Memoir 4: Autistic at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Getting thrown out of college for the first time because of my dark gift.

Because I am an autistic person who appears to have achieved some of the arbitrary hallmarks we attribute to successful adulthood—like living semi-independently, working, getting married and performing basic social tasks without melting down in public—I’m often treated like someone who knows how others do those things. I do not.
   .Sarah Kurchak, I Overcame My Autism and All I Got Was This Lousy Anxiety Disorder

.1

Autists see the world different than non-autistic folks. Not, we see a glass half-full and they see half-empty. More like, they see a glass half-empty and we see ice that’s lost its way. Sometimes our unorthodox way of processing reality prompts us to develop intense interest in a particularly beguiling subject. This becomes a special interest.

We spend endless hours absorbed in our special interest. We learn every cryptic detail, every arcane nuance. Autistic interests include cruise liners, unicorns, true crime, roller coasters, Stranger Things, funk music, highland cows, the architecture of skyscrapers, Pride and Prejudice, Formula One racing, hair dye, Taylor Swift, marbles, and coins. Sometimes these obsessions only last a few months, after we’ve wrung out every droplet of juice from the subject and start to grow bored. Sometimes, however, an interest can become the focal point of our life, spurring us to devote years or an entire lifetime to exploring the most intricate and bewitching patterns of our interest, beckoning us to travel to exotic realms beyond the horizon.

My own special interest is the fundamental nature of reality.