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Allison Wall

Tag: Autism
  • Move Review: Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same

    My quests to (1) find authentic sapphic/lesbian things to watch and (2) become a constantly less mainstream, weirder, more specific version of myself converged in the delightful indie film Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same (2011, available on Fandango, free with ads).

    If the title isn’t enough to lure you in (it certainly hooked me), then please read on.

    Clocking in at about 1 hour and 15 minutes, Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same (written and directed by Madeleine Olnek) is a delightful juxtaposition of Annie Hall-esque understated humor (complete with therapy scene; may Woody Allen rot in hell) and a parody of the crunchy aesthetics of 1950s pulp sci-fi. In the film, an alien planet is experiencing a dangerous thinning of the ozone layer, which is being exacerbated by big emotions, notably, love. Inhabitants with such big emotions are to be rounded up and sent to Earth, where they will have their hearts broken and then return subdued, depressed, and no longer a threat to the planet.

    Meanwhile, Jane (Lisa Haas), an introverted and sweet earthling butch who lives in NYC, struggles to put herself out there. She is approached by Zoinx (Susan Ziegler), one such exiled alien with big feelings, and they hit it off.

    In a third story thread, two FBI agents talk to pass the time on a stakeout assignment. Their conversations (and the film’s commentary) range widely, but are sharpest when discussing queerness, lesbians, and heterosexual culture.

    I also could read in a fair amount of Autistic commentary, specifically on dating and socializing. I’m not sure this is intentional, and it doesn’t really ever surface as a theme in the film, so big grain of salt here.

    The aliens are not un-Autistic in their speech (monotone), movements (uncoordinated; on the stiff side), and understanding (often taking the literal meaning for comedic effect). The ones we see on screen are also the ones with emotions so intense, they’re destroying their home planet—this also rings true to my Autistic experience of emotions. These choices were perhaps meant to show them as different from earthlings. But at one point, Jane, the human girlfriend, acknowledges she’s never really felt belonging on Earth either. This could be referring to lesbians being unwelcome in heteronormative society, but Jane also seems socially shy and awkward on top of being queer, and other earthling lesbians are depicted throughout who don’t seem to share Jane’s struggles.

    So might be worth a watch through an Autistic lens, too!

    This movie is truly a gem, and I’m glad to report that it was well received at Sundance and garnered many positive reviews in mainstream publications.

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  • Vaccines don’t cause Autism.

    On this page are peer-reviewed scientific studies that document the research on the lack of connection between vaccines and Autism. I have taken the time to read them and provide short summaries. However, please read them yourself! If any of the links don’t open or are not open access, feel free to reach out to me and I’ll see if I can find you an accessible copy.

    This is by no means the complete list of such research, just what I’ve been able to accomplish so far. I may update it periodically, as I have time.

    RETRACTED: Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children, The Lancet, 1998

    • This is the original study led by Andrew Wakefield that started the wave of unfounded fear around Autism and vaccines. Note that it has been retracted. Retraction in this case is in line with the numerous design flaws within this “study,” in addition to undisclosed, egregious conflicts of interest associated, for which Wakefield lost his medical license in the UK.
      • There were a total of 12 children discussed in the publication.
      • There was no control group.
      • There was no control time period.
      • The published study did not include all of the children studied; cases were cherry picked.
      • No concessions were made for correlation vs. causation (i.e., vaccine age being similar to the age at which some children are identified as Autistic).
      • The study itself claimed there was no proven causal connection, but Andrew Wakefield held press conferences claiming the opposite.
      • Prior to their involvement in this study, some of the parents of children in this study were involved in a lawsuit preparing to sue makers of the MMR vaccine.
      • Lawyers responsible for this lawsuit paid Wakefield personally upwards of £400,000. This seems to indicate that he was (allegedly) paid to create this study to bolster the lawsuit.
      • Co-authors pulled their names from the study.
      • The Lancet retracted the study. This is an extreme measure in scientific research, appropriate given circumstances surrounding this study, how it was conducted, etc.
      • In 2010, Wakefield’s medical license was revoked after a hearing uncovering all of this misconduct.

    Autism and measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine: No epidemiological evidence for a causal association, The Lancet, 1999

    • 498 Autistic children in the UK were examined, looking for any increase of Autism identification or change in age of identification before and after the MMR vaccine was introduced in 1988.
    • The analyses found no support for a causal connection between MMR vaccination and Autism.
    • “If such an association occurs, it is so rare that it could not be identified in this large regional sample.”

    No Evidence for A New Variant of Measles-Mumps-Rubella-Induced Autism, Pediatrics, 2001

    • Three sample sets of children were compared.
      • 95 children immunized with MMR at 13.5 months with developmental disorder diagnoses
      • 98 children pre-MMR vaccine
      • 68 children post-MMR vaccine
    • These children were assessed according to modern Autism testing.
    • No evidence was found to support MMR-induced Autism.

    A population-based study of measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination and autism, The New England Journal of Medicine, 2002

    • All children born in Denmark between January 1991 and December 1998 were examined in a retrospective study of health record data to examine whether the MMR vaccine causes Autism.
    • Of a cohort of 537,303 children, 440,655 received the MMR vaccine. Of these, 738 were identified as Autistic. Researchers found no association between vaccination or vaccination age and Autism.
    • “This study provides strong evidence against the hypothesis that MMR vaccination causes autism.”

    No effect of MMR withdrawal on the incidence of Autism: A total population study, The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 2005

    • 300,000 children up to age 7, born between 1988 and 1996 in the Kohoku Ward, Yokohama, Japan, were examined for cumulative incidence of Autism.
    • MMR vaccination rates declined significantly from 1988 to 1992, and no MMR vaccines were administered after 1993.
    • Incidence of Autism, however, increased, most notably beginning with the birth cohort year of 1993.
    • MMR vaccination is very unlikely to be a main cause of Autism.
    • Withdrawal of MMR vaccination does not lead to a decrease in Autism.

    Lack of association between measles virus vaccine and autism with enteropathy: A case-control study, PLOS ONE, 2008

    • Researchers investigated whether measles virus RNA could be found within the bowel tissue of Autistic children.
    • Tissue samples were taken from 25 Autistic children with bowel disturbances and 13 neurotypical children with bowel disturbances.
    • Researchers found no differences between the two groups of children in whether there was measles virus RNA in ileum and cecum.
    • “This study provides strong evidence against association of autism with persistent MV RNA in the GI tract or MMR exposure.”

