Purple Vanilla World

The current climate around autism and “curing it” has taken its toll on this sensitive soul right here.

If you don’t already know, autism is not a disease.

It’s a specific wiring of the brain. Some research even shows that autistics have more synapses than other brain types.

So what that means is our nervous systems, our central computers, our brains, are quite literally more sensitive to stimuli than other biological makeups.

I often hear people say, “Autism is a superpower.”

While I appreciate the empowering sentiment and attempt to anti-stigmatize us, “superpower”, in my opinion, feels infantilizing. Like, no dude, some of us just pick up on more information than others. It’s not some mystical comic book quirk. It’s an actual lived experience that can be excruciating sometimes. It still “others” us. It still isolates us. It still reminds us that we are considered different than the general population.

Am I grateful for my brain? I mean, yeah…but it’s all that I know. Do I notice and remember things that most of my peers don’t? Sometimes, sure. But I also struggle with menial tasks, constant burnout, and extreme psychological isolation. So to me, the people who have something I don’t—who can handle small talk, go with the flow, and enjoy sitting in the sun—they feel more alien than someone who can notice patterns or process abstract systems at warp speed.

What if we’re the normal ones, and you little sickos who can handle scratchy shirt tags and large crowds without wanting to burst into tears are the real mutants? What if life was meant to be a sensory hell, and you’re just the freaks who got bit by a radioactive spider?

Lol, okay I’m playing. I like to channel my resentments and internalized anger out in my ramblings, otherwise it manifests as nightmares about me bashing people’s heads in—and we don’t want that, now do we?

But the point I’m trying to make is: why do we have to be othered at all?

And I don’t mean this in an ignorant, colorblind, “I don’t see difference” way. I mean the opposite, actually: Can we practice radical acceptance that every single human being is weird in their own right?

Can we normalize asking someone, when they express discomfort or need an accommodation: “I believe you. I might not understand, but I’d like to learn more about how you experience the world”?

“Diagnoses” don’t need to be stigmatizing. And believe me, I’ve been out here collecting diagnoses like they’re Pokémon:

• Autism
• ADHD
• PTSD
• Anxiety
• Persistent depression
• Chronic migraine
• Pending autoimmune disorder
• Recovering alcoholic

I didn’t seek these diagnoses to separate myself from others, but to understand my own unique makeup and how I interact with the world. They also help me communicate, in a broad way, how I experience reality.

Diagnoses aren’t meant to isolate us. They’re meant to integrate us.

To say, “Hey little friend, I see you. I see that specific subtype. I’m willing to accommodate that to make life just a little more bearable for you.”

I’ve personally found diagnoses to be grounding and healing. They let me exhale a sigh of relief, like, “Okay, fuck, I’m not crazy. I’m just biologically wired in this specific, systematic way.”

In my neurodivergent experience, I find information and insight soothing. In fact, I find it so soothing that my therapist calls it intellectualizing, which, okay fair, is a coping skill I use to avoid feeling the uncomfortable shit. But if you’ve read any of my tiny body of work so far, you know I’m trying to grow in this area, while still honoring that part of myself that finds information insatiable.

This part of myself, the “intellectualized,” is only troublesome when she’s in the driver’s seat. She looks cute as hell in the passenger seat, though! Helpful, protective little queen. Same goes for all my “internal” parts.

The goal isn’t to stifle them or to erase them. The goal is to coexist with them. Draw from their strengths while letting my core self take the wheel.

I talk about all of these parts of us because they are often pathologized and othered. Seen as a problem, a thing that need to be fixed, healed, changed.

And I agree: if something is causing pain or dysfunction, and you want to move on from it? That’s beautiful. Valid. Necessary. Growth is cool as fuck. But let’s not pretend it’s not also grueling. Healing is absolutely exhausting, especially in a barren environment where resources are withheld and shame and punishment are used as rehabilitative tactics. So I genuinely understand why someone might choose not to grow in a sick society that offers little support.

Our differences are not the problem. Our biodiversity is not the problem. Our sick society is the problem. Our environments are poisoning us through unmet needs and polluted expectations.

Take plants, for example.

I have a huge mango tree in my backyard. She’s gorgeous and wise with pothos vines hugging her trunk. She yields fruit, gives shade to my monsteras, shelters birds. But her roots are deep and long. While she gives so much, she also needs space to grow. Her arms stretch wide. Her roots encroach on the house, threatening the foundation.

Is she wrong for being that way?

