Think you know what autism looks like? Meet Christa — who's ready to demolish some autism spectrum stereotypes.
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00:00It can be shocking for someone to meet a hyperverbal autistic person, but we're out here, I'm one of them.
00:12Autistic people are all different and we don't fit, you know, these stereotypes.
00:24Some of the reasons I've heard from readers would be because you're too pretty.
00:29I am an autistic person who wears and enjoys makeup, so we're out there, we exist.
00:36Because you have a job, because you have a family, because you have kids, because you have a good vocabulary and you speak well.
00:45I've heard someone say, you know, oh, you can't be autistic because I've never heard of late-onset autism.
00:52It's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
00:54Late diagnosis just means that it was missed and, you know, maybe someone was coping very well.
01:01A lot of times the reasons are based on the fact that the non-autistic person only has one experience with autism
01:08and the autistic person in front of them doesn't necessarily fit that stereotype.
01:13We're a variety of people. We have a variety of skills and abilities and weaknesses, just like, you know, non-autistic people.
01:44I actually wasn't diagnosed until I was 29 and for the first part of my life,
01:50it kind of felt like everyone else was reading off of this rule book and nobody had bothered to share a lot of the rules with me.
01:57People who stick out are often bullied or picked on or feel pressure to conform and so I kind of hope that my blog
02:24maybe helps people to feel a little bit more empowered to be who they really are and not feel the need to just go along with what everyone else is doing.