    The combined measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines and the total number of vaccines are not associated with development of autism spectrum disorder: The first case-control study in Asia, Vaccine, 2012

    • This case-control study compared a group of Autistic children (189) with a group of neurotypical children (224) to investigate the relationship between Autism and general vaccinations, including measles–mumps–rubella (MMR) vaccine.
    • No convincing evidence was uncovered linking number of vaccinations with greater incidence of Autism.
    • “Therefore, these findings indicate that there is no basis for avoiding vaccination out of concern” about [Autism].

    Autism occurrence by MMR vaccine status among US children with older siblings with and without autism, JAMA, 2015

    • This huge study examined over 90,000 children with older siblings over a period of 11 years.
    • Researchers tracked children who received 0, 1, and 2 doses of the MMR vaccine.
    • Researchers found that getting the MMR vaccine was not associated with Autism, whether or not older siblings were Autistic.
    • “These findings indicate no harmful association between MMR vaccine receipt and [Autism],” even for children more likely to be Autistic (i.e., Autistic sibling).

    Early exposure to the combined measles-mumps-rubella vaccine and thimerosal-containing vaccines and risk of autism spectrum disorder, Vaccine, 2015

    • Two groups of children (189 Autistic children, 224 neurotypical children) were compared at 1, 3, 6, 12, 18, 24, and 36 months to determine relationship between MMR vaccines and Autism.
    • This study also looked into thimerosal dosage (mercury as a preservative/bacteria killing agent in vaccines) as a variable.
    • “No convincing evidence was found in this study that MMR vaccination and increasing thimerosal dose were associated with an increased” incidence of Autism.

    The myth of vaccination and autism spectrum, European Journal of Paediatric Neurology, 2022

    • This article is a summary of the connection between vaccination and Autism. It’s a fairly easy read, though written from a very particular viewpoint: vaccines do not cause autism. This does count as bias.
    • However, this article isn’t seeking to run any particular research or study, but to lay out the story of how vaccination has become entangled with fear of Autism.
    • There are a ton of great articles and resources linked in this article!
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  • Autism, ADHD, and Surrealism

    Neurodiversity refers to the fact that brains naturally occur in a diverse range of operating systems.

    Neurodivergent (ND) is an adjective that refers to those brains that “diverge” in operation from what dominant society has decided is “normal”; for example, Autistic, ADHD, etc., as opposed to neurotypical (NT).

    One night, I was researching a stand-up comedian I’d come across, who, in my opinion, gave off very Autistic energy. (More on him later!) According to his Wikipedia page, his work is considered “surreal humor.” That gave me pause. I thought it was a strange label, since his work seemed strictly observational to me.

    My brain began to pull up its files on Autistic/neurodivergent creators and surrealism. And I started to wonder.

    Is there a connection between the ND experience and surrealism? Do ND perspectives appear surrealist to NTs? Is all ND art surrealist? Or maybe this is a double-empathy situation where NT folks don’t understand NDs and label our stuff as surrealist or weird.

    Fall with me down the surreal-neurodivergent rabbit hole…

    What is surrealism?

    According to Merriam Webster, surrealism is defined as:

    the principles, ideals, or practice of producing fantastic or incongruous imagery or effects in art, literature, film, or theater by means of unnatural or irrational juxtapositions and combinations.

    https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/surrealism

    Wikipedia gives a little more context:

    Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to leader André Breton, to “resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality into an absolute reality, a super-reality”, or surreality. It produced works of painting, writing, theatre, filmmaking, photography, and other media.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrealism

    On its face, surrealism doesn’t connect directly to neurodivergence. Or does it?

    Let’s continue down the rabbit hole and look at some artists who are known to be surrealist, ND, or both, and see what we can see…

    WARNING AND A GREAT BIG CAVEAT: I am going to be speculating on the Autistic/ND status of people I don’t know. I know this isn’t best practice. I know I may be wrong. But also: when I say something “is” or someone “seems” Autistic/ND, that is a neutral statement. And, because of my bias toward Autistic/ND people (I am one myself ), it may even be a compliment. There exists a knee-jerk reaction against speculative labeling like this, in part because of the assumption that it is an insult to call someone Autistic/ND. It is not, and I reject that assumption as a product of unexamined ableism. I reserve the right to speculate as a kind of Autistic/ND peer review, knowing I may be wrong, but also that it is dangerous to be “out” as an Autistic/ND person, especially in the entertainment industry, and that biases against and misunderstandings of Autism/ND may prohibit people from being assessed in the first place. We’re doing the best we can with what we have and trying to build a better world by having conversations exactly like this.

    Mitch Hedberg

    Mitch Hedberg is the aforementioned stand-up comedian who first got me thinking about surrealism and neurodivergence. Hedberg was a stand-up comedian who rose to fame in the 1990s and early 2000s before his death by accidental overdose.

    Now, I can’t say with certainty that Hedberg was Autistic. I can’t assess him from the grave, and as far as I know, he was never formally assessed. However, after watching his 20-minute set for Comedy Central, I am ready to peer-review him into the Neurodivergent Club.

    There’s a certain tuning-fork sensation I feel when an artist or a work speaks to me in a very particular way. Through trial and error, I’ve learned to pay attention to it and to trust it. It’s usually a sign that the creator is operating with a neurodivergent system. I don’t know how to explain it more than that. I could compare it to gaydar, I suppose, but on a cellular or vibrational level.

    And with Mitch…boy, I feel it.

    His body language combined with his granular, rapid-fire method of joke telling, the literalism, deadpan tone, practiced and perfected cadence, as well as his own off-stage accounts of his childhood and adolescence make me about 90% sure.

    I became instantly obsessed, of course, because on top of the tuning-fork tell, he’s really hilarious. It was on my first internet deep dive that I found that he was known for his “surreal” humor.

    That label didn’t make sense (I think the concept of stand-up is surreal in general), until I also researched surrealism and took into account the part of surrealism that is concerned with juxtaposition. Hedberg’s jokes were mostly one or two sentences long, and he moved from one to the next with no apparent order or connection. It’s a different style than what’s popular now, for example, stand-up John Mulaney, whose work involves long-form narration. It’s different, too, from openly Autistic stand-up Hannah Gadsby, whose material is intricately interconnected. Her special Douglas in particular comes to mind.

    My point is, the connected narrative styles of Mulaney and Gadsby stand in stark contrast to Hedberg, and they would never be labeled as surrealist. (It is interesting to note that Gadsby, Autistic, doesn’t fall into the surrealist camp. All Autistic people are different, and, evidently, being Autistic doesn’t make one a surrealist.)

    David Lynch

    David Lynch might be the most well-known modern surrealist on this list. I can’t say whether Lynch is neurodivergent. He does seem very blunt in interviews, and has a particular way of speaking that isn’t strictly neurotypical-aligned.

