Yesterday, my mom took a photo of me with one of our newly adopted puppies. We got them following the loss of my first family dog, which had left me heartbroken. From the minute we brought these two home, though, I was instantly in love. They lifted me out of my grief and into a healthier state of mind. The picture my mom took was of me on the kitchen floor, with greasy hair and mismatched pajamas. My mom sent the picture to my boyfriend, who is on the spectrum. His response was, “She looks happy!”, which at first seemed like a funny response given my face couldn’t be seen. It occurred to me however, through my own experiences being on the spectrum, that he interprets happiness in a different way. He struggles to read facial expressions, so he’s learned not to use that as his sole metric for assessing someone’s mood. He assesses based on actions; actions tend to be concrete in that way. A facial expression can be misinterpreted, but there was nothing to be misinterpreted about me candidly and comfortably cuddling with my new puppy. He knew that I was happy without ever having to see my face because of my physical body language and how I was engaged in my environment. He knows when I’m happy, even when he can’t see me smiling. It’s also a testament to the fact that struggling to read people’s facial and more subtle social cues is not a permanent obstacle in learning to understand and empathize with others. You can build a different toolkit. It may look different than other people’s, but if it allows you to interact with others and your environment in a positive way, then roll with it and don’t let anyone tell you that it’s going to hold you back in life. It absolutely won’t.
~Anonymous Writer
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