I've had an interest in writing/journalism since I was about 11 and started my own class newspaper in 6th grade. I love writing.  It's been the way that I process the world. For a guy on the autism spectrum, writing is heaven.  

But writing hasn't always loved me back.

Actually it isn't writing that hasn't loved me back, it's people. Most people are able to get into writing/journalism/communications through the help of others.  Someone allows them to get into the field and they grow from there. 

But I didn't really have an advocate or mentor.  I had to make my own way-picking up whatever scraps to get into some writing.  Maybe it's because I'm African American, maybe it was being on the spectrum, maybe it was both or neither, but for whatever reason, I've always felt locked out of the job market.In college, I wanted to get involved with the college newspaper.  There were openings for copywriters and I thought this was my chance.  I went to the offices and ended up talking to the publisher.  Even though I knew a friend got a job there, they told me there were no jobs.  This didn't happen just once, but twice.  The second time another friend got a copywriting position and said they were looking for people.  But they weren't looking for me.

That was over 30 years ago.  In the proceeding three decades, I've learned to set aside my dreams to be a journalist, because it seemed all the time that there was always a barrier that kept me out.  I didn't totally give up writing, though.  I started blogging and people love my blogging, but it hasn't gone farther than that.  I've tried submitting blog articles mostly on politics and more often than not, they are rejected.  Other writers get their stories published on known websites and their writing is not always any better than mine.  

I've worked in nonprofits doing communications, but I've learned how often nonprofits tend to be places where you have to fit a certain way of doing things.  Being neurodiverse, it is hard for me to try to "fit in."  Past experiences have made me think to be successful in what I enjoy, I have to learn to fit it to learn to be normal.  You see, I've never been that normal.  I've always been odd. Not crazy, just odd. The thing is, no matter how hard I've tried, I'm not normal. I am weird.  Most people have never accepted my quirks and weirdness.  Most businesses and nonprofits don't want weird or odd, they want normal.  

Even when I got my diagnosis of Aspergers Syndrome, I still wanted to be normal.  I wanted to be like everyone else.   I kept failing in job after job, because I needed to be normal. 

F*** normal.

At the age of 50 and after a painful firing, I've come to the conclusion that I won't ever be normal, so why keep trying?  I'm a weird writer and that's okay.  I never going to be a "normal" writer, but that doesn't mean I can't be a good writer who just happens to be odd. For a long time, I've felt I've had to enter into the front door for writers.  But being odd, kinda like a clown, I have to enter by the side door.  I've been writing on Medium for a while and made a little money from it.  I'm starting to wonder if I can strike out on my own, doing stories on Medium and maybe later for other publications. I'm also looking into starting other publications to get my writing out.  I will find ways to get paid, but the big thing is that I've stopped trying to be normal and enter in the front door.  Time put on my clown nose and go into the side door.  

For a long time, I always felt like I was treated differently. People never got close to me. People were friendly, but I was always kept at an arm's length. I used to wonder what was going on with me. Was it because I'm black? Over the last ten years or so, I've learned that race was not the reason people weren't getting so close to me. It was because I'm autistic.

One of the things you learn about being autistic is how socially isolating it can be. You don't feel close to anyone. People don't always go out of your way to get to know you. You start to wonder if you are doing something wrong. It's already a task to get to know others even though that is what you want. You are afraid at times of talking to others because of this fear that you are going say something wrong. When you are in a conversation with someone, you have to think of things to talk about and even though it might be a good conversation, you want to stop this talk because it feels like there is so much you have to do be a good conversation partner and not some freak.

I've learned that the issue is that people tend to be uncomfortable around autistic people- which makes social isolation even worse:

Autistics make other people uncomfortable, and we do this almost instantly upon meeting. In my communications classes, I teach about the 50 to 500 milliseconds during which most people develop first impressions. These impressions are difficult, nearly impossible, to counteract with evidence and familiarity.

Knowing us doesn’t undo the initial discomfort of meeting us. That is the cost of autism.

This paragraph from a person on Reddit puts the issue in stark relief:

I am socialised to show "support" for autistic people or I'll face backlash. So here is me, and my true off my chest. You cannot force social change or change me by down voting me here.

I do not want to be friends with them. I do not want to date them. I don't want to sit next to them on the bus or metro. I don't want them as my colleague. I don't want them as my neighbors.

Their actions can get disturbing and scary. From pushing people on the metro (yes I recognised the autistic children because of their school uniform), grabbing my hair (I happen to pass by a stop near a school for autistic children, it was really out of the blue) and making weird noise and hand gestures.

I also dated one once (didnt know he was autistic, we met online) and his lack of facial expressions is scary. Never mind dating etiquette, dating should be fun and all I felt was I am holding on to a robot with emotions and feelings....But the face is neutral and fixed.

I am sorry. You can hate me but you cannot change me. I'll continue being a "bad human being" until I feel safe around autistic people.