    Though Lynch’s work can be extremely obscure, it seems to have found a foothold in mainstream media, the feature film Mulholland Drive and the television series Twin Peaks being perhaps the most popular.

    Last year, I watched the full Twin Peaks saga (seasons 1 and 2, the prequel film Fire: Walk with Me, and season 3 “The Return”) for the first time. I was struck by the degree to which I identified with the bizarro world of Twin Peaks, Washington. I’m going to take as an example one of the most obviously surreal scenes in the film Fire: Walk with Me.

    Two FBI agents are sitting in Hap’s Diner late at night. The underlying music is weird and dreamy. (One of Lynch’s signatures is the ability to reproduce the uncanny sensation of being in a dream; I’ve never seen more accurate representations of the experience.) There’s a collection of strange people, among them a woman who speaks only in French. There’s dialogue, and the questions and answers don’t line up. At least one question is repeated. People do things that don’t make sense. The scene doesn’t amount to anything obvious.

    There’s an unspoken question here, maybe something about social convention, something like, “Isn’t all of this odd?”

    My experience of being ND in NT-dominant social spaces feels very much the way that scene made me feel as a viewer. I found myself laughing with delight as I watched: Lynch gets it! He understands how it feels to be in the world. Bizarre, unexplained, and jarring.

    Madeleine Ryan

    Madeleine Ryan is an Australian novelist who realized she was Autistic in the middle of writing her debut novel A Room Called Earth. The protagonist is identified as Autistic on the back cover, but the word “Autistic” is not mentioned in the book itself.

    I have never identified so strongly with a character on the page. In fact, reading this book helped me realize the mental gymnastics I had been performing all my life in order to identify with characters in books who had absolutely nothing in common with me. Reading this protagonist was like slipping on a worn, comfy glove.

    I haven’t seen anyone describing it as “surrealist,” there’s an argument to be made that it is.

    The book takes place in a less-than-24-hour period, largely in the narrator’s head. She drifts freely in stream of consciousness. This allows for a stretching of time and space, for rumination on crystals, dating, cats, parties, and how one chooses what to wear to a party, all in the same paragraph. Juxtaposition galore, as well as a sense of hyper-reality. The narrator’s inner world overflows with a rich, technicolor array of sensations, until external world intrudes. The realities of social anxiety and misunderstanding cut harshly in–another juxtaposition.

    This novel may get closest to demonstrating the inner workings of an Autistic mind, and why NTs sort it as surrealist. But more on this later.

    Daniel Kwan

    Daniel Kwan, one of the co-writers and -directors of the award-winning, mind-blowing film Everything Everywhere All at Once (EEAAO), is ADHD. He co-created Evelyn, the main character, as an undiagnosed ADHD woman, and discovered his own neurodivergence in the research process.

    EEAAO is an obviously surrealist romp that delights in the chaos of juxtaposition. Compared to Lynch’s work, this is much more accessible. Though it does delve into serious topics, it does so with a clarity, lightness, humor, and joy I’d hazard Lynch is not interested in.

    The mechanism of the multiverse in EEAAO feels very similar to the inner workings of my thought processes. If x then y, but if x was z, then a, etc., etc., an infinite extrapolation of variables, possibilities, examining how my emotions would change, how my life would play out differently, and so forth. The abrupt changes and the random events needed to activate characters’ “super powers” feel related to attention shifts.

    And that may be another clue to the ND-surrealist connection! With brains that struggle with dopamine production and directing our own attention, we are more able to tune in, pay attention, when there is variety. When we are asked to make connections, to follow fast worldbuilding in the middle of hand-to-hand combat in an IRS office with fishbowls and fanny packs and Jamie Lee Curtis hurtling through the air right at the camera–

    EEAAO was the first movie in years where I wasn’t tempted once to pause or check my phone. I was locked in. It’s almost like an ND creator knows how to hold ND attention… And, maybe, to ND brains, surrealism is just more interesting. I wonder if it’s because it more closely mimics our inner landscape and brain processing, or whether it is just more able to hold our attention. Maybe both…

    Nathan Fielder

    Nathan Fielder is a Canadian actor, comedian, director, etc. Some of his well-known TV programs are Nathan for You and The Rehearsal. He also had a new scripted comedy show out with Emma Stone, The Curse, which I haven’t gotten to yet.

    I’m going to focus on The Rehearsal, because, even just on a conceptual level, it is outrageously Autistic. Nathan Fielder’s presence within it also screams Autism.

    It is difficult to tell how much, if any, of The Rehearsal or of Nathan Fielder’s persona is scripted vs. real. This seems to be one of Fielder’s calling cards–and a strong element of surrealism in itself, bending reality. But if we take The Rehearsal at face value, it’s perhaps the perfect example of the alliance between surrealism and neurodivergence.

    In the series–a blend of reality television, comedy, and surprisingly heartfelt documentary–Fielder works with clients to help them practice hard conversations or experiences ahead of time, creating elaborately realistic sets and numerous potential dialogue trees to facilitate every conceivable outcome.

    Almost every client Fielder worked with seemed Autistic. This shouldn’t really be surprising: it’s logical that folks who’d be most interested in participating in this show would be Autistic or ND. We do this type of rehearsing in our heads every day.

    Most Autistic or ND people endorse that they plan out, or rehearse, social interactions before they happen. The Rehearsal as a social experiment plays out this mental preparation in a 3D space.

    Honestly, I was jealous. I would love to be able to practice situations like this!

    Fielder comes across Autistic: flat affect, flat tone, minimal facial expression, self-endorsed difficulty reading people…and his own desire to rehearse big moments (like parenting) is very Autistic.

    The imagery of the show is very surrealist: a city bar perfectly recreated inside a massive warehouse, Nathan dressed up as other people in reenactments of future or past events, shots of a cozy family home interrupted when the child actor’s legal work hours are up and he is spirited from the home by set production.

    When elements in the social experiment don’t go the way he anticipates, Fielder backtracks, spending time and a ridiculous amount of production resources, retroactively creating situations from the past to try to gain understanding.

    Autistic folks often describe themselves as aliens studying the neurotypical human race. And if that’s not Fielder, and if that’s not The Rehearsal, I don’t know what is.

    What does any of this have in common?

    Even though these artists don’t fall under the same neurodivergent umbrella (that we know of), and even though they aren’t all self-proclaimed surrealists, their work has commonality.

