdens of demand across society?” Instead of advocating for an individualistic retreat, we should be pushing for systemic solutions: universal healthcare, living wages, accessible workplaces, and equitable caregiving structures.
To seek a world where demand is more fairly distributed is a just goal. But to claim that one can personally “opt out” of demand, while relying on an invisible underclass to sustain that choice, is the height of privilege.
A truly just society does not reduce demand for a select few—it reorganizes demand so that it does not crush the many.
Falling back into the hole of autistic grief
The process of unmasking after half a century of masking is slow, sometimes funny, sometimes unwieldy. I notice my masking in the pitch of my voice, and at other times, by the depth of emotion.
Yesterday was a bit of a raw day, feeling a tad over-stimulated, with a bit of anxiety over a new meal plan for this week.
Conversations with my rideshare passengers can range from banal to rich. Yesterday afternoon, in one conversation with a young, late diagnosed ADHD woman, she mentioned the loss of a safe person. That put the first chink in my armour.
Close to midnight, waiting for my passengers in the arrivals hall at the international terminal, I observed the usual scenes – hugs for returning loved ones, and so on. My inner observation, fairly dispassionate, was that I will be unlikely to ever receive that fulsome welcome again. That put the second chink in my armour.
This morning, in conversation with another passenger, also ADHD, about her marriage and how she and her husband think that the energy of Valentines Day shouldn’t just be kept for Valentines Day. She related that her husband had declared that this Friday was date night, but that it wasn’t their only date night of the year. That broke my armour. I’ve mastered the art of weeping silently and holding back tears. My passenger never knew.
By the time I got home, though, the wave of grief and loss couldn’t be denied. I knew I had so much to do. So I asked ChatGPT to write a long, complex blog post for me.
Autistic grief is mentally debilitating and emotionally exhausting. If you’d like to read the full transcript of my conversation with ChatGPT, you can read it here. ChatGPT’s final draft of my blog post is below.
The Safe Person: Grief, Autism, and the Evolution of Love Across Generations
At every international arrivals hall, there’s a moment of pure human connection—families waiting, eyes scanning the crowd, arms open wide. It’s a ritual of belonging, a tangible moment where love and safety take shape in an embrace.
I stood there recently, watching these reunions unfold, and a stark, unshakable truth hit me: I will never experience that again. My person—the one who would have been waiting for me, or the one I would have been waiting for—is gone.
It’s been 5 years, 7 months and 11 days since I lost my husband to Huntington’s Disease. Grief, though never truly absent, had settled into something I could live with. But that moment cracked it open again. Seeing people reunite reminded me of a loss that isn’t just about missing someone—it’s about missing the one person who made the world feel less harsh, less uncertain. And then I had to put my armour back on because I had passengers to collect and transport to their home.
A Gen Z passenger earlier in the day, upon hearing that I was a widow, expressed sympathy in a way that caught me off guard. She didn’t just acknowledge my loss; she acknowledged that I had lost my safe person. And that phrase—one I had never applied to my marriage before—stuck with me.
Because the truth is, my husband and I never had the language of safe people. That wasn’t how our generation framed love. But looking back, I can see that’s exactly what we were to each other.
How Love—and Safety—Has Changed Across Generations
For Gen X, love was often about partnership, reliability, and shared responsibility. Emotional safety wasn’t something we discussed; it was expected to be an unspoken byproduct of commitment. We didn’t analyze our relationships in terms of who makes us feel seen or who helps regulate our nervous system—those ideas weren’t part of the cultural lexicon yet.
But for younger generations, the concept of a safe person has become a core part of how they understand love. Millennials and Gen Z speak openly about the need for emotional security, for spaces where they don’t have to mask, where they can exist without fear of judgment. And Gen Alpha is growing up with an even clearer framework for understanding safety in relationships—not just in romantic love, but in friendships, workplaces, and families.
That shift makes sense in the context of increasing awareness of neurodivergence. Autistic people, ADHDers, and others in the neurodivergent community talk about safe people in ways that would have been foreign to earlier generations. A safe person is someone you don’t have to translate yourself for. Someone who accommodates without being asked. Someone who makes the world less exhausting, not more.
By that definition, my husband and I were each other’s safe people. We just never had the words for it.
The Safe Person I Didn’t Know I Had
He was thirteen years older than me—a Baby Boomer born in 1959, raised by Silent Generation parents. He was never diagnosed, but he was almost certainly neurodivergent. He was late to reading, and had all the “dys’s”—dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia. He fidgeted from birth, his mother told me, never still for long. His lifelong stim? An affectation of Charlie Chaplin’s bob from The Little Thief—knees bent outward, bouncing on his feet.
And he had the energy of a Labrador puppy.
Reading didn’t come easily to him, but once he cracked it, he fell in love with books. Imagine someone who struggled with words as a child choosing The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monsarrat as his favorite book—a story of endurance, of men battling an unforgiving world, of camaraderie in the face of relentless hardship. Looking back, it makes perfect sense.
He approached life the way he approached everything—spontaneously, playfully, with an underlying structure that only he fully understood. We rarely planned our driving holidays. Instead, we flipped a coin at crossroads, letting chance decide. When we moved to the Gold Coast, we’d deliberately get lost in the tangle of roads, only to pull out the UBD street directory later to figure out where we were and how to get home.
