I appreciate this comment. Medication also does not support all modalities of being, either due to coverage of 'what is available to treat it' or the complexity/depth/developmental nature of what it is. In part, the world being adaptive helps, though it won't always compensate for the underlying thing.

For example, for me. I am autistic. How sensitive my autism is, I do not know. The air conditioner is running right now next to me and it is as overwhelming as I would assume a jet engine is for many people based on reactions and attention span. I used to numb out all of the environmental/information overwhelm, but after doing therapy and connecting with myself, I am doing much better emotionally but also am much more connected to all of the noise in the world. There are some dissociatives and such that can help people on the spectrum, but there's only so much you can do, and the NMDA receptor does not seem to do the best with long term inhibition (as a main target). Who knows, we may find something yet.

For me, many of the features of autism seem to be linked to that natural lack of information filtering in the brain where it does a quick 'yes/no' gut check before presenting the information to me. At least, some of the science shows that there are alterations in the scaffolding of the neurons that process that kind of information, this happens during very early development as far as I recall. I am sure there are multiple low level things happening as well, it is a spectrum of multiple potential causative and experiential elements after all, as best as I can tell.

One thing that I do to cope with the information overwhelm and balance it out is have a thing that I know very well as my 'safe' activity. However, there still should be something new so that it does not get boring. My sensitivity to 'new' is different than many people's sensitivities. I think that's why special interests can develop, I see them as a form of (what I feel is often generally) healthy adaptive self-regulation.

For me, my self-regulation includes neural network research. I can get lost away from all of the overwhelm and the visceral feelings of processing the day's sensory overspill by diving deep into research. I still have to process the feelings -- my best understanding is that that sensory overload can turn into PTSD within a short period of time if not dealt with, and I'd rather not add more to the pile. But my pile grows quickly, so safe places, safe environments, and routines that I know can take down the stress a bit for me in knowing that all of a sudden I won't have an unpredictable situation dump a kind of traumatic experience on me that I may not have the hours to emotionally process. Hopefully this helps you see a bit into the minds of people with autism and why the regularity is so important. I believe it's a response to the fact that the threat level is quite legitimate for deviations from that standard. Because the information coming in is 3, 4, 8 or even 10+ times more impactful. So very seemingly boring and/or repetitive/restrained things to other people can be appropriately stimulating for autistic people.

In my research, it's been a number of years and I've spend more hours than I want to on it. I currently hold the training time speed record on CIFAR10 now, and I have other projects that I work on A. because I enjoy them and B. because they are that calming thing for me, among various other pertinent reasons. Being able to just work on it and make something new in an environment and problem space that I very intuitively understand after building a deep relationship with it over several years is very freeing and can feel safe. I can also go too far and burn myself out very quickly, and that's not so good for a few reasons (at least one or two of them you can probably guess).

What's not so good is that whatever coping mechanism I have is a ball and a chain. Sure, I'm able to make incredible research, but I'd rather my brain let me just be out with friends. I'd rather my brain didn't have the social blindness and that I could just intuitively go through a flow of conversation instead of doing some higher-education equivalent study of social patterns over 20-30+ years or so. I think this is similar to your (this is for the Original Poster here) original points about how the non-neurotypical behavior can result in things that are true brilliance, but also with a deep cost associated with them, and that yes indeed, there should be other ways for people to be able to be in the flow of society. I think it's a very hard problem, and I'm also very glad that people are becoming aware of it. I can't say I should expect people to go incredibly far beyond their comfort zones, but I think as a society we can take baby steps to be aware of and accommodating of different disabilities.

Before I learned I had autism, I really struggled with disability-related things. I still do! Not quite as badly. But I did have a strong aversion to people who weren't neurotypical as I felt really uncomfortable with their differences. A lot of my trauma growing up came about having to wear a neurotypical mask as perfectly as possible, all the time, with pretty strong negative incentives if I didn't. I just did not have the capability, and I'm still slowly working through the huge backlog of years of undoing the damage and healing there. Part of that includes accepting and better integrating with people with all different kinds of disabilities, not just the ones that I now know. Another part of it is a bit of motivation to try to help guide people who had a perspective like mine when I was a lot more judgemental (even though I knew I didn't want to be) just a little bit closer to being accepting and accommodating towards those with disabilities. It's all a journey, I think.

I wish there was a quick and effective solution, and accepting that there's very likely not is certainly a hard proposition. If you're wanting to help, then maybe just take a bit of a step in yourself to learn a little more about a disability that you encounter like you hopefully may have today/tonight/whenever, and also whenever the opportunity comes up with someone else, whatever that small comment is that's a good little push towards the right direction in conversation. I think this issue is helped by a wave of little, tiny actions, and less some giant, drastic action. I think there are some great safe spaces and people out there where I can be my more unbridled, unfiltered self. Though it is rarer than I'd hope for (heck, I still struggle seeing some of the ways I naturally react and handle things when unmasked. It's not bad, but definitely not neurotypical at all and very much classically 'autistic'.). I enjoy the times when I can be more authentically myself. And in the other times, I just try to enjoy the experience itself of being with others and being able to experience the world.

We might see an epidemic of young deaths as some younger people give in to despair. If you can and think of it, I'd challenge you to just reach out to at least one youngster you know in that younger age range. I'm in the Zillenial bracket and one thing I see is that the intentionality of relationship building is not always there, though not for lack of want. I think I've seen people feel trapped in not being able to meet and be with people at times (personal bias as this includes myself), and I've seen reaching out over that barrier really do so much. It has for me in the past when I've really hit some tough times and hard rocks. So maybe think of someone you know and do that. It could go a long way, even if they're not on the edge of some kind of cliff.

Much love and thanks for reading if you made it this far. <3 :)