    1. Many small parts making up a less-obvious whole. Pastische. An unwillingness to explain itself. Unconventional storytelling methods or structures. Greater-than-average complexity. This may relate to what some call bottom-up processing: a need or tendency to recognize details first before an overall concept can be realized. Bottom-up processing is associated with ND thought patterns. I think this is really a key concept to pulling all of this together.
    2. An “unconventional” emotional affect. Deadpan humor. A kind of satire that reads as flat or emotionless on the surface. Unexpected delivery. As with Mitch Hedberg, his cadence (which feels extremely rehearsed) is a huge part of why his jokes land. Bluntness. Matter-of-fact to the point of pain or vulnerability. Dale Cooper of Twin Peaks and the narrator of A Room Called Earth are emotionally open, sharing their thought processes, passions, and interests with almost reckless abandon.
    3. Non-verbal symbolism. This applies specifically to Lynch and Kwan. Surrealism in film is privileged in that it can convey a breadth of ideas without using words. Lynch’s The Return is sometimes entirely non-verbal, to the point of confounding the audience. I found this to be fascinating, whether I ever understood his intent or not (my money’s on “not”). Lots of visual symbols in EEAAO aren’t specifically explained, though most of it can be intuited via context; the circle/bagel is a big one, as are the googly eyes stuck incongruously on everything.

    My Two Cents

    My own experience, of course, informs everything about what I’ve written here. And, per my experience, I would argue: being neurodivergent in a neurotypical world feels surreal. I think ND folks, artists and art viewers alike, gravitate toward surrealism because it creates an experience they relate to.

    The dreamscape of confusing social interactions. The chaotic sensory minefield of going into a store packed with products, the bottom-up brain prioritizing each individual item before being able to make sense of the store as a comprehensive whole. The inability to block out a smell or a sound. The out-of-body experience of knowing no one else is experiencing this moment like you are. The dissociation when overwhelm threatens.

    All of that (and more) produce a feeling of unnatural juxtaposition. A fragmentation of sensory experience. Feeling out of place is the sensation of surrealism. Feeling out of place is the sensation of ND experience.

    Having to constantly dissect and analyze, to figure out the world working only from context clues, produces brains that play at finding connections. Lynch’s work challenges even the strongest connection-finding minds–and a challenge is exciting in a world of media that is formulaic as all hell. Hedberg’s work confounds connection-making, which is a delight: there’s no chance of getting bored. If you don’t like a joke, he’s already on the next one. EEAAO is a beautiful balance of connection-finding and boredom-busting: with fast pacing, intricate interconnectedness, and dense worldbuilding, it’s impossible to get bored or look away.

    In Conclusion?

    I’m not sure I have a final conclusion or end point. I think the connection between neurodivergence and surrealism goes deeper than I’ve been able to get at. There’s a good chance I’ll come back to this idea. But for now, this is what I’ve got. This is what I’ve been thinking about.

    I’m sure there are things to be gleaned in other art media I haven’t yet looked into, too, like visual art and music.

    Let me know what you think! Have I missed any crucial ND creators and/or surrealist work? If you are ND, does this align with your experience?

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  • Outcasts Abandoned: The Betrayal of WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS

    With filming nearing completion on the final season of What We Do in the Shadows (WWDITS)—looks like they’re wrapping on May 3 (see Harvey Guillen’s Instagram post)—I am finally sorting through my thoughts about last season.

    For the first four seasons, WWDITS was the funniest sitcom I’d seen in years: quirky, off-beat, queer-inclusive, edgy… Then season 5 dropped.

    I’m somewhat hesitant to publish this, as it’s probably not a popular take. But it’s an important opportunity to talk about audience betrayal.

    Yeah, betrayal. Dramatic word choice. Intentional word choice.

    And yeah, WWDITS is a comedy. But just because it’s intended to make you laugh doesn’t mean its impact isn’t serious.

    TLDR: I had a very strong negative reaction to WWDITS season 5.

    If you loved season 5, you may not love this essay. Great news! It’s not required reading.

    If season 5 turned you off, and you couldn’t quite figure out why…I might have the answer.

    ***SPOILERS AHEAD***

    Made by FX, streaming on Hulu, WWDITS is based loosely on the 2014 film of the same name by New Zealand icons Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi. It’s a 30-minute situational mockumentary/horror-comedy show about a group of vampires living as roommates in modern-day Staton Island, NY.

    Thematically, WWDITS is about outcasts. A lot of its humor is drawn from the clash of ancient, Old-World vampires in modern human society—somewhere they clearly do not belong and are not welcome. This group of vampires also doesn’t seem to fit in with vampire society; they’re the outcasts of the outcast. Guillermo (vampire Nandor’s familiar and the show’s human main character, played by Harvey Guillen) doesn’t fit in with humans or vampires. He longs to be a vampire, but has Van Helsing lineage that makes him preternaturally good at killing vampires. He also comes out as gay in season 4, yet another kind of human outcast (though I hope this will be less so in coming years; the vampires surely didn’t care). Guillermo fights constantly to make a place for himself, to make his voice heard.

    I know a lot of neurodivergent (ND) folks who love WWDITS. If I project a little, I theorize part of the reason is that they feel resonance with the outcast theme of the show. ND folks understand outcast themes deeply. We’ve lived them.

    As an Autistic fan, I was ultimately disappointed, crushed even, by season 5.

    The problem’s center is a supporting character called The Guide (played by Kristen Schaal). Throughout season 5, she desperately wants to be included in the main vampire gang, who consistently ignore and exclude her. Each instance of exclusion appears to be written for laughs: Isn’t her desperation funny? Isn’t she awkward? LOL like we’d be friends with her…

    This didn’t sit right with me. But it was always a quick moment, sidelined instantly for the flow of the episode’s plot, so I could ignore it. Until it culminates in the double-episode season finale. To sum up, The Guide turns vindictive, punishing and imprisoning the gang for shutting her out. Trapped in silver cages, they apologize. They tell her they’ll be her friend, and she lets them go. In the credits scene, it’s revealed they are lying to her, making plans to dump her off on another vampire later.

    I had a strong reaction to this.

    When I have strong reactions to film, books, television, etc., and I voice them, I often hear, “It’s just a show.” “It’s just a story.” I absolutely do not experience it that way.

    Studies on Autistic brains have shown structural differences (~25% more dendritic spines, 50% more synapses) that implicate more and more active mirror neurons, which means we can watch something happen and feel it in our own bodies. “Just stories” become embodied, visceral experiences. Other ND brain types also experience heightened emotional empathy and synesthesia that contributes to a more physical involvement.

    Stories are extremely important to me, and to a lot of ND people. They’re a way we can achieve a sense of belonging, both with the characters and with other fans. ND people can have a shaky sense of self, so a story can help us understand ourselves and the world around us in new ways. When we find a story that resonates with our lived experience, it means even more; these are rare. We can identify our experience, identify our emotions, learn, and grow.

