#and then became even moreso when i showed how my fingers bend backwards unreasonably far when i try to use the traditional grip bc hEDS

[blvckleg]

dude growing up in the early 2000s with "female presenting" autism was crazy bc doctors and teachers saw a hyperlexic 5 year old speaking in complex sentences who wouldnt go into public bathrooms w the automatic flush toilets and air hand dryers bc i would literally drop everything to slam my hands over my ears bc it was way too loud and also held a pencil with a weird caveman-toddler grip naturally and did not grow out of it and they basically said huh! well that ones a lil weird but she makes eye contact and doesnt bite people NEARLY enough to be autistic. LIKE BRO. theres pictures of me as a baby doing my favorite stim and everyone just thought it was a fun lil quirk of mine and i was a weird ass only child or smth idk. i know hindsight is 20/20 and all but those all feel like some fairly obvious signs so i can only gather that autism awareness among ppl who worked w kids in the 2000s genuinely was that abysmal and limited to nonverbal high support needs people who also have developmental delays/profound autism, which is absolutely a portion of the autistic population but also very much not the majority??? im just like. literally HOW were zero dots connected until my late teens