Back in October of last year this question arrived in the Diecast mailbag. A lot of people have asked me this same question over the years and so I figured it was probably worth answering. On the other hand it felt a little too long, involved, and focused-on-me for the podcast. <\/p>\n
Dear Shamus,<\/p>\n
As an autistic person myself, I couldn’t help but notice that the experiences you describe both on the diecast and in your life story series on the blog (especially regarding sensory rocessing disorder, such as your difficulty processing two auditory streams at once) are very similar to what is experienced by both myself and my neurosiblings in the autistic community. Have you ever considered whether you might be on the spectrum yourself, or possibly been evaluated as a child? (Autistic kids who learn to hide their symptoms to avoid bullying frequently slip through diagnosis.) <\/p>\n
Edith<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Edith is probably referring to the early chapters of the Autoblography<\/a>. I won’t try to summarize all of that personal history here. If you’re curious, you’ll have to read the series. I certainly exhibited a lot of odd behaviors when I was young. And if I’m being honest, I’m still pretty eccentric at 45. In fact, there’s a lot of personal strangeness that I left out of the Autoblography because it would have taken too long to explain or would have been too personally embarrassing. <\/p>\n
I began writing a response to Edith’s question months ago, but then forgot all about it until the topic popped up again on Twitter when someone said:<\/p>\n
\n"Autists don't have a theory of mind"
It's not like we *can't*. We just didn't get one for free out of the factory. We had to roll our own.<\/p>\n— Mr Bones (@mr_bones_rises) July 20, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n