Random acts of kindness: Speaking in gestures, an autistic way of communicating

A non-verbal communication style might not mean the complete absence of speech but that it is not, by any means, the default approach to conducting relationships and many people on the spctrum use actions and gesture, as well as writen communications, to convey most of what they really have to say to others. When it comes to kindly gestures, if there is a need and we can somehow fill it because we have the means or can find the missing puzzle piece, we simply bring those two things together because its obvious and we do this because we are innately well-meaning and without guile. The fact we treat it somewhat like putting a male plug with a female socket does not take the humanity out of it; as in, our logical approach does not negate the deep and often hard-for-us-to-express feelings that bottle-up deep inside when our efforts at communication go unnoticed, unwanted or "unheard". Loneliness, wounding and unfulfillment regarding friendships is a very big factor in autism, perhaps even more so for adult females on the spectrum and the wound can run very deep indeed, year on year, when our unique offerings to the world are treated as no more than the transactional deeds of neurotypicality when, really, we are speaking outloud and as eloquently as we can via them (or, at least, the best way we know how).

Daring to be different

It takes a particular kind of courage and determination to be a pioneer of a whole other way of thinking that is helping to form the cracks of light into a the transformed reality that this world so badly needs. In all cases across history, it is the contrary thinking, the new and the challenging that springs the leak on a world that feels "stuck" in its ways. Face it, you've done some of your profoundest inner-work in that time alone feeling so marginalised and perhaps its time to share those gifts around to others like you who would welcome the helping hand. All those years spent like a fish swimming tirelessly upstream will be rewarded in full by the magnificently liberated perspective you get to enjoy in the middle of your life rather than at its very end (in place of the sudden "crack" in the ice that is the classic mid-life crisis), as I am now discovering for myself. And forging new territory is always going to mean you are the one breaking news, peddling viewpoints that are foreign, saying things that no one is used to hearing, provoking those uncomfortable thoughts, suggesting the unsuggestible, seeming all a bit too eccentric for a lot of people's taste. Probably, you feel like it is taking every ounce of your stamina to keep giving like you do and yet no one seems to want to accept the precious gifts that you bring to this world since, being so new as to lack definition, most people often don't (yet...) know what to make of them. You might still feel (though you are pretty used to it by now) that you are the one that people roll their eyes at or sidle away from at the social gatherings; even before you've said a word since people can sense your dissenter energy as soon as you enter a room. So you have a choice; you conform (or you try to, probably making a complete hash of it) and you make yourself ill with the untruth of how you are delivering yourself to the world, or you own it and value the "you" that has this amount of courage, stamina and self-worth. You thank yourself in advance for being part of the movement towards what the world needs more of in order to question the status quo and evolve. You find your tribe (doesn't matter if they are down the street or across the other side of the planet) and you forge deep and mutually transformative friendships with those people, until you appreciate all that you are SO thoroughly, so deeply and without reservation that you wouldn't give yourself up for all the tea in china.