“I want to communicate and be understood, but it’s a struggle”

This blog was first published on Apolitical on 30 March 2021 https://apolitical.co/solution-articles/en/i-want-to-communicate-and-be-understood-but-its-a-struggle

For your autistic colleague, communicating with other people can be like speaking a second language

For me, and in my experience of autism, communicating with other people can be like speaking a second language.

Think about how you speak your native language. You understand what someone is saying in it without having to think about it. It’s not usually tiring to speak it, and you don’t usually struggle to find the words. You also understand the quirks and oddities of that language. If you speak British English for example, you know that when someone says something “costs an arm and a leg”, they don’t really mean you’ll be handing over your limbs.

Now imagine speaking a language you learned at school. You might be able to speak it quite well, but you’ll have to concentrate. You’ll probably feel quite tired after using that language for a while, and sometimes you’ll misunderstand what someone is saying. Does “Coûter les yeux de la tête” (literally: “Cost the eyes in your head”) mean the same thing as “It costs an arm and a leg”, or not?

Sometimes, you might even speak a second language more precisely than native speakers. If you learned a language at school, you probably understand its grammar and syntax at a more conscious and molecular level than that of your native language. You might in fact be able to speak elegantly, in a way a native speaker usually wouldn’t. Until something unexpected happens, and you mess up.

As an autistic person, I’ve learned the grammar and syntax of how people interact, but I have to concentrate. It’s very tiring for me to be with people for a long time because I can’t stop concentrating, even for a moment. I also make mistakes sometimes, no matter how hard I try not to. I misunderstand things, or have to ask questions to check my understanding.

However, there are also times when I do better than a neurotypical person would. Because I have to think about my part of the conversation, I might notice something that others missed. My contributions are sometimes just the right thing to say, because I’ve given them so much thought. Sometimes I just get lucky.

As an autistic person, I’ve learned the grammar and syntax of how people interact, but I have to concentrate

I wanted to explain that because it’s at the heart of my experience of autism. For me, autism manifests itself in sensory hyper-sensitivity and social difficulties. Being hyper-attuned to my senses means that discomfort is very distracting, so I tend to choose comfortable but unstylish clothes. By social difficulties I mean finding it really hard to make eye contact, taking things literally and missing nuances or non-spoken cues. Just as native British English speakers might find it hard to speak in French, I find it hard to ‘speak in people’.

I can work collaboratively, communicating with colleagues and partly concealing my autism. I ‘speak in people’ by working out the words and the meaning intellectually, as though I am speaking French. But at the end of the day, I just need to get away from people because I haven’t got the concentration to do any more translating.

I want to communicate and be understood, but it’s a struggle. When I need to get away from people at the end of the day, or take a break during, it’s because I’m exhausted. It’s not because I’m unfriendly, or standoffish, and not because I don’t like people.

Other autistic people may have different experiences of communicating. Some never learn to speak, and remain non-verbal. That doesn’t mean they can’t think: it just means they can’t speak your language. Others struggle with communication and get judged for it — just like me in Paris, using the French I learned in school. And some of us are pretty fluent when we ‘speak in people’ — as I am — but still mess up every once in a while, and also need to stop and rest.