Today, I was asked if I was autistic autistic and since the questioner was a child. I answsered without an ounce of sacrasm; channeling the most patient of teachers, my eighth grade English teacher, a woman who spent 3 hours in a lockdown with 20 kids, I answered.

Everyone who is autistic is autistic austistic. The diffference between me and your neighbor is that I have low support needs while it sounds like they have higher support needs. I wear my ear buds while I work to cut down on noise sensitive.

And that was that. They didn’t need anything more. There were more important things like finishing their assignments so that they could race around the room without shoes.