#rereading doesn't make it any less intense for me ig

[obizenyukii]

this scene had me on the brink of extinction

and the bonus:

[ironmanstan]

hi rohan how did u figure out u were autistic? p much all of my irl friends (who are nearly all autistic, if it's of any relevance) think i am, and i relate to all the diagnostic criteria, but i feel like i "can't" be because i don't know if i did some of the common autistic experiences (practicing facial expressions in the mirror, the feeling that everyone else got a manual on social stuff and you didn't, idk if i get meltdowns, not understanding figurative speech or idioms, etc) and i can't tell if it's because they presented differently in me or if i'm just not autistic. i know i have sensory issues, i know i stick to routines a lot (but i don't get anxious when they're interrupted? i don't like it, but i deal with it), i know my tone of voice is very flat, i know i shut down if i'm in a social situation where i don't know what i'm supposed to do (which doesn't happen often, but it has happened), i know i have intense, specific interests, but i also have adhd so they could just be hyperfixations, i know i relate to hyperlexia, though i don't enough about it to comfortably say i was hyperlexic, i know that, as previously mentioned, nearly all of my friends are autistic (and the ones that aren't are adhd) and so i definitely get along better with nd people than nt ones, i know my brother is autistic, if that's of any relevance, and i took a lot of the tests on embrace-autism and consistently scored past the thresholds, but i don't "feel autistic," i guess? there's a sense of alienation from my peers present, but i've lived in a very white area my entire life so it could just be from that, and i don't know that it's all that intense. i'm generally both easy-going and a bit oblivious, so i'm often "in my own world," plus my episodic memory is absolutely horrid, so i have no clue if i miss social cues. this is getting very long so i'm going to cut this off here, but if you have any advice, it'd be appreciated, and if you guess which one of ur mutuals this is, please give me the guise of anonymity. thank you and so sorry for the absolute monster this ask is

(Dw anon I understand you’re on anon for a reason I would never try to discover your identity <3. [and sorry if you’re one of my mutuals i haven’t responded to dms for ive just been all over the place and busy latelykjhdkfdg])

Hellooo, thank you for the ask! This is a long ask and gonna be a long answer. I also haven’t edited this a whole lot outside of rereading it a few times, and I apologize if I have some very long blocks of text in this but I did my best to break it up, so ig buckle in for that lol. I'm not gonna get too personal bc again public tumblr post but i'll do my best to help ya.

Ig ill start by saying how i figured out i was autistic? And then my opinions on autism and diagnosis criteria of it and it being diagnosed in general bc I have a Lot of thoughts on this, I used to hyperfixate on psychology for a while lmao but I am a teen and I am no expert, I just feel my thoughts on some things alongside my thoughts on my own autism might be relevant here.

Honestly i relate to what you're saying a lot anon, I didn't feel a disconnect between myself and other people for a long time, and even when I did a lot of the time it could be chalked up to racism or being surrounded by people who treated me weirdly for being mixed, or it could be chalked up to me just being a gullible kid, or living in a toxic/abusive household and not knowing how to relate to people who didn't. For years and years I thought "oh this is just how it is."

I think making friends was a real turning point for me, because those were people who acknowledged my weirdness but didn't turn me away because of it. Unsurprisingly, most of my closest friends and partners are/have been neurodivergent in some way, which I think chalks up to me being more comfortable around people who I'm understood by. And me, having autism, ig being less put off by people not conforming to social rules and being "weird" bc that's how i am, and if anything, i think it makes it easier for me to connect to others.

The biggest thing after gaining friends that pushed me into realizing I was autistic, was learning what masking is. Masking is the act of hiding your symptoms and presenting yourself as neurotypical in social situations so as to not alienate yourself and to keep up with a situation that does not accommodate you. A lot of autistic people mask without realizing it, thinking that everybody has to work harder to pick up on social cues, everybody studies social situations even in the most minor of ways, everybody mirrors the people around them to try and keep conversation flowing without issue, everyone has responses to conversations mapped out in their head, almost like a script, everybody jokes constantly because having a reaction of laughter and being seen as quirky and eccentric is better than getting told you're too quiet or you're weird, everybody feels extremely anxious in new social situations because they have no plan for this and don't have a mask prepared.

Right?

Social issues are also present in ADHD but whilst social issues in ADHD stem from a lack of ability to focus on conversation and invest in something that may or may not give the dopamine hit ADHD forces you to seek out, autism is the act of being thrown in water and being told to swim without experience. Some of us remain calm and realize we can float, even if it takes all our stamina, and some of us sink to the bottom, needing help and accommodation to pull us out. Autism is a spectrum and not having some symptoms or presenting them in different ways from other autistic people doesn't always mean you are not autistic.

