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@calidris

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I did?

Ok it sounds vaguely familiar but I’d forgotten all about that XD

Yes honey you absolutely did and it was honestly such brilliant advice that it stuck with me XD

@lady-grace

Wait.. that ain’t normal?
*reads through everything* hmm… *goes to looks up symptoms* Wait a minute… I’ve wondered if e-n-leonard was “neurosparkly” (awesome smash btw) but me? Nevereerrr which seems to be a reoccurring theme here so that argument is invalid XD

Okay, I’ve seen it explained this way! Autistic people have a lot of traits that NT’s relate to, or experience as well, it’s the degree of the traits and putting all of them together that means you’re Autistic! I once saw it explained as “okay all people bump their heads on doorframes sometimes, but it happens more to tall people. If you’re tall you’ll experience it more than a person of average height, but they might get it too! If you bump your head on a doorframe it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re tall”

Buuuttt as Calidris said, Neurodivergence runs in families, and also, every ND person is wildly different!

Like often when I’m researching I’ll stumble across an Autism trait I don’t relate to at all and instantly the overwhelming self-doubt hits me like a wave. But, you’re not trying to fill out a perfect checklist, you’re looking for patterns that match!

Also, a hard thing with figuring it out is that it isn’t something that’s usually discussed by NTs! So you either think “I’m the only person who has ever experienced this, I’m just weird” or “Everyone does this” because it’s hard to compare!

And as Calidris said, it could be even harder if multiple people in your family are kind of spectrum-y because it was completely normal. For example, my older brother is also autistic and I think a LOT of my traits were missed because autistic was basically the baseline!

Also, you always see the same kinds of presentation in media, so that’s one reason I spent so long thinking I couldn’t possibly be Autistic. So, you’ll only see the kind that are (for example) noticeably awkward in conversations, don’t understand metaphors, never make anything resembling eye contact, and stim in very specific ways.

So often when you’re researching and thinking about it you’ll figure out ‘w a i t not all people do ‘eye contact’ by looking vaguely at someone’s face instead of their eyes??’ And stuff like that! Also the constantly repeating experience of “Wait that was The Autism all along??”

Researching and looking into it, if that’s something you want to do, has never hurt anyone! Also, writing an autistic character is what made me really figure it out, so if it’s something you feel like exploring that’s always a fun way to do it!

@e-n-leonard

Yes, I’ve enjoyed it a lot, and I partially got it to force me to practice interactions with people.

Lolll such a mood, I do that all the time XD Interactions scare me but if I can anticipate it and practice beforehand I can fake neurotypicalism quite beautifully XD

Today I did a photo shoot of a sweet little Asian lady, who asked if I was Ukrainian (nope). According to her, I apparently have a Ukrainian doppelgänger who is the daughter of her friend. Probably didn’t help that my accent went wonky again today XD.

Oh that’s so cool! It sounds like a super fun job!