First off I want to say that I’m glad I’m autistic. 20-30 years of struggle & humiliation before developing decent enough social skills, but in return I get to be very good at computer. I would choose this again.

I want to write about a lesson I think I’ve learned about myself which might apply to you too, and I’m interested in what you think about it. It has to do with intentions and how we feel when we say something that makes someone else feel bad. This happened quite often growing up. I would say something insensitive, a person would get mad at me, and my immediate reaction was that I was blameless because I had good intentions but (due to the autism) it didn’t come out right.

The hardest lesson I’ve had to learn is that this story isn’t true. It’s just 100% false. It relies on an incorrect belief that we possess full self-knowledge and don’t need to learn about ourselves. You do need to learn about yourself. Your self is somebody who will become more known to you as you age and see how you react to different experiences. You will realize how mercurial & weird you can be. And you will realize you are not inherently, axiomatically, a good person with good intentions.

Autistic people are even worse at knowing what’s going on inside themselves than others. The reality is you didn’t necessarily have good intentions, and your rush to forgive yourself was to miss a moment of possible personal growth. Because you are fully capable of, intentionally, being an asshole.