Fuck no. She provides so much. But she takes up a lot of space to do it.

Now compare the mango tree to my cute little houseplant, hanging in her tiny pot, decorating the walls of my home with her cascading vines. She’s curled in a macrame hammock, comfortable in a controlled environment and a once-a-week watering.

Is she wrong for being that way?

Also fuck no.

But here’s the thing: the towering mango tree and the cozy decorative pothos have wildly different needs, yet they’re both plants.

How are we humans any different?

Diagnoses, while often used to stigmatize us, are really just care instructions.

They’re labels that read: “Autistic: Prefers dark rooms, noise-canceling headphones, and uninterrupted special interest time.”

Someone else’s label might look totally different. That’s fine.

These aren’t luxury preferences. In the sick society we live in, they’re survival instructions. The bare minimum to stay alive.

I’m lucky enough to be equipped with diagnoses, care instructions, and the tenacity to advocate for myself. But that’s not the case for everyone.

Take my mom, for instance. She’s likely on the spectrum, a lifelong alcoholic, experiences complex grief, and has loads of loss and trauma.

Same as me.

I tried for years to save her. To make her see what I saw. But she couldn’t see it. How could she? She’s never seen anything else. She clings to what she knows, even if it’s killing her. Now she’s sitting here at 65 years old with liver and kidney dysfunction, scrambling to pick up the pieces.

So why do I get to heal and grow while she sits alone in her tiny apartment, dying?

Because it was never named, never diagnosed. She doesn’t have the proper care instructions.

She has spent her whole life in a toxic environment. She resists growth, not out of malice, but because change has never felt safe. People told her what to do, but never how. They offered judgment, but never modeling. No safety. No roots. No support system that met her needs.

She doesn’t even realize she’s dying in it. That the sickness is systemic. That the rot isn’t in her, it’s in the soil she was planted in.

This is what happens when your habitat is not protected. You don’t even know there’s another ecosystem out there to better suit your needs.

Autistics, and really, anyone, don’t need to be cured or fixed. We just need our habitats to match our needs. We need environments that are intentionally stabilized for our specific biology.

We cannot heal and grow in the same environment that is making us sick.

Let’s revisit the houseplant. She’s small and dainty because she’s in a small and dainty pot. She’s surviving. She’s comfy. But if she wanted to thrive—to reach her wild potential—she’d need a bigger pot. Maybe even the ground. A place where she could wrap her vines around the mango tree.

But that would require stress. Change. Risk. Support. Adaptation.

Could she do it? Maybe. Probably. There are pothos outside already doing it. But they were raised out there. They adapted young. They know how to survive the wind.

Our indoor pothos? She’s been ornamental. Decorative. Shielded. And to move outdoors, she’d need specialized care to survive the shift.

I ask again: How are humans any different?

Why do we expect every human to follow the same care instructions?

Yes, it’s simplistic. Humans are more complex and nuanced than houseplants. But the core truth remains:

Some of us don’t need to change. We just need a better-suited habitat.

And when change and growth are necessary, we need extra care and precautions to support us through that transition.

Once our habitat is healed, then we can heal, too.

This piece was born from pain—my pain. From feeling dismissed, misunderstood, and punished for asking the world to meet me halfway.

So here’s the soft rage, the personal purge I had to get out of this damn body: I struggle not because I’m autistic. I struggle because my environment doesn’t always meet my needs.

And when I ask for minor habitat restoration, from the very systems designed to protect me, I’m met with silence, defensiveness, or gaslighting. As if I’m the problem.

I’ve heard things like, “Just because you’re different doesn’t mean the rest of us should suffer.”

But what exactly are you suffering when I ask to dim the overhead lights?

What harm is caused by a sign that says, “Focusing: Please do not disturb”?

What pain do you feel when I ask to work from home on days I’m physically unwell and overstimulated?

People are protective of the status quo because change is scary. I get that.

But when did protecting broken systems become more important than protecting human beings?

I’m not writing this because I’ve transcended anything. I’m as corrupt and resentful and complicated as the next person.

I write this because I’m flawed. And because I want to change.

And change starts with awareness.

Awareness, when met with intention, becomes action.

Action, practiced with compassion, becomes culture.

So let’s ask each other—not “how do we fix you?” but:

“What lights do we dim?“
“What structures do we uproot?“
“What does it take for you to feel safe here?“

Start there. That’s how we grow a world that makes room.

by Thalia Graves

Purple Vanilla World, 2025