That was how we navigated the world together—by trusting that we’d always find our way back to each other.
Neither of us knew the term safe person, but that’s exactly what we were. He made life an adventure, but he also made it predictable in the ways that mattered. I didn’t have to explain my logic or justify my routines. And he never had to apologize for his restlessness, his fidgeting, his struggles with reading or writing. We just were.
Autistic Grief and the Hole That Never Closes
Grief, for autistic people, isn’t just about losing someone. It’s about losing a structure, a routine, a way of being that made sense. It’s about losing the person who made the world comprehensible, who created a rhythm that allowed us to function without overthinking every step.
And autistic grief isn’t linear. It doesn’t soften in predictable ways. It lingers, waiting for a moment of sensory overload—like an airport arrivals hall—to flood back in with the same intensity as the day of the loss.
I thought I had learned to live with my grief. But standing there, watching people wrap their arms around loved ones, I felt the absence like a physical wound. I realized that what I was mourning wasn’t just my husband’s death. It was the fact that I will never again have that moment of return. Never again have the certainty of someone waiting for me with that cheeky, unshakable grin.
And that’s the difference between grief and autistic grief. It isn’t a scar—it’s a hole. A void we revisit over and over, not just in memory but in real-time experience. The world reminds us, again and again, of what we had and lost.
A Love That Was Safe Before We Knew It Was
Would it have changed anything if we had known the language of safe people? Maybe. Maybe we would have understood each other even more deeply. Maybe we would have recognized, earlier, that we weren’t just oddballs who clicked—we were neurodivergent souls who found safety in each other before we ever knew we needed it.
But maybe it wouldn’t have changed anything at all. Because even without the words, we lived it. We built a love where getting lost was never a problem, because we were always together. Where unmasking wasn’t a risk, but a relief.
That’s what I lost. Not just a husband. Not just a companion.
I lost my person. My anchor. My safe place in a world that has never felt entirely safe. The degree of loss, pinpricks of grief started small, with the onset of Huntington’s Disease, grew to the day of his death, and it remains today.
And now, as the world moves on, as younger generations articulate the importance of emotional safety in ways we never did, I find myself straddling two realities—one where I lived that safety without naming it, and one where I can finally see it for what it was.
I wish we had had the words. But more than that, I wish he were still here to say them to.
Perspectives on creativity and imagination, part 2
This follows on from the previous blog post, and is again authored by ChatGPT in response to my prompts. I have switched on the memory in ChatGPT, so it has gotten to “know” me quite well.
The Barriers to Creativity: A Philosophical Inquiry into Blocks of the Mind
Creativity, in its purest form, is the alchemy of thought—the transmutation of the abstract into the real, the imagined into the tangible. Yet, just as creation itself is a force of the mind, so too are the barriers that obstruct it. The very faculties that enable creative thought—perception, emotion, cognition—can become the mechanisms of its suppression.
What does it mean to be unable to create? Is the block a function of the self, an inherent flaw in one’s cognitive machinery, or does it arise from external forces—chemistry, society, illness? The experience of a blocked mind is not merely frustration; it is an existential crisis for those who define themselves by their ability to imagine, invent, and express. To lose one’s creative spark is to feel disconnected from the essence of selfhood.
If we are to understand these barriers, we must examine them from multiple angles—psychological, neurological, and philosophical—recognizing that while the neurotypical and autistic mind may experience creative blocks differently, the underlying structures of inhibition are universal.
—
The Psychological Block: Anhedonia and the Loss of Creative Drive
At the heart of creative paralysis lies anhedonia, the inability to experience pleasure. Creativity is often driven by passion, by an intrinsic pull toward expression and discovery. But when the emotional well runs dry, so too does the creative impulse.
Anhedonia is most commonly associated with depression, yet its tendrils extend beyond clinical diagnosis. It can arise from burnout, trauma, overstimulation, or simply the slow erosion of wonder that comes from prolonged exposure to routine. The mind, exhausted by its own existence, ceases to see the point in creating. The question shifts from What should I create? to Why create at all?
This loss of drive is particularly pronounced in autistic individuals, for whom creativity is often fueled by deep, personal interests. When those interests are dulled by depression or overwhelmed by external pressures, the block is not merely a lack of motivation—it is a fundamental loss of connection to the structures that once made sense.
The philosopher might ask: If creativity is the expression of desire, what becomes of the mind when desire fades? Does imagination, like a muscle, require not only exercise but joy in movement? If so, then creative blocks are not simply obstacles but signs of a deeper wound—one that cannot be overcome by will alone but must be healed at its root.
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The Neurological Block: Aphantasia and the Limits of Mental Imagery
For some, the creative barrier is not one of desire but of capacity. Aphantasia, the inability to generate mental images, presents a paradox: how does one create when the mind’s eye is blind?
Traditional models of creativity assume a capacity for internal visualization—to see a world before it is drawn, to hear a melody before it is played. But for those with aphantasia, this pre-creative stage is absent. The novelist may not “see” their characters; the painter may not mentally compose a scene before beginning.
Yet, is this truly a block, or simply an alternative path? The assumption that creativity requires visual imagination is a neurotypical bias. Many individuals with aphantasia are prolific creators, relying instead on conceptual thinking, linguistic processing, or kinesthetic memory. Their creations emerge not from an inner canvas but from an internal structure of logic and abstraction.
