Saying What We Mean—An Autistic Process

The challenge of understanding neurotypical speech.

By Eric E. Cane

The issue right now is one of understanding my own mechanism. My own processing through life to help determine just who I am. And this means a journey in my head from childhood onward to this day.

It’s one thing to make specific determinations about life paths, destinations, goals, and it’s completely another when you find out you differ from others in how you think, feel, smell, hear, touch, and interact with — or in spite of — emotions.

I didn’t know other people didn’t think visually. Everything has to be visualized before I can move onward to some task or conclusion. You can see where this might be a problem where emotions — self or others’ — are concerned. The mechanical, physical and physics-based life is far more relatable and navigable than the ephemeral emotional turbulence others seem to extend from and to which I, apparently, have inside me inhibiting my own present and future in some way because of a lack of resolution regarding them.

The process I’ve gone through and refined my entire life to deal with that inconsistency in allistic (non-neurodivergent) people is through the deep analysis of variations in posture, body movement, facial expressions (which are NOT always accurate to what they are feeling), proximity to self and others, physical contact, rapidity, delay, or ease of movement or speech patterns, and finally speech itself.

I say ‘finally speech,’ because — through many difficult and sometimes harsh discoveries — I have learned that people don’t always say what they mean. This is extremely challenging, as I normally extend from a place where words mean exactly what they represent. That the person using the words are intimately connecting their truthful expressions through speech.

This is not the case for a great many people in my experiences, and perhaps yours as well.

It’s as though they use speech as superficial feelers for how another person is to respond, how well they assume the standing social convention, and then they either involve themselves more (trust, and thereby express more truthfully) or recede from giving more intimately truthful expressions of themselves.

I have to point out that it doesn’t always seem to extend from a desire to be dishonest — though I have definitely discovered many of those people in my life — but rather as a protective means before they extend deeper connections with the other person.

My autistic experience is one of connecting words as close to their meaning as possible — and then expressing them. Autistics, generally, aren’t the best deceivers because of this. It’s so much convolution and work to do otherwise, as well as a great waste of time. This isn’t to say there aren’t some good deceivers among us — autism is a spectrum — but generally, we have a different intensity of obligation regarding honesty and a sense of justice.

A point of struggle we have is one of understanding our emotional subtext enough to put words to them, and this is definitely a struggle I continually experience. As emotions can’t be physically structured into visuals because of their dynamic intensity and transitory flow and mutability, there is little to grasp onto and attach words that exactly relate to their nature.

The intense rush of pent-up emotion that takes us out of the consistency of our experience is often more the norm than our recognizing the initial important experiences causing these emotions. This deficit has the effect of snowballing in us to some unwelcome future impact. While this is true to some degree in most people, autistics have a greater challenge recognizing these from normal background emotional radiation — both our own and from other people. And, as I hope I’ve so far conveyed, recognition doesn’t mean understanding.

There is a common misconception about autistics not feeling emotion, but this is not the case at all. We simply have a challenging time understanding them and expressing them properly. We feel deeply, and are sometimes overwhelmed by what others are feeling and expressing. This can compound what we are dealing with internally.

The challenges of communication between autistic and allistics isn’t just word difficulty, it’s a fundamental brain difference in how we attach meanings to our words and the somewhat intense confusion when we grasp that others aren’t doing it in the same way. When one overlays the complexity of emotions and expressions we struggle to understand, you can see the need for being patient with us across the spectrum, so to speak.

I didn’t mention the compounding nature of increased sensory overload when stressed. Struggling to understand the seemingly illogical nature of speaking with people who don’t say exactly what they mean and who express from emotions whose underpinning we don’t recognize is a stressful activity indeed.

Here’s a simply anecdote from when I was asked one time how I felt. I was like a deer in headlights and struggled to grasp the question first. Did the person actually want me to really dig deep and answer the question as stated? Was there some hidden meaning in their question, that in fact they were trying to get me to ask something of them?

I had to go through that first, having been around people for over 50+ years, before I just decided to answer the question from the exact words asked.

And then I struggled silently trying to actually understand just what it was I was feeling. After at least 90 seconds of silence, I simply said, “I honestly don’t know.” Which was the truth. Meaning, I didn’t know what words defined the undercurrent flow I was experiencing.

The person said it was okay that I didn’t know. They understood my autistic challenges here, but I wanted to actually express something.

Finally, in frustration I said, “I truly don’t know. It’s a substrate of anxiety beneath tense wires overlayed by a cool, calm layer the allows me to smile. If that makes any sense.”

I was truly frustrated, as that was the best I could do.

They said, “No! That’s perfect! I understand.”

I hope that gives you some understanding of what some autistics like me go through. Eventually, we can come up with an answer, even if it doesn’t make sense with a single word or two. Sometimes we have to dig deep and take the visuals as they come and give you our meaning as best we can.