#[nate bargatze voice] but while you're at it. what is 'a lot'? how much is 'a normal amount' to pee at night??

[small-strong-bookish-butch]

Y'know, for being a test designed for autistic people to take and self-score, the RAADS test sure has confusing language

I thought there should be a "I don't understand the question enough to answer (because I'm taking the question and answer too literally)" button at least 8 times, and the test has 80 questions total

The test: do you use [the analogy of] a stack of notecards or a filing cabinet and flip through them to recall your memories in your head?

Me: No, I don't do that! [can't remember how I do recall memories]

The test: Do you feel similar emotions as the characters when you're watching a TV show or movie?

Me: Sometimes? Like I don't really get it when people are straight or very emotionally stable, but like, I guess I do other times

The test: I only talk to people who share my speciifc special interests

Me: kind of, but no? I like talking to people who know about brain weirdness and queerness more, but I do talk to straight people and strangers when I need to. If I only talked to people who were only interested in what I'm interested in, I wouldn't ever talk to anyone else about niche books I like

The test: how food feels in my mouth is more important than flavor to me

Me: No!! Because if it's a bad flavor that I can't stand (i.e. peppers) that's very important and I can't eat it. Checkmate ✅😎 [emoji description: green checkmark and sunglasses emoji]

The test: I get highly confused when someone interrupts me when I am talking about something I am very interested in.

Me: Do I? I don't know if I do. I guess I don't think about getting confused, because the point gets across that they're trying to talk about something else at the moment and that that means I'm supposed to stop talking about my thing

The test: I have a normal rhythm when I speak

Me: Now what the hell is this all about? Is this something I should be aware of? Is this something people comment on in normal conversation that I'm not aware of?? Do I possibly have a normal speech rhythm and no one has thought to mention it to me??

The test: I can make small talk with people

Me: Yeah I can, but like, it feels like nails scraping on a chalkboard, so does that count? I physically am able to do it but I much prefer not to

Me: Much of my experience with autism is being able to do social and psychological things and burning myself out, and figuring things out from many years of watching people, and preferring to not to do things that cause burnout, but I'm unsure how to stop doing them at this point. That's kind of my whole problem about this, actually

The test: I can tell when someone says one thing but means something else.

Me: what 👏 is 👏 this 👏 all 👏 about 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏? [emoji description: hand clapping emojis between each word and several at the end of the sentence] If this means 'I can tell when someone doesn't want to be talking to me currently', then yes, absolutely. If this means sarcasm, I can figure it out most of the time based on other context clues. If this means someone being passive aggressive, then yes, that's how I was raised. If this means an inside joke or a cultural joke about cis people's gender that everyone is supposed to relate to, then I think that's ridiculous and it has no meaning to me.