The Shopping Trolley

Neurodivergence, particularly autism, is not linear. The concept of being “a little bit autistic” or “very autistic” is ridiculous. Even in professional diagnosis* the level system (1, 2, or 3) is based almost entirely on how much the person’s behaviours impact on others, or look different to a standard neurotypical presentation, rather than how personally impacted the person is. Read that again, and think about how insane that is, given it’s what determines how much support the person receives. Basically, if you’ve developed too many successful coping mechanisms prior to diagnosis*, or if you’re an expert at masking, you don’t get as much support no matter how much anxiety, self-hatred, confusion, fear, or trauma you carry; those things, the side effects of neurodivergence, are diagnosed and treated separately. Also ridiculous.

But I digress.

If autism isn’t linear, and isn’t the A Little Bit to Very spectrum that the world has been lead to believe it is, what is it?

It’s a supermarket of quirks. Some quirks are superpowers, additional skills, and of major benefit to either the autistic person or the people around them (or both!). Other quirks don’t fit particularly well with what our neurotypical-friendly society expects of us.

We are all born with our trolleys full. Poor interoception, sensitivity to noise, exceptional maths skills, incredible empathy, literal interpretation of language, dreadful spatial awareness, mild synesthesia… the options are endless. Imagine it as bread, milk, eggs, tomatoes, tofu, lettuce, chocolate, apples…

Then we trundle along with our wonderful full trolley into society. Not only do they question why certain things are in our trolley, or tell us particular items are blatantly unacceptable, while pointing out the things they like because they are also in their own trolleys, they also dump a whole lot of other stuff on top. Guilt. Shame. Poor self esteem. Confusion. Fear. PTSD. Depression. Anxiety.

At this point we’re often questioning why we have things in our trolley that these other people don’t. We’re comparing our trolleys, and wishing ours matched these people’s so they wouldn’t keep adding so much to ours. The wheels are wobbling. The bread is squashed. The eggs are smashed and dripping out the bottom. The apples are bruised. We are desperately hiding the lettuce by covering it up with more self-hatred, and pretending we love noodles, even though we don’t have any noodles and had no intention of buying any noodles. It’s all about the noodles. We’re on our way to buy noodles. Where the hell do we find noodles?! One more person comments on our lack of noodles, while throwing an entire box of anxiety on top…

Then the wheels fall off. We have a meltdown. Or we experience burnout. Or we hurt ourselves.

And what happens then? We are judged. We are told the trolley was overloaded because of the lettuce or the marshmallows or the rice, or whatever else the other people don’t have in their trolleys that they think is weird for us to carry. Not because of the additional stuff we were carrying because they told us we should. Not because of the awful things they kept throwing in without permission. No. It’s because of the things we had in there in the first place. The things we would have very happily trundled along with if it hadn’t been for the critiquing and judgement and comparison.

So whether you’re neurotypical or neurodivergent, next time you consider commenting on someone else’s stimming, lack of eye contact, literal language, ear defenders, etc, instead consider complimenting them on what’s in their trolley. Or offering to help push when it feels heavy.

*I prefer the word “confirmation” however diagnosis is what it’s currently called, so so be it for the sake of this article.