My Autistic Mode (Part II)
(continued from Part I)
... but an act of justifying. The clarity she once held, the ease of moving forward, begins to scatter. She spends half her time not in the doing, but in the proving. Perhaps she softens a conviction here, adjusts a choice there—not because she no longer believes in it, but because the weight of being questioned has shifted something in her stance. Or maybe she holds firm, but finds herself drawn outward, compelled not just to live her choices, but to defend them. To debate. To persuade. To turn her way of life into something public, something followed. Maybe she becomes an influencer—not necessarily in the social media sense, but in the way that NT cognition moves. A belief, once discovered, does not feel fully realized until it has been named, articulated, and acknowledged by others.
I recognize this so well. It is the Atticus Finch turn in motion—the drift from internal knowing to external validation. Not by force, not by conscious choice, but by the nature of how NT cognition moves. It is not a flaw so much as a rhythm, the quiet pull toward alignment that has shaped them since childhood. It is the water they have always swum in, the current beneath every thought. Even those who set out determined to think for themselves carry, somewhere within them, the reflex to mirror. Not because they lack conviction, but because conviction, for them, is never held in solitude. It finds its shape, its reality, in the presence of others.
I remember, when I first became a parent, I saw the shape of what I wanted to create. A home built on gentle structure, on respect for autonomy, on an unapologetic commitment to who my daughters were—not who they were expected to be. It wasn’t the common model, but to me, it felt obvious. And yet, I could feel the subtle pull, the unspoken expectation that I should explain myself. That I should offer some kind of case, some justification. I never did. I couldn’t really, because everything was yet to be discovered. So my whole being resisted the very premise of it. The expectation was there, but it never rooted itself in me. I had a strong internal compass, and it never wavered—but I was surrounded by a world where even certainty was expected to be performed. It was the Atticus Finch turn pressing in from the outside, yet never quite finding a place to land.
In hindsight, I wish I had known—really known—that none of that recognition mattered to me. That the 'mattering' was something I reasoned out, rather than something I ever truly felt the way others did. The absence of explanation never made my choices any less real, any less true. And when I finally recognized what had always been—the simple fact that I had been in the autistic mode all along—the story I had been living reshaped itself. What once felt like subtle incompetency, the sense of somehow missing a step in the dance of human interaction, was revealed for what it was: not a lack, but a different kind of alignment. A quiet, steady coherence that had never eroded for lack of external acknowledgment.
There was nothing to resist. Nothing to defend. Just the certainty of moving exactly as I always had—only now, without the weight of wondering if I should be moving differently.
The clearest evidence of the difference between autistic and NT cognition has been watching my daughters grow up. They are neurotypical—socially attuned, aware of nuance in ways I am not. And yet, they move through the world differently than their peers. Not because I shaped them to, not because I set out with some grand plan to instill a particular way of thinking, but simply because I raised them in the only way that felt natural to me.
I homeschooled them, not to impose structure, but to ensure that structure made sense. There were no arbitrary rules, no “because I said so,” no “that’s how it’s done.” Everything had a reason, and those reasons were out in the open–not capricious but definitely supple. When they asked questions, I answered—not in simplified half-truths meant for children, but with the full weight of reality, trusting that what they could not yet grasp, they would grow into. Structure was never about control, but about coherence. Bedtimes, learning, conflict resolution—everything had its own internal logic, something they could rely on.
And crucially, in those formative years, the social whirlwind that so often sweeps children along had little hold on them. We homeschooled until high school, and their playdates and friendships were warm and loving, often beyond the usual age boundaries—naturally unfolding with younger and older individuals alike. On the whole, the rhythm was quieter. They had each other, fulfilling that rambunctious social nature, yet their days still held plenty of space for internal focus. Not by design, not as an attempt to engineer their cognition, but simply as an extension of how our family moved through life.
I did not consider any of it unusual. It was only when they stepped further into the world—into high school, into friendships shaped by a different rhythm—that I began to see what had taken root. They did not move with the same unquestioning flow as their peers. They listened, adapted, navigated social life with ease, but something in them remained still. Anchored. Where others absorbed the direction of the group without a second thought, they paused, measured, asked—does this actually make sense? It wasn’t resistance. It wasn’t rejection. It was simply a different way of knowing.
It’s as if they learned two languages from birth—the language of social engagement, which is their neurological native tongue, and the language of structured reasoning, which was introduced early and remained consistent throughout the cognitive plasticity of childhood. Because it never wavered—since I had no reason to change my operating system—it was never overwritten. Instead, they move fluidly between social intuition and internal coherence.
Stepping back from my own family, from the way my daughters have grown, from the shape of my own cognition, I see something clearly...
