Autistic Communication
(TLDR: Tiring when not with autistic people)
What is mind blowing to me. MIND BLOWING. Is that my profession means I am, in theory, a communicator. I have been described numerous times as a good communicator. I love, like deeply and joyfully love, to communicate in writing. Part of unmasking is realising that I genuinely ignored all the evidence (MASSES OF IT) that I do, in fact, find communication very difficult. And tiring. And confusing. And mysterious.
This isn’t a scientific paper and I’m collating my learning, so it’s also not evidence based (the psychologist in me needs to caveat) and it is very far from complete. There will be so much about this that I don’t yet understand. But here are some of the main things I’ve learned so far about autistic communication which have led to lightbulb moments for me…
Autists have communication differences which mean autistic-autistic communication can be pretty straightforward, but autistic-allistic (non-autistic) communication is super fucking tricky at times.
The double empathy bind - autistic-allistic communication is tricky because both parties need to understand the ‘language’ of the other. This tends to be one way - so autistic people historically will try and speak the ‘language’ of non-autistic people while non-autistic people will not do the same in return. Because of normativity.
I think this might include an additional layer for autistic people who are trying to mask (hide their autism) because trying to communicate in a neurotypical way is effortful and communicating in a more autistic way might bring up the internalised and external ableism that may cause masking in the first place.
Some people may ‘code switch’, so consciously or unconsciously communicate in different ways depending on their context and company.
Many autistic people are Gestalt processors - processing information in small chunks rather than as a whole. Seeing the trees first, and every detail of them, then putting them together and realising they’re in a wood.
As well as this, many autistic people are excellent at putting patterns together so they can pick up on the core points being made before they are complete. This can make communication difficult as it looks like impatience, especially if the other person has a need to have their point made and heard rather than assumed
We (normative society) tends to have a hierarchy of communication types - in person communication is often seen as preferable to online, verbal communication on the phone preferable to text. This can be at odds with the energy these things take for autistic people, where speaking in person and with all the added demands of that (other sensory stimuli, awareness of self e.g. arranging your face in the ‘right’ way) can be exhausting. For non speaking autistic people, this adds an additional layer of stigma.
What would you add?
Argh! Whether I am autistic or not, I definitely relate to so many of the scenarios you describe. Again, thank you for sharing, it really does help to hear your thoughts.
I find this really interesting and I really relate to it. A friend and I both strongly suspect autism in ourselves and we are aware that when we talk to each other there is an ease which we don’t experience with others.
When I talk about something with her, she doesn’t sympathise or try empathise with me - or get reactive to it, which is often the dynamic with neurotypicals, there is visceral understanding between us and we can communicate with words but we don’t have to explain so much, it feels easier.
We’re not really close friends, we don’t know each other hugely well or have a lot of similarities but there’s definitely something in this autistic - autistic communication.
Just thought I’d share.