By Trevor Pacelli
Family and friends are essential in helping you remedy your traumatic memories; sharing those thoughts that are hardest to bring to light will lead you to the path of healing. Anyone on the autism spectrum especially should know this, as contrary to common stereotypes, those with ASD can feel sorrow and empathy.
I’m no exception. I’ve suffered from feelings of intense unrequited love, especially since I’m almost thirty-two and have never come close to having another woman see me as a potential life partner. I also have traumatic memories of specific instances of not being included during high school. Here are my experiences, and how I have learned to deal with them.
Unrequited Love - Two of my friends from high school dated for seven-and-a-half years by the time they were married, yet I just couldn’t feel happy for them because I had significant feelings for her since long before they started dating. Everyone raved about how the two of them were the cutest couple ever, and to add greater insult to injury, she never had a boyfriend before she started dating this guy, and they hadn’t broken up to this day after nearly fifteen years of being a couple. They were essentially a textbook example of a perfect Hollywood romantic pair.
Their wedding was an internal disaster for me. While I managed to look like I had myself together throughout the ceremony and most of the reception, their first dance together broke me to pieces. Watching them so immersed in one another with pure joy while everybody else admired their contagious love on the dance floor piqued my suffering from unrequited love. I had to retreat into the bathroom stall while everyone got out onto the dance floor; I was left essentially crying with heavy breathing and heart pounding.
I walked out of the bathroom, and the others from my table approached me; they had seen me stumble into a near-mental breakdown before retreating into the bathroom and probably heard me sobbing. They told the bride’s sister about it, so she took me outside to talk privately. I told her how I couldn’t let go of my old feelings for the bride (the sister already knew all about it), and although what she told me wasn’t necessarily helpful, the fact that I told someone who could understand where I was coming from helped a little.
However, I was still going through a lot of internal pain throughout that next week, and even to this day, it’s still an issue for me. But lately I have found that confronting those hard memories rather than trying to starve them helps on the path to healing.
Left Out in High School - I came to this realization through another somewhat related high school memory that I was able to conquer. It may have sounded like a great thing at first that I was cast in the school play, but I was the only one in the cast without a single line of dialogue. While everyone else in the cast had more than two minutes on stage and something significant to contribute, I was on stage for less than thirty seconds and did nothing whatsoever significant. In hindsight, I wish I had dropped out of the play when I had the chance. But a few years ago, when was writing my book, What Movies Can Teach Us About Disabilities, I wrote about this experience in the play to illustrate what it looks like when someone with a disability is included but not accepted. Putting my experience down on paper for my mom, the book's editor, to read, was a difficult ordeal yet was the necessary therapy I needed to move on.
How do I know this process worked? Well, my parents and I have season tickets to a local theater company, and over the past few years, the company funnily did all three musicals I did in high school. The first we saw brought back those hard high school memories over the next week, the most prominent being the play where I was shoved aside. With the second of my high school plays the theater company did, it was the same deal. But by the time we saw the last of those three plays, I had already written that section of my book, so I didn’t linger anywhere near as much about my awful play experiences, making me feel like I was freed at last from the memory.
So, if you or someone you know is on the autism spectrum, encourage them to use the tactic of writing down traumatic memories to help them process their feelings. Yeah, it’s going to hurt to put them down on paper, but it’s like surgery, you can’t heal to get to a better place until you first make the incision. I also recognize that for some of you, your worst memory is being molested or having a loved one die prematurely, and for those cases, healing from the hurt is a more difficult and involved process. However, exposing your emotions in the light instead of keeping them hidden is what I found is needed to stop the trauma from defining who you are.
Trevor Pacelli is a young adult on the autism spectrum and author of books on autism, disabilities, bullying and a new middle-grade sci-fi adventure novel. ​