... but an act of justifying. The clarity she once held, the ease of moving forward, begins to scatter. She spends half her time not in the doing, but in the proving. Perhaps she softens a conviction here, adjusts a choice there—not because she no longer believes in it, but because the weight of being questioned has shifted something in her stance. Or maybe she holds firm, but finds herself drawn outward, compelled not just to live her choices, but to defend them. To debate. To persuade. To turn her way of life into something public, something followed. Maybe she becomes an influencer—not necessarily in the social media sense, but in the way that NT cognition moves. A belief, once discovered, does not feel fully realized until it has been named, articulated, and acknowledged by others.
I recognize this so well. It is the Atticus Finch turn in motion—the drift from internal knowing to external validation. Not by force, not by conscious choice, but by the nature of how NT cognition moves. It is not a flaw so much as a rhythm, the quiet pull toward alignment that has shaped them since childhood. It is the water they have always swum in, the current beneath every thought. Even those who set out determined to think for themselves carry, somewhere within them, the reflex to mirror. Not because they lack conviction, but because conviction, for them, is never held in solitude. It finds its shape, its reality, in the presence of others.
I remember, when I first became a parent, I saw the shape of what I wanted to create. A home built on gentle structure, on respect for autonomy, on an unapologetic commitment to who my daughters were—not who they were expected to be. It wasn’t the common model, but to me, it felt obvious. And yet, I could feel the subtle pull, the unspoken expectation that I should explain myself. That I should offer some kind of case, some justification. I never did. I couldn’t really, because everything was yet to be discovered. So my whole being resisted the very premise of it. The expectation was there, but it never rooted itself in me. I had a strong internal compass, and it never wavered—but I was surrounded by a world where even certainty was expected to be performed. It was the Atticus Finch turn pressing in from the outside, yet never quite finding a place to land.
In hindsight, I wish I had known—really known—that none of that recognition mattered to me. That the 'mattering' was something I reasoned out, rather than something I ever truly felt the way others did. The absence of explanation never made my choices any less real, any less true. And when I finally recognized what had always been—the simple fact that I had been in the autistic mode all along—the story I had been living reshaped itself. What once felt like subtle incompetency, the sense of somehow missing a step in the dance of human interaction, was revealed for what it was: not a lack, but a different kind of alignment. A quiet, steady coherence that had never eroded for lack of external acknowledgment.
There was nothing to resist. Nothing to defend. Just the certainty of moving exactly as I always had—only now, without the weight of wondering if I should be moving differently.
The clearest evidence of the difference between autistic and NT cognition has been watching my daughters grow up. They are neurotypical—socially attuned, aware of nuance in ways I am not. And yet, they move through the world differently than their peers. Not because I shaped them to, not because I set out with some grand plan to instill a particular way of thinking, but simply because I raised them in the only way that felt natural to me.
I homeschooled them, not to impose structure, but to ensure that structure made sense. There were no arbitrary rules, no “because I said so,” no “that’s how it’s done.” Everything had a reason, and those reasons were out in the open–not capricious but definitely supple. When they asked questions, I answered—not in simplified half-truths meant for children, but with the full weight of reality, trusting that what they could not yet grasp, they would grow into. Structure was never about control, but about coherence. Bedtimes, learning, conflict resolution—everything had its own internal logic, something they could rely on.
And crucially, in those formative years, the social whirlwind that so often sweeps children along had little hold on them. We homeschooled until high school, and their playdates and friendships were warm and loving, often beyond the usual age boundaries—naturally unfolding with younger and older individuals alike. On the whole, the rhythm was quieter. They had each other, fulfilling that rambunctious social nature, yet their days still held plenty of space for internal focus. Not by design, not as an attempt to engineer their cognition, but simply as an extension of how our family moved through life.
I did not consider any of it unusual. It was only when they stepped further into the world—into high school, into friendships shaped by a different rhythm—that I began to see what had taken root. They did not move with the same unquestioning flow as their peers. They listened, adapted, navigated social life with ease, but something in them remained still. Anchored. Where others absorbed the direction of the group without a second thought, they paused, measured, asked—does this actually make sense? It wasn’t resistance. It wasn’t rejection. It was simply a different way of knowing.
It’s as if they learned two languages from birth—the language of social engagement, which is their neurological native tongue, and the language of structured reasoning, which was introduced early and remained consistent throughout the cognitive plasticity of childhood. Because it never wavered—since I had no reason to change my operating system—it was never overwritten. Instead, they move fluidly between social intuition and internal coherence.
Stepping back from my own family, from the way my daughters have grown, from the shape of my own cognition, I see something clearly...
Comments
Post a Comment