I am an Autistic Fairy Unicorn

Zoey Giesberg, FACT Intern & Future MSW

There are many things people don’t seem to believe about me when I first meet them. Let me break it down into the most common comments I receive:

  1. 1.You’re born and raised in Los Angeles? No way! (Because an educated white girl and being a native Angeleno is apparently not possible?)
  2. 2.You’re 27? No way! You look so much younger!
  3. 3.You’re autistic? No way! You don’t seem like it at all!

This last one should feel more offensive than it is. After all, autism is a spectrum and there’s a world of difference between a non-verbal physically self-isolating autistic person and a sociable self-caring autistic person. That’s why it’s called a “spectrum disorder”.  And yet I feel one of two things upon hearing this comment: surprised that I present myself in a manner that someone wouldn’t suspect anything is “off” about me, and startled to realize how rare an autistic person like me seems to be.

According to 2014 Centers for Disease Control findings, boys are four to five times more likely to be diagnosed with ASD than girls. There are no conclusive reasons for this – excess testosterone in the womb is one theory currently under research, but how girls become autistic and why their rates are lower than boys still remain big questions.

These rates and lack of conclusive theories regarding causation make me wonder how social conditioning plays into observing autistic tendencies in boys and girls. Boys and girls seem to be held to different behavioral standards from the moment they begin developing social skills – it’s normal to see boys as rowdy and constantly seeking attention whereas girls are expected to be quiet and keep more to themselves. From this perspective, it is no wonder that boys acting quiet and self-contained are more noticeable than girls doing the same thing.

In either case, when I was diagnosed in 1989 at the age of 2, the doctors told my parents I should be hospitalized for a month so they could study me closely. It was the early days of booming autism research and coming upon a “high-functioning” girl was a rarity. The doctors theorized I wouldn’t miss my family due to my theoretical lack of attachments to other people – a trait that characterizes many autistic individuals. My mother flat-out refused them – she knew I had close attachments to her and the family housekeeper and wasn’t going to blindly adhere to “expert” opinion just because it was offered. She believed I could be helped in other ways by my family and various professionals and non-professional mentors at home and school. Looking back, I can say with confidence that she made the right call. Who knows what would have happened to me if that hospitalization had gone through.

So after years of psychotherapy, some speech and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, one-on-one aides in school, and encouragement in finding and participating in social activities, I am where I am today – a highly communicative, intelligent, amiable person who can be sometimes quirky but is mostly engaging. Is this common with people with ASD? No. But it’s who I am and no one can take it away from me. So I hope people will listen to me when I talk about autism. If I have the experience, social skills, and voice to speak about it, maybe the world will take my views as seriously as the theories studied by professionals.