Neurodivergent Pride #4: Being Taken Advantage Of (Zine)

The first time that I met my favorite autistic mentee, she walked right up to me, declaring “You don’t look like prey!” We discussed at length how we are both consistently perceived as vulnerable from our appearances, body language, and mannerisms. I had never thought about this as a trait of autism until I began to research the relationships of crime statistics and autism to find that we are frequently victims. When I looked up the meaning of “getting taken advantage of,” I had a startling discovery. The phrase has two components, someone using you unfairly for their own benefit and you being complicit and accepting in this dynamic. According to this definition, being robbed on the street is not being “taken advantage of.” While everyone experiences these types of encounters, it seems that so many neurodiverse people are taken advantage of because they are easily fooled into being complicit in these exchanges.