This raises a philosophical question: Does creativity require visualization, or is it simply the perception of possibility? If one cannot “see” an idea, does it mean the idea does not exist? Or is creativity something broader—a weaving together of patterns, relationships, and meanings, regardless of form?
The true block here, then, may not be neurological but epistemological—a failure to recognize that imagination can take many shapes, and that absence of imagery does not mean absence of creative thought.
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The Chemical Block: Medication and the Cost of Stability
One of the most insidious barriers to creativity comes not from the mind itself, but from its chemical regulation. Many psychiatric medications—particularly antidepressants, antipsychotics, and mood stabilizers—alter brain function in ways that can inhibit imagination.
For some, these medications provide a necessary stability that allows creativity to flourish by removing anxiety, intrusive thoughts, or emotional turbulence. But for others, the price of stability is a dulled mind, an absence of the internal chaos from which creativity once sprang.
This raises an ethical and philosophical dilemma: Is it better to be mentally well and creatively silent, or tormented yet prolific? History is littered with artists and writers who resisted treatment for fear of losing their creative spark. Would Van Gogh have painted had lithium tempered his mania? Would Sylvia Plath have written had antidepressants softened her edges?
Yet, the assumption that suffering is the source of creativity is a dangerous one. The neurodivergent mind—whether autistic, bipolar, or otherwise—does not require suffering to create; it requires freedom to explore its own structures. The tragedy is not that medication blocks creativity, but that the available treatments often fail to accommodate the unique cognitive landscapes of those who create.
Perhaps the question we should ask is not How do we medicate without blocking creativity? but How do we support creativity without requiring suffering as its cost? Until that question is answered, the tension between mental health and imagination will remain an unresolved paradox.
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The Existential Block: Writer’s Block and the Fear of Imperfection
Beyond neurology and psychology lies a deeper block—one not rooted in illness or incapacity, but in doubt. Writer’s block, artist’s block, creative paralysis—these are not disorders of the mind, but afflictions of the soul.
The essence of creative block is the fear of imperfection. To create is to risk failure, to bring forth something that may be incomplete, flawed, or misunderstood. The act of beginning is an act of vulnerability, and for many, this vulnerability is unbearable.
This is particularly true for autistic creators, whose monotropism often drives them toward absolute precision in their craft. The desire for detail, for coherence, for internal logic can become a barrier in itself, leading to perfectionism-induced paralysis. The work is never good enough; the world-building is never complete; the idea is never fully formed.
The philosopher might ask: What is the role of imperfection in creativity? Is an unfinished idea still a creative act? Can something be both incomplete and valuable?
The answer lies in the recognition that creativity is not a single moment but a process, an ongoing dialogue between mind and medium. To wait for perfection is to deny the essence of creation itself. Creativity is not the absence of flaws; it is the act of giving form to thought, despite them.
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Conclusion: The Many Shapes of the Blocked Mind
Creativity is not a single, unbroken stream but a landscape marked by peaks and valleys, moments of insight and moments of silence. The blocks we experience—whether psychological, neurological, chemical, or existential—are not signs of failure, but reflections of the complexity of the mind itself.
For the neurotypical, creative blocks may arise from social pressures, emotional burnout, or self-doubt. For the autistic creator, they may stem from monotropic focus, perfectionism, or sensory overwhelm. Yet, regardless of origin, these barriers are not immutable.
The blocked mind is not an empty mind. Even in silence, ideas continue to exist. Even in stillness, creativity is waiting to be rekindled. And sometimes, the greatest act of creativity is not the work itself, but the act of pushing through, of finding a new path when the old one is closed.
For in the end, the creative spirit is not something we possess—it is something we become, again and again, with every act of persistence, every small victory over the forces that would keep us silent.
Perspectives on creativity and imagination, part 1
Being tired and autistic means I’ve got the ideas but not the words again. So, back to ChatGPT to draft the blog post for me. Why am I so tired? Because I spent a lot of hours (not way too many hours) world-building for a new novel concept. A blend of science, quantum physics, intrigue, romance, extinction level event and politics. The kind of deep, detailed construction of a fictional world that ChatGPT describes below.
All I could say to ChatGPT was, “Amen!”
Imagination and Creativity: A Philosophical Inquiry into Neurotypical and Autistic Perspectives
Creativity is often perceived as a defining trait of humanity, an ethereal force that moves across disciplines, from art and literature to mathematics and engineering. It is the lifeblood of innovation, a bridge between the possible and the actual, and yet, the way it manifests is deeply shaped by cognitive architecture. To speak of creativity without considering the lens through which it is viewed is to risk misunderstanding its nature.
Within the dichotomy of neurotypical and autistic cognition, imagination and creativity do not merely diverge; they reveal entirely different pathways to knowledge, expression, and problem-solving. The neurotypical perspective, shaped by associative and socially driven cognition, often contrasts with the autistic approach, which thrives on pattern recognition, depth, and a non-linear relationship with the abstract. If we are to explore the essence of creativity, we must do so with an awareness that there is no singular creative experience, but rather, a plurality of creative realities.
