Were You Aware?
Autism Awareness Month: Beyond the Puzzle Pieces
April arrives adorned in blue; soft campaigns and polished slogans, puzzle pieces and passing acknowledgments. Awareness, they call it. As if knowing autism exists is the same thing as understanding what it means to live inside it.
So let me ask you—
Were you aware?
Were you aware that some of us wake up in our thirties and realize, all at once and in fragments that refuse to settle, that we have been living slightly out of sync with the world?
Not newly different—just newly named.
That the dissonance had always been there, humming beneath our lives like a frequency no one else seemed to hear, and suddenly there is a word for it, and suddenly there is a grief for all the years we spent trying to tune ourselves into something we were never meant to be?
Were you aware that conversations can feel sharp? Jagged, even?
Not metaphorically—but physically.
That words can come too quickly, overlap, collide, stack on top of each other until meaning gets lost somewhere in the noise?
That while someone is speaking, we are not just listening, we are tracking tone, cadence, facial expression, implied meaning, the timing of our response, the appropriateness of our reaction, and by the time we are ready to speak, the moment has already passed?
That a single conversation can leave us feeling scraped raw, like language itself has edges and that social interaction can cut like glass?
Were you aware that light and sound do not simply exist for us—they press in?
That fluorescent lights do not just shine, but flicker and hum, drilling into the skull until thought itself feels interrupted?
That certain sounds—dishes clinking, overlapping voices, a sudden burst of laughter—can feel like they pierce the skin rather than pass through the air?
That our bodies react before we can explain why; shoulders tightening, breath shortening, a quiet panic rising from somewhere we cannot name?
Were you aware that exhaustion does not always come from doing too much, but from being too much in spaces that were not built for us? That being perceived can feel like standing under a spotlight with no script?
That an ordinary outing requires invisible calculations:
Where will I sit?
How loud will it be?
How long can I last?
What is my exit?
And that when we return home, it is not just relief we feel, but collapse?
Were you aware that routines are not preferences, but architecture?
That we build our days carefully, piece by piece, not out of rigidity but out of necessity? That a plan is not just a plan—it is scaffolding. And when plans change; suddenly, casually, without warning, it is not inconvenience we feel. It is the scaffolding collapsing mid-step, leaving us suspended, in freefall, trying to rebuild while already overwhelmed?
Were you aware that many of us live with a quiet, constant second-guessing?
That every room can feel like one we have entered incorrectly? That we replay conversations long after they’ve ended, searching for the moment we got it wrong?
That this questioning follows us into relationships where we feel too much, into friendships where we cannot quite locate ourselves, into everyday interactions that leave us carrying confusion like a small, persistent ache?
Were you aware that emotions do not always arrive with names?
That sometimes they come as sensations first: a tightening chest, a buzzing under the skin, a sudden urge to disappear. And we are left translating not just the world, but ourselves?
Were you aware that what you call “coping” is often performance?
That we learn scripts, gestures, rhythms of interaction, not because they are natural, but because they are expected? That we practice being palatable? And that over time, we can lose sight of who we are beneath what we’ve rehearsed?
Were you aware that many of us were not protected by our differences but endangered by them?
That autistic people are statistically more likely to be victims of violence, more likely to be misunderstood by authority, more likely to have our behaviors interpreted as defiance instead of distress?
Were you aware of Elijah McClain,
who was stopped while walking home, his difference mistaken for danger, his humanity overlooked in the span of a few fatal decisions?
Were you aware of Lacey Fletcher,
whose death laid bare what neglect can become when no one intervenes, when care is absent, when systems fail, when a life is left to disappear in plain sight?
Were you aware of Otis and Leon—
children whose lives were taken by the very people meant to protect them?
Not lost.
Not wandered.
Not accidental.
Killed. By their parents. Who then killed the family pets and turned the guns on themselves in a final act of cowardice.
Folded into headlines that too often search for explanations before they offer outrage.
Were you aware that we cannot even name them all?
That there is no single list, no complete record, no place where every autistic life lost to violence, neglect, or preventable death is gathered and remembered?
That some of them exist only as local news stories, buried in archives, their names never reaching beyond the places they were lost? That others were never identified as autistic at all—their differences unspoken, their realities unrecorded, their lives misfiled into categories that do not tell the truth?
That even in death, many of us are still misunderstood?
Were you aware that wandering or elopement is not disobedience, but a form of seeking?
That many autistic people move toward something—quiet, space, relief, regulation—and that the world is often not built to keep us safe when we do?
That for some of us, the world is not just uncomfortable—it is unsafe?
Were you aware that before understanding, there were labels?
Sensitive.
Difficult.
Dramatic.
Lazy.
Too quiet.
Too intense.
Uncanny
Robotic
No empathy
Cold
Unfeeling
That we absorbed these words and let them shape us, carried them like quiet truths we could not disprove?
Were you aware that diagnosis, later in life, is not just an answer but a reckoning? That it brings relief, yes, but also grief for the years we were unsupported, misread, and forced to survive in ways that cost us something we are still trying to name?
Were you aware that autism is not a single story?
That it is not always visible, not always convenient, not always softened into something easily understood?
That it is a lifetime of translating a world that does not quite meet you where you are and learning, slowly, how to meet yourself there instead?
Awareness is a beginning.
But it is not enough to know that we exist. To truly understand, you must imagine what it feels like to move through a world that is just slightly
too loud,
too bright,
too fast,
too unclear
You must imagine for yourself what it is to carry that dissonance quietly, everywhere you go. To live in a body that is constantly negotiating with its environment. To move through systems that were not designed with you in mind. To wonder, again and again, if you are the problem or if the world has simply never learned how to hold you.
So I’ll ask you again:
Thank you Lindsay, what a beautiful post. 💛