I should probably give you more claps. Your article is eloquent and polished. It's well crafted, something I really appreciate.

But, after reading it, I have such mixed emotions. Your experience, of autism and being autistic, is so different than mine. It feels "alien".

The overarching backstory of my entire life was about my struggle to mask my autism. To "present" as normal. To be normal.

To have friends at work. Not just co-workers. To be included in social events, without it obviously being out of duty or pity.

I spent my life masking my autism so that it wouldn't be the first thing people saw when they met me. Your generation treats it so differently it's hard for me to be comfortable with it.

Autistic, totally agrees with, "change is never good". :-)