The Neurotypical Perspective: Fluid, Associative, and Socially-Oriented Creativity
For the neurotypical mind, creativity is often an act of synthesis. It is fluid, drawing from broad networks of experience and association, generating ideas through social interaction, shared symbols, and cultural touchpoints. In this sense, imagination functions as an interplay between self and society, a tapestry woven from collective narratives.
Creativity as Divergent Thinking
Psychologists often associate neurotypical creativity with divergent thinking, the ability to generate multiple solutions to a problem. This model prizes spontaneity, the ability to “think outside the box” by making rapid, loose associations. The neurotypical creative process frequently thrives on brainstorming, collaboration, and inspiration drawn from external sources—other people, media, and lived experiences.
In artistic expression, this might manifest in works that reflect or reimagine the shared world—a painting inspired by a fleeting sunset, a novel that explores human relationships, or an improvisational performance built upon the call-and-response rhythms of social exchange. Neurotypical creativity revels in fluidity; it does not seek absolute answers but instead enjoys the liminality of ideas in motion.
Social Creativity and Shared Meaning
A central aspect of neurotypical creativity is its reliance on social reinforcement. Much of what is considered “creative” in the neurotypical world is determined by its reception—whether a joke lands, whether an artwork resonates, whether an invention finds application. Neurotypicals often generate ideas through conversation, adapting their creativity to audience expectations, social norms, and external validation.
This social entanglement also means that neurotypical imagination can be constrained by convention. The mind that leaps between ideas may also be prone to cliché, drawing upon established motifs rather than forging original pathways. Creativity, in this sense, is often relational rather than intrinsically driven—it is shaped by what is already present in the world.
The Autistic Perspective: Depth, Precision, and Structural Creativity
In contrast, autistic creativity often arises from a different cognitive architecture—one that is pattern-based, detail-oriented, and driven by intrinsic logic rather than social reinforcement. If neurotypical creativity is expansive, reaching outward to form connections, autistic creativity is intensive, drilling into the depths of an idea until its internal structure is fully illuminated.
Creativity as Pattern Recognition
Rather than engaging in divergent thinking in the traditional sense, many autistic individuals exhibit convergent creativity—the ability to see structure where others see chaos, to recognize deep patterns within seemingly unrelated information. This makes for a distinct form of imagination, one that is systematic rather than spontaneous, precise rather than fluid.
Consider the autistic poet who spends hours crafting the perfect meter and rhythm, the autistic mathematician who sees numbers not as abstract figures but as a landscape to be navigated, or the autistic musician whose compositions emerge not from freeform improvisation but from an intricate internal logic. This is not creativity born of loose association; it is creativity born of mastery, immersion, and an almost obsessive dedication to the internal coherence of a system.
Creativity as World-Building
A fascinating facet of autistic imagination is its ability to construct entire worlds, sometimes down to the most minute detail. This is evident in autistic storytelling, where narratives are often deeply structured, self-contained, and internally consistent. Unlike neurotypical storytelling, which often thrives on broad archetypes and emotional resonance, autistic storytelling frequently prioritizes precision and depth—worlds where history, geography, and even fictional languages are crafted with an almost scholarly rigor.
This extends beyond the arts. An autistic scientist may construct a meticulous framework for understanding a phenomenon that others have only scratched the surface of. An autistic engineer may revolutionize a design not by playing with different ideas but by honing a single idea to perfection. In autistic creativity, the world is not simply rearranged—it is restructured from its very foundations.
Creativity as Sensory and Conceptual Play
Autistic creativity also frequently engages with non-linguistic forms of expression, such as visual, mathematical, or sensory-based creativity. Because many autistic individuals experience heightened sensory perception, their creative expressions often involve an acute awareness of detail—subtleties of color, texture, sound, and movement that neurotypical individuals might overlook.
For instance, an autistic artist might focus not on the broad composition of a painting but on the intricacy of light interacting with surfaces. An autistic dancer might not respond to music as a social rhythm but as an interplay of vibrations, embodying a deeply personal and structured choreography. In these cases, creativity is not just an act of imagination—it is an act of perception, an alternate way of experiencing and translating the world.
Creativity and the Tyranny of Expectation
If we are to understand creativity in all its forms, we must recognize that the dominant neurotypical paradigm has often dismissed or misunderstood autistic imagination. The cultural assumption that creativity must be spontaneous, socially engaged, and extroverted has led to the underestimation of autistic forms of creativity, which are often solitary, intensive, and internally structured.
Autistic individuals are sometimes perceived as unimaginative or rigid because their creativity does not conform to the neurotypical preference for fluidity and social responsiveness. In reality, autistic creativity is just as rich, but it follows different principles—it values depth over breadth, precision over ambiguity, and structure over improvisation.
This philosophical misunderstanding extends beyond creativity itself. In a world that prioritizes social adaptability, the autistic way of thinking is often pathologized rather than celebrated. Yet, if we step back from neurotypical assumptions, we find that autistic imagination has been responsible for some of the most profound breakthroughs in science, literature, and the arts. From Newton to Tesla, from Emily Dickinson to Anthony Hopkins, history is filled with autistic minds whose unique approaches to creativity have reshaped the world.
