Author and content creator Ella Willis writes about their autism diagnosis and taking things literally
IMAGE BY CANDID STUDIOS
If I were to ask you, “What does literal thinking mean?’, what would you say?
Misunderstanding idioms? Taking rules very seriously? You wouldn’t be wrong, but you would only be acknowledging part of the picture.
Literal and rigid thinking are widely acknowledged autistic traits. However, I have come to realise that they are massively misunderstood. Literal thinking impacts literally (haha) every part of my life, from communication and friendships to work and my queer identity.
I realised I was autistic at 19, diagnosed at 22. It wasn’t until I realised that literal thinking had made me take the definitions of autistic traits literally that I began to see just how deep literal thinking can go.
There’s the “funny” side that can force us to take an idiom at face value and get a laugh from our friends. “No, Ella, there isn’t an actual piece of cake. I was just trying to say that this will be easy.”
But there are also very real consequences for not recognising nuance. Take my old boss, for example, who had the unique talent of never saying what she really meant. She’d often ask, “How has your day been?”, and if my day had been good, I’d simply say “good”. What I had to learn the hard way was that this question generally means that your boss would like a rundown of your day, with some detail of what you got up to. I’m autistic, not a mind reader!
Alongside my autism realisations, I also discovered my queer identity. Looking back now, I can see how literal thinking impacted my ability to understand myself. The rigid labels that can be attached to certain identities or the expectation that you have to look like that label.
I’m non-binary. In the early stages of my realisation, I fell right into the trap of assuming that I needed to be androgynous and completely abandon the image of femininity, when in reality, non-binary is an umbrella term for so many forms of existence, none of which need to conform to rigid expectations.
Unpacking your own literal thinking can be incredibly freeing. That’s why I wanted to write my book, Literally, to create a guide to help other people expand their understanding. Everyone deserves the comfort of understanding their own brain. Everyone deserves to have access to resources to finally get the answers they need to best live their life.
Whether you are autistic or love someone who is, having the answers to why we think/feel/act a certain way can be the best way to finally find a sense of calm among the chaos of literal thinking.
Literally: A Joyful Guide To The Ups And Downs Of Being Autistic by Ella Willis is out now in hardback, ebook and audio from Bluebird.
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