Differently Autistic.

I got this from Quora:

Marcus Geduld

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35 years of study in psychology, as a lay reader.Sun

Do people on the autism spectrum know that they are somehow different than most people?

It depends on the person, but I suspect 99% of us do. One thing life tends to let people know is that they’re weird, eccentric, unusual, and different.

Added to which, many of us are educated about autism. And you don’t need much education to learn that you’re autistic and the majority of people aren’t. For those folks on the spectrum who struggle understanding nuanced communication like body language, tone of voice, and non-literal speech, the difference is very apparent. It’s pretty obvious when everyone is “speaking a language” you don’t understand. It’s also pretty obvious when people get offended by the things you say when you weren’t trying to be offensive.

All that aside, it’s misleading to say that, as an autistic person, I’m different than most people. That’s true in a sense—most people don’t have autism—but as autism is only one aspect of my personality, it often happens that if I meet Mr. Autism and Mr. Neurotypical, I may have more in common with the latter than the former. For instance, Mr. Autism might be an extroverted religious person into sports. I’m an introverted atheist who has no interest in sports at all. (What makes me more unusual, my autism, my atheism, or my lack of interest in sports? I also have no interest in superheroes, Star Wars, and most music written after 1950. I doubt any of that has to do with me being autistic. Many autistic folks love that stuff.)

Also note that there are large numbers of quirks and eccentricities that have nothing to do with autism. Sure, autism makes me different in certain ways. If you’re into BDSM, you’re different in other ways. If you suffer from Depression, you’re different in other ways. (I don’t, so in that sense, I’m neurotypical.)

What does happen sometimes is that an autistic person doesn’t understand what he’s doing that’s causing problems. Someone says, “Will you call me tonight?” And he answers “No.” And walks away. He’s not trying to be rude. He’s trying to answer the question he was asked. He may be bewildered when the person gets offended, but he’ll know it was something he did that most people wouldn’t do—or something he didn’t do that other people would. He’ll know that whatever he did, it was outside the norm.

I should mention that a very common experience for people who get diagnosed is “I knew I was different. I just didn’t understand why or how.”