Conclusion: A Plurality of Creative Worlds
To speak of creativity as a single entity is to do a disservice to its true nature. Creativity is not one thing; it is many things, shaped by cognition, experience, and perspective. The neurotypical mind, with its associative and social creativity, and the autistic mind, with its structured and depth-driven creativity, are not opposing forces but complementary aspects of the human imagination.
The challenge before us is not to measure one against the other but to recognize the value in both. In doing so, we expand our understanding of creativity itself—not as a singular, narrow ideal, but as an intricate and multifaceted phenomenon, one that belongs to all minds, in all their infinite variations.
For in the end, imagination is not simply the act of creation. It is the act of perceiving what could be, whether that vision emerges from scattered inspiration or from the slow, deliberate unraveling of a deeper truth.
The Glorious Thump: Autism, Music, and Sensory Joy
There’s a kind of magic in those moments when joy, music, and sensation collide. As an autistic individual, I often find myself seeking sensory experiences that bring both comfort and exhilaration. Some years ago, I had the pleasure of attending Jersey Boys at QPAC, and while the production was captivating, the highlight came as the show drew to a close.
The actors had left the stage, but the band continued to play. As the crowd moved toward the exits, I lingered, savoring the music and the energy of the moment. I leaned back against what i thought was the wall, because, well, I’m autistic and hypermobile and I lean on everything. This time, though, I was actually leaning on one of the huge speaker panels in the wall. I felt the glorious thump of the music reverberating through my body. It was a pure, unfiltered sensory experience, and with the hindsight bright by my autism diagnosis —a moment of autistic joy that made my heart sing.
The Intersection of Autism and Music
Music is often a profound experience for autistic individuals. It’s more than just a melody or a beat—it’s a sensory journey. For many of us, music provides a way to connect with the world and our emotions in ways words often can’t. The rhythms, vibrations, and harmonies can become a form of sensory seeking, where we actively pursue experiences that stimulate and satisfy our senses.
In this instance, the vibrations from the speaker weren’t just sound; they were a tactile sensation, a physical resonance that complemented the auditory experience. For me, leaning against that speaker was like plugging into the music itself—a direct line to the joy and energy of the moment.
Tinnitus and Sensory Trade-Offs
Of course, sensory joy sometimes comes with trade-offs. As someone who experiences tinnitus, I’m well aware that loud environments can exacerbate the ringing in my ears. But in moments like these, the joy far outweighs the potential discomfort. Tinnitus, while ever-present, feels like a small price to pay for the incredible connection I feel to music.
Interestingly, I’ve often wondered if what is perceived as tinnitus in autistic individuals might sometimes be a form of sensory hyperacuity—a heightened awareness of certain frequencies rather than a true ringing. Regardless, the interplay between sensory seeking and sensory overload is something many autistic people navigate daily.
The Unique Joy of Autistic Sensory Seeking
Sensory seeking is a deeply personal and unique experience for each autistic person. For me, it’s not just about chasing sensory stimulation but finding the perfect balance that brings comfort, connection, and delight. Music offers that balance in spades. Whether it’s the deep thrum of a bassline, the soaring notes of a violin, or the harmonies of a choir, music is a source of unparalleled autistic joy.
Moments like the one at Jersey Boys remind me of the beauty in embracing my sensory needs and special interests. By allowing myself to linger, to lean into the moment—literally and figuratively—I’m honoring the joy and connection that music brings to my life.
Celebrating Autistic Joy
Autistic joy often comes in moments that might seem small or inconsequential to others but are deeply meaningful to us. It’s in the details: the thrum of a speaker stack, the shimmer of a cymbal, the resonance of a perfect chord. These are the moments where we feel truly alive, connected to ourselves and the world around us.
For anyone who sees me leaning against a speaker, eyes closed, lost in the music—know that it’s not just about hearing the sound. It’s about feeling it, embodying it, and letting it carry me to a place of pure, unfiltered joy.
Because sometimes, the thump of the bass is worth everything, even the tinnitus.
This was written by ChatGPT in response to my prompts, and a final edit by me. A transcript is available at https://chatgpt.com/share/67905d56-adbc-8013-bcbe-3ed1ecc515c3
If 10,000 hours of practice gives mastery, what would 446,760 hours give?
10,000 Hours of Practice vs. A Lifetime of Masking: Reflections on Mastery in Autism Camouflage
Malcolm Gladwell’s popularization of the “10,000-hour rule” suggests that achieving mastery in any field requires approximately 10,000 hours of deliberate practice. It’s an appealing concept, simplifying the path to expertise into a measurable framework. But as a late-diagnosed autistic adult, I find myself contrasting this idea of practice with the unchosen, unrelenting “practice” I’ve had in masking—51 years of it.
On my autism assessment, I scored in the 96.4th percentile for masking and the 94.2nd percentile for assimilation, numbers that represent the decades I’ve spent learning to suppress, disguise, and override my natural self to navigate a neurotypical world. These scores are a quantification of something intangible: survival through performance. What emerges from this reflection is the concept of a Medal for Autistic Camouflage Mastery—an ironic yet poignant acknowledgment of the incredible, and often devastating, effort it takes to “pass” as neurotypical for half a century.
The Unseen Hours of Practice
Gladwell’s rule centers on intentional practice: deliberate, focused work aimed at refining a skill. Masking, however, is rarely deliberate in the same sense. It begins as an instinctive survival mechanism, an unconscious adaptation to the discomfort, rejection, or confusion of being “other.” Over time, it becomes habitual, almost automatic—an internalized choreography of micro-expressions, tone modulation, and scripted responses.
