3 reasons autistic people struggle with open-ended questions

Reason #1

About half of autistic people have alexithymia... which is the inability to verbally express emotions or feelings.

So, "How was your day" can be a tough question for an autistic person to answer because they might not actually KNOW how they felt about it.

Reason #2

Autistic people struggle with social context.

So, to respond "appropriately," we have to actively think about who's asking the question, what their background is, where and why the conversation is taking place, what the other person's relationship is to us, etc... etc...

So, "Tell me about yourself" can really stump an autistic person because, in an instant, we need to think through all those social and contextual questions and figure out which part of our lives to share that would be relevant in that specific context.

Reason #3

Autistic people often think in very detailed and nuanced complexities.

So, it can be extremely difficult for us to answer a "simple" question without including every detail because our brains are telling us that every single one is important.

So, besides social context being difficult, when someone says, "tell me about yourself," now, we need to think through the million aspects of our lives that might be relevant... and then figure out how to distill into a few short, yet somehow still all encompassing 😅 sentences.

If you're autistic, does any of this resonate? And if so... I'm curious what open-ended questions you struggle with...

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