As an autistic person, I deeply dislike being perceived.

People perceive me through their lens and decide who I am with their own biases.

So then I feel as though I have to compensate for their assumptions, to help them feel comfortable with my existence.

It’s not like social anxiety

I’ve tried explaining my not wanting to be perceived and was met with “oh, that’s social anxiety” from non-professionals.

Many autistic traits are perceived as symptoms of anxiety through the eyes of non-autistic people.

Anxiety doesn’t describe this experience well because anxiety is based on your brain convincing you other people are thinking of you negatively.

Rather, I’m aware of how non-autistic people often perceive me as an autistic person and am scared of it because I know the consequences of their assumptions.

I know the microaggressions, snide comments, backhanded compliments, passive-aggression — I know it all too well.

That’s the problem.

When people are watching me, it’s like I forget how to be a human and can only think of whether I’m being human “enough” for them.

You know the “backseat driver” trope? The cooking version of that was common in my life. No matter how many times I made something, someone else always had to “remind” me how to make it.

That kind of behavior is controlling; it creates trauma in people who live with it long-term.

It’s a deeper response than anxiety. It’s learned rejection stemming from a lifetime of negative perceptions from non-autistic people. It’s trauma.

Autistic burnout has really made these feelings worse.

The awareness of being perceived

Some autistics sharing their desire to not be perceived describe having a heightened awareness of other people watching them, even when no one is near.

Rather than calling it a “superpower”, it’s hypervigilance — a defense mechanism developed after years of being perceived negatively by the world around us. AKA trauma.

Trauma as a possible cause

Many autistics, especially those assigned female at birth, experience PTSD more intensely than neurotypicals. Our brains process stress differently, which can make us more hypervigilant and aware of our feelings.

Somatic sensory dysfunction

PTSD is often linked to somatic sensory dysfunction, where our body’s response to stimuli is heightened.

The somatic sensory system includes two subsystems for the detection of

1. Mechanical stimuli (e.g. light touch, vibration, pressure, and cutaneous tension), and
2. Painful stimuli and temperature.

We experience discomfort in ways that others may not understand — whether it’s sensitivity to touch, temperature, or certain fabrics.

This heightened sensitivity can trigger a sense of being constantly on guard, which is what hypervigilance is all about.

Somatic sensory dysfunction is a common autistic symptom, often described as

• “not wanting hugs or to be touched”
• “sensitivity to certain fabrics”
• “hypersensitivity to temperatures, especially heat”

Autistic experience of sensory input

Autistic people experience sensory input more intensely than neurotypicals. This means we can hear electricity or feel the world in a way that others don’t. Growing up, I thought I was “crazy” because they couldn’t relate to how I experienced the world.

Autistics experience sensory input at a greater level than their allistic counterparts.

Non-autistic people struggle to comprehend the level to which many autistics are capable of experiencing certain sensory stimuli.

I used to think I was “crazy” because I grew up surrounded by non-autistic people who insisted something was wrong with me because I can hear electricity, and experience internal and external stimuli on a different level than non-autistic people do.

Then I was diagnosed with autism and auditory processing disorder. 👀

Autistic people don’t get used to forced sensory sensitivities; they DISSOCIATE. Autistic people don’t “habituate”. Research shows our pain receptors light up when we’re exposed to our sensory sensitivities.

Survival instinct

I find that my quality of life and ability to live my life is most tied to being perceived when I’m at my weakest — lapsed in eating disorder recovery, ill, etc.

In autistic burnout, I detest being perceived. I’m hypervigilant about how I’m presenting myself and how other people might perceive that.

Being raised by abusive, critical caregivers didn’t help my hypervigilance, either — nor does the fact that I decided to build a business on the internet, where entitled relatives stalk me. 🫠

However, positing it as a survival tactic in this context is still positing it as a sense stemming from hypervigilance, as the result of trauma, because…again…not wanting to be prey.

Regardless of background and upbringing, autistic people in general are preyed upon by society — that is a lot of autistic culture to dive into, which I’m not interested in doing currently.

A lot of it has to do with non-autistic people perceiving us as weird. There are so many things I see people doing that I wasn’t allowed to do because of how “weird” it’d look that I have since adopted (like vacuuming hardwood floors or taking crust off the bread).

Double empathy problem

Allistic and neurotypical people generally don’t treat autistic and similarly neurodivergent people well.

Researchers often ponder whether neurotypicals even like autistic people.

Neurotypicals are less likely to interact with autistic people and more likely to perceive autistic people as deceptive or manipulative. Lack of eye contact causes neurotypical distress.

Stimming — which neurotypical society perceives as “fidgeting” or “nervous tics” — is a nonverbal behavior associated with lying. These behaviors are actually revealing stress — not lies.

Why? Because neurotypicals struggle to read autistic people’s minds. Non-autistic people often struggle to communicate with autistic people and vice versa because of the double empathy problem.

In the midst of non-autistic and neurotypical people mistaking autistic people for trying to take advantage of them or manipulate them, autistic people are most likely to fall victim to exploitation.

Language matters

I don’t “think” I’m being perceived a certain way. I know I am. I even know when people lie about it, though I think allistic people lie even when they don’t fully recognize their own behavior of what they’re doing…as they’re doing it.

This is another reason labeling the desire to not be perceived as mere “anxiety” is problematic: I don’t fear what might happen if people perceive me the wrong way.

I know what happens when people perceive me the wrong way. I find this experience puts me into survival mode, which stems from my complex PTSD (CPTSD).

Deciding it’s anxiety anyways just ignores my experience, what I’m saying, and the research I’ve referenced in favor of your own perception — which is the epitome of this entire post and representative of the double empathy problem.

Allistic people often dismiss many autistic characteristics and experiences as “anxiety” because the allistics don’t experience those things. This dismissive behavior is harmful and gaslights people who have already been traumatized.

Things that help me accept being perceived

You can’t avoid being perceived, because you can’t control other people or their perceptions of you.

Some boundaries that help me:

• I am not responsible for other people’s assumptions about me.
• I do not owe anyone proof of my lived experience.
• I’m not responsible for helping anyone feel comfortable with how I live my life.
• If someone has an issue with me, they can communicate with me clearly instead of hoping I’ll read their mind.

Affirmations help me feel like I’m taping my inner critic’s mouth shut. 😅

The more I push through the discomfort and stick to my boundaries, the more capable I am of being okay being me — regardless of how other people are perceiving me. 💖

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