"cringe" as autistic empathy //
I'm remembering, as a little kid, reading (having read to me) a picture book about a kid who shoplifts a box of colored pencils
and the *intense* aversion I had to this story — the shame or whatever it was I felt on behalf of the main character was intolerable, incapacitating.
I'm better at it now, of course, both in terms of tolerance and in separating fiction from reality, but still not good at dramas driven by characters' constant unforced errors.
"cringe" as autistic empathy //
@lioness I used to despise particularly the scenes of someone awkwardly stumbling through a lie. Drama or comedy based around awkwardness is kinda painful a lot of the time.
"cringe" as autistic empathy //
@madewokherd @flesh for me, and especially in this specific instance where this was before I got fucked up by going to school
I think this is a lot to do with "following explicit rules" — stealing colored pencils from a store was a literally unthinkable taboo for me? like I just couldn't process it. everything is going Wrong and it's too much to handle.
Fuck, I had forgotten about that "glass in your throat" feeling. I don't miss it.
"cringe" as autistic empathy //
@madewokherd @lioness Ah yes, the classic "researching autism is hard because we don't know what are actual traits and what are trauma responses".