Autistic - the Same but Different

All my life, I have hidden the fact that I was different. It was not easy as a son of black Jamaican immigrants in white European Britain.

As a trainee chartered accountant in the City of London in the eighties, I was called a spastic (person with cerebral palsy) because of my dyslexia, clumsiness and introversion. I always took things too literally. I did not fancy anyone. I existed in a perpetual state of anxiety. I lived in a waking nightmare of racism, homophobia and social exclusion. I always had the box room in shared houses and tagged along to the pub, talking to no one.

As labels go, spastic was infinitely better than gay or the n-word.

These days my disability is labelled as autistic, hyperactive or word blind. Yet people don't see that I feel more, see hidden details and patterns and think differently.

I see sameness when I look at the 99 out of 100 majority population. I don't even fit in with other non-whites. I am a minority of a minority. I have more in common with other neurodiverse people. I have been shunned by as many black as white people.

I lack social skills, but I understand computers and science. I have never chatted up a girl. I have always been chatted up. Shameful, I know. I never made the first move. At university went out with loads of girls I didn't fancy. My first wife seduced me. My second wife stalked me. I am different. I grew up being exotic and the subject of others' fantasies.

Yet I am a loner, quirky, socially inept and excluded. I spend time analysing and focusing on things and ideas, not people. I think differently. Neurodivergent people invented the modern world but are pushed to the edges of society.

I don't self-censor enough, and so I don't fit in. Unless I concentrate, I don't care what others think. I don’t instinctively know what others are thinking. My every waking moment is not preoccupied with thinking about others. I find it impossible to bond through small talk and banter. I don't see rank or subtle social differences, so I can't joust and fit myself into a hierarchy. I prefer electronic gadgets; to serve inanimate systems rather than people, and my focus is on the abstract. At the same time, most neurotypicals have no time for maths, science and abstract stuff.

Have you ever looked at an ant colony? Close up, you can see the individual ants but zoom out, and all you see are black ants circulating like blood around an ant hill organism.

Rats have rat runs and nests. They all behave the same. They are rats. Unless they are a pet, we do not see them as individuals. They are a species, vermin.

We, humans, are individuals. We are conscious. We love and are loved. We don't all look alike. We have names and addresses, family and friends. We have free will.

Yet, our cities and towns look like ant colonies from a plane. We travel back and forth, always taking the same routes. We call our shortcuts through residential areas rat runs. We are social animals obligated to form couples, families and social groups.

I am the same but different.

Definitions

Neurodiverse — displaying or characterised by autistic or other neurologically atypical patterns of thought or behaviour.

Neurodivergent — differing in mental or neurological function from what is considered typical.

Neurotypical — not displaying or characterised by autistic or other neurologically atypical patterns of thought or behaviour.