Dear Uta Frith | You're Wrong | 02

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]You're all right? My name's Paul. I've got autism and I make random videos based on my version of autism and the way my head works and I stick the videos on the internet just in case you fancy giving them a watch.

[00:00:13]And I hope you're doing all right.

[00:00:15]So this is part of the Uta Frith series where I take something that she mentioned in a recent interview and give my autistic perspective on because what she says she has missed the mark.

[00:00:33]So I've got me notes on the screen cuz if I don't, you know, I'll just tail off never find me way back and we won't get a video done. So what I want to talk about in this video is she states that late diagnosed autistic people are not autistic at all. We are a different group. So if we can verbalize, if we can communicate, if we're socially able then we are a a different population.

[00:01:03]And she also says something which makes me laugh. It really does. I know I shouldn't laugh but I can't help it because it's so silly.

[00:01:11]>> [snorts] >> And she says that we are mainly anxious or hypersensitive.

[00:01:18]Yes, I am those things but I'm also autistic.

[00:01:25]Because why am I anxious? Do Do you think I just walk around full of anxiety? No.

[00:01:32]So I'll give you a good example of how autism is still there and my anxiety is there too.

[00:01:40]So when I have to leave the house and I have to mask and I have to be someone for everyone and I can't be true to me because all I want to do is come home and not suffer any type of detriment whilst I'm out in public.

[00:01:54]When I'm here, when I'm at home my anxiety levels decrease.

[00:02:03]Everything calms down, everything slows down, everything starts to relax because I'm in my safe space. This is the space, the only space on earth I control and I control it within an inch of its life. This is exactly what I want to do and this is exactly where I want to be.

[00:02:18]I don't have to mask here. This is my safe space and I love that it is. I go out there into that world and I do all the things I don't want to do that absolutely age me and give me every level of stress known to mankind.

[00:02:34]But I do all the things I don't want to do to get some of the things that I do want.

[00:02:38]And I want this. I want the relaxation.

[00:02:40]I want the calm. I want the peace but I also need the recharge.

[00:02:45]Which is why I do it.

[00:02:48]My anxiety reduces.

[00:02:51]My hypersensitivity that I have when I leave the house and I go out there into the world and the universe and I am hypervigilant 100% and I'm anxious because of the hypervigilance but I'm hypervigilant because I'm trying to pay attention to every single thing happening in my environment. And the reason I'm trying to do that is because I have to mask. I have to wear an autistic mask, something Uta Frith doesn't think exists and I have to wear that because I am different. I am not a native speaker of this planet. I have to think in my mindset via my internal processing difference.

[00:03:32]I have to then translate that to the world and environment that I'm in to put it back in and then put it back out. It's like doing everything two or three times just to get the same result.

[00:03:45]So I have to be hypervigilant because of my internal processing difference. My neurotype makes me need to do that because nothing is on autopilot, nothing is natural.

[00:04:00]People who use emotional workplace politics over just getting the job done.

[00:04:06]That is every job I've ever been in.

[00:04:09]Whereas I just want to get the job done.

[00:04:11]I sit in meetings and I think why am I here? This could have been an email.

[00:04:17]I've driven two hours to sit here to speak for three and a half seconds.

[00:04:21]This didn't need to happen. What a waste of a day. Now I should be able to go, right, just to let you know I drove all this way, I got nothing from it, I contributed nothing.

[00:04:30]I'm not going to come here again. All right, if you need anything from me, you let me know, I'll email it across. It can be shared. I'll even jump on a Teams meeting and just do my bit but then I'll go.

[00:04:41]Now that for me is efficiency. That's my mind, my processing going waste of time, must reduce waste of time. Here is solution, here is the application of solution. Process engineer mindset.

[00:04:54]Elimination by reduction.

[00:04:57]But I live in a world that goes well that's rude. What do you mean you didn't get anything from it? Well it's not my fault you only spoke for three and a half seconds. Well we need you at the next meeting.

[00:05:07]No, you can't be on Teams cuz if you do that other people will want to do it.

[00:05:13]Then let them.

[00:05:14]I'm after efficiency and accuracy so what are you doing?