    Stories broadcast messages. They are cultural containers, reflecting and shaping how we think. Who we are.

    This is a show about outcasts…who then create their own in-group and cast out someone else. Maybe that would work, if there was any sense of awareness in the script or story that there was a lesson to be learned here. But there’s not.

    The vampires in WWDITS aren’t the brightest or the most morally upstanding. I don’t need them to be. But this betrayal of one of the show’s major themes (outcast-ness), and its audience (who relate to being outcast), cuts deep.

    A lot of ND folks deal with Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria (RSD), partly as a result of having tried over and over to fit in and been rejected. We are constantly held to neurotypical standards and fall short. We are fish being compared to birds. Even if we don’t understand our own neurodivergence, neurotypical people can sense it. Even if they don’t know what they’re sensing, they don’t like it or want to associate with it. After a lifetime, rejection, real or perceived, becomes a fight-flight-freeze-fawn threat, and our bodies react accordingly.

    Seeing The Guide go through repeated rejection…and then become the villain because of it? I was shocked that this is how WWDITS handled her character. It’s a no for me.

    Being left out is only funny if you aren’t the one being left out. It’s only a joke if you’re laughing with the group. The fact that The Guide turns violent/evil is especially troubling. This is the left-out, bullied kid who brings a gun to school. This is the kid, who, when the news anchors tell us they’ve learned they were “Autistic,” everyone nods, as if that explains everything. They understand now.

    Is my own RSD triggered by The Guide’s arc? Is it coloring and maybe even fueling the writing of this essay? Hell yes! Of course it is! Rather than invalidating my point, though, it strengthens it. This is the harm that comes of audience betrayal—not just leaving unfulfilled the initial promises of the show, but actively working against them in what feels like a “fuck you” to fans.

    Why did the writers choose this? Why not write about inclusion instead of an exclusion that leads to retaliation?

    Unfortunately, I suspect all of this goes down just to get Nandor (played by Kayvan Novak) in a position (a cage made of silver) to hear Guillermo confess a secret safely, so Nandor couldn’t physically retaliate. But there are a hundred other ways that could have been achieved, plot wise. That’s the thing about ableism in storytelling that makes me extra angry: It’s lazy. There are so many ways to write Nandor into a silver cage that would avoid this. (I had the same problem with the celebrated Netflix film Don’t Look Up.)

    It is so frustratingly careless.

    It is possible for modern sitcoms (a genre built on “friend groups” mocking each other for laughs; see Friends, The Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother, etc.) to explore radical inclusion. This is one of the many beauties of shows like Schitts Creek or the hilarious, queer, pirate sitcom/romcom Our Flag Means Death (OFMD), cancelled tragically early after only two seasons. OFMD also carries the theme of the outcast experience (and involves Taika Waititi, interestingly enough), but in contrast to WWDITS, it is intentionally, insistently inclusive. So much so that the toxic, prickly villain from season 1 is transformed to a beloved central character in season 2, singing a sensitive, heartfelt (if anachronistic) rendition of “La Vie en Rose” a la Lady Gaga from A Star is Born. The impact of this on me and thousands (millions?) of other OFMD fans has been healing and transformative—in a comedy-centered space.

    WWDITS writers went one step further to twist the knife in the final episode of season 5. They had the opportunity to include another kind of outcast: a character with a vampiric autoimmune disorder. Despite my revulsion at The Guide’s treatment, I got excited, as a chronically ill person, imagining avenues this would open to examine this new kind of outcast-ness…and in season 5’s final moments, they undid it. The character was healed.

    The remedy is not inclusion. It’s removal of the disability.

    Season 6 will be the show’s last season, and honestly, I’m glad. WWDITS has turned against its own underlying themes, and in the process, turned against the audience it initially attracted. It has lost its identity severely…also evidenced by season 5’s meandering, boring episode plots, which I’m not going to touch on here. It’s not worth it.

    A world that felt tailor-made for me turned into one in which I no longer feel welcome or represented. It’s exhausting, to be cut out of a space that had previously felt inclusive. Unfortunately, it’s not a new experience (see: RDS).

    If you relate, I’m sorry. We deserve stories where being excluded isn’t funny or inevitable. Where being excluded—a social experience out of our control—doesn’t mean we are villains capable of violence.

    I may check in with season 6 to see if they make attempts at redeeming any of this and/or to see how they wrap the show overall. I am curious to see if they’ve been queerbaiting with Nandor/Guillermo this whole time… I’m not holding my breath, though.

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  • What Does Masking Feel Like?

    One of the magics of the arts is that, from within our temporary, star-material, biological construct, the life force holding our construct together can create something that we hold out to other temporary, star-material, biological constructs, and we say, “This is how it is for me.” And that sharing implies a question: “How is it for you?”

    In other (simpler) words, making things allows us to compare our experiences of reality.

    I spent the first 30 years of my life masking my Autistic Self without knowing it, and without knowing that most other people didn’t have the same experience of being alive as I did. So, I love to ask people what their inner life is like, how they think, if they can see in color. I think if someone had asked me about those things, I might have understood myself sooner.

    Today someone asked me, “How do you know when you’re masking?”

    The answer is simultaneously intangible and one of the deepest, most known sensations in my temporary construct’s memory.

    When I’m masking, my intellectual existence is at the top of a river. At the bottom of the river is my sense of being in my body, my emotions, my intuition. The ocean, perhaps, is also down there. The water of the river is divided into a series of locks, each walled off by a sluice gate. The boat starts at the top of the river. It enters the first lock, stops, and waits for the sluice gates to move. It moves to the next lock, stops, and waits for the next gate.

    When I’m not masking, there is a river, but there are no locks, no gates. The water runs freely, taking the path of least resistance, to the sea. All the water is connected. It flows. It knows itself. It is a river and it moves like a river.

    When I am masking, all my conscious awareness lives in the front of my face. I am focusing on the immediate moment. I forget I have arms, legs, a stomach. I forget I have emotions. I black out the temperature of the room, the glare of the lights, the feeling of the collar of my shirt against my neck. I leave my body to inhabit whoever I’m interacting with. I read their mood, their body language, listening with huge intent so I don’t misunderstand their tone of voice or miss a word.

    I am an actor, sliding my way through a scene I have rehearsed but never performed in this particular theater, with these particular actors, one that I will probably never perform again exactly like this. Trying to blend in, to pretend I perform this scene every day. That this is all I do. That I, too, am a professional neurotypical human person. That every single word I’m saying, even the small talk, *especially* the small talk, isn’t something I rehearsed in my head the night before, muttering it on the way over to perform this scene with different intonation to see which feels the best in my mouth.

