Wired Differently: What People Miss When They Talk About Autism
Part I: “Everyone Feels That Way” — and Why That’s Usually Wrong
One of the most common responses I hear when I talk about Asperger’s (autism) is meant to be comforting: “Everyone feels that way.”
It sounds empathetic. It sounds inclusive. And in many cases, it is deeply misleading.
This phrase rests on an assumption that autistic experience is simply an intensified version of ordinary human experience: more sensitive, more anxious, more focused, more overwhelmed — but fundamentally the same.
That assumption is wrong.
Asperger’s is not “what everyone feels, just more intensely.”
It is a different way of perceiving, processing, and organizing meaning. When people rely on comparison instead of difference, they unintentionally erase autistic reality.
What This Essay Is — and Isn’t
Before continuing, it’s important to be clear about what this essay is — and isn’t.
This is not a claim that autistic people are more insightful, more sensitive, or more authentic than others. It is a claim that difference deserves to be understood on its own terms, not translated into familiarity.
Empathy does not require sameness. Understanding does not require comparison.
The Problem with Comparison-Based Empathy
Comparison-based empathy is not malicious. It is often a sincere attempt to connect across difference using the only tools people have been taught. Western emotional culture prioritizes identification — finding yourself in the other person — as the primary route to compassion.
But identification has limits.
When similarity becomes a requirement for belief, difference becomes suspect. Autistic experience then has to be translated into something familiar before it is granted legitimacy. What cannot be translated is quietly discounted.
Neurotypical people often use comparison as a shortcut to empathy. When someone describes an experience they don’t fully understand, the instinctive response is to search for something similar in their own life and say, “I’ve felt that too.”
In many situations, this works. But when applied to autism, comparison often becomes distortion.
Autistic experiences are frequently qualitatively different, not quantitatively stronger. They involve different cognitive priorities, different filters for relevance, different relationships to language, and different thresholds for stimulation.
When someone says “everyone feels that way,” what they usually mean is: I can imagine a version of that feeling inside my own experience. What gets lost is the possibility that the autistic experience does not map onto neurotypical experience at all.
Difference Is Not Drama
One reason autistic experiences are dismissed is that differences are often mistaken for exaggeration.
If someone says they are overwhelmed by a situation that others find manageable, the assumption is that they are overreacting.
If someone fixates deeply on a topic, the assumption is that it’s an obsession rather than a structure.
If someone struggles with social interaction, the assumption is anxiety rather than a different communicative system.
In practice, this dismissal often sounds mundane. Often, the dismissal happens so quickly that it barely registers as disagreement.
I describe an environment as overwhelming, and someone responds with a volume measurement:
“It’s not that loud.” I explain how I arrived at a conclusion, and I’m interrupted halfway through — not because the explanation is wrong, but because it is unfamiliar. I take language literally, and the correction arrives before the clarification.
In each case, the content of what I say is less important than the assumption behind the response: that the problem lies not in understanding, but in me.
When I say a space is overwhelming, I’m told it’s “not that loud.”
When I explain how I arrived at a conclusion, I’m interrupted by someone who feels they already understand it better.
When I take language literally, I’m corrected instead of clarified.
None of this is malicious. But repeated over time, it sends a clear message: your perception is negotiable; mine is not.
This framing subtly pathologizes difference.
Instead of asking “What is different about how this person processes the world?”, the question becomes “Why can’t they handle what everyone else handles?” That question already contains the conclusion.
Some other examples of being dismissed:
“Don’t let labels define you.” — Problem: assumes Asperger’s is something negotiable, alterable, or otherwise not neurological.
“A more helpful tool for assessing these issues is the Myers-Briggs test.” — Problem: substitutes neurological diagnosis with a (pop) psychology personality assessment.
Offensive responses: “You’re using that as an excuse.” Or, the most offensive of all, when one rolls their eyes. — Problem: no reason to address these ones.
Who Gets to Decide What’s “Universal”?
At the center of this misunderstanding is an unexamined authority: the idea that neurotypical experience defines what is normal, human, and universal.
When autistic people describe their inner lives, those descriptions are often evaluated against a neurotypical baseline and found wanting, excessive, or unnecessary. This is not neutrality. It is a power relationship. It determines whose interpretation of reality counts and whose must be translated, softened, or corrected.
This is not merely a misunderstanding; it is an epistemic hierarchy. Neurotypical experience is treated as the default interpreter of reality, while autistic experience is treated as testimony that requires verification. The autistic person must explain, justify, and contextualize their perception before it is taken seriously — if it is taken seriously at all.
Over time, this teaches a subtle lesson: your inner life is provisional.
Why This Matters
These effects do not appear all at once. They accumulate gradually, through thousands of small interactions in which an autistic person learns that speaking plainly invites correction, that certainty invites challenge, and that trusting one’s own perception carries social risk. What begins as accommodation becomes habit. What becomes habit begins to feel like identity.
Being told “everyone feels that way” does not simply fail to help — it often teaches autistic people that their perceptions are unreliable.
Over time, this leads to:
chronic self-doubt
masking and over-explaining
emotional exhaustion
anger or withdrawal
the sense of always being slightly wrong
These are not personality traits. They are adaptive responses to repeated misrecognition. When autistic people describe their experience, the request is rarely for agreement.
It is for recognition.
Sometimes the most respectful response is not “I feel that way too,” but “I don’t feel that — and I believe you.”
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Series Framing
This essay is the first in a series about autism, misrecognition, and the cost of being consistently misunderstood in subtle ways. Each piece will focus on a familiar phrase, assumption, or social reflex — not to assign blame, but to examine how ordinary language can quietly erase real difference.
Understanding autism does not require agreement. It requires the willingness to let someone else’s experience remain intact, even when it does not resemble your own.
Jeff Brackett
Artist • Writer • Educator
Exploring the intersections of art, autism, and human connection through the ongoing creative project Lines on the Spectrum — an illustrated memoir in progress.
https://www.jeffreymbrackett.com
Aspie Art Journey — reflections on art, perception, and creative process.
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