If you’ve ever read a list of positive traits that a lot of people with autism possess, an inability to lie probably topped the list. It’s a common one, and just today, I read a post on Quora that would have been much more unbelievable if anyone but a child with autism had said it.

This child insisted that he had misbehaved in class, and had been punished by the principal by being forced to wear a placard that said “I am autistic and I have no friends.” Does this sound believable? No? Well, maybe it wasn’t true. But a child who has no reason to lie said it happened, and I’m inclined to believe it’s true, by experience. I advised the child’s parents to press charges on the school for attacking a child by making fun of their disability, violating several codes and human rights.

However, a lot of people with autism are accused of lying or exaggerating. I don’t think that’s fair. I’ve been accused of lying many times, and every time, I didn’t understand why I wasn’t believed.

So why are we not believed, when honesty is made such a big deal of on autism forums? Well, I have a theory. I have spoken on this blog about a seven-year-old I met with mild autism. He expressed a lot of irrational views, but I believed all of them. Why? Well, because I’d experienced a lot of them myself. We don’t like it when people push in front of us or run right on top of us, and we assume they did it on purpose (although running into and then over me and then continuing to run without looking back to see if I’d fallen over makes me think it WAS on purpose), even though a lot of those instances were probably just because the person didn’t notice they were doing it. We report those instances as we see them, not how it was.

We’re not lying. We are expressing what we see or understand. We might be reading the situation incorrectly, but that’s not a lie. It’s not a lie if a two-year-old thinks the number six comes before five. And it’s not a lie that someone pushed into you on purpose if you think it’s true, even if it isn’t. Both of those are mistakes. And we make mistakes to learn.

Let us have that luxury to learn. We don’t mean to lie. All we ask is that you listen, and not consider every mistake an intentional lie.

Routine. Hate it or love it? I haven’t discussed that trait with a lot of people who have autism, but it’s one of the ones that I don’t know if I have it or not – that is, making plans, then having a meltdown when they change.

Take this example. You love Indian food. You’ve been planning to go to this five-star Indian takeaway place when you’re on holiday, because it’s supposed to be really good. Your family agrees to all of it, and you plan everything else around it, and you’re really looking forward to it….BUT then you’re told ooh, it’s not very good to buy Indian food from a takeaway because it’s more likely to be bad and you won’t like it, so you’re going to have to go somewhere else. Yeah…couldn’t you have known that a week ago? Or at least the day before? And how can it be bad if over one hundred reviews gave it five stars and the last one was less than a month ago?

This happened to me a month ago, and I was TICKED. So plans change. That’s not a big deal, is it? Some people with autism think it IS a big deal. The only reason I stopped complaining was because I was promised an Indian meal the following weekend at an Indian restaurant we’d been to before. Which has a lower score on the same site. If that one Indian takeaway place was so likely to be terrible, why did we ever try any other Indian places at home? Why did we go to ANY new restaurant?

Does this sound like someone obsessed with keeping plans, or just someone annoyed that their plans were ruined for flimsy reasoning?

Okay, let’s think about this. Say you’ve got to go to this meeting in the middle of the day and you’ve been planning activities around it, but it’s going to take up a big chunk and you really don’t want to go to it. Then, suddenly, the meeting is cancelled and you have the rest of the day free. Are you going to be mad that your plans were all for nothing?

Of course not! I don’t care if my plans need to change because one of my obligations has been cancelled and I get to do the things I want instead. I do get annoyed if I don’t get an obligation done when I want it to, but that’s because I will have to suffer the consequences.

You be the judge. Do I really hate having my plans change as part of my autism, or is it just as neurotypical as it is autistic?

Just about everyone in Western culture has read, seen or knows something about Lewis Carroll’s books “Alice In Wonderland” and “Through The Looking Glass and What Alice Found There”. Both books involve a young girl finding herself in a strange world where nothing makes sense or works the way it should. Now, imagine yourself living in that world. That’s what someone with autism lives with every day.

We are not all communicators. A lot of people with autism have trouble communicating. Even those of us with limited language skills know what we want to say, but even the most articulate of us have trouble wording it. It’s like if I said “How long does a plane take to get from Dunedin to Hawkes Bay?” and I get the answer “You will arrive at three-thirty” when I don’t know when the plane leaves. You haven’t given me the information I asked for. That’s how it feels when I ask a simple question and don’t get the answer. If I ask “Are we having vegetables with dinner?”, I expect to hear a straight answer. But in Wonderland, a straight answer is the one thing you don’t find.