[00:05:20]Because that's the way my mind is designed. I do not have an emotional attachment to a process. I see a process and go, I can improve that. If I can increase the speed and retain the accuracy, I'm going to do it. That's what my mind does. It finds a problem, I find a pattern. I find a way to interweave it and connect it and I run with it. Why? Because that's how my mind is designed.

[00:05:45]So I'm hypersensitive out in my environment.

[00:05:48]I'm anxious in my environment in case my mask doesn't work, in case it doesn't apply, in case someone sees through me. So yes, you are absolutely right that I am anxious. You are absolutely right that I am hypersensitive.

[00:06:02]But they are the not the ground level.

[00:06:07]They are not the fundamental point. They are not the nucleus of this.

[00:06:12]They are the byproducts of what I need to do because I have an internal cognitive difference.

[00:06:18]It's not lesser by any stretch, it's just different.

[00:06:24]Because when I'm home the hypersensitivity falls away.

[00:06:29]The anxiety falls away.

[00:06:32]But my mind, my processing remains.

[00:06:37]The way I do things remains. I'm still not interested in the things I'm not interested in. I still don't want to do the things I don't want to do.

[00:06:46]I still know I'll need that mask on a Monday morning again.

[00:06:51]So when you hear that from an autistic perspective other autistic people will agree.

[00:06:57]Obviously we'll have different things that will uh cause and bother us and trigger us and annoy us but fundamentally you know it's a an internal processing difference. We are not the same as our non-autistic counterparts.

[00:07:13]Autism is a spectrum but it's not a linear one.

[00:07:18]And we know that.

[00:07:21]Like I said, anxiety, hypersensitivity, they are the byproduct of what we need to do.

[00:07:28]You know?

[00:07:29]>> [snorts] >> So I think what she's doing is I think Uta Frith is judging and this is kind of my theme throughout the lot. I think she judges a lot on autism over how you present and what you give.

[00:07:42]But she only considers it as far as but I'll stop considering it once you can talk back to me because I'll The thing is with a lot of people who work in the industry, they either want to listen to you or they don't. And the portion that don't don't want to talk to you and don't want to hear your theory and don't want to hear how you put your thoughts into practice or how your mind maps and how it brings you out to the conclusion because it might counter what they think.

[00:08:06]And they don't want to replace what they think over what you know.

[00:08:10]Because they think you just have an opinion.

[00:08:12]But here's a newsflash, what they have is just an opinion too. A PhD doesn't make an opinion any stronger, you can still be wrong.

[00:08:21]Expecting that autism should look obvious is a big problem which obviously is not how it works because I think what she's doing is she's ignoring the internal process that we go through because she can't see it.

[00:08:35]But just cuz you can't see it, it doesn't mean that it's not real. I've never seen Madagascar but I'm pretty sure it's a place.

[00:08:44]You know, we we I'll I'll I'll always probably come back to the mask as we do these. You know, I'm just a spoiler, this was the first video I recorded because I'm trying to not talk about the mask often because of the mask is central to all of this.

[00:08:57]But the mask hides so much. So if they can't see the autism within us in the way that they think they want to see autism it's because we mask and our mask is so refined you can't see it. It's how we get away with getting out into the world and doing everything we do and you don't see the cost that it takes.

[00:09:18]You know, but an external presentation versus an internal experience, it's just not the same thing.

[00:09:26]Whereas Uta Frith says that we are a different group what we're doing is we're saying that you're only seeing the you know, the version that you want to see.

[00:09:36]You have to want to see us too and we would show you who we really are underneath the mask if we knew it was a safe space to do so.

[00:09:47]So she's judging autism by its appearance, not by its experience and that's where she's gone wrong in the saying that late diagnosed autistic people are a different group. We're not.

[00:09:57]We're the group that learned to mask the soonest because of how we went out there into the world. And yes, autism is a spectrum. Yes, other people will have co-occurring conditions. They might have a learning disability. There might be something in there which is something where they can't get past like we do to even mask in the first place.

[00:10:17]But it doesn't mean that we don't exist just because you can't see it.

[00:10:24]So, there we go.

[00:10:25]This video is considered done.

[00:10:29]But autistic people, what do you think?

[00:10:30]Do you agree with me? Or do you disagree? You let me know.

[00:10:34]But until we get to catch up again soon, my friends, thank you very much for watching and keep smiling.