By Trevor Pacelli
I recently took Michael Pollan’s Masterclass, Intentional Eating, which included Pollan's three philosophies of food:
1. Eat Food
2. Not Too Much
3. Mostly Plants
I came up with three similar philosophies about consuming artistic media:
1. Enjoy Art
2. Embrace Your Tastes
3. But Don’t Force Them
Enjoy Art
I recognize that art is subjective, as beauty is very much in the eye of the beholder. However, criticizing art objectively is a freedom you should feel free to exercise. After all, a two-year-old smearing paint around isn’t on the same artistic plane as a professional who’s been painting for fifty years spending toilsome hours on an anatomically accurate mural. To demonstrate my point, I’ll explain the mastery behind one of the artsiest movies of the last decade: Poor Things.
Its black-and-white fish-eye lens cinematography may make it look at first like a movie where the director wants to show off, but in this context, the cinematography style is used for a purpose. Since the main character, Bella Baxter, starts as a grown woman with the brain of a toddler, she at first sees the world in a distorted black-and-white way, but once she explores the world, everything turns to color, like she’s a small child discovering life for the first time. Then as she matures, those vibrant colors become more muted, and the fish-eye lens shots dissipate. There’s an actual consistent purpose behind this filmmaking trick, which allows Poor Things to pass as a work of art that can be freely enjoyed.
Embrace Your Tastes
Yeah, that’s right: don’t feel ashamed to watch something that’s a part of your tastes as long as it’s made with love, hard work, talent, and simple fun while respecting all potential viewers. This subject of feeling embarrassed about watching something outside of something like your age group reminds me of people who dismiss animation as “for kids,” which is part of what led to that awful trend of soulless live-action Disney remakes. Netflix did the same thing when they remade Avatar: The Last Airbender in live-action.
The day the first episode of the first season premiered, I decided to protest that remake series by rewatching the first episode of the original Nickelodeon series and continuing through the show. Man, I tell you: the original animated show just gets better with multiple rewatches and is more enjoyable for older viewers than for kids. I’d say the same about the preschool show Bluey. Anyone might quickly dismiss it because of who it’s made for, but the show knows how to create relatable slice-of-life plotlines that can entertain kids and make parents cry. Therefore, it doesn’t matter who something was made for, if a movie or TV show feels like a passion project with something valuable to say, then enjoy!
But Don’t Force Them
Yes, every movie has an audience, no matter how bizarre. Even Poor Things. At the same time, that means even if something is a massive crowd-pleaser or something others within your community love, nothing says you’re also required to love that movie. I once thought I had to take the word of the Oscars on what movies are the best, particularly in college, meaning I tried to convince myself that Shakespeare in Love is a better movie than Saving Private Ryan just because it infamously beat the latter for Best Picture. Boy, how wrong I was.
I also tried to force myself to love the movies put on a high pedestal amongst movie buffs and bought DVD/Blu-rays that included The Godfather, Schindler's List, and No Country for Old Men. Yet I could never just casually enjoy them as entertainment, so I ultimately gave those movies away. I still respect them for being phenomenal works of art, but they’re simply not for my taste. Therefore, I shouldn’t have to believe I must love them just because I went to film school. If you also can acknowledge the strong artistic merits of a good movie even if you didn’t enjoy sitting through it, then that’s okay. At least you tried.
How to tell whether a piece of media is truly art
While watching movies is indeed fun, knowing which movies are worth your time is hard. I too have struggled with this over the years, as there have been movies I once thought were masterpieces, only to realize in hindsight that I was wrong. Movies like Ex Machina, Arrival, Annihilation, and Hereditary were movies I soon could see for what they truly are: Overly pretentious with sloppy scripts and emotionally distant characters.
To help you know whether a movie or TV show is art or not, consider these questions:

• Is the protagonist a different person in the end?
• Do the protagonist’s actions prove this change is legitimate?
• Are the other characters shoved aside, or are they given full subplots connected to the main plot?
• Do the actors’ pauses properly imitate the realistic speech of real humans?
• Do the actors’ gestures communicate strong chemistry between the two, or do they feel like they’re merely talking "at" each other?
• Are the jokes forced?
• Does every scene support the plot?
• Are the characters’ actions justifiable, or do they just do whatever the plot tells them to do?

One last tip that helps a lot is to read the 5/10 reviews on a review site; lukewarm ratings often offer the most descriptive points about the movie’s flaws. If the review is specific enough about what a movie does wrong, then take the reviewer’s word, but if the critiques given don’t appear valid, or if the praises by good reviews feel more valid than the criticisms, then feel free to watch the movie or TV show. Over time, you’ll improve at knowing which media are truly art. Even better, you’ll develop a refined collection of favorite movies, books, and shows that bring out the real you.
Trevor Pacelli is the author of What Movies Can Teach Us About Disabilities, What Movies Can Teach Us About Bullying, Summer of the Fruit Virus and more.

