This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

In 2020,

journalist Lauren Ober received a somewhat unexpected diagnosis.

An autism diagnosis to be exact, and unexpected because I'm a very middle-age lady,

I'm loud and physical, and I don't exactly fit any of the autistic stereotypes.

Nurdy, quiet, indoors, unathletic, into video games and unable to sustain eye contact? That's not me. But then I learned that those are

stereotypical male autistic traits gleaned from years of research on

autistic men and boys.

Autism and women and girls has historically been overlooked.

And because of that, my neurodivergent sisters and I didn't realize that we could be so much more than those tired autistic

tropes, but we can. And when I understood that, the clouds sort of lifted for me.

A lot of the pieces of my life started to click into place.

Lauren even made a podcast about her experience called The Loudest Girl in the World.

And she found herself imagining a fantasy world where everything is tailored to Lauren's very specific autistic needs.

I call this world autism Pleasantville and it wouldn't have sirens or fireworks or people talking loudly on their phones in public.

Also, no oppressively bright overhead lighting or spaces pumped with artificial fragrance.

And the foot traffic flow of public spaces would be such that I wasn't constantly touching strangers.

Some of these stimuli can be irritating or unpleasant for neurotypical people, but they have the

potential to be debilitating for people with sensory issues.

Which is why autism Pleasantville wasn't some throwaway fantasy for me.

And obviously there's not a one-size-fits-all diagnosis or even definition of autism.

Or as the autism adage goes, if you know one autistic person, you know one autistic person.

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