I think the idea that you must feel a sense of disconnect between yourself and others socially heavily relies on having ties to others in the first place. Someone who has no close friends growing up is not going to be able to weigh this accurately. The other issue is that a lot of the time you never look at yourself and think you are socializing incorrectly because the way you socialize is going to be what you think is normal. I didn't realize my voice can be largely monotonous at times when I forget to mask until my friends pointed it out. Now I know I don't mask my voice when I'm most comfortable. I only fake having a "normal" voice due to being seen as unfeeling, cold/angry, and emotionless by people who do not enjoy my "weirdness".

Figuring out the social differences between yourself and others I think is the hardest thing to weigh. You have to look at yourself very hard and unravel layers of: questioning if you are masking, figuring out who you as a person truly are and how you truly act when you are you're most comfortable, and then questioning if how you act is how society believes most people act, or if you fall on the wayside.

I also think unconsciously, neurotypicals can notice when somebody isn't like them, which leads to a lot of autistic people being bullied or othered or seen as extremely weird whether it be for showing affection "strangely", or emoteing "strangely". For example there's often a sentiment autistic people are either not emotional enough, or overly emotional. Or both, depending on the situation (someone having a meltdown or autistic shutdown and being overly emotional vs that same person in their day-to-day not knowing how to express gratitude outside of a monotonous "thank you"). On the flipside, I think autistic people also sometimes get a sense that neurotypical people are different from us, and if we get this sense, it leads us to over-perform, trying to live up to this same status of baseline ability everybody else seemingly already knows how to get to. We as autistic people do not know how to be neurotypical though, leading some of us to be overly observant of other people's behaviors, even if we interpret them incorrectly. This over-observance alone is something I think most neurotypical people would not do, what reason do they have to study their social partners? A more concrete example of this (which's a little funny to me) is how when I was younger and didn't know how to speak to people online I once lurked in a discord server of people who I'd later become friends with, for a year straight, because it was the first real space where i could actually see other people have conversations and bond, and I could figure out how they did it so I could follow in their footsteps and do the same. This line of actions and thought is where the "born without the same manual everyone else was given" sentiment comes from, though it isn't a required experience.

Even sensory issues aren't a required experience, but a lot of us still have them. Sensory issues, stims, tics, things like dyscalculia and dyslexia, flat affects, general monotony. All comorbidities common with autism but not required. Thank you actually for bringing up hyperlexia bc that was a term I did not know prior to this lmao.

Low and high empathy, two of these common things found in autistic people, are funny. Because the way they are measured is always measured against a neurotypical sense of empathy. Like, with low empathy, it strikes me as similar to loveless aromantics being contrasted against alloromantic people. With loveless aromanticism you have that wedge between yourself and the term “love”, even though you may still care for people and even be affectionate towards them, you do not see “love” as something required or necessary because you experience attachments different to most people or you've been ostracized for feeling love but not in a romantic sense. Empathy in autistic people I feel is similar. Empathy is something I can feel in some ways, in small doses, in specific situations, but I feel a strange disconnect with it. And I think a lot of neurotypical people take this as a sign of coldness, detachment, emotional unavailability, and conveniently forget sympathy exists. Or even just do not process that not having empathy, or sympathy, isn’t a bad thing or something that makes you lack the ability to care about others and want them to be doing well (which leads to the demonization of people with ASPD/sociopathy).

It’s even funnier to me considering this, that a lot of autistic people are aromantic or asexual. I think that fact is less due to us just straight up “not understanding social situations to the point of being aro/ace” because that’s just not how that works. Instead I think it’s similar to how a lot of autistic people are also trans. Because we do not understand social norms we feel less beholden to them, and discovering our neurodivergence means being introspective already, and introspection and being okay with what you find is what’s necessary to discover you’re something most of society will misunderstand. And aro/aceness is something that is both heavily misunderstood, and not widely spoken about. Aro/aceness not only breaks down the social norm of heteronormativity, but also allonormativity.

The difference between hyperfixation and special interests are also something not widely known about, with a lot of people conflating the two. Over time I think I've come to understand the difference, but not every autistic person will agree with me and some may view it as completely different from how I see it, which is perfectly ok, we all have our own views and I'm not against hearing those alternative to my own.

To me, hyperfixations are fixations that are destined to leave eventually, and aren't necessarily part of your identity. I think the confusion usually stems from how a lot of people say spins (special interests) are something lifelong that can fade and pop back up, and are core to your identity, when hyperfixations can mirror this in a way. With hyperfixations, I think any interest you have is in some way going to stick with you forever. You are typically going to look at a show you liked as a kid and still feel some fondness or attachment to it. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it will become a core part of your identity. Hyperfixations are also something that people get for different reasons than spins I think. Hyperfixations source from the brain’s need for dopamine, and so it finds something to cling to, getting that hit of dopamine, and then dropping it for the next thing. If the hyperfixation happened to be something in line with your other interests, it makes sense to come back to it or have it crop back up over and over as a fresh hyperfixation.