It’s not just getting answers that is hard. It’s also hearing information. It’s really hard not to daydream yourself into a world that isn’t wonderland. Because of that, it’s really easy to miss information that you need. And sometimes, when I miss information, I insist that I don’t remember it being said. Even worse, sometimes, it’s harder for people with autism to completely understand something that’s obvious to neurotypicals. It’s not just taking figures of speech literally, although pictures of metaphors sometimes appear in my head when I hear them being used. It’s just the way people word things.

Seriously, if you’re a neurotypical, imagine being in Wonderland. Then, just maybe, you may get an idea of what it’s like to be autistic, living in a world where you’re the only sane person and everyone else thinks you’re insane.

I’ve talked on this blog a lot about how neurotypicals see someone with autism. However, what I haven’t talked about is how those with autism see each other. Now, first of all, if you’re autistic, reading this and you don’t feel the same way, that’s understandable. We’re all different and no one with autism is quite the same as another. But the reason we have this diagnosis – “Autism Spectrum Disorder”, means everyone with that diagnosis can be expected to have one thing in common with a good percentage of the autistic community.

In that way, I’m probably very lucky. I have a good friend who also has autism, and the person who understands me the most also has autism. In fact, one thing all three of us have in common is going on tangents about what we’re interested in, should that be Anime, musicals, or video games. However, one thing we don’t have in common is that I’m the only one of those three who only has autism and no other diagnosis (although that may change as I am getting a psychological assessment). People with autism commonly have one or more other psychological differences.

My two friends have both had mood disorders diagnosed at different times, and while my moods can change dramatically for no reason, no psychologist has suggested that I seem unbalanced in my moods. I also used to find my anxiety chronic, but I haven’t been diagnosed with anxiety disorder since it doesn’t stop me from attending job interviews, talking to people I’ve only just met or leaving the house. There’s a few other similarities – eg: I’ve met two people who have ADHD along with autism, but this is just my personal experience.

In general, what I am trying to say is that most people I meet who have autism really seem to “get” me and the way I think. We all have traits in common, phobias and similarities. One of the people I’m closest to confided that he has a wolf personality that is wary of people, and hadn’t yet declared to dislike me, but didn’t trust me yet.

The biggest, most important thing that a really good amount of people with autism have in common are the way they are treated. My friends have stories about being screwed over by boy/girlfriends, told they are insane by teachers, bullied by kids and teenagers, and conferences everywhere, being dragged to psychologists, psychiatrists and every mental care profession in between.

These kinds of stories and togetherness is what makes us, as a community, strong. We are living through this lens that not many people understand. We have taken that misunderstanding and said “You know what? Just cause you don’t get us, doesn’t mean we can’t survive on our own. We survive together.” And we are still doing that, every day of our lives.

Just because someone with an autistic brain has a different view of the world we see, we hear and comprehend everything the same way. The question is, what are we hearing that neurotypicals aren’t?

In this case, I’m talking about what we’re told. Stuff that neurotypicals don’t have to hear. Why? Because it’s not them. It’s us. There’s the question, first, of what we want to hear, and what we really don’t like to hear.

I want to end this blog on a positive note, so I’ll start with what we don’t want to hear. A common one is “Everyone is a little bit autistic.” Ahem. It may be a spectrum, but not everyone is on it, OK? If you love social situations, aren’t the least bit bothered by sudden noises or crowds and got the same marks in every grade in high school, that probably means you’re not on the spectrum.

Second thing you should never say is “You don’t look autistic.” If this was ever said to me, I’d immediately ask what autistic looks like. Stimming is not just a sign of autism – it could be a sign of anxiety. A neutral expression isn’t just a sign of autism – it could be a sign of boredom. Everything about my physical appearance is just the average person in their twenties. Autism doesn’t affect the way people look.

Also, never EVER ask “What’s your talent?” You can ask it if someone asks you something you’re good at, probably, because everyone does have some kind of talent, but if you ask this as some kind of reaction to being told someone has autism, there is something very wrong with the way you think of autism. We’re not all savants, and it insults the people with autism who aren’t to say that. It also sort of insults the non-autistic savants. There are people out there who came savants after head injuries, believe it or not – rare though it is.

