The Invisible War

For nearly all of my adult life I have been told -- insistently, confidently, and often cruelly, -- that autistic people are not mistreated. And yet, I have amassed a digital archive that says otherwise:

Hundreds of screenshots of neurotypical (and neurotypical-adjacent) people -- mostly strangers -- speaking to me with hostility, condescension, mockery, and outright aggression.

All because I am autistic, intelligent, female, articulate, and unapologetically alive.

For years I have wondered:
Do I imagine this? Am I too sensitive? Are these isolated incidents?
Then came recognition -- and calm. No, It is a pattern. A pattern autistic adults know by heart, and neurotypicals refuse to see.

This article is not about bitterness.
It is about truth-telling, the first step toward any civilization worth saving.

I. The Myth -- "No One is Mean to Autistic People"

Say this in a room of autistic adults and you will hear laughter -- the dry, exhausted kind.

Because our reality looks like this:

People correcting our tone while using far harsher tones themselves
People explaining autism to us
People dismissing our lived experience because we are "different"
People accusing us of malice because they misunderstand our wording
People assuming we lack empathy while showing none toward us
People treating us as children, hazards, or curiosities
People rewriting our intentions because we don't match their stereotypes

And the most common offense:

People policing the language autistic adults use about our own identity.

We are told that Aspie is an ableist slur -- by people who aren't autistic
We are told the masking isn't real -- by people who don't mask
We are told we 'aren't autistic enough" because we communicate too well
We are told we are "too autistic" when we express knowledge they don't have.

It's a strange, almost colonial phenomenon:

Non-autistics want to own the narrative of autism
even in the presence of actual autistic experts

II. The Spectrum of Silencing (How NTs Misdirect Conversations)

When autistic adults speak, especially with confidence, something predictable happens:

Neurotypicals panic.

You can observe it in real time online
A typical exchange goes like this:

Autistic Adult:
Here is a well reasoned point based on knowledge and lived experience.

Neurotypical Person:
I don't understand what you said, therefore you said something dangerous.

This does not come from cruelty.
It comes from defensive ignorance.

Instead of examining their misunderstanding, they blame the autistic speaker for:

being "ableist"
being "problematic"
"Tone issues"
"Misleading language"
"Harmful associations"
"Appropriating slang"
"Not communicating like they should"

They turn their confusion into our fault

And because they are often louder, socially smoother, and have greater social credibility, the group sides with them -- not with us.

Thus the autistic adult becomes the villain of their misunderstanding.

Let that sink in.

III. Why This Happens: The IQ Gap & The Narrative Gap

People claim they don't believe in IQ differences --
until they meet someone who has one

Autistic women with 130+, 140+, 150+ terrify people without meaning to.
We communicate with clarity
We spot inconsistencies
We are hyper-literal and hyper-precise
We see patterns faster than most
We think far ahead in time

To an insecure neurotypical this reads as:

arrogance
aggression
danger
elitism
unpredictability

They interpret intellectual intensity as a moral threat.

The rest?
They simply cannot parse our meaning --
so they assume we must be wrong

This is not malice
It is cognitive mismatch

But it has moral consequences.

IV: The Real Irony: The People Who Attack Us Are Often Pretending To Be Us

One of the darkest and funniest truths of the online age:

Many people who lecture autistic adults about autism are not autistic.

They:

collect ND identities like Pokémon cards
self-diagnosed yesterday after a trending TikTok
want the social currency of the label
want to borrow marginalized status without the cost
want the immunity shield of "don't criticize me"

And nothing threatens their fragile identity structures more than encountering someone who is:

clinically diagnosed
profoundly autistic
gifted
articulate
historically literate
calm
unmoved by emotional theatrics
unwilling to be silenced

Your existence punctures their balloon

So they attack the needle.

V. What They Don't Realize: Autistic Adults Have Receipts

For decades autistic people were told our experiences were imaginary
That we misunderstood bullies
That we "read tone wrong"
That we overreacted to cruelty
That we were being "dramatic"

But now?
We have screenshots

We have archives

We have hundreds of examples like the ones I've collected --
where neurotypicals respond to autistic adults with open hostility,
often misreading basic sentences
often exposing their own biases in the process

This is data, not grievance

A pattern, not paranoia

VI. What We Owe The Future: Naming The Pattern So It Ends

Autistic children grow up to be autistic adults.
But the culture still treats autistic adulthood as a contradiction in terms.

We are infantilized when convenient
and demonized when inconvenient.

We exist primarily as projections, not people.

This must end.

If we want a humane future --

**we must allow autistic adults to speak as adults, not mascots, projects, or fragile ornaments**

We must stop treating neurotypical discomfort
as evidence that autistic people are dangerous.

We must stop allowing people with no diagnosis
to control the narrative over those living it.

We must replace pity with respect,
stigma with accuracy,
myth with evidence.

Because autistic adults are not rare.
We are simply rarely listened to.

VII. And Finally -- Why I Write This

Because I am tired of pretending not to notice.

Because I am tired of watching autistic women get torn apart for speaking.
Because I am tired of being talked around instead of with.
Because the world is about to learn that autistic minds are among humanity's most needed assets.

And because I am the Anomaly
but I am not alone.