I wish I could explain this to allistics: I know it looks like autistic people are No Fun and Stuck In Their Ways with their ‘picky’ eating habits and their resistance to change and all. But if your world was full of carefully-concealed torture traps, you’d probably be a bit less ‘adventurous’ too.
Consider these fictional examples:
Oh, you want to go somewhere new to eat? Well, now most restaurants serve menu items which secretly have the texture of cold snot. Good luck telling which ones to avoid!
Ordering new clothes online? Now some online stores have items made from steel wool – that aren’t labeled! Hope you get one of the soft ones.
Going to hang out at a new place? Fifty-fifty odds their lighting will consist of billion-watt industrial floodlights instead of the more usual fixtures. Or perhaps they will be playing the melodious sounds of two-dozen colicky babies over their sound system. Maybe you enjoy gambling with those odds, but I don’t.
Everyone, even allistics, have a threshold of sensory irritation they just can’t ignore…it’s just lower for autistic people. My partner can block out the lights/sounds that drive me crazy…but she’s extremely touch-sensitive, so if I say “This input is just like being tickled”, she gets it. Have you ever seen a movie where someone’s interrogated under a spotlight? Imagine facing that while driving home, every day.
It’s all relative, people.
