By Laura Waldrop
I asked my husband, “Do you think I’m autistic?”
He said, “I think you could be somewhere on the spectrum.”
When most people hear the word spectrum, they picture a two-dimensional line. At one pole there is super autistic, at the other, hardly autistic at all. By “most people” I mean society in general, people who haven’t spent the last several years studying autism under an optical microscope. When most people hear the word spectrum, what they picture is a gradient.
The Oxford Language dictionary defines a gradient as an increase or decrease in the magnitude of a property observed in passing from one point to another. When a person asks, “Where are you on the spectrum?” they are asking – what is the magnitude of your autism?
But those of us who are not a part of the general, who are, by definition, divergent, understand that the word spectrum was first used to describe light waves, the rainbow of colors visible when light passes through a prism. What then does it mean to be “on the spectrum”? A wave is fluid, rising from trough to crest. Each wave undulates at its own frequency, producing a unique wavelength that refracts at an idiomatic angle when passing through the human eye.
Perhaps the synesthetes answer most accurately. Where am I on the spectrum? I am blue.
The fourth edition of the Diagnostics and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) was the first to tack the word spectrum onto autism. It was an acknowledgement of the variability that exists in the autistic population. There’s an expression popular within the community that reflects this ambiguity – if you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person.
I’m grateful for the permission spectrum grants, for the door it holds open. Before it came along – that is to say, when I was a child – white skin, a penis, an abundant bank account and a love of trains was required for admission. But the physics of a spectrum is much harder for me to conceptualize than a gradient. Much to my consternation, there doesn’t appear to be any one single thing that is universally true of all autistic people. That’s a bold statement, isn’t it? Or is it? It feels, somehow, simultaneously obvious and wildly controversial.
“Where?” I asked my husband. He didn’t have an answer.
It’s a terrible turn of phrase – on the spectrum. Streams of photons carry light through four dimensions of space-time. Yet I’m expected to articulate the complexity of my being with a geographic location. I am 465 nanometers from my last crest. I am moving through the world, navigating my way around obstacles, at a rate of 750 terahertz. The measure of my amplitude is: I am intense and bright.
Where is the wrong interrogative word. A better one is who.
Who am I?
Laura Waldrop is a recovering engineer, yoga therapist, writer, and creator. She is currently editing her first book, Something Extra: A Memoir of Neurodivergence, Loss and Identity Found, about parenting her autistic daughter and awakening to her own neurodivergent identity. In her free time, Laura enjoys lazy days with her husband and two daughters, moving her body in nature, playing the piano/cello, and – true to her roots – building spreadsheets. You can find her at www.waldroplaura.com or on Instagram at @laurawaldro.
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