Fucking hell recalling this kind of story and it sounds like such cliché autistic stuff. It’s fucking wild how I’m only now realising it.

If I’d ever just taken five minutes to examine my life with a “Autistic maybe?” lens I’d have figured it out in no time. 🙃

Just want to take a moment to say how validating it is to hear other autistic people talk about their experiences. So many little parts of myself and my life I thought were wrong, but it turns out they are just different to what was around me (and are shared with a whole lot of people after all!)

It lets me really feel like I don’t have to be so sheepish about my quirks.

“Why don’t you like beans on toast?”
BECAUSE BEANS ARE FUCKING WET AND TOAST IS FUCKING DRY. WHAT KIND OF MONSTER ARE YOU TO THINK THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO TOUCH IN ANY PLACE BUT MY TUMMY?!

I mean, I’ll probably not be quite so harsh lol, but there’s a new confidence in myself I never had ❤️

But yeah seriously, every time someone talks about how they have focused so much on trying to seem like they are paying attention as a normal person that they didn’t notice what was being said, I feel so connected and real.

And then the shame of feeling like you’re lying by smiling and nodding as if you understand? Ugh I’m just not going to sweat it anymore. I’ll listen my way or not at all. 💪

Okay so here’a a story. When I was a kid, I was a “picky eater” - something that was not especially indulged by my parents at the time. They took the stance that I’d simply learn to eat properly or go hungry, but when faced with food that grossed me out I would always choose staying hungry. I developed extensive techniques to avoid food to accomplish this!

First of all, meals at home: I was expected to clear the plate, and wasn’t allowed to leave my seat until I did. I would spend literal hours poking at peas with a fork (genuinely doing my best to try and make myself eat, but you can’t do what you can’t do).

My parents did not have the patience to oversee me for that kind of time, so when they left the room I’d sneak little bits off my plate and into the bin. I did it gradually because I was a cunning kid!

Sometimes I’d get caught and yelled at or worse, but I kept doing it for any meal I couldn’t stomach. For the most part I just got really good at wasting meals my mum cooked. (Sorry mum!)

But that’s not the interesting part of the story, see my mum also made my packed lunches, so I had complete adventures disposing of sandwiches I didn’t like.

At first, I used the bin at school. This worked for a while but I think a teacher found them a couple of times and started looking out for who was doing it, so my parents found out. From then on I had to bring home evidence that I’d eaten the sandwiches: a display of my lunchbox including the used cling film. Easy to do but there was no bin between my house and school, but there were people’s gardens, bushes, flower beds, the woods.

I left uneaten sandwiches EVERYWHERE!

Buuuut after a while I started feeling guilty, plus it felt like such a big risk. If anyone started to talk about sandwiches appearing everywhere then my parents would know it was me, I had to do something else.

So I started unwrapping my sandwiches and hiding them under my bed.

Look in my defence I was a child, I didn’t know what would happen, just that they were hidden.

So obviously my bedroom starts to smell, my mum decides to clean it and finds a pile of mouldy food under the bed.

From then on, I had to have one of the school dinner ladies watch me eat during the lunch break. But I still couldn’t make myself eat things I didn’t want to, eventually they got tired of spending the whole break waiting for me to eat something I wasn’t going to eat, I went back to binning sandwiches I didn’t like, and everyone just kind of accepted it I guess.

Anyway the point of the story is that I went to absurd lengths to seem like the person everyone wanted me to be, and even though I knew I couldn’t do what they wanted it still never occurred to me that I couldn’t become that person either. Getting a good perspective on yourself is surprisingly difficult, but tbh I’m proud of that hungry little food-stashing kid burying sandwiches under some roses. They struggled but figured out a way to get by.

So I’m watching a lot of autistic tiktok compilations now because they are free piles of human connectivity just for me, but there is a problem.

In a few there is something I’d describe as a sort of autistic expressiveness. It’s super authentic, sincere, unreserved, and even joyful, in a way that is very clearly NOT neurotypical - and I have a bad reaction to seeing it. I feel so uncomfortable, “😱 oh no, you’re not supposed to be like that!”

My reaction is clearly some internalised unpleasantness that I didn’t know I had. It probably played a big part in me not realising I was autistic by making me averse to something so beautiful that I wasn’t allowed.

I thought I’d unlearned the “be normal” rule years ago but there’s still a lot of work to do.

Just to say it and be clear, I don’t like seeing autism as a disorder rather than just a different neurotype.

And frankly, it’s really bizarre that it is treated like a miserable condition by neurotypical people who will get tired of their favourite song if they listen to it on a loop for too long. 😛

I’m still figuring some things out and I’ll probably stumble along the way but I don’t think those opinions are likely to change. (Neurodiversity is good and the social model of disability sounds cool, and also that it’s sad and fucked up that some people get tired of things they really enjoy)

Really glad I started this thread with the recommendation that you mute it if I’m posting too much because wow stuff keeps occurring to me, here’s another!

I used to get told *a lot* that I lack “common sense”, which usually meant that I didn’t know what people wanted from me. Anytime I’d get asked to do something new I’d have to ask for various clarifications until I thought I understood exactly what was being asked. And then later when I did do exactly what was asked, the person was often annoyed because there was some implied thing that I should have done in addition.

Simple example: “Please fill the kettle.”
“How much?”
“A cup for each of us grown-ups.”
*task is performed, and then later;*
“Why didn’t you turn the kettle on?”

