Discovering You’re Autistic

A purple cartoon character stands at the centre of a colourful circular pattern made of many expressive cartoon characters.

An article for professionals
By Fergus Murray

Discovering you’re Autistic can be a difficult time, for a lot of people. It is a weighty realisation, that takes some coming to terms with however it happens. It does not help when people are told that they should understand themselves in terms of a disorder – that the misunderstandings, rejections and overwhelm they have probably faced throughout their lives are all the result of something wrong with them.

Aside from the soul-crushing negativity of these messages, they are also just not very helpful. They don’t give a person all that much to work with: their differences (‘deficits’) aren’t going away. Only unusually good assessment services will provide freshly-identified Autistic people with guidance on their rights in the workplace, education or public services, for example – or what kinds of adjustments can be helpful in these contexts. The very best services are truly neuro-affirming: helping people to understand themselves in positive terms, recognising the strengths and joys of Autistic experience, while providing supportive opportunities to connect with and learn from Autistic peers – including ones who are already at ease with their Autistic identities.

Discovering You’re Autistic packs as much of that as we could into a short educational animation – recognising the difficulties and challenges of being Autistic, and starting the journey of understanding what that means, while pointing the way to where and how people can learn more, and find connection.

Ever since Autistic people started purposefully coming together in the early 1990s, the benefits of connecting with like-minded people have been widely reported (e.g. Sinclair, 2022 adapted from a 2005 talk). This is hardly surprising. As Kurt Vonnegut (1998) wrote:

Many people need desperately to receive this message: ‘I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.’

Autistic people are far more likely to be socially isolated, which traditional accounts of autism have put down to deficits in ‘social communication’ and ‘social imagination’. As Watts et al (2024) point out:

This overlooks the possibility many disadvantages may be ascribed to societal factors like stigma (Grinker, 2020; Turnock et al., 2022), which create barriers to better QoL [quality of life].

Studies indicate community contact may benefit QoL for Autistic people. Contact with other Autistic people provides access to narratives challenging deficit-based perceptions of Autistic personhood facilitating positive Autistic social identities (Kapp et al., 2013). Increased identification with a positive Autistic social identity has been associated with better mental health and may mediate the impact of stigma on well-being (R. Cooper et al., 2021).

Placing Autistic differences in a social context gives people ways of working against stigma, and working around barriers like inaccessible workplaces and institutions. Recognising the positive aspects of being Autistic encourages people to notice and pursue the things that bring them joy – and Autistic joy is often intense – and to make the most of their attention tunnels (Murray, Lesser and Lawson, 2005). None of this minimises the very real difficulties people may face, as opponents of the neurodiversity movement have sometimes claimed (Murray, 2018) – rather, it is a matter of making the most of what we have. These lessons are valuable across the whole of the Autistic spectrum (Rosa, 2019).

Spending time with other Autistic people can help us to find strategies for navigating life, and feel the comfort of knowing we are not alone in our experiences (Botha, Dibb and Frost, 2022). It can also allow for lower-stress socialising than we are used to, with fewer misunderstandings (Crompton et al, 2020). The Discovery Report backs this up, 93% of participants reporting a greater connection to Autistic peers, and 73% reporting improved wellbeing. As one Discovery Programme participant put it, ‘”It helped me find my place in the world more easily than I had in the previous 40 years”. David Gray-Hammond (2025) expands on this in his reflections on an Autistic Mental Health Conference he helped organise:

The most striking theme was the constant pulse of community affirmation that are also reflected through out Discovery Programme. Messages were punctuated with small digital gestures that said, “I see you, I hear you, you’re not alone.” Participants met each other’s stories of harm with compassion and validation, creating an atmosphere where vulnerability was not met with silence, but with solidarity.

With this animation and ‘Lightbulb Moments’, we hope to give people a glimpse into the power of a positive Autistic identity, and an invitation to Autistic community.

Too much of what people hear about autism is still unhelpful, both psychologically and practically, but the tide has turned on these narratives. Autistic people have been speaking up about our experiences for some decades now, and more and more people are finding that it pays to listen.

References

Botha, M., Dibb, B., & Frost, D. M. (2022). ‘It’s being a part of a grand tradition, a grand counter-culture which involves communities’: A qualitative investigation of Autistic community connectedness. Autism, 26(8), 2151–2164. https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613221080248

Cooper, R., Cooper, K., Russell, A. J., & Smith, L. G. E. (2020). “I’m Proud to be a Little Bit Different”: The Effects of Autistic Individuals’ Perceptions of Autism and Autism Social Identity on Their Collective Self-esteem. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 51(2), 704–714. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-020-04575-4

Crompton, C. J., Hallett, S., Ropar, D., Flynn, E., & Fletcher-Watson, S. (2020). ‘I never realised everybody felt as happy as I do when I am around Autistic people’: A thematic analysis of Autistic adults’ relationships with Autistic and neurotypical friends and family. Autism, 24(6), 1438–1448. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362361320908976

Gray-Hammond, D. (2025, August 17). Reflections from the Autistic mental health conference. David Gray-Hammond. https://www.davidgrayhammond.co.uk/p/reflections-from-the-Autistic-mental

Grinker, R. R. (2020). Autism, “stigma,” disability. Current Anthropology, 61(S21), S55–S67. https://doi.org/10.1086/705748

Kapp, S. K., Gillespie-Lynch, K., Sherman, L. E., & Hutman, T. (2013). Deficit, difference, or both? Autism and neurodiversity. Developmental Psychology, 49(1), 59–71. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0028353

Murray, D., Lesser, M., & Lawson, W. (2005). Attention, monotropism and the diagnostic criteria for autism. Autism, 9(2), 139–156. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362361305051398

Murray, F. (2021, January 8). What neurodiversity isn’t. Medium. https://oolong.medium.com/what-neurodiversity-isnt-591b1bd18ae0

Rosa, S. D. R. (2019, October 17). How listening to Autistic adults helped me understand and support my son. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2019/10/16/how-listening-Autistic-adults-helped-me-understand-support-my-son/

Sinclair, J. (2022). Cultural commentary: Being Autistic together. In Developments in Neuroethics and Bioethics (pp. 99–128). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.dnb.2022.08.002

Turnock, A., Langley, K., & Jones, C. R. G. (2022). Understanding stigma in autism: A narrative review and theoretical model. Autism in Adulthood, 4(1), 76–91. https://doi.org/10.1089/aut.2021.0005

Vonnegut, K. (1998). Timequake. Penguin.

Watts, G., Crompton, C., Grainger, C., Long, J., Botha, M., Somerville, M., & Cage, E. (2024). ‘A certain magic’ – Autistic adults’ experiences of interacting with other Autistic people and its relation to Quality of Life: A systematic review and thematic meta-synthesis. Autism, 29(9), 2239–2253. https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613241255811