Twenty-five years ago, this iconic yellow sea sponge debuted on Nickelodeon and is currently in his fourteenth season with no signs of slowing down. The series has spawned three theatrical feature films, two spinoff series, a Broadway musical, a Netflix film, and another Netflix original expected in 2025. Yet the first three seasons and the first theatrical film were the most influential time for the franchise; the kids who watched SpongeBob during those years carried the funniest moments into modern internet culture, complete with over a hundred different meme templates.
I’m a part of the generation whose grade school years were filled with the series’ golden age, and in that time, SpongeBob became my main special interest. I watched the show every night, drew the characters constantly, came up with my own season of episodes, and even introduced the series to my family. Our favorite episodes were Frankendoodle, Rock-a-Bye Bivalve, and the legendary Band Geeks. SpongeBob changed my life more than any other TV show ever has, so to celebrate this monumental year for the immortal talking cheese, here are twenty-five valuable life lessons he’s taught my generation:

1. Be true to yourself, don’t miss your chance, and you won’t end up like the fool who ripped his pants. (Ripped Pants)
2. Home is where you’re surrounded by others who care about you. (Texas)
3. F is for friends who do stuff together, U is for you and me, N is for anywhere at any time at all! (F.U.N.)
4. If your community helps you in your hour of need, you are a winner. (Band Geeks)
5. When you’re lost, there will always be strangers kind enough to help you get home. (Rock Bottom)
6. Anyone can find joy in the littlest things with a little imagination. (Idiot Box)
7. Everybody’s best at something, but nobody’s best at everything. (Pressure)
8. Aggressive people won’t reap any rewards, but aggressively nice people will. (Walking Small)
9. You can still stand up for somebody you don’t like. (Pizza Delivery)
10. Know your limits in helping others. (Can You Spare a Dime?)
11. Buying gifts isn’t always an ideal love language for everyone. (Krusty Love)
12. Instead of overreacting, admit when you’ve done wrong. (Life of Crime)
13. Though some advice may sound stupid, pay attention. (The Camping Episode)
14. Let things in nature stay in nature. (My Pretty Seahorse)
15. Your attempts to bring somebody beneath you will always flop. (Artist Unknown)
16. Your lies will be exposed when you put yourself in a bad situation. (SpongeGuard on Duty)
17. Don’t make fun of someone unless you’re willing to also make fun of yourself. (Squirrel Jokes)
18. Don’t let competition ruin your friendships. (The Fry Cook Games)
19. Don’t get close to something you know is harmful. (Hooky)
20. Don’t act overconfident to look tough, because often, you can’t win. (Sandy, SpongeBob, and the Worm)
21. Don’t imitate someone else to gain recognition. (Big Pink Loser)
22. Don’t let personal attacks by jerks bring you down. (Pickles)
23. Returning to your youth isn’t always good. (Mid-Life Crustacean)
24. You can love some of the things you loved as a kid and still be an adult. (Grandma’s Kisses)
25. Don’t feel ashamed to be who you are. (The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie)

These last three points are perhaps SpongeBob’s most important lessons and the essence of why the franchise remains so close to the hearts of its fans. SpongeBob is an adult with his own home and a job in fast food, yet has been much more successful than other kids’ shows that star child protagonists. SpongeBob’s appeal surpasses what grade school audiences enjoy because his situation in a dead-end minimum-wage job under a greedy boss is instantly relatable to adults. Likewise, the franchise’s original fans have remained committed over the years since now they can rewatch the classic episodes under a new lens, laughing at the parts they laughed at when they were kids but for different reasons.
Kids like to laugh at grouchy Squidward complaining about his job and then getting beat up for it because he’s such a killjoy jerk, but adults laugh because they see themselves in Squidward—stuck with unfulfilled dreams in an unfulfilling job. Kids like to laugh at SpongeBob in Pizza Delivery singing, “Krusty-KRAYAYAAYAYAAB-PIIIZZAAA-IS-THE-PIZZA-YEAH-AAAH-FOR-YOU-AND…MEEE-EEE-EEE-EE-EE-EEE!!” because of his silly singing voice. Yet adults laugh because of how much SpongeBob’s singing annoys Squidward, which sparks those adult viewers’ recollections of dealing with similar annoying people.
Hardly any TV shows, for kids or adults or anyone in between, could speak so broadly to the inner child of multiple generations and encourage them to sustain their youth when reality wants them to move on. Thus, I’d like to thank the late creator Stephen Hillenburg for massively influencing many to remain youthful over the past twenty-five years.
Trevor is an author and illustrator of books about life with autism, movies, bullying, disabilities and a new novel for middle-grade readers. See his books here. 

