Self-employment and business for the autistic woman.

There aren’t many well-known autistic entrepreneurs.

Autistic people have some obvious barriers in business; in many ways, we are the opposite of a sociopath. We feel too much, perceive too much, and cannot manipulate people to save our lives. Moreover, we don’t usually have the same value sets; we don’t innately look for power or prestige. Often, if we are going to be monetized at all, it requires that someone else monetize us.

But when we can do something, we tend to do it exceptionally well. Business ownership, self-employment, and entrepreneurship are all good for us — if we can handle it — because they allow us to deal with society on our own terms. We can work when we can work, we avoid triggers, and we can find time for the things we find joy in. Often, this is simply doing our own tasks, quietly, around friends.

As an autistic woman, I have always thrived in online environments. Self-employment worked well for me because there was no difference between me and any other person. I could take my time with messages and, at least for me, texts and emails made it far easier for me to convey and interpret tone. I was not judged for being autistic or for being a woman. I was just words on a screen.

I developed my first business online when I was 12. It was a small online game, which charged subscription fees. At its peak, it was making about $2,000 a month — enough to concern my mother, or at least incline her to believe I was doing something illegal. But that was in the old days of the internet; the wild, wild west, which pumped money at you as long as you had a domain name. It’s not so easy now.

It was then that I realized that the internet was a sort of machine that you could pump effort into and get dollars from, and it was something that I innately understood because it was not a “person.”

But I didn’t need those dollars. The vast majority of what I made was donated to charity or used on friends. While it may have been easy for me to make money, I had no real desire for it. This is the issue many autistic people run into when we try to open businesses. Our human interactions, as flawed as they may seem to others, are usually worth far more to us than money. (Every autistic person is different, but money is the type of abstract, socially-enmeshed thing that tends to come to us with some difficulty.)

People with autism exist on a spectrum. I was diagnosed with Asperger’s in the “old days,” at the age of 14; today, that diagnosis is deprecated in favor of “high-functioning autism.” As a woman, I am able to sidestep many of the social aspects of autism that my male peers might experience. When I avoid eye contact, I am diffident, rather than shady. When I am quiet, I am shy, rather than creepy. I understand that this affords me some element of privilege.

In media, autistic people are often portrayed as being robotic, calculating, or emotionless. But one material characteristic of being autistic is that we, in fact, ascribe emotions to everything, including inanimate objects. To a neurotypical person, we can appear emotionless— but that’s only because we are dealing with so much that we cannot process it.

In recent years, I have dabbled more with brick-and-mortar businesses, and that transition has been eye-opening for me. As an autistic person, I am often viewed as child-like, but I don’t think that I think like a child. My disinterest in materiality or finance is seen as innocent or even naive — in a man, it might be seen as foolhardy or stupid. But to me, it makes perfect sense.

Women, especially professional women, have a tendency toward self-effacement. This can arise as a way for us to head off any criticism — and as a direct consequence of Imposter Syndrome. But as I have learned, this only leads people to believe more and more that I am struggling; what would seem to be a humble joke from the average person is taken as a legitimate and earnest cry for help from me.

And because I don’t necessarily think about how others think — I can’t necessarily perceive how they perceive me — this can lead to a dramatic disconnect between the person that I am and the person that I present myself as.

At the same time, some things are easier for me than others. I frequently don’t avoid conflict, because I don’t recognize the conflict. My lack of situational awareness and social cues means that I am not overtly afraid of awkwardness or confrontation — everything is already as awkward and confrontational for me as it can possibly get. At the end of the day, every human interaction for me, whether it is positive or negative, is both a rewarding triumph and an exhausting challenge.

Autism is often framed externally — not by autistic people, but by the people who interact with us. So, it’s understandable that autism is often distinguished by the things we cannot do and the ways in which we fail to conform, rather than the things that we find joy in and are exceptional at. But when we give ourselves space to breathe, we can achieve things that are great to us.