Having autism means that making friendships, having connections with people is always a fraught exercise, and that has reprecussions in life. For example, some statistics say that only about 14 percent of individuals on the spectrum have jobs. One of the reasons that number might be so low is because of the difficulty of "connecting" with people. Interviews are as much about what kind of chemistry you have with the interviewer as it is about skills. When you are in the job, having a relationship with your supervisors and workmates can make the difference between getting a promotion or getting fired.

It shows itself in other ways. I've engaged people in fundraising over the years for churches and other groups I'm apart of. No matter how persuasive my writing is, the end result is always few if any donations. It's not that people don't like me, but asking for people to part with their money means you have to be able to make a connection with them. I know all the technical skills of writing a persuasive letter, how to present the request visually, but if I don't have the "people skills" needed to make it happen then paraphrasing a passage from the Bible, I'm a clanging gong or loud cymbal."

Can any of this change? Can I become learn now behavior that can make me more social and someone that doesn't make people uncomfortable. The study which started this off would say that people need to be more accepting of the other ways people present themselves socially. Is that going to happen? I don't know. What I do know is that the study seems to say that even before I go into that interview,or meet that new friend, people have already scanned me and made a decision.

I think at the end of the day, all I can do is try. That's frustrating and it will not improve my situation. I guess you have to learn how to deal with rejection and learn how to move on.

I’ve had this problem for years, but never really thought about it until now.  

The problem is I have trouble reading.  It’s not that I can’t read, I can do that rather well.  But when it comes to reading books or articles, it can become a chore.  The words start to lose any sense of meaning and I tend to not comprehend the reading.  The other thing that can happen is that I lose focus on reading.  Even if the book has my attention, I get antsy and can focus.  So I end up reading for no more than a half hour. This happens on a spectrum; some books are easier to read than others.  More modern books tend to be a little bit easier to consume, but the older the book and the more “thick” the book is, the harder it is to read. For example, when I was in seminary, you have to read a  bunch of theologians. I was excited to be reading these books, but most of them were hard reads.  Theologians like Barth and Tillich were a bit easier to read, but others like Friedrich Schleiermacher, were just impossible to read and comprehend.

I’ve been wondering if there is a link between being on the autism spectrum, which I am, and reading.  I’ve tried to find anything online about reading and autism, but there is very little information.  I did find this abstract from the National Institutes on Health that is somewhat helpful.  I’ve wondered if I’m dyslexic, but I’m not sure.  What I do know is that it can be frustrating to hear someone say they read something from the Federalist Papers and I want to read it, but I know that it will be nigh unto impossible for me to read.

What I would love is to find ways that would help me to read and comprehend.  As hard as it is, I love to read. If anyone has any advice, I’d love to hear them.

Today was a hard day emotionally for me.  Something good that happened to someone triggered a feeling of shame.  This person had not always treated me well and did things that made me feel ashamed. 

In the 10-plus years that I have been aware of being autistic, I’ve learned how much people with autism deal with shame.  Now there is a difference between guilt and shame.  Luna Lindsey describes the difference between the two:

The first is that shame is related to your social position, while guilt is a personal feeling. That is, shame requires your sense of relation to others – you have done something and others are exerting pressure on you to stop. OR, if they don’t know what you’ve done, you are afraid they will find out because if they did, they would exert pressure on you. Whereas guilt is the knowledge that you’ve done something wrong, and you feel remorse and a desire to correct the behavior regardless of whether anyone else knows about it.
The second difference is perhaps the most enlightening. Guilt is about what you have done; shame is about who you are. Guilt is, “I have done something bad”. Shame is “I am bad”.

That is what I’ve been dealing with today: the feeling not that I’ve done something bad, but that I am bad.  I can put myself back at this very traumatic event and remember hearing the cutting words that made me feel that I am this horrible person.  Whenever I get this feeling, all I want someone to do is tell me that I’m good.

Having Aspergers or Autism, makes these feelings even stronger, especially because of the problems with social interactions. Here’s Lindsey again:

Putting in the effort to avoid these mistakes only works for so long. Because I have Asperger’s. I will miss social cues. Sometimes, everyone misses the social cues, but I have had a lifetime of doing so.
What may be the even more important distinction, I don’t have the skills to recover from social mistakes. I can’t gracefully apologize or flatter or smile my way out of trouble. I’m usually still stuck on Step 1: flabbergasted, trying to understand where I went wrong.
For those of us on the spectrum, this is normal. We live life in the face of continual negative social feedback and the constant making of incomprehensible mistakes. And it is here where the dangers of shame lurk. Where no matter how many times I tell myself how wonderful and likable and lovable I am, I still find myself on those dark nights hating myself. Because I’d done it again.
It is very easy to feel like nothing I do will improve my ability to be acceptable. After trying so hard and making so many mistakes, eventually I can’t help but think of myself as intrinsically broken.
This topic is particularly important. I hope healing professionals and researchers will look into it on a scientific level and counsel their ASD clients accordingly. But it’s possible they won’t for a long time. 

What I have to do is remember all the good things I have done and as a Christian, knowing my worth in the eyes of God.  I also know it is time to start seeing a therapist again. 

This will pass, but for a time it will hurt like hell.