Autism
So I'm reading The Complete Guide to Aspergers Syndrome, as part of a self-discovery thing, to figure out if I'm autistic or not, and…
…every time he goes into the clinical descriptions of things I think "nah" and "maybe, but probably not clinically significant"
THEN he describes what kids with autism are like at various ages and I swear to fuck I'm having, like, flashbacks of all my childhood faux pas and also several adult ones
Autism
Like, he's describing interventions you can take with kids to teach them social skills and how and why they help and it's stuff like not understanding which social circles a joke might be OK in (ahh cringe cringe) or dobbing on other kids (ahhhhhhhhh) or idiosyncratic humour (I thought my sense of humour was broken for ages).
And I'm up to the part about 9-13 year olds befriending the opposite sex and it me, the tomboy with no fashion sense, who has no girl friends ahhhh
Autism
And I'm scared to talk about it to anyone besides my husband (who isn't very receptive to the discussion), or on here, because… well… I have a 9 and a half month old son and I'm worried people (in particular my mother in law, who is being… just awful) will try to take him away and say I'm an unfit mother :(
Autism
Of course, autism wasn't really something I heard of, growing up, at least not until later in life when my cousin was diagnosed. And it was never something I thought might apply to me. I was just shy and awkward and I thought the other kids were mean.
I'm still not entirely sure if I'm autistic but wow every time he talks about a support strategy and what behaviour it aims to correct I'm like YIKES
also it's keeping me up at night reliving all my fucking faux pas