You didn’t say to do that! Besides surely if you wanted it boiled immediately you’d have said “boil water” not “fill the kettle”!

I’m not exactly like this now, but only because I have a lifetime of stumbling into this kind of thing. For anything new though, it’s going to happen still.

I definitely had a few bosses get exasperated with me about this, at first thinking I was just lazy and then becoming super annoyed when they realised I needed some stuff explained to me step-by-step.

tbh I still don’t understand how it’s supposed to work if you’re not giving exact instructions - you’ll never get exactly what you want!

Maybe this is part of why I actually appreciate legalese as much as I do, sure there are still things unsaid and things between the lines, but they stand out much more to me because of the sort of negative space they take up. If that makes any sense at all?

Quick sensory exploration/reassociasion(?) update:
- I got some noise-cancelling earbuds today, they definitely make some background noises less sharp, but they help nothing for sudden sounds which are my biggest shock. Better than nothing though!
- I have a patch of dry skin on the back of my shoulder rn and it feels SO AWKWARD as my vest moves over it! I’m finding I can open up my senses pretty quickly but shutting them off again is sloooooooow, deliberate dissociation is tough :(

- I tried opening up to listen to the cars and all the birds on the street. It was… kind of cool? Some engines were very unpleasant as they passed and I had to recoil, but I started to be able to distinguish different types of engines and even noticed one car had a high frequency rattle hidden in its brum, it probably needs checking but I can’t catch up to a car to let the driver know lol.

Overall, it’s definitely a lot, and I am very aware that when I’m actually listening to my body I look pretty uh… well, let’s just say it’s not something you get in the habit of doing when you’re masking.

However, alongside the rougher parts there was really beautiful stuff too, there were little spots of rain that looked like diamonds as they hit the concrete just before fading. I’m glad I’m rediscovering my senses.

An addendum though: hypersensitivity issues are often associated with autism, but many autistic people have no sensory issues, or hyposensitivity.

This is stuff in my autism thread, but that’s because it’s *my* autism thread. Autistic traits and experiences are diverse!

Also I don’t want to lend weight to the “autism is a superpower” idea some people have, I’m sure with focus most people could notice what I can, probably without the discomfort.

Just been told that mastodon doesn’t have a thread muting feature yet, so I’m switching to a collapsed CW so at least the posts are shorter.

tbh I don’t think most of what I’m talking about needs a CW but I this is probably just most convenient for now

Every sense itches this morning, it’s super overwhelming and I don’t know how to turn it back off. If I touch something I don’t like it feels like the sensation is stuck to my skin for a while afterwards.

How the fuck did I deal with this when I was just a child??? It’s no wonder I was so hesitant and reserved about everything.

I am still glad I tried to open back up and listen to what my body is saying, since I understand myself a lot better, but also BITCH, SHUT UP.

“Oh, being non-verbal is a super rare thing for me personally, it’s only when I’m beyond stressed and overwhelmed that I can’t talk at all”

Then part-way into this video I see every discarded patron video and every moment where I’ve had to bail out of a stream.

Anyway really informative!

https://youtu.be/V3iqUAo0IeQ

“How the fuck did I deal with this when I was just a child?”

The instinct came back and I remembered - I lie in bed with my head between two pillows for a long time.

So I was going to post about my frustration at myself for masking as soon as I spoke to someone immediately after deciding not to do that, but then I thought about it for a while and I think I only did it to make them comfortable. which is fine so long as it’s not making me uncomfortable.

Then I realised that’s just… what I’ve been doing for a few years now anyway? Weird to think you’ve got shit to figure out but it’s already done.

I guess there is still a subtle change, to know that it’s okay to allow myself to deviate from the Standard Human Script if I feel comfortable doing it. Before I stuck to it because I thought I was supposed to, now I guess I’ll do it just because I want to make interactions with me easier for other people.

As for what I look like when not masking, rn it involves a loooot of stims. I think a fair amount of them are tics mimicking stims of others, buuuuuut I know some are mine when they hit just right and it’s like, ice cream as a motion? If that makes sense?

Sensory perception is so fucking weird, I was just thinking “holy shit did a bug bite me, or did I rub against some nettles?” - nope, it was just a clothes label. I don’t think a label has bothered me for a long time, and this label has never bothered me. But now my body is all “oh you’re listening now? Let me tell you all about my constant agony.”

Genuinely thought I didn’t practice facial expressions, but I just caught myself doing it and realised it’s not that uncommon at all. I wonder how much about myself I’m still totally oblivious about because it’s just been there in the background for so long.

There’s a pretty overwhelming thought about how I’ve noticed myself mimicking behaviours of autistic people that I’ve seen since so saturating my time with research.

It triggers imposter syndrome where I wonder if I’m not autistic, I just have this habit of copying people’s behaviour and adopting it without thinking.

Then I realise that’s like, autistic.

Which is really awkward when thinking about my identity, I don’t know what behaviour is my own? Most of the new stuff is likely just copied, but also most of the old stuff is too?

I guess that’s true for everyone to some degree though, right? I guess the behaviour that is “mine” is whichever is comfortable for me, regardless of where it comes from?

WRT the “that’s like, autistic.” above,

Specifically that’s a masking trait, one I think I developed to do unconsciously as a defence mechanism. I don’t expect it’s an especially autistic thing, rather that it was inevitable for me being autistic in a certain environment.

(Again, this is *my* autism thread so not everything will be universally applicable.)