There is a type of joy so pure that it makes me feel like I’m on the top of the world. In those moments, it’s like I am soaring above the clouds, completely free. Anything that has been bothering me melts away like it was never even there. My whole body is lit up. I bounce up and down, struggling to contain my excitement. Time pauses around me. I pay no attention to my surroundings, only the joy radiating through me. It feels tingly. It’s all I can focus on.
That feeling is autistic joy. A joy so pure, so intense, and so beautiful.
Some people think that being autistic means only distress and challenges. They don’t know, or don’t want to see, the joy that can exist in our lives.
Just as sensory overload can hurt, it can also enrich experiences. The things I see, hear, smell, taste and feel, can all be more vivid. I see more colours, more patterns, and more detail. My heightened sensitivity means flavours are richer, and my experiences are more intense. This can be difficult sometimes, but it can also be beautiful. When I fixate on a scene and see a hundred more shades of green than other people, it becomes more beautiful by the second. It mesmerises me.
My fixations are not always bad. In fact, they can bring so much delight. I hyper-fixate on individual tasks and subjects, forgetting about the world going on around me. I spend hours learning about things that interest me. I love jigsaw puzzles. They submerge me, and it’s like we become one. When I finish one, the joy is so intense. Autistic joy. I feel content.
Special interests have come and gone throughout my life. For a lot of autistic people, these interests are intense and bring a sense of familiarity and comfort we don’t always get from the world around us. We can build them into our routine. We can engage with them to take away a bit of the anxiety and the stress from a world that isn’t always friendly to autistic people. I feel emotions, like everything, so intensely. So, whilst that anxiety and stress is horrid, the joy from my special interests is wonderful.
Sometimes our special interests are seen as ‘obsessions’. Growing up I was ‘obsessed’ with books. I got incredibly excited at going to the library, finishing book after book, forgetting about the real world. Other special interests came and went during this time – dolphins, Harry Potter, Friends, to name a few. As is typical for many late-diagnosed autistic people, my special interest is now autism.
The ways that I express this joy can be different to how other people express their joy. I like to move a lot. Jump up and down. Talk loudly and excessively. Some people tell me I am ‘too much’ or ‘too intense’. I should ‘tone it down’, they say. But, why? When expressing this joy makes me so happy.
I love sharing this joy with others. People don’t always understand. I don’t always show them. But when I take off the mask, and allow people I trust in, I get to share it with them. Those moments are some of the happiest moments in my life. It may be over small things – like watching the ripples of rain as it hits the puddle, or feeling excited at being somewhere I love, but those small moments are what makes life worth living.
Autistic joy is beautiful. Being autistic does make my life harder, of course. But I feel grateful to be able to experience life’s joy through an autistic lens, and I would never want it to be any different.
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Video: What is autistic joy?