-by Trevor Pacelli
The world of Pokémon has long been a favorite of both kids and adults on the autism spectrum, like me. I joined the Pokémon fandom at ten years old, my first game being Pokémon Ruby on the Gameboy Advance SP. Although I drifted away from the games once I hit adulthood, I still couldn’t help but keep up with the franchise. Eventually, I felt the urge to play the games again. In 2021, I bought a Nintendo Switch, and became the proud owner of four games: Pokémon Brilliant Diamond, Pokémon Legends Arceus, Pokémon Shield, and Pokémon Scarlet. While I admit the games’ quality is lackluster, and there are problems with disability friendliness, the chill environments of these Pokémon worlds with the diverse 1,000+ Pokémon delight me as much as when I was twelve. But unlike back then, I got sucked into a component of Pokémon that in turn sucked out what originally drew me to the franchise: competitive battles.
Yes, a whole subculture of Pokémon fans is all about competitive battles. I tried entering the scene for something "fun" to do and quickly found I could not do so using my favorite Pokémon. I did a lot of research on how to build the right team and build them in-game (which always took forever). I spent every day on an online battle simulator (Showdown!) to test out teams I made, learning through trial and error why my strategies weren’t working. Whenever I thought I found a good team, losing enough times made me realize the team's blind spots, requiring building a new team from scratch. I was thrown into many gamer-rage fits from the constant losses, which affected my general happiness throughout the day. In addition, the sweat, blood, and tears shed from my practice never helped me win.
But for quite a while, I thought I was improving. So, I took a three-day trip to Portland for a Pokémon video game championship. I wasn’t comfortable enough to be in the official tournament, but I went as a spectator who partook in battles on the side.
The trip started off with a minor car accident that caused quite a bit of stress for me, and it didn’t get much better from there. On day one at the Portland Convention Center, I did only one battle, which I lost easily. On day two, the official competitive battles I could watch were few and far between, with most of my time spent waiting until the next battle to either watch or partake in. I had one win, but then four straight hard losses. By that final loss, I had had enough. I didn’t go back to the convention center, but did some tourist things around Portland that evening and the next day before going home. So, overall, my tournament experience was much less than I had hoped for.
Portland set the first ripple of an important lesson I had to learn: Sometimes, you must accept that no matter how hard you practice, you will never be good at a certain hobby. That’s exactly what I’m finding with my incapacity to stand a chance against other players. Even if I think I know the strategy of whomever I’m playing against, he throws a curveball at me, and I don’t have the mental processing speed to readjust my plan under pressure. So, I have learned that it’s best to give up on Pokémon battles and stick to the hobbies I enjoy and others have told me I’m good at, like cooking, photography, story writing, and drawing. The last of these is why I became a Pokémon fan in the first place. Because I love the fun Pokémon designs, it inspired me to draw my own Pokémon creations over the years, which can be seen on my Instagram page, @Murro_Region. This is something I believe I should stick with since it gives me a sense of self-accomplishment.
This isn’t the first time I gave up a hobby. Here’s my blog post about when I decided to stop writing weekly movie reviews.
To decide whether it’s time for you to give up a hobby, ask yourself:

1. What do you think about the most in your downtime?
2. Have others said you’re good at the hobby, or not?
3. Has the hobby helped you form new healthy friendships?
4. What originally drew you to the hobby? A need to relax? A desire to become the best at it?
5. Has the hobby taken away the joy which drew you to it?
6. Does the hobby feel like an obsession or addiction?
7. Does the hobby waste your time?
8. Do you feel unhappy after the activity, or dread starting the activity?

