Mastodawn

@Some_Person It wouldn't surprise me if you are autistic with these things you've described. I've done *a lot* of research and self-diagnosed. We have a good little autistic community on here that talks about this stuff a lot.

I think "special interests" are often talked about in a very confusing way. They definitely manifest differently for different people. I think it's more about a type of focus and fixation rather than having one specific special interest.

https://www.theautisticadvocate.com/2018/07/masking-i-am-not-ok.html?m=1

@Some_Person You may benefit from reading about masking, which can help people appear non-autistic in social situations.

I've also realized for myself that communication and language/languages are actually a special interest of mine, which had helped me with masking, sometimes even in ways that aren't too tiring.

If you check out the #ActuallyAutistic hashtag here and on Twitter you can talk to Autistic people and see if you relate. If you don't that's fine too!

Here's an article on masking.

I don't have a ton of links on hand, but @stackingstones and @tmorizot always seem to have good resources

Masking: I am not OK

A blog about Autism, Neurodiversity, being Autistic and a parent of Autistic children.

🌻🌼🌱

@Laura_I @stackingstones @tmorizot is it not the norm to rehearse a conversation a couple of times before you speak??? I often have to do it when I have to be polite. My family members often got mad at me for being rude as a child so now I just don't talk in situations where politeness is important and people just assume I'm shy which is more socially acceptable. With people my age it's not as much of a problem because what I do is not seen as rude as often.

@Some_Person @stackingstones @tmorizot

I don't think so? I do it a lot though.

A lot of figuring out I'm Autistic is "wait not everyone does this thing?"

It's hard to know what everyone else does and how their brain works, so a lot of times we don't notice these differences.

Scott Morizot

@Some_Person @Laura_I @stackingstones Sigh. My experience is that most people would say that's not what they do and it seems a little strange to them.

The past three years I've discovered almost every single autistic person I've encountered does precisely that just as I always have.

So "the norm" is relative. The norm for which group?

cyborgneticz Mar 18, 2019

@Some_Person @Laura_I @stackingstones @tmorizot I have really bad anxiety, so I rehearse conversations especially if they are ones I am going to be stressed about.