    I am a spy behind enemy lines, avoiding detection. I am getting in and out, fast, no casualties.

    I am burning out, because this conversation is taking way longer than I thought, and I never did figure out a sure-fire script to end every conversation politely and there are fluorescent lights flickering and a dog barking somewhere and the Glade plug in smells so cheaply floral-adjacent it’s a poison my lungs are refusing to accept.

    And when my spoons are gone, I can’t get my eyes to focus on a page or a screen or my cat or the things around me. But thank fucking god because at least I’m home, though my brain is buzzing inside my skull, and if I could just reach in there and pull the buzzers out, I’d be myself again.

    When I’m not masking, it’s not like that. It’s effortless, connected. Energy flows in a loop back to me. Water to water. River to sea. That’s how I know.

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  • Fairy Tales, Autism, and Finding Home

    When I was a kid, I discovered an entire shelf in the library full of fairy tales collected by Andrew Lang and Leonora Blanche Alleyne: The Red Fairy Book, The Blue Fairy Book… There are 25 of these collections, all named after different colors, and while I don’t think my little library had all of them, there were definitely more than five. I worked my way through them all.

    As an adult, I am slowly amassing collections of fairy tales on my own bookshelves, including Italian and Icelandic fairy tales. I read through them periodically.

    What is it about fairy tales that appeals to me so much?

    Maybe this question isn’t that interesting. Fairy tales appeal to a great many people, so many that they’ve been preserved over hundreds of years. But fairy tales are usually condescended to and relegated to the interests of children (as if that somehow makes them sub-par: children are the most discerning and honest and earnest and curious of our human population and should be respected as such). They aren’t considered “great literature.” The formulaic repetition within individual tales, the disconnected plot points, the coincidences and magical twists of fate are often cause for adult eye rolling.

    Within the fields of psychology and analysis, fairy tales have found a certain degree of respectability. Specifically, fairy tales can be translated into archetypal images that can help people make sense of their lives, or images that analysts and therapists use to translate the mythic in their clients’ dreams and subconsciouses and provide insight and treatment accordingly.

    Fairy tales are containers for the things humans are concerned about, the questions we have, and how we make sense of the world around us.

    I have been reading Julie Brown’s book Writers on the Spectrum. In it, Brown makes the case that Autistic artists do have a cultural legacy to inherit. She identifies likely Autistic literary figures like Lewis Carrol and Emily Dickinson, and maps out the commonalities among these writers. Brown’s book does include problematic, deficit-based language in regards to Autism. Brown is not herself Autistic (that I’m aware of or that she discloses). However, the book is significant, and the commonalities she notes are ring true.

    Bizarrely enough, Brown’s list of commonalities among Autistic writers includes a preference for and fascination with fairy tales.

    Brown’s explanation for this is that Autistic difficulties with executive functioning make it hard for Autistic people to conceive of longer plots with intricate cause and effect. She also theorizes that this may be because Autistic people have difficulties reasoning out others’ intentions, and so the flat, obvious characterization in fairy tales appeals to them; the characters are easy to suss out.

    This may be true for many Autistic people. However, one of the things I love about reading fiction is puzzling out out complex character motivation. I love long, complicated plots. I love charting out cause and effect. I think this may be partly because I’ve been studying these things my entire life as an outsider, attempting to figure out neurotypical human behavior. It’s made me very practiced in the kind of analysis Brown thinks that I, as an Autistic person, wouldn’t be able to manage. I’m far better at it than my neurotypical counterparts.

    Failing to understand the inner experience of Autistic people leads to oversimplification. Because it appears that we can’t follow the social interactions around us, we must prefer simplicity in our stories. Instead, what’s likely occurring is that because our brains contain more synaptic density, it takes longer for us to process those interactions. So much information is coming at us so quickly, that the subtleties of neurotypical communication get lost.

    But Brown is right in that I, as an Autistic person, am drawn to and fascinated by fairy tales.

    From an Autistic perspective, then, why is that?

    The most significant thing that occurs to me is this.

    Fairy tales frequently deal with the theme of being displaced, without a home, or being a stranger in a foreign place. Characters go out to seek their fortune. They go traveling into the woods seeking something. They experience parental abuse and abandonment. By the end, the protagonist is wealthier, happier, and more married, with a settled and permanent sense of belonging and identity (queen/king, bride/groom, rich woman/man, parent, etc.).

    Being neurodivergent comes with a lifelong sense of displacement. I haven’t always been consciously aware of this sense of alienness. I think I assumed most people felt the way I did, like an imposter. But I have rarely felt comfortable in environments everyone else appeared to tolerate and even enjoy.

    This is a common experience for neurodivergent folks. Some describe it as feeling like an alien in a human suit.

    In fairy tales with female protagonists, there is often a theme of misunderstanding. She knows what she must do–take a vow of silence to break the spell over her brothers, for example–but her actions are misconstrued. Her intentions are maligned. She is not able to explain herself, and she is taken advantage of.

    This is a deeply Autistic experience.

    But in fairy tales, good intentions are rewarded and those who seek to harm are punished. Everything is set right.

    The place that should have been home may fail us. We may be misunderstood. But fairy tales assure us that somewhere there are allies and mentors who will help us. Who will understand our intentions. Fairy tales assure us that we will find home, even if we have to build it ourselves.

    Check out my bi-monthly-ish newsletter NEURODIVERSION for neurodiverse news, resources, and community!

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  • This Story Isn’t for You.

    Stories help us discover who we are, what is possible in our lives, and what we should strive for. They are crucial containers of inspiration and wisdom. I believe deeply in the power of story. Unfortunately, that power cuts both ways. Stories can also obscure who we are, create confusion, and impart a profound sense of lost-ness.

    The dominant storytelling structure in Western tradition is the Hero’s Journey. Joseph Campbell coined this term in his book, Hero of a Thousand Faces, in which he demonstrates each of the stages by weaving together myths, fables, religious writings, and etc. from various cultures.

    The Hero’s Journey Spiral © 2019 by Thea Cooke is licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International.

    One of Campbell’s students, Maureen Murdock, asked him what the heroine’s journey was. His response was something to the effect of: women don’t need to take a journey. Their goal is to realize they are already the destination–implying that women exist to be a destination point, presumably for men.

    Vastly unsatisfied with this answer, Murdock wrote her own book, based on her years of experience working in therapy settings with clients as well as drawing from ancient mythology. The Heroine’s Journey: Women’s Quest for Wholeness is Murdock’s answer to Campbell, which points out how patriarchal society forces women to dismember ourselves to survive.

    From The Heroine’s Journey, by Maureen Murdock, as published in the Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion edited by David A. Leeming, 2016.