I hope you find hobbies, interests and other activities that bring joy, wellbeing and accomplishment to your free time and add happiness to your life. Below is a sample of my original Pokémon drawings.​
Trevor Pacelli is an adult author and illustrator on the autism spectrum.
Trevor’s Books | Trevor’s Instagram @Murro_Region​

​By Trevor Pacelli
​After college, I found myself waiting for travel opportunities to come to me. I didn’t want to face the awkward loneliness of traveling alone and I believed traveling with a wife or in some group were my only options. I even did a mission trip to Spain five years ago, but I was put into stressful social situations, and the fact that I couldn’t connect well with my team made me feel even lonelier than being there by myself.
Then when I adopted a dog three years ago, I was motivated to travel to the ocean for an overnight trip with her. It was the first time I booked a hotel room on my own, and had a great time. After that, I went on two separate overnight trips to Portland, which got me more comfortable with traveling on my own. But I still hadn’t gone on a big solo vacation that required an airplane. I had been feeling a strong urge to return to Disneyland, since I hadn’t been there since 2008, and it reached a point where I finally said: “That’s it. Time for a Disney vacation. With or without somebody else to do it with me.”
So, for the next several months, I did a lot of planning on what to expect. My mom gave me a Disneyland vacation guide on Christmas. I booked a hotel room, I made reservations for Disneyland and California Adventure, and two months before my visit, I made restaurant reservations. I looked up which park attractions would have the longest wait times. I researched the most critically acclaimed food items and planned my meal and snack times around them. My sister also gave me some advice, since she had made the trip recently.
As a result of all I did before the vacation, I can proudly say that my Disneyland 2024 trip turned out to be monumental, even life-changing. I truly had the time of my life. Surprisingly, I never felt lonely the entire time, not even at sit-down restaurants on my own. I spent three full days in the parks, pretty much from opening to closing, which might not be possible with other travelers.
The attraction highlights for me were the Indiana Jones Adventure, Pirates of the Caribbean, the Adventureland Treehouse, Mickey’s Runaway Railway, Rise of the Resistance, Radiator Springs Racers, Toy Story Midway Mania, Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure, Soarin’ Around the World, the Incredicoaster, Grizzly River Run, and the Mad Tea Party (which I found is best to go on at night). It was perfectly fine riding by myself, and sometimes an advantage, since a few of these rides had single-rider lanes.
I even found a strong appreciation for the gentler thrill rides like Astro Orbitor and Golden Zephyr, which allowed me to be in the air and feel the relaxing breeze through my body as I took in grand views of the park. It was nice to take my time through any rides I wanted to try. This trip was also my first time seeing Galaxy’s Edge, which is so detailed and perfect for any Star Wars fan, like me. Cars Land was amazing to see as well, it was just so immersive and beautiful to be in at night. The only slight sadness I felt was finding the Haunted Mansion was closed for refurbishment, and Splash Mountain was still in the process of being renovated into Tiana’s Bayou Adventure.
I love good food, and the best thing I ate was the Monte Cristo at Café Orleans. I also loved the raspberry rose macaron at Jolly Holiday Bakery, the bacon at Carnation Café, the chocolate peanut butter sandwich, and of course, those famous pineapple Dole whips! Although I was excited about it, deciding on what food to get was the most disorienting part of my trip. It was a challenge to figure out the best of the best in both parks and make sure to get my money’s worth, and some of the places weren’t always open. The pineapple Dole whip, for instance, I couldn’t get on my last day at Disneyland because of closures, but ended up finding one at the Disneyland Hotel before flying home!
And of course, as a lover of visual arts, I have to mention the World of Color, the water and light show at California Adventure that plays at night outside Pixar Pier. It’s one thing to hear about it and watch a video of it, it’s a whole different thing to see it in person. Watching the showcase of lights, music, and water put into perspective why the Disney brand remains so relevant even after a hundred years. It’s a corporation full of passionate artists who pour their whole souls into pushing the mediums of animation and visual effects forward, innovating new storytelling techniques that enable anyone the chance to tell their own stories.
I’ve come back from Disneyland a changed man, and now instead of waiting for someone else to do trips with me, I’ll always have a major vacation I’m looking forward to year after year. The question is, where will I go in 2025? I’m thinking New Orleans.
Thus, I believe planning a vacation can be one of the most important accomplishments an autistic adult could ever achieve. Not only is traveling alone so much cheaper than traveling in a group, but it’s a benefit to not have to plan each day around anyone else. I’ve been on family vacations where stressing over what to do next and working around hiccups in the trip can take the fun out of it. Yet when I was in California by myself, stress was never a problem! It was easy for me to readjust to plan B whenever necessary (partly also because of my extensive research).
So, planning a solo vacation is a fantastic goal for other adults on the autism spectrum to set for themselves, it’s an enormous step forward in independence and is perfect for rediscovering your potential.
Trevor's latest books are What the Movies Can Teach Us About Bullying, and What Movies Can Teach Us About Disabilities. Meet him at Indie Author Night at Brick & Mortar Books in Redmond, Washington on June 3 from 6 to 8 p.m.

