The Discreet Charm of Being Different

The other day I was the guest on a “podcast” recorded on Zoom with two other autistic people. Both had read my book, and I had seen both on YouTube, but otherwise we were virtual strangers to each other. We immediately fell into 90 minutes of comfortable and deep conversation.

You might have to be autistic yourself to understand how unusual this felt.

At the end of the session we began to discuss what it might be like to live in a world where autistic people made up 80 or 90 percent of the population, the way “neurotypical” people do this world. One of the participants could hardly imagine such a thing. Another agreed that my teenage love life might have been more successful. 

But two days later I realize that there would be no benefit at all—that such a world would represent a huge loss for me.

I often talk (perhaps mostly to myself, on long walks alone,) about my “autistic charms.” It’s clear to me that my autistic persistence, eye for detail, creativity, ability to “connect the dots” and my ability to absorb and navigate a jungle of facts about subjects that interest me, have helped me enormously in my legal career—especially in the early days when I made up for my lack of skills with hard work and autistic persistence. Whole libraries of documents and entire junkyards of rusting car wrecks gave up their secrets to me.

But there is also a charm to being different, especially when you are accepted for who you are and you can therefor accept and love yourself for who you are.

I remember a car trip to Oregon with my mother and two of my sisters when I was 14 years old. I had only discovered Chuck Berry four or five months prior. The day after seeing him I rushed out and bought a double album of his biggest hits and then spent untold hours spinning the disks on repeat.

Anyone who knows me knows I don’t hear song lyrics. I’m drawn to the music instead. At best I learn the words of the title. “Very superstitious.” “That’s the way (uh huh, uh huh) I like it.”

But on this road trip, sitting in the back seat, I suddenly launched into a verbatim rendition of the entire two disk album, from start to finish, including all guitar breaks and every syllable of the lyrics, singing as loudly as possible with the exact phrasing and intonation that Berry used on the records.

What I remember is that no one told me to shut up. They sat, entranced, smiling, for as long as it took me to finish my performance—which must have been at least a full Oregon county.

And I’m certain that’s why I’ve never felt badly about being different and have always loved myself despite my differences. I was loved and accepted as a child.

So in addition to the undeniable charms of autistic people—our love of deep and meaningful conversation being just one of them—there is an undeniable charm to being “different.”

But I guess to appreciate that charm, you have to feel appreciated yourself—something too few autistic people get a chance to feel, especially early on, when so many of us are excluded or bullied, even at times by our families.

My own family was as dysfunctional as a 40 year old Yugo and virtually pickled in alcohol. But we loved and accepted each other, and I feel blessed, grateful, and charmed.

And I’m quite happy--charmed--to be different.

Peter O’Neil is the author of My So-Called Disorder: Autism, Exploding Trucks, and the Big Daddy of Rock and Roll.