With autism, I feel spins line up more with how I think autistic people are more likely to kin characters. I think a lot of autistic people struggle with recognizing their autism because even if we are introspective, a lot of the time it’s hard for us to understand what we find in ourselves, especially if we have no tangible example to relate our experiences to. I think this is why a lot of people who kin tend to be autistic, understanding the traits we see in ourselves when they are represented in a character we like makes understanding ourselves that much easier. It also I think makes some of us feel strange seeing other people kin characters we kin, because in a way it loops back around, and we end up feeling personally bonded to or related to that character, since we see ourselves so strongly in them. It’s the same with spins in a way, I feel. The distinction I make with spins is that even if they fade, they will always come back at one point or another, because they are core to my identity. JJBA, I think classifies as a spin for me, between the art style being something I heavily enjoy, comics being something I’m heavily interested in, and the characters being either relatable to me or just causing me immense pain lmao, all these things make it a very core interest of mine where, if you know me, you’ve 100% heard me talk about it at least once. Hyperfixations may leave lasting effects sure but spins I’ve always seen as something core to you, something that relate to who you are as a person and what you enjoy and often stick with you forever because of that, unless somehow you change into an entirely different person or simply grow out of the things that made it a spin for you in the first place.

Routine is also something not necessary to the autistic experience, but I think a lot of people misunderstand what routine means in an autistic context. Routine to most usually means doing things on a schedule, certain things at certain times. To someone with autism though, routine can be a plethora of things. Routine to me is when I, in the back of my head, tell myself that I will work for a few hours and then play games for a few hours so I can keep myself on track and get something done when I am low energy/do not have enough spoons. Routine to me means having rituals and orders in which I do things because I’m used to them and doing something different feels unnecessarily strange and kind of uncomfortable. It means cleaning my room and getting water every time I call somebody because it just makes me feel more comfortable and if I don’t get a chance to do this I feel strange. It means going to the same places in video games constantly because they’re familiar. It means watching the same movies over and over when i feel bored because familiarity, routine, is what I know and what is comfortable. It means getting stressed when I don’t talk to the people I regularly talk to for too long, it means getting stressed when new people or people I don’t usually talk to start messaging me. It means feeling stressed when my cat passes away because now my routine at night has changed, she will not sleep next to me and I do not need to make a space for her by my side (even then, unconsciously I still do sometimes). It means eating the same foods for a week straight because you need something to cling to and nothing else feels right except for this and everything else feels off or bad or just not up to par. It means listening to the same song for a week straight not even for the sensory input anymore but because you need something you know so you don’t need to expect something new. It means planning out calls with friends or outings because not knowing what to expect stresses you out. It’s doing the same things in a stupid way over and over again even if something else is more efficient because doing something else means changing and change is stressful and sometimes harder than whatever you’re already doing.

Routine is something that exists because it helps ground us. Not because all autistic people particularly need to have schedules or something (though some do), but expecting something to happen helps ease us out of the pain change brings with it. It also doesn’t necessarily mean shutting down or melting down when change does happen. Personally, since I also have PTSD which also affects my mood, I’m more likely to get angry, anxious, and frantic, when change happens, whilst someone else might be mildly annoyed, and someone else could be upset to the point of tears. Autism is a spectrum.

Autism also isn't something to be gatekept. Autism has been under-diagnosed in afab people and people of color and largely only been studied in white amab people, leading most autism diagnoses to be delivered with this in mind, making it extremely hard for non-white non-amab people to be officially diagnosed. There's also a large sense of… idk what to call it… purity culture? On tumblr. Which i believe (amongst other tumblr dramas, such as slur discourse and the like) is caused by white people. What I'm talking about is the opinion that doctors know best above all and doing such things as seeking a second opinion or believing what you think, over a doctor, is some heinous crime. Meanwhile black afab people and indigenous people are often medically abused by their doctors, an act steeped in a lot of history people like to forget about. (tw in the link for anti-black racism and details about medical operations and malpractice)

All of this leads to my next point, this artificial difficulty around receiving a diagnosis, and the discrimination that you can go through for having a diagnosis, leads me to believe autism is something that isn't bad to self diagnose. I think self diagnosis often gets the stereotype of being attributed to young teens who want to be quirky, but nobody seriously keeping up with saying they have a disorder is going to fake it for years. Teens have said stupider things and done stupider things than lie about having ADHD on twitter. If autism sounds like something you genuinely have and you do not have the privilege to get diagnosed (bc i didn't even mention the costs for diagnosis) and if recognizing the issues you have and finding coping mechanisms or at least a sense of community would help you reclaim this piece of yourself and help you move forward in your life feeling like you know yourself better, than i think by all means, claim the label. Labels can change, people can be misdiagnosed even officially, it's your life, do not let anyone but yourself dictate how you should see yourself. I hope this helped ^__^ good luck <3

Also, an edit: autism and other neurodivergencies are extremely genetic. If you or a sibling is neurodivergent, chances are one of your parents or grandparents is. Therefore the chance of you also being neurodivergent in some way significantly raises. A lot of the time when a child is diagnosed with ADHD its recommended for their parents to get screened for it because of how likely it is that one of them has it, that stays true for autism, I don't know to what extent however.