I have a general interest in psychology, that I suppose is rooted in my own psychological struggles. A long time ago I was hospitalized for severe PTSD with psychotic features. I'd been in a state of unmitigated terror for a couple of days, when I felt a surge of activity and a sensation of chilliness in my head. In an instant, I felt at peace, but my most basic drives had flipped 180 degrees. Destruction and violence were very good and rewarding. The person talking to you now was reduced to a small monitor process who was witnessing this in horror. That monitor process managed to find a nurse and communicate enough to get me into isolation for the night. It passed after 10 minutes, and nothing like that ever happened again. But I'll never forget what it was like. It made me ask the question: what if killers aren't consciously transgressing at all? What if they're oblivious, because their reward pathways are telling them their behavior is fine, maybe even important? But I've never been able to find any literature about this. Most articles about "the mind of the psychopath" seem to project a lot, as if they assume the subject is "like them, but they don't care about hurting people." I suppose that Sadistic Personality Disorder might be closer to what I'm talking about? Haven't found much of interest about that either though. Haven't found anything at all about the possibility that some people have a mindset so alien, that no healthy person could come close to understanding it, without an exceptionally astute metaphor.
For a time, I ran a small private email list to discuss research related to brain wiring through the lens of the personal experiences of youth who were not neurotypical. This included my two sons. The list was set up to serve the emotional, social and psychological needs of my oldest son. I think he was about 15 or 16 at the time. When he lost interest, the list died and I ultimately disbanded it.
You might find it helpful to look into brain research rather than psychological research. A lot of psychological research is really poorly done. But brain research has a lot of interesting tidbits based on some very solid experiments.
You might also look for historical case files about individuals, plus read biographies and fiction with an eye towards getting insight into individuals and how they experience the world.
Yes, people who are not neurotypical simply operate differently, so differently that a lot of what is written on the subject is biased to the point of uselessness.
You might find the writings of Temple Grandin of interest. You might find it useful to join online parent support groups and lurk. You might get good book recommendations out of that, plus useful anecdotal information.
