In which I reveal another embarrassing autism faux pas. — I recently watched a free Masterclass in Writing by David Sedaris, in which he suggested getting out into the real world and asking strangers unusual questions. He gave some examples: one was to ask people whether they had ever eaten horse. He may have said horse meat, but I wasn’t…

True stories from an actually autistic old person — Let’s talk about prosopagnosia — or face blindness. I did not know I was autistic and used to think I was just not as good as others at remembering people’s faces. It turns out that face blindness is a common trait among autistic people, related to abnormal processing strategies. I…

Taking things literally: true examples from an actually autistic old person — A neurotypical definitely wrote the AQ10 Autism test. Just look at Question 4, and take note of the limited response options. Here’s what goes through my head. Big picture? Tick. …

True examples from an actually autistic old person — Poor Spatial Awareness It doesn’t sound too bad, does it? Lots of us have problems with maps and get muddled up with left and right, or distances. Don’t we? Let’s see how we compare shall we? It once took me (and airport staff) six weeks to locate my car at Heathrow, after a…

I was the child who desperately wanted to have friends and didn’t understand why you didn’t like me. I was the annoying one who read the fastest and learnt everything quickly and easily; the one who could memorise everything and regurgitate it for straight A’s in tests and exams. I…