Trevor Pacelli talks about how his traits of being direct and honest have allowed him to have an impact on others in mentoring and other roles.
 From Seattle Children's Hospital Autism Blog,
Being autistic, I have always been a very blunt person. Back when I was a kid, I often blurted out straightforward, even disrespectful comments when meeting others, . . . Read More  ​

​Similar to others my age, I watched Avatar: The Last Airbender on Nickelodeon as a kid. While I did enjoy the show, it wasn’t necessarily one of my favorite things to watch, not like SpongeBob SquarePants. Yet once I revisited the series on Netflix years later, I saw it with a new perspective I didn’t have when I was twelve.
As a person with autism, I have come to greatly appreciate the cartoon world’s religion, politics, cultural differences, architecture, and philosophies in depths unheard of in entertainment for kids, or even for adults. I can now see how the show’s character with a disability parallels me and maybe others.
Most shows for grownup audiences wouldn’t be mature enough to create an empowering character with a disability while also showing their weaknesses. In Avatar, Toph Beifong is a blind twelve-year-old girl who claims to be the world’s most powerful earthbender. She uses her bending abilities to feel the earth through her bare feet, which compensates for her disability by giving her a mental map through seismic vibrations of where everything is around her. As the series progresses, her earthbending only gets stronger, and she even invents metalbending by detecting the earth particles inside metal components, something no other earthbender could ever do. Since she grew up with parents who only saw her as weak and helpless because of her disability, they sheltered her from the world. They never allowed her to leave their house, so to get any semblance of the life she always needed, she had to secretly escape her parents.
Because of her upbringing, Toph is fiercely determined to prove how capable she is. That means she refuses any help, and soon after joining the Avatar’s team, she intends to only look after herself without helping the others with various tasks like setting up camp. She believes that if she relies on anyone else or does anything to make herself look reliant on others, it makes her weak. It’s not until she has a talk over tea with the wise Uncle Iroh that she understands how needing one another is a basic human necessity. The rest of the series validates this point, as Toph is vulnerable in many locations because of her blindness. In the desert, the instability of the sand makes it difficult for her to form a mental map of her surroundings through her feet. She needs to cling to someone’s arm when at sea or riding on the Avatar’s flying bison, Appa--places she can’t feel the earth through her feet. In addition, because she’s blind, she can’t read, so people have to read things out loud to her.
As an autistic person, I often feel similar struggles when others think little of me. I believe I must prove that I'm not just a dumb kid with a developmental disorder and that I can do whatever others without autism can do. So, if somebody asks me if I need help with something, or if I know what a certain word or phrase means, I get offended, because they wouldn’t ask that same question to someone without autism. However, there are some things I simply do need help with, more than most others my age. For example, my parents had to help me with securing a place to live and finding a job. Factors like home size, cost, location and renovations overwhelm me, and never really cross my mind. Even when I’ve moved in, I don’t ever think about making any kind of changes. I’m a simplistic take-it-or-leave-it kind of guy.
I would certainly be lost if I didn’t have my parents guiding me through living on my own or getting a job. I’d probably be homeless by now. Likewise, plenty of others with mental or physical disabilities need extra help with certain tasks that those without disabilities don’t need help with. It sounds discouraging to know that at the age of thirty, some people will still be reliant on their parents. They may have to watch their peers and siblings enjoy far more freedom from mom and dad than they’ll ever get. Unfortunately, that’s just how things need to be at times. Some with disabilities are simply going to need this type of extra assistance their entire lives, just like Toph with her blindness. However, just like in Toph’s case, that dependency on others doesn’t make you weak, it just makes you human.
Toph is mentioned in my book, What Movies Can Teach Us About Disabilities, as an example of strong disability representation I was exposed to as a kid, one that I at the time had taken for granted. I have also recently written the book, What Movies Can Teach Us About Bullying. 

