Last night, while my husband was watching EastEnders and other trashy telly, I was reading “Unmasking Autism” by Devon Price. This is a book that is very relevant to me; I hadn’t intended to take so many notes, but I am frantically scribbling away.

Devon likes to put exercises in their book for the reader to think about, or lists of symptoms and traits.

The current section I was looking at was ways in which autistics mask or soften the hardness of everyday life. Some methods of never used (drink, drugs, or eating disorders), but the rest I did (detachment, dissociation, people-pleasing, and rigid rules and beliefs).

I thought it was interesting, and many of the items I felt would apply with or without autism – if you like, it was a mini-audit of my thoughts, feelings, and behaviours (you’ll have to wait until I publish that bit of the “Unmasking Autism” book review).

I decided to read the section to my husband and share my thoughts with him.

There followed an interesting discussion. He is concerned that I am focussing on the autistic traits and not considering the learnt behavioural traits. I don’t think that’s the case, because some of my behaviours (such as using shame to deflect) are clearly not an inherently autistic thing, but are more to do with my upbringing. Shame was a toll regularly deployed by my family to control behaviour.

Somethings are more grey in that they could be either learnt behavioural or neurological, such as demand avoidance or people-pleasing.

Many things are definitely (in my humble opinion) are neurological, such as my difficulty processing verbal dialogue, especially when it is emotionally laden, but wherever it outside of my special interests. I talked a bit about the conversation we had at the weekend where my husband had talked at length before I’d been able to contribute … and I’d forgotten a lot of what he’d said by then.

I explained again that when he’s talking that I am processing what he’s saying, then he moves onto to something else and that joins my internal processing queue, and so on. Eventually, my internal buffers fill up and things get dumped from the inner queue: they get forgotten.

I said that a couple of counsellors had got close to it, but never identified me as having a neuro-divergence. Hubby rightly observed that counsellors are diagnosing experts, and “back then” they wouldn’t have had much awareness of autism or neurodivergence.

What I hope from studying autism and neuro-divergence is a better understanding of what communication styles will work for me – for us.

I believe that he absorbed some of what I said.

This was a conversation that flowed and went backwards and forwards between us both. We were both engaged in the discussion and at no point was I overwhelmed. It wasn’t emotionally difficult (which was one thing), but I never got too far behind.

Key things that I tried to get across:

1. I need time to process what’s being said. When one thing flows into the next, I get lost.
2. I need breaks in conversation, shorter ones to allow me time to think, and longer ones to recover and recharge.

We also talked a little about my prioritisation. The section on structure, rules, and routines I highlighted to him. I stressed how I struggled to know what was an acceptable amount of time to spend on the things that interest me and give me relief, and how much I need to devote to him and us – because those things are just as important to me. I think he heard that. This is why I need to establish when we have our intentional time together.

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Later that evening, we watched The Traitors together.

There’s an autistic guy who caught my eye (he’s kinda cute, but that wasn’t what I meant). I am interested in him because he’s autistic in a heavily neuro-typical environment, and trying to navigate that whilst remaining authentic. In many respects, he presents “normally” (he’s making eye contact, not complaining of overwhelm, and seems able to engage in socialising and small talk).

However, his directness and lack of emotionality is winding a few characters in the castle up the wrong way.

I was upset when my husband said that he didn’t like him and didn’t warm to him.

I wonder whether my husband will see any of me in him, and whether that will change how he feels about the fellow in the Traitors or me?