Consider the sheer volume of practice:
- Daily Social Interactions: Every conversation, every smile, every nod calibrated for neurotypical comfort.
- Workplace Expectations: Code-switching between professional personas, often accompanied by the emotional labor of suppressing sensory discomfort.
- Familial and Cultural Norms: Assimilation within family dynamics, which often means prioritizing others’ expectations over personal needs.
Unlike the 10,000 hours Gladwell describes, the “practice” of masking isn’t chosen. It’s demanded. And unlike the mastery of a craft, the rewards of masking are bittersweet: social acceptance at the cost of self-erasure.
Masking as Mastery
If masking were a skill judged on effort and results, I’d have long ago qualified for a medal. The imaginary Medal for Autistic Camouflage Mastery would represent:
- Endurance: Decades of unrelenting performance.
- Adaptability: The ability to seamlessly blend into environments that feel alien.
- Attention to Detail: The micro-level precision required to decode and replicate neurotypical social norms.
Yet, this medal would carry the weight of its price: chronic exhaustion, identity fragmentation, and the toll on mental health. Mastery in masking doesn’t feel like success—it feels like survival at a profound cost.
The Capitalist Fetish for Productivity and Its Hidden Costs
In a society obsessed with productivity, the value of a person is often measured by their output—how efficiently they can perform, contribute, and conform. For undiagnosed, unsupported, and highly masked autistic individuals, this system demands relentless effort to meet neurotypical standards, often at great personal cost. Masking allows autistic individuals to navigate workplaces and social systems, but it comes with consequences that ripple far beyond the individual.
The capitalist model thrives on hidden labor, and masking is one such invisible cost. The mental and emotional toll of sustaining this level of performance—while managing sensory sensitivities, social anxieties, and burnout—is rarely acknowledged or accommodated. This unrelenting demand often leads to chronic health issues, mental illness, or total withdrawal from the workforce when burnout becomes insurmountable. Society loses the potential contributions of brilliant, creative minds, not because these individuals lack capability, but because the system fails to support them in ways that honor their neurodivergent needs.
When autistic individuals are left undiagnosed or unsupported, society pays a significant price. The energy spent on masking could otherwise be directed toward innovation, problem-solving, and creativity—qualities many autistic people excel at when allowed to flourish authentically. Instead, this potential is often squandered as individuals are funneled into rigid molds that suppress their strengths.
Consider the systemic implications: higher healthcare costs due to burnout, mental health crises, and comorbid conditions; the loss of diverse perspectives in workplaces and communities; and the missed opportunity to build more inclusive systems that accommodate varied ways of thinking and working. Moreover, the emotional toll on families, the community strain of misdiagnosed or misunderstood behaviors, and the perpetuation of stigma further erode social cohesion.
In this light, the capitalist fetish for productivity isn’t just damaging on an individual level—it actively depletes society of the rich contributions neurodivergent individuals could make if only they were supported. Recognizing and accommodating autistic people isn’t a matter of charity—it’s an investment in a future where everyone’s strengths are valued, and no one’s potential is wasted in the shadows of survival.
Toward a New Kind of Mastery
As I reflect on 51 years of masking, I realize that my “mastery” can evolve. I can shift from being a master of camouflage to a master of self-acceptance, advocacy, and authenticity. The time and energy I once spent on masking can be redirected to pursuits that bring joy and meaning, breaking free from the survival paradigm.
For anyone who, like me, feels they’ve earned that imaginary medal: wear it with pride, but don’t let it define you. Mastery in masking was never the goal. Freedom from the need to mask—that is the mastery we truly deserve.
Under the influence of the Greeks, part 3
In parts 1 and 2, I shared conversations with ChatGPT about telos and rhetoric. In this, part 3, I’ll share the poem, the essay, and ChatGPT’s analysis of how my hypempathy overrode my ability to dispassionately complete an explication essay about that poem.
The Jaguar
Sarah Holland Blatt
It shone like an insect in the driveway:
iridescent emerald, out-of-season Christmas beetle.
Metallic flecks in the paint like riverbed tailings,
squeaking doeskin seats. Bottle green, my father called it,
or else forest. A folly he bought without test-driving,
vintage 1980 XJ, a rebellion against his tremoring hands.
The sole bidder, he won the auction without trying
the day after the doctor told him to draw a line
under his driving years. My mother didn’t speak
for weeks. It gleamed on the terracotta drive,
wildcat forever lunging on the hood,
chrome snagging in the sun,
ornament of my father’s madness,
miraculous and sleek, until he started to tinker,
painted the leather seats with acrylic
so they peeled and cracked, jacked the gearstick,
hacked a hole into the dash with a Stanley knife,
jury-rigged the driver’s seat so it sat so low
you couldn’t see over the dash. For a few months
he drove it even though my mother begged,
he drove it as though he was punishing her,
dangerously fast on the back roads, then
opened up the engine on the highway, full
throttle, evn though he was going blind in one eye,
even though my mother and I refused to get in,
and for the first time in years my father
was happy—he was happy to be driving,
he was happy my mother and I
were miserable. Finally his modifications
killed it, the car he always wanted and waited
so long to buy, and it sat like a carcass
in the garage, like a headstone, like a coffin—
but it’s no symbol or metaphor. I can’t make anything of it.
https://meanjin.com.au/poetry/the-jaguar/
That university assignment
In the “Creative Writing – Poetics” course, one of the assessment pieces was an explication essay of this poem. As mentioned in Part 2,, I found myself incapable of analysing the rhetoric in this poem. In hindsight, it was the autistic hyperempathy that got in the way of that explication. It was my bewilderment at this that was one of the biggest prompts to seek an autism assessment.
