I had a realization recently about autism that I wish someone had explained to me years ago. And since I am someone who was diagnosed at 32 and spent another decade trying to understand what that even means, I figured it might help someone else.
Most people hear “autism spectrum” and picture a straight line. Normal on the left, very autistic on the right. You are somewhere on that line. Simple.
That is not how it works. Not even close.
The Graph Nobody Showed Me
Imagine a graph. Along the horizontal axis, you have got different domains — different areas where autism shows up. Things like social communication, sensory processing, executive function, pattern recognition, intensity of interests, need for routine, emotional regulation. The DSM-5 (that is the diagnostic manual) organizes these into two broad categories — social communication and restricted/repetitive behaviors — but in practice, there are a lot of dimensions at play.
Now, on the vertical axis, you have got intensity. Zero at the bottom, a hundred at the top. For each domain, you have got a spike — how strongly that trait shows up in your life.
Here is the thing: everyone has spikes. Your neurotypical friend who cannot stand the sound of chewing? That is a sensory spike. Your coworker who knows everything about Formula 1 and will not stop talking about it? Interest intensity spike. Your partner who needs the dishwasher loaded a specific way every single time? Routine spike.
Having a spike or two does not make you autistic. What makes someone autistic is having enough spikes, across enough domains, at high enough intensity, consistently enough over time, that it meaningfully shapes how you experience the world.
That is the spectrum. It is not a line. It is a landscape.
Why This Matters
This is why two autistic people can look completely different from each other. One person might have massive spikes in sensory processing and need for routine, but moderate spikes in social communication. Another might have sky-high social communication challenges and intense special interests, but handle sensory input just fine. Both are autistic. Both have enough spikes across enough domains to meet the diagnostic threshold.
It is also why someone can share traits with an autistic person and not be autistic themselves. I have dated people who had real spikes in the same places I do. We connected partly because of that overlap. But they did not have the full constellation — the pattern across multiple domains that adds up to a fundamentally different way of processing the world.
The Part Nobody Talks About
Here is where it gets personal. When you are diagnosed later in life — like I was — you have already spent decades learning to suppress those spikes. It is called masking, and it is exhausting in ways that are hard to explain to someone who has not done it.
Imagine your brain has an internal compliance officer. Its entire job, since you were a kid, is to monitor every spike and push it back down. Too interested in something? Tone it down, you are being weird. Need to leave a loud restaurant? Suck it up, you are being difficult. Exhausted after a social event? Stop being lazy, everyone else is fine.
That compliance officer does not make the spikes go away. It just makes you spend enormous energy pretending they are not there. And over time, you start to believe the performance. You forget what your actual graph looks like because you have been flattening it for so long.
That is why a lot of late-diagnosed autistic people go through cycles of acceptance and denial. You see the spikes clearly one day, and the next day your internal compliance officer says, “You are not really autistic. You are just introverted. You are just quirky. You just want attention.” It is gaslighting — from yourself, to yourself.
The Spectrum Is Spiky, and That Is Okay
If you are neurotypical and reading this, here is what I would love for you to take away: when someone tells you they are autistic, do not picture a line. Picture that spike graph. They are not “a little autistic” or “very autistic.” They have a unique landscape of traits that, taken together, mean their brain processes the world differently than yours.
And if you are someone who just got a diagnosis, or who has been sitting on one for years wondering if it is real — look at your spikes. Not one at a time, where your compliance officer can explain each one away. Look at the whole graph. The pattern is the proof.
You do not need to be spiking at a hundred in every domain to be autistic. You just need enough spikes, in enough places, to know that your operating system is fundamentally different. And that is not a flaw. It is just your architecture.
The Protocol: Stop picturing the line. Picture the spikes. The pattern across domains is the proof — not any single trait your internal compliance officer can rationalize away. You are not somewhere on a spectrum. You are a landscape. And that landscape is not a flaw. It is your architecture.