Like other twenty- and thirty-somethings, I grew up watching the Harry Potter series. Every kid around my age was all over the books and movies from grade school through high school. The first movie premiered when I was in third grade, and the last one premiered the summer after I graduated from high school. Each of these eight films was a massive theatrical event, so the series heavily influenced the childhoods of my generation.
I believe one of the key reasons the books and movies have been so influential is the way author J.K. Rowling defines the characters, all of which are broken up into four houses at Hogwarts’ School of Witchcraft and Wizardry:
              Gryffindor, where brave students are sorted into.
              Hufflepuff, where loyal students are sorted into.
              Ravenclaw, where intelligent students are sorted into.
              Slytherin, where power-hungry students are sorted into.
In Harry Potter’s first year at Hogwarts, the sorting hat is put on his head, and it struggles to decide where exactly he would be best suited. Although he requests Gryffindor, it’s later revealed that Harry, having almost been killed by the evil Lord Voldemort (a Slytherin) as a baby, still has a piece of Voldemort’s soul inside his body. Thus, Harry would be a better fit for Slytherin. Yet that doesn’t mean he’s not courageous, because he never hesitates to stand up for what he knows is right, even if it means going face-to-face with death more than once.
Harry’s not the only one who has personal traits of more than one Hogwarts house. Ron Weasley is a Gryffindor, but also has immense loyalty to his family, like a Hufflepuff. Hermione Granger is a Gryffindor, but also has an encyclopedic knowledge of spells, like a Ravenclaw. Draco Malfoy is a Slytherin, but also isn’t afraid to put his safety in danger to get his way, like a Gryffindor.
There are many online quizzes you can take that tell you which Hogwarts house you would best fit into. But playing this game for you or a friend doesn’t have to be done by a questionnaire. You could simply observe someone and take note of their actions and personality. That brings me to my main point:
Fantasy worlds and special interests can help those on the autism spectrum.
Here’s what I mean. Most people in a casual setting can pretty easily know the unspoken signs of another’s personality by watching them. They don’t need the personality traits spelled out for them—reading the room is second nature. People with autism don’t usually have that. They can’t tell what another person’s intentions or thoughts are simply by watching them; they need to be told directly if someone is being disrespectful or manipulative.
Someone on the autism spectrum might not relate to other people very well, but they can relate to their special interest extraordinarily well. This can include any fictional fantasy world with a fanbase, such as Star Wars, Pokémon, The Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potter. The latter of these examples can help with the use of the four Hogwarts houses. Somebody with autism could take on the task of figuring out which Hogwarts house they think a friend or family member would best belong in. It could turn into a fun game of detective work where the person with autism has to carefully think about the other person to decide whether they have more traits of a Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, or Slytherin. This in turn could encourage social interaction between that autistic person and the one they’re trying to place in a house. While using others for your own game could sound questionable, it may be the best motivation for autistic people to think more about what others are like.
I suffer from anxiety, so I’m not a Gryffindor. I couldn’t manipulate people even if I tried, and I’m relatively content with where I am in life, so I’m not a Slytherin either. However, I do have hints of Hufflepuff because I’ve proven myself to be a hard and loyal worker. Yet because I’m dependent on my creative mind in work and in hobbies, I’m the best fit for Ravenclaw. In thinking of others, I know a church pastor who has been immensely courageous amidst the challenges he’s faced, and while he has book smarts, he’s mostly motivated by community-building and his family. Thus, he seems to be the best fit for Hufflepuff. That’s just an example of how using something an autistic person is already interested in can help develop an interest and understanding in people.
But full disclaimer: This is no means to an end in getting to know people. It’s unhealthy to get overly caught up in your fantasy, especially when trying to force others into your own imagination. The exercise I described can be a great motivator, but deciding whether a friend or family member would be best for Gryffindor or Slytherin is not a permanent solution to overcoming personality blindness. When learning about one another, nothing can replace simple conversation. While there can be ways to get there based on the individual’s current strengths, human interaction with one another should always be the end goal.
Trevor Pacelli is the author of Six-Word Lessons on Growing Up Autistic, What Movies Can Teach Us About Disabilities and other books on Amazon.

