There’s an autistic experience I don’t see talked about much… which is that when you’re autistic, your brain literally refuses to take in information it doesn’t deem useful or interesting.

This really messes with us during social situations because not seeming interested in someone talking to us comes across as extremely rude (understandably).

But for many of us our brains, quite literally, refuse to process information it’s not interested in or that it doesn’t consider useful or important in some way. 

Which is why so many of us struggle with small talk… because our brains see it as useless and a waste of brain power.

And when topics come up that our brains don’t find interesting (some common topics at social events are sports, fashion, movies, books…), unless it’s a special interest of ours, our brains will literally refuse to take in and process what’s being said.

And when someone we’ll never see again is sharing things about themselves, since there’s no potential for that information being relevant again, our brains will find that information “useless” as well.

It’s not that we don’t want to show interest, it’s that our brains literally shut down and refuse to take in and store the information… and many of us are absolutely TERRIBLE at pretending to be interested in something when we’re not.

Which is why this aspect of autism often creates extremely negative social ramifications and is part of what makes autism a social disability.

This is my best description of the internal autistic experience as it relates to the social communication criteria of autism… particularly the aspect of it that has to do with deficits in social emotional reciprocity in conversation. 

If you’re autistic, I’m super curious if any of this resonates with you. 

And as always, follow for more.