So what DO we want to hear? Well, what I want to hear is “Tell me about how this affects you.” Thank you! This shows that the person knows people with autism aren’t all the same, and that they care enough to ask questions instead of tiptoeing around like I’m going to have a meltdown any second. Another great thing to hear is “I’m here if you want to talk.” Sometimes, we don’t want to, but knowing the option is open is the nicest thing we can hear.

That’s why this blog is here. So if anyone here wants to talk, I’m open, especially since I’ve said my piece on this subject.

The answer here is a genius. There’s no doubt of that. But what if you’re autistic, and you’re not a genius? Can you accomplish anything? Well, there’s three reasons why someone with autism can’t get employed. Either we’re not being given the support we are meant to be given, we’re not able to communicate well, or the employer sees or hears the word “autistic” and drops the application like a hot potato.

In Auckland, an organization of people named Workbridge helps people who are disabled to search for jobs. One of their people has told me that 50% of employers refuse to hire anyone with autism, but it is best to be open with that information and construe it positively. What can we offer that a neurotypical version of us couldn’t? And what can we offer just as ourselves that someone else can’t? We can’t just say that we’re part of a group that included Susan Boyle and Albert Einstein, even though it’s true.

So we can offer a lot of things. Our attention to detail, our ability to feel what others feel, our complete and utter honesty. We don’t understand why lies should be told unless we’ve learned it. We like to be real with our virtues and the way we present ourselves. And on top of all those things, we have all those natural talents, several of which anyone can offer, be it enthusiasm, empathy, creativity or something else entirely.

We’re not unemployable. The unemployment rate isn’t high because we can’t work. It’s up to the world to make autism known, so that less employers will think “Rain Man” and more will think “The qualified person deserves the chance”.

Just look at that title. When someone talks about autism, the words “social awkwardness”, “non-verbal”, “therapy” and “over-stimulation” are the most likely words to come up. The question then becomes, where are the words “honest”, “observant”, “genuine” and “loyal”?

Let me tell you a piece of history of mine. In December 2018, my family was going to spend two weeks in Israel, starting in Tel Aviv, then also going to Heifer and Jerusalem before returning to Tel Aviv and then going home two days later. We were stopping off in Hong Kong both ways, getting a good night’s sleep in a hotel both ways over to minimize jet lag (it worked). However, we had to pick up our bags in Hong Kong both ways and then check in again, since we had all night and most of a day there. Would you believe I was the only one to notice the original label on the bags read “TLV”, not “HKG”. If it wasn’t for me saying “Aren’t we going to pick up our bags in Hong Kong?” , we wouldn’t have had anything except for our carry-ons (in my case, my laptop, iPod, Kindle, and not much out) and the clothes we’d worn on the plane (for me, that meant a black T-shirt, worn out velvet trousers and a pilling jumper). I was also the only one to notice we didn’t receive arrival cards on the plane, which were the only things allowing us out of the airport.

You think we’re not capable of being independent? Well, next time, maybe all those neurotypicals should stop feeling superior when you lose all your luggage at the airport or stand at the wrong carousel for half an hour, or don’t have the arrival card you need. Or maybe you just didn’t fill in a circle all the way on a multiple choice exam. As a person with autism, we might not know why little kids like to suck their thumbs or why adults constantly lie to little kids (or why a trusted adult hid my favourite jumper and then bought me a new one so I wouldn’t go looking for it)…but we do notice the little things. And when we notice little things, we prevent the biggest of mistakes.

So, for a lot of people, the first form of autism introduced to them by concept is “Hollywood Autism”. It has that name because it was spawned by the popular film “Rain Man”. While the movie is undoubtedly a masterpiece, it hurts the autistic community of today, rather than helping raise awareness of it. Seeing the movie as an adult made me question so many things.

So what is it that has become such a misconception that hurts us? The biggest one is what I wanted to discuss: Savant syndrome. A lot of people assume that every person with autism is a savant, aka is overly talented in some area. In “Rain Man”, Raymond’s area of expertise was cars. There’s been other similar portrayals, such as Sam in the Netflix series “Atypical” knowing a lot about the fauna of Antartica, particularly penguins as well as being in the top three in his year at school and getting into an scientific art course at college, and Susan in the “Baby-Sitters Club” series playing music on the piano after hearing it once and being able to reply to a date with the correct day of the week despite her inability to communicate further. Although these three characters show the three areas on the spectrum – Sam is mild, Raymond is moderate and Susan is severe – all of them suffer from Hollywood Autism’s insistence that everyone on the spectrum is a savant.

This is not true.