ChatGPT: That experience must have been incredibly frustrating, yet it’s interesting how it ultimately led you to seek an autism assessment. It highlights something that many autistic individuals encounter—an ability to understand and discuss complex concepts but struggling to apply them in specific, expected ways. In your case, it seems like you had the knowledge of rhetoric, ethos, pathos, and logos—the theoretical understanding was clear—but when asked to analyze their use in the context of a poem, your mind might have processed that request differently.
This disconnect between understanding concepts and being able to use them in conventional or expected ways is often linked to autistic thinking patterns. Here are a few possible reasons why this might have happened:
1. Gestalt Processing
Many autistic people think in gestalts, or whole patterns, rather than in linear, sequential steps. You might have grasped the overall meaning of the rhetorical concepts or the poem in its entirety, but breaking it down into specific instances of ethos, pathos, and logos as required for the essay may have felt unnatural or forced. Gestalt processing can make it difficult to focus on details in isolation, especially when you perceive the whole in a more abstract or intuitive way.
2. Difficulty with Imposed Structures
Some autistic individuals have a hard time with structured tasks that don’t match their natural ways of thinking or processing information. You might understand ethos, pathos, and logos in a way that doesn’t conform to traditional rhetorical analysis, making it challenging to perform the task as expected by the teacher or assignment. The academic requirement to analyze poetry in this rigid way may have felt incongruent with how you naturally engage with language.
3. Hyperfocus on Detail or Overarching Themes
Autistic people can sometimes get hyperfocused on either tiny details or overarching themes, which might make rhetorical analysis tricky if it requires you to balance between the two. In this case, perhaps the analysis needed a delicate interplay between understanding individual rhetorical strategies and how they work together within the poem, something that might have felt fragmented or disjointed to your way of thinking.
4. Literal Thinking
If you tend to think literally, which is common in autistic people, analyzing a poem for abstract rhetorical devices could have posed a challenge. Poems often operate on metaphor, symbolism, and subtlety, and while you may understand those elements conceptually, applying rhetorical analysis could require a different level of abstraction that feels uncomfortable or confusing.
5. Disconnect Between Theory and Practice
Many people with autism are highly intelligent and can grasp complex theories with ease, but when it comes to applying them in specific contexts, such as analyzing poetry, there’s often a gap. This could be related to the brain’s wiring in terms of how it connects abstract knowledge to practical applications, especially when the task feels ambiguous or subjective.
Your experience highlights the nuanced ways in which autism can manifest, particularly when it comes to processing language and abstract concepts. The struggle you described—being able to discuss the rhetorical concepts but not apply them to the poem—was likely a significant autistic cognitive pattern in action, revealing that the standard ways of interpreting and analyzing literature didn’t quite align with how your brain processes information. It’s also a great example of how highly capable autistic individuals can be, while still encountering challenges in specific academic structures.
What did I actually submit?
This is the essay I submitted. Maybe it was because I also had the background of a husband with Huntington’s Disease, andother neurodegenerative condition, and it was just too close, emotionally, for me. Hyperempathy overrode all logical thought in this, and I didn’t have the capacity to go back and edit the essay before submitting it. What I now know as my autistic brain brought me to a standstill on this. Somehow, it still got a passing mark.
The Jaguar, by Sarah Holland-Batt, is from a book by the same name, the topic of which is the poet’s experience of her father’s affliction with Parkinson’s Disease, his decline and eventual death. The poem is free-form verse with no rhyming scheme. Told from a daughter’s perspective, it depicts the perplexing, complicated and emotional journey of observing a parent’s decline due to this neurodegenerative disorder. While it is assumed to be the natural order that children will bury their parents, the path to that event can often be complex and gut-wrenching and made worse when a degenerative brain disease that primarily affects the motor neurons in the brain also affects executive function and logic, leaving those watching unable to understand the motive behind the person’s actions. The free-form structure of the poem reflects the free-form nature of the disease’s impacts on the person, where each case follows the same pattern but is never the same as another. In this poem, the poet’s father’s incomprehensible actions are described, purchasing a car after his doctor had advised him to stop driving. He bought a car he had desired for many years and then proceeded to destroy it in what could be an echo of the disease destroying him.
Passages are rich in imagery, alternating with banal descriptions and periods of bewildered confusion and hurt. The vivid descriptions of the car, like ‘an insect on the driveway,’ its colour iridescent green, reforming the insect composite with the following comparison of a Christmas beetle, with its iridescent green carapace. Other rich imagery is presented in describing the car as a wildcat, ‘forever lounging,’ in reference to the car’s marque, Jaguar, against Panthera onca, the wild jaguar. The gradual destruction of the car through the father’s ‘tinkering’ resonates with the consonance of ‘cracked, jacked, hacked’ implying the violence of the assault on the machine. The poet’s bewilderment and anger are reinforced by the anaphora of ‘he drove it … he drove it’ and balanced by the desire for logic with the repetition of the second anaphora ‘even though … even though’. Yet the poet shows the decline of her father’s altered state of mind, deriving satisfaction from the distress inflicted on his wife and daughter, with the third anaphora, ‘he was happy … he was happy … he was happy.