    I come back to this concept of dismemberment.

    I’ve read The Heroine’s Journey at least five times (I can tell by the different-colored inks and penciled notes), and each time I’ve been in a different stage of self-exploration. The first, on the brink of stepping out of the cult mindset I grew up in. The second, in the violent aftermath of religious deconstruction. The third, after realizing I am Autistic. The fourth, after I came to understand my sexuality. Each stage was a deepening. I was doing what the book described: I was descending into the dark depths of my Self. I was calling to the parts of me I had abandoned to survive. And they answered.

    The Hero’s Journey is sexist, and, essentially, ableist. The concept of going out into the world implies the ability to go out. It implies the stamina and fortitude to conquer. To slay (not that kind of slay–though one could argue that competing on Drag Race would be the ultimate slay-slay) and to return home victorious.

    (True, the Hero’s Journey doesn’t have to be a literal journey to a physical location. The stories Campbell uses to illustrate the stages involve male figures performing outstanding acts in a patriarchal world, and these can be read as metaphors. Even in modern stories, though, the Hero’s Journey is generally depicted as an external movement toward a concrete goal.)

    A crucial moment in discovering my Autistic Self was when I realized I was coming up against invisible barriers. The older I got, the more I found myself unable to participate in the wider world. Overwhelmed, exhausted, sometimes by nothing “more threatening” than the feeling of humidity on my skin, or an awkward social encounter with a stranger. I felt disabled. The life patterns of my peers were inaccessible, somehow. I could not understand how to get to where I was “supposed” to be.

    That’s the point. The Hero’s Journey doesn’t work for me. It isn’t for me. A woman under patriarchy, a disabled Autist with trauma under ableism, a queer person under heterosexuality… None of my recovered, true Self is compatible. But I’ve spent the majority of my life assuming that this story is for me. The stories I read, by and large, were Hero’s Journeys. As a hyper-empathetic person, I can put myself into anyone’s point of view. Anyone’s story can feel like my story. That doesn’t mean it is.

    It took me reading books by Autistic writers to understand just how much of my Self I was ignoring in order to relate to the vast majority of the books I have read in my life. To realize how much my Self really wasn’t represented in story. And that’s to say nothing about the other marginalized parts of my Self.

    Maybe, somewhere, there is an archetypal rhythm of external living for me. Maybe it was buried thousands of years ago with the aggressive domination of patriarchy and the loss of the old ways. Maybe I’ll find it by doing it. Then again, I’ve always gravitated more toward my internal life than my external one.

    The Heroine’s Journey, the journey inward, is not easy, but it is so rich. It rejects completion, domination, acquisition in favor of rest, healing, regaining wholeness. Murdock says we repeat the Heroine’s Journey over and over. A holy spiral, ever deepening. We meet with the moist, life-giving Earth Mother. We meet the parts we abandoned. We welcome them back. We integrate. We become more whole. More able to travel deeper.

    I always thought that healing (physically, mentally, emotionally) was needed so one could get back to something else. I am beginning to suspect that there is no something else to get back to. That maybe healing and deepening my Self is not a bridge to some other thing. It is the Thing.

    I am beginning to feel my way through a story that is for me. I am beginning to believe that a life spent not in outward pursuit of success or fame, but in quietness, creating, thinking, smelling the spring air, watching birds, gently unwrapping the infinite complexities of one’s Self–that this also is a worthy pursuit. That this also can be Enough.

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  • Publication Announcements: TWO Anthologies!

    This year, I have been focusing on short fiction. And… I have a pair of anthologies with my name in the table of contents! Let me introduce you to these books.

    First, you can order a copy of Well, This is Tense, an anthology of horror shorts all in second person. My piece, “Crawling Back,” is a take on attachment disorder that is sure to unsettle. It was announced as one of the top three of the collection overall.

    Paperback: https://mybook.to/wellthisispaperback

    E-book: https://mybook.to/wellthisistenseebook

    Second, you can preorder a copy of Rewired: Divergent Experiences of Horror. This is an anthology I’m especially proud to be a part of, as a large portion of it is dedicated to neurodiverse experiences. My piece, “The Seams in Your Skin,” is autism + Carrie + my experience of sensory discomfort + feelings of alienness in high school.

    Ebook: https://tinyurl.com/ye23dfkk

    Paperback: https://tinyurl.com/3cvbs3u7

    You may have noticed both anthologies are horror.

    I know; I’m as surprised as you! I never thought horror was for me. But after the global upheaval of the past two or three years, I’m finding something deeply cathartic in the genre, both as a reader and a writer. My pieces aren’t gratuitously horrific. They are quieter, more aimed at psychological discomfort in a literary tone. While there is violence, it is minimally described.

    The year of short fiction has more to give! Stay tuned! There are more links and announcements on the horizon…

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  • Love on the Spectrum U.S.: Representation or Exploitation? A Review

    A neurodivergent friend of mine recently recommended the Netflix series Love on the Spectrum. This is a reality dating show centering autistic, neurodivergent, and disabled adults as they try to find love. There are series set in Australia and the U.S.

    I had some reservations with this rec. I’m generally not that interested in romance-reality content. I’m also generally not that interested in how autism is portrayed in mass media, as is evident in previous essays I’ve published here and elsewhere. I was afraid that the series would be demeaning, ableist, generally cringe-inducing, or otherwise frustrating.

    I started the U.S. series (released May 2022) and finished it in less than 24 hours. And I have thoughts.

    Autistic / Disability Representation

    Rather than casting the show with stereotypical presentations of autism (read: what a neurotypical audience might expect to see a la Rain Man), Love on the Spectrum seems to have purposely chosen people with a wide range of support needs, communication styles, and so forth, what the scientific community might call a wide range of “functioning.” As someone who has been told that I don’t “seem autistic,” I appreciated this full representation of autism. I definitely saw myself represented in the cast.

    Regardless of support needs, autistic and disabled people are treated with respect as consenting adults. This gives them the freedom (that they have innately but which is not always allowed to them by mainstream/abled society) to want and to pursue romantic and sexual relationships. They are not infantilized. If they make decisions that seem strange, the people in their lives and the show runners may ask clarifying questions, but they are never told that they are wrong or are making decisions that are illogical. Their wishes are respected. They are adults engaging in adult relationships.

    Autistic individuals are portrayed with a high degree of empathy. We see them moving with confidence in their environments, running their own businesses, attending Ren Faires and conventions, and interacting with loving friends and families. We also see them discussing their experiences in the larger neurotypical world (like Ariel in The Little Mermaid, feeling out of place, losing the ability to talk) and we see them bravely working through the anxiety-inducing ins and outs of exploring new relationships.