Oh, the autistic community is full of smart people. We’re just not all savants. If you were to ask me to tell you the name of a movie that “The Simpsons” referenced, I could immediately mention the rising strings and cinematography in a scene that parodied “Psycho” (1960) in a certain season 2 episode about censorship. I could even tell you the name of the episode, the plot and the context of the reference. Or if you asked me to write a haiku about jasmine, I would immediately write up a seventeen-syllable poem about “the winding jasmine, creeping up the helpless fence, blossoms decorate”…there you are! But if you were to ask me to solve a trigonometry problem without a calculator, I wouldn’t know where to start. Just like if you asked anyone else. I notice little stuff and remember things that others forget, but I’m not a savant.

And another point to make is that just because someone is not a savant, or even if they are, it doesn’t mean they are an all-rounder, or not. A savant is heavily talented on one area. ONE. On the other hand, those autistics who aren’t savants, like me, aren’t stupid. I mean, like many others who were not diagnosed, I went to a normal high school, graduated with university entrance, got a degree, and went on to write about my struggles. So, next time you talk to someone who admits to being autistic, don’t ask them what their superpower is. Just don’t. It’s one of the most insulting questions you can ask.

I want the chance now to talk about the backlash to autism that everyone knows about and the hate organization that thinks they know all about autism, but has never given someone with autism the opportunity to speak to them!

That organization is the reason I named my blog “Autism Can Speak”. It is called “Autism Speaks”, and it is a charity that devotes all its time to trying to cure autism and chatting to parents who have dramas with their kids. Their promotional video has a deep voice declaring that they are autism, and are taking your money, isolating your kids, making you cry and stopping kids from growing up to live independently. Tell me, is that the kind of thing we want representing us? When we can live independently?

Another video Autism Speaks made had multiple mothers talking about how they worry all the time about how their kids would never have a proper life. One mother even said the only reason she didn’t kill her child in a murder suicide was because of her other daughter. So, we are such a problem that parents want to kill us? She said this in front of her daughters, who earlier on was shown being affectionate while her mother was trying to talk to the camera and therefore pushing her away.

The most insulting part here, is not that Autism Speaks believes we can never live a normal life unless we are “cured”, and it’s not that they allow murder suicides to be considered. It’s not even that they think autism is a Disney villain-type mind control. It’s that they won’t listen to anyone who actually lives with autism. Why? Because a functional adult who is married with kids of their own and has a steady income who has autism isn’t going to make them money for research on curing autism. They don’t want to improve the lives of people who have autism, or even the people around them. They are fearmongerers who insist autism is going to attack us all unless we give them money.

Please, speak out against Autism Speaks. Look for organizations who actually want to help the autistic community with social groups, speech therapy and coping methods. We don’t need to change our inner selves with drugs, but we do need to prove we can function in the real world.

It’s probably no surprise to you that autism is completely misunderstood and misinterpreted by those who haven’t taken the time to study it. You may have picked on an awkward child in your youth who was over-sensitive, not even thinking you were doing anything wrong, and that child was easy to attack because he – or more often, she – had undiagnosed autism.

So let’s talk about the way you think about autism when you’re on the outside. You might see a child with a carer or parent, flapping his hands uncontrollably, not looking at anyone when they speak, or just freezing or rocking. And you think “there’s something wrong with him…maybe he’s autistic.” But on the other hand, you might be at work, and you notice the coworker in the office next to yours never comes to the staffroom, always eats lunch at her computer, and hasn’t made all the friends you’ve made. When you do talk to her on the way in or out, she responds, but speaks quietly, jumps when you speak, and doesn’t look at you. Do you think she’s autistic, or just shy? It’s not always easy to tell the difference.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s possible to be autistic and shy. A lot of our community prefers to be alone, but there are those, like me, who are just shy but love to communicate and make friends – just having no innate sense to tell you who to befriend and how. If someone comes up to you, not smiling but acting like they really want to get to know you and trying to start up a conversation, they might be an autistic person looking to make a friend. But you wouldn’t know that because they can’t be autistic, can they, if they’re choosing to be friendly! They’re just weird, aren’t they.

Please, try not to be the person I’m describing. The high school filled with people who don’t like those with autism ought to be over. We’re past that point now, and if you’re wise, you won’t go towards it again. You can probably work out if you’re with someone who just wants you to leave them alone, or who really needs a friend. You don’t have to study autism, but just remember, if you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism. The next person with autism you meet will almost definitely behave differently.