#inclusion

The DSM defines autism by observable symptoms. But a definition and a diagnostic test are not the same thing. One bar has been cleared. The other hasn't. And mistaking the proxy for the definition has real consequences.

A field journal from an imaginary researcher studying a puzzling minority neurological condition called allism, which affects approximately 1% of the population.

Why has autism persisted across all human populations, across cultures, across centuries? A hypothesis: not because of individual advantage, but because groups that contained the profile were more robust against a failure mode the majority profile generates in itself.

The double empathy problem, made concrete: not a deficit on one side, but two coherent systems that are mutually opaque to each other.

Rest as low novelty load, not low stimulation — known vs unknown inputs, threat/navigation system, beach vs metal music

Autistic people who talk at length about their interests are often read as self-centered. I think the mechanism is almost the opposite. A follow-up to my series on autism from the inside, on why information has survival-level value, why small talk feels like noise pollution, and why sharing is, quite literally, how a lot of us care.

What if the way you think and the output you produce are two completely separate things — and the gap between them has a cost? A post about internal process, expected output, and what autism adds to the picture.

This series almost didn't happen. A comic strip, a colleague's question, and thirteen posts later: here's what masking actually is, why the right framework matters more than most people realise, and what to do if any of this sounded familiar. Includes a link to a free RAADS-R screening tool.

When 'I don't know' means the ground you're being told to step on doesn't exist

Autism hardly create effects directly: it amplifies whatever is already present, in both directions. The same wiring that produces unusual pattern recognition also produces sensory overload. The genius effect and the burnout are not opposites; they're the same amplifier applied to different inputs. This post synthesizes the series and names the mechanism running through all of it.

My wife tells me I have friends. She's probably right. But I don't feel like I do — not in the way the cultural template describes. This post explores why maintaining friendships is harder than making them, what gets misread as manipulation, and the unexpected flip side of a system that doesn't store emotional weight.

Rain Man or Sheldon Cooper — those are the two faces of autism most people know. But the vast middle is invisible, largely because it masks. This post explores the three dimensions you need to understand autism properly, why the "genius" stereotype is largely a visibility problem, and what actually happens when high IQ meets an insatiable information-gathering drive. Spoiler: it's a double-edged sword.

Most people learn early that you don't look an adult in the eyes when you're being told off. For many autistic people, that reflex simply never installed. This post explores why — and what happens to the emotional cost of all that defiance that wasn't actually defiance at all.

Some tasks are hard. Some are boring. Some are just tasks you don't feel like doing. And then there are tasks that the brain simply refuses — not out of reluctance, but because the purpose doesn't compute. This post explores the neurological mechanism behind that block, why pushing harder makes it worse, and why the person looking back at you with a calm smile while you wait for them to comply isn't being difficult — their brain has already decided.

The autistic brain doesn't filter out irrelevant sensory input. Everything arrives at full processing weight, not louder, just unfiltered. This post explains the mechanism, why common fixes don't work, and why the problem isn't at the ear at all.

The sensory threshold in autism isn't fixed. It can move from one minute to the next — the same sound, the same touch, fine one moment and unbearable the next. This post explains why through a dinner table scene that will be familiar to many autistic people and their families, and connects it to autistic burnout: what it is, and why it often hits hardest in people who seemed fine for decades.

Why are there so many autistic people in IT? Or does it just look that way? This post explores the genetics of autism, why certain cognitive profiles cluster in technical fields, and the personal story behind one late diagnosis. Spoiler: the people were always there. The name just arrived later.

The constant background hum — why the autistic brain never quite stops gathering information, and why that has nothing to do with anxiety as most people understand it. This post covers intolerance of uncertainty, the apartment tour, the actor's name, special interests as solid ground, and why the exhaustion isn't from interacting but from the continuous cost of running a manual process on autopilot.

What does "autism spectrum" actually mean? Most people picture a straight line from "a little autistic" to "very autistic." Using the analogy of myopia vs. color blindness, this post explains why autism is a horizontal spectrum of different neurological configurations, not a vertical scale from normal to severe, and why that distinction changes what support actually looks like.

Why autism is neurological, not psychological — and why that distinction changes everything about how we think about support.

A comic strip on autism