By Trevor Pacelli
2023 is ending, so I figured now would be a good time to share some of my upcoming projects for 2024, as well as how working on these projects has given me multiple opportunities to be a storyteller. Read the full post

By Trevor Pacelli
Gift-giving at Christmas time can be difficult for anyone, but even more so for someone on the autism spectrum such as myself. Throughout my childhood and most of my adulthood, my family gave each other Christmas gifts the same way most everyone else does, by giving each family member a present we picked ourselves. That meant every year, I got one gift from Mom, one from Dad, and one from my sister. In turn I gave a gift to each of them. I also got a gift from my grandparents, and when my sister got married, her husband was included in the gift-giving. This system worked out fine throughout my childhood, as we got the whole routine done in about twenty minutes, and my sister and I just spent the rest of Christmas day playing with our gifts and watching A Christmas Story on TBS. But things changed as we got older.
Nowadays, my family and I are all the type of people who already feel content with what we currently own; whenever we want/need something, we just buy it ourselves instead of waiting for someone else to do it for us. So, when it came to putting together Christmas wish lists, thinking of what to put on our lists became more and more stressful for all of us, and having to stick to the lists just took out the personal feeling behind a present. I’ve tried in the past to deviate from the wish lists I’ve received from family members, and that only resulted in hurt feelings. Furthermore, it was a symptom of an even bigger problem of mine, my inability to truly understand others. Because I never had much common sense in assessing the personal interests of others, I never knew exactly what someone would want in a present. To add to the damage, I was expected to just know all these many unspoken rules of gift exchanges, such as following a price limit so that it’s not too expensive or too cheap.
The gift-giving exchange was much easier for me as a kid, because I could get excited for whatever toys I’d be getting, and I wasn’t expected to select meaningful gifts for my other family members (or my mom would just help me find the right gifts). But once I became an adult and was suddenly expected to put some actual thought into my gifts, the holiday officially started to feel like work rather than a joy.
The rest of my family were feeling similar emotions, so in 2019, we shook things up. Rather than gifts, we gave each other cookies. I made four different sweet treats for each family member: one for Mom, one for Dad, one for my sister, and one for my brother-in-law. I also got cookies from them in exchange. Although I’ll admit my treats didn’t turn out perfectly, we were still satisfied with doing Christmas this way, and we’ve kept this tradition ever since.
We have kept a scaled-down version of traditional gift-giving. We put our names on separate pieces of paper, each drawing a name, and that’s who we give a gift to, one that’s between $20-$30. We did this before starting our new cookie tradition, except before the gifts were stored in our stockings. But now we just traditionally wrap these gifts instead of using the stockings. (In fact, stockings have now become so irrelevant to our Christmases that my Mom did not even bother putting them up on the mantlepiece this year.) Since making this switch, we no longer write out Christmas wish lists or feel pressured to give everyone the right gift. And thus, Christmas has become a truly joyful time again.
This whole system works better for me personally because it’s easier to learn another’s food tastes than which material objects would work best as gifts for them. Plus, I already love food, so creating unique family cookies is genuinely fun for me. You too can create your own holiday traditions in this way. Perhaps you have a severely autistic child who will never develop past the mentality of a three-year-old, so a suitable Christmas tradition to include them could be exchanging drawings or other works of art instead of traditional presents. That way, the autistic child could apply something they’re capable of doing without having to go through the stress of finding a gift for someone. That’s just one idea that can encourage you to use your imagination as you create new holiday traditions that demonstrate how unique your family is, and more importantly, to ensure nobody is left out on what should be the most joyous day of the year.
Trevor is a young adult with autism and the author of several books, including Six-Word Lessons on Growing Up Autistic and What Movies Can Teach Us About Disabilities.