    In general, a neurodiverse philosophy seems to be in place; whenever autism is described, it is usually identified as a difference in brain function, though there are references made to disability, and at least one parent cried when talking about receiving a diagnosis for her child, which felt a bit like mourning the child you wanted rather than celebrating the child you have. However, that emotion faded to the background as the series progressed.

    There are moments when I was unsure whether an autistic person was meant to be laughed at for their idiosyncrasies, but these were few and far between. I fell in love with each of the show’s cast members–hard. They are sweet, kind people who respect boundaries and personhood: asking permission before shaking hands, checking in to see if others around them are feeling okay, hypersensitive to never hurt anyone’s feelings. The storytelling of the show has the audience rooting for good connections and positive social experiences. I was so hopeful for each blind date, so elated when pairs hit it off, and crushed when things didn’t go well.

    Granted, as a neurodivergent (autistic and ADHD) person, I may be watching the show entirely differently than a neurotypical audience member. Love on the Spectrum doesn’t seem to be made for an autistic audience (it would be perhaps bad marketing to do so, since the target viewer pool would be smaller), but neither does it exclude that audience by offending it, at least as far as I’m concerned. I can’t speak for all autistic and disabled people, of course.

    Overall, I think Love on the Spectrum does a ton of fantastic work bringing autistic and disabled people into public awareness as individuals with autonomy and educating about the vast spectrum of what autistic and disabled people look like, want, and feel.

    Gender Roles

    Love on the Spectrum U.S. submits to traditional gender roles. Dating means a man and a woman go out for dinner or drinks. Men bring flowers. Men initiate payment for the dinner and drinks. Men broach the subject of a next date. There’s nothing wrong with this on its face. I imagine a lot of viewers might not even notice or care. However, this isn’t a complete representation of the autistic and disabled communities.

    There is a higher percentage of LGBTQIA+ folks who are autistic than in the general neurotypical population. It would have been nice to see that reflected in Love on the Spectrum U.S.’s casting. I believe the Australian series is more inclusive in this respect.

    There was at least one individual (maybe two) that I suspected might not be attracted to the opposite sex, based on their interview comments and how their dates went. I’m not going to speculate on anybody’s sexual orientation so I’m not going to name them, but it seemed to me a good example of how autistic people with rigid/structured thought processes try unsuccessfully to fit themselves into the wrong boxes, and then wonder why things aren’t working out. With a fuller example of what options are available, I wonder if those individuals might have an easier time figuring out what they want and then finding intimacy.

    Dating “Norms”

    I find it awkward that the show forces neurodivergent individuals into neurotypical concepts of dating and relationship building. For example, many of the first or blind dates occur at busy restaurants. An environment like that, for me, is not conducive for getting to know a stranger. I’m distracted by the hustle and bustle, I’m nervous in a setting that is new to me, hypervigilant, and I imagine with all of that, on top of meeting a stranger, in front of cameras and a film crew, that most participants were masking within an inch of their lives and experiencing high degrees of anxiety. How can anyone know if they’re genuinely connecting to another person if both they and the other person are in that state?

    Would it have been difficult to tailor the dating environments more to what the participants were comfortable with? Is the “fish out of water” experience necessary to make good reality show content?

    In general, participants went along with the pre-set scenarios with bravado. They have lots of practice with this, since the neurotypical world almost never makes room for alternate preferences. But it would be refreshing to see first dates that help rather than interfere with the larger goal, as opposed to dates that follow the neurotypical concept of What Dates Look Like.

    Common Interests

    As I have realized in my own life, having common interests with a person I am trying to build a relationship with is crucial. The participants in Love on the Spectrum emphasized this too. Without common interests, autistic people had almost zero chance of hitting it off. But if common interests were present, the couple were eventually able to merge even the interests that weren’t in common to include each other.

    A great example of this was with Abbey and David. On their first date, they walked around a zoo. Each person talked about the animals and movies they liked, but they didn’t really exchange ideas. It felt like watching two people in bubbles float next to each other. It was hard to tell if they were hearing each other or taking one another in. But by their third date, they were exchanging information. There was no monologuing. They were creating new ideas together, applying something the other person said to a new situation to make a joke that they both laughed at. Their bubbles had merged. They were creating a shared reality: a relationship.

    And I’m back to representation.

    Autistic people often have what is described as rigid thinking. I touched on this a bit in terms of attraction and orientation, but it applies across the board to all life experiences. It can be difficult for some neurodivergent folks to conceptualize things they have never seen examples of. They don’t know what the options are if they haven’t been presented to them. This can be paralyzing and can severely limit what autistic people do. They can’t imagine themselves in a relationship, moving, getting married, etc. etc. etc., so they are unable to do those things at all, or even take steps toward them.

    Watching autistic relationship building was revelatory to me in helping me think through previous relationships and the ways in which I interact with people. Too, I had so many mini-breakthroughs about myself and my neurodivergent friends just seeing autistic people talk and think and process and move in the world. Little things I’ve experienced and logged away on a subconscious level broke through to my conscious awareness by seeing these examples on screen. This allows me to analyze and understand my experiences, rather than blindly intuit my way forward.

    This is huge. This is why representation matters. And this is why I think autistic people need to be watching this show.

    Overall

    I find Love on the Spectrum to be a delight. Yes, there are problem areas, but in my estimation, the positives outweigh the negatives. Autistic people are shown as empathetic, humanized individuals with a variety of abilities and skills, with agency, as adults, in romantic situations. The format of the show is recognizable and comfortable as reality television without feeling overblown and exploitative.

    Honestly, as far as romance-based reality TV goes, Love on the Spectrum is a breath of fresh air. I fully intend to watch all other series and versions of this show.

    I am also interested to see what other people think! Do you disagree? Agree? Did I miss something? I love respectful discourse and debate about pop-culture media, so please drop a comment and let’s talk!

    Check out my bi-monthly-ish newsletter NEURODIVERSION for more neurodiverse news, resources, content, and community!

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  • Publication Announcement: A Critique of Autistic-Coded Rep in ‘Don’t Look Up’

    Hi all! Long time, no post! Just dropping you blog-readers a line to let you know that I’ve published a new essay via The Art of Autism. It’s a fierce critique of Netflix’s new satirical film, Don’t Look Up, which features a disturbing portrayal of an autistic-coded villain.

    Read the whole essay here!

    This is very much the kind of content I write on this blog (and if no one had picked it up, it likely would have featured here!), so I think you’ll enjoy it. It’s titled, Don’t Look Up: A Masterclass in Autistic Ableism.

    Let me know your thoughts either in the comments here, or over on The Art of Autism’s site!

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