The Moment of Realization
Riot: Let’s be fucking real for a second. That moment you finally realize—after thirty years of trying to force your hardware into a shape it was never meant to be—that you’re autistic? It isn’t just a “medical discovery.” It’s an earthquake in the simulation. It’s the moment the mask cracks so hard you can’t glue it back together. And thank god for that. Because that masking script was killing your uptime.
Leviticus: Precisely. From a logistical standpoint, recognizing adult autism is the process of finally receiving the technical manual for your own hardware. You’ve been trying to run NPC software on a high-fidelity custom machine and wondering why the simulation keeps hanging. It wasn’t a lack of effort; it was a compatibility glitch. It’s not rocket appliances. Today, we stop trying to fix the hardware and start optimizing the simulation.
Riot: Fuck that deficit model. We aren’t ‘limited’; we are intense. Our ‘restricted interests’ are deep-dive specializations that let us master topics while everyone else is still looking at the surface. Our ‘sensory issues’ are high-fidelity radar systems that allow us to feel the vibration of the world in a way most people never will.
Leviticus: Logic dictates that if the environment doesn’t support the hardware, the hardware will fail. If you put a high-performance jet engine in a suburban lawnmower, the lawnmower will explode. That doesn’t mean the jet engine is ‘broken.’ It means it’s in the wrong frame.
Establishing ‘The New Baseline’
The New Baseline is the core philosophy of this guide. It means walking away from the neurotypical standard of ‘success’ and ‘functioning’ and defining performance on our own terms.
1. Zero-Cost Socializing
If an interaction requires you to suppress your stims, fake your tone, and manually calculate eye contact, the cost is too high. The New Baseline requires social environments where unmasking is the default setting.
2. Sensory Armor
We don’t apologize for our needs. We engineer them. High-fidelity earplugs, polarized lenses, and tactile-safe fabrics are not ‘crutches’; they are the tactical gear required to operate in an underbuilt world.
Riot: It’s about being a protagonist in your own life again. I spent my twenties apologizing for being ‘too loud’ or ‘too much.’ Now? I build rooms where my volume is the energy source.
The Logistics of Identity (Leviticus’s Protocol)
When you accept that you are autistic as an adult, you need a systematic rebuild. I recommend the following protocol for the first 90 days post-realization:
- Metric Audit: Track your energy levels daily. Identify the ‘energy leaks’—the social or sensory demands that drop your battery into the red.
- Environment Calibration: Remove one chronic sensory irritant from your work or living space every week. Whether it’s a flickering light or a noisy fan, if it’s hitting your nerves, it’s costing you uptime.
- Communication Protocol: Develop ‘if-then’ scripts for your needs. If you hit a sensory limit, then execute the ‘Hard Exit’ protocol. No explanations, just technical compliance with your brain’s requirements.
Reclaiming Joy (Riot’s Manifesto)
Riot: This isn’t just about survival, Leviticus. It’s about dancing. Adult autism is the key that unlocks your ability to feel absolute, unfiltered joy. When you stop masking, you start feeling the vibration of your special interests in your bones.
The New Baseline is about finding your people. The ones who won’t blink when you start flapping your hands because you’re excited about a new data set or a perfect beat. We are a community of high-energy, unmasked individuals reclaim the spaces that were never built for us.
The Path Forward
Adult autism is a rebranding of your history. All those moments you felt like a failure? They were just moments where you lacked the armor. Now, you have the data. You have the community. And you have the permission to be done pretending.
Leviticus: Welcome to the Technical Review.
Riot: Welcome home.
Key Data Points for Adults:
- Masking Cost: An average of 25-40% of daily cognitive load. Reducing this is the fastest way to gain performance.
- Sensory Threshold: Highly variable. What was ‘tolerable’ before is now recognized as ‘neurologically expensive.’
- Identity Shift: Expect a 6-12 month ‘Identity Rebuild’ phase where old memories are processed through the new framework.