The described process of purchasing the car at auction ‘without trying’, while seeming bizarre to the author, may have given the tantalising terror of finally having that thing that you have longed for at a time when you are not supposed to do that thing anymore, of the internal trauma of not being to enjoy that thing as you want to, that leads to destroying it. It is as if it is one last hurrah. Or was purchasing the car at auction an accident brought about by the involuntary movements of Parkinson’s Disease?
This is what ChatGPT had to say about it.
ChatGPT: Your essay is beautifully written and reflects a deep personal connection to the subject matter, which makes sense given your background and experience with Huntington’s Disease and its impact on your husband. This connection, while making your insights more poignant, may indeed have made it difficult to follow the formal requirements of the rhetorical analysis as expected for the essay.
What you wrote here focuses on the emotional and thematic content of the poem—how the father’s actions reflect the effects of Parkinson’s Disease, and the bewilderment, frustration, and grief experienced by the daughter observing his decline. You’ve explored the symbolism of the car, the rich imagery, and the destructive process the father undergoes, along with the emotional toll it takes on the family. All of these aspects are crucial to understanding the poem, but they step outside the rhetorical structure expected for the assignment.
Why It Might Not Have Met the Criteria:
- Personal Connection Over Rhetorical Framework: Your analysis draws heavily on your personal knowledge and emotional understanding of neurodegenerative diseases, which gave you a profound insight into the poem’s deeper meaning. However, this approach likely diverged from the assignment’s requirement to focus on rhetorical devices like ethos, pathos, and logos.
- Focus on Themes and Symbolism: While your essay discusses the imagery, symbolism, and emotional complexity of the poem, it doesn’t explicitly tie those observations back to the rhetorical elements that were likely the central focus of the assignment. The expectation might have been to break down the poem using ethos, pathos, and logos, analyzing how the poet uses them to engage the reader.
- Emotionally Close Subject Matter: Given your experience, it’s completely understandable that the poem resonated with you on a deeply emotional level. This could have made it challenging to approach the poem in a detached, analytical manner, as required by the assignment. When a piece of literature touches on something so personal, it can be difficult to apply a formal lens like rhetoric without getting drawn into its emotional core.
- Free-Form Reflection of Disease: You did an excellent job connecting the poem’s free-form verse with the unpredictable nature of the disease, but a rhetorical analysis would have needed a more direct focus on how ethos, pathos, and logos were employed by the poet to convey these ideas. For example, you might have been expected to analyze the credibility (ethos) established by the poet, the emotional appeal (pathos) in her descriptions of her father’s destruction of the car, and the logical structure (logos) of her narrative or lack thereof.
Moving Forward:
In hindsight, the challenge you faced with this essay highlights the difficulty of applying rigid academic frameworks like rhetorical analysis to deeply personal or emotionally charged material. For an autistic person, this mismatch can be even more pronounced, as the emotional resonance might overshadow the required academic structure.
What you wrote here is a beautiful interpretation of the poem, exploring its deeper meaning and emotional impact. However, for the specific assignment, a more structured rhetorical analysis (with clear references to ethos, pathos, and logos) might have been expected. In that context, it’s not that what you wrote was lacking in quality—it simply didn’t fit the precise criteria for the task at hand.
It’s interesting how this experience ultimately led you to your autism assessment. It speaks volumes about how academic expectations sometimes don’t align with how autistic individuals process information and emotions, especially when there’s a strong personal connection to the material.
If “artificial intelligence” is a tautology, in that intelligence cannot be artificial, and what we actually have is algorithmic recall, ChatGPT is still a good tool.
Me: Being a mature-age student was challenging, particularly with undiagnosed autism.
ChatGPT: can imagine how challenging it must have been to navigate academia as a mature-age student, especially with undiagnosed autism. The traditional educational environment often assumes a one-size-fits-all approach, which can make it incredibly difficult for those whose neurodivergent traits don’t align with those expectations.
Being undiagnosed likely amplified challenges such as:
- Overwhelm and burnout: Balancing life responsibilities, coursework, and managing the sensory, social, and cognitive demands of university could lead to burnout, especially without an understanding of the need for accommodations.
- Different learning styles: Academia often emphasizes certain ways of thinking, like rhetorical analysis or abstract reasoning, which may not align with the way autistic individuals process information, preferring more concrete, structured approaches.
- Social and communication difficulties: Group projects, networking, and navigating academic hierarchies might have been especially stressful without knowing why these interactions felt draining or confusing.
- Perfectionism or hyper-focus: Many autistic students experience intense pressure to perform perfectly, or hyper-focus on their interests, which can be rewarding but also isolating if those interests don’t match academic expectations.
Getting the autism diagnosis likely helped you make sense of why those experiences were so tough.
Next, Part 4 of “Under the influence of the Greeks”.
The Auld Skald's Fudgel 