#which again is why i am like almost dead serious when i jokingly call Kabru my kinny skdkfkfkkck

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Silly but the DūnM3sh nonsense around the last episode has me thinking about how like idk mostly white autistic folks (of the vairety who are not in need of higher assistance) online act like ALL autistic folks exhibit the exact same symptoms and behaviors in social settings when like I find mostly other poc and a lot of women regardless of race have very different experiences with the sort of "stereotypical" reaction and behavior that's most often associated with autism. Which leads to a lot of you assuming we are neurotypical and then this line of thinking extends into your reading of autistic characters, be they headcanons or canon characters. Rest of this is going under a read more

Like idk for a poc, theres already very little grace given to us in social situations, especially when around white people. You guys dont realize but we are consistently aware that no matter what, when we enter a space with y'all there will always be an internal bias present in white people that will deem any behavior of confrontation as inherently aggressive or mean.

So we learn to navigate social situations with an already high level of need to analyze so many of the behaviors and cues of the people around us out of complete necessity. Neurodivergency or not, this becomes a matter of survival. And for some people, like me, the need to do this and possibly avoid and save yourself the pain of having people who's racism is a potential harm to you becomes a priority in your brain more than anything else you have going on. You cant completely shut everything else out about your neurodivergency but you learn enough to keep yourself safe. It's what I was forced to learn when I was like 5-13 because I was relentlessly bullied for my race and ethnicity, and later for my incapacity to not understand certain social cues or even break rules until I was about 12/13.

I'm not completely without symptoms and if anything some of them have gotten worse. I struggle now with knowing when to stop talking until I notice people start looking bored or annoyed and I sometimes dont talk enough for fear of being annoying to people I'm close to. Not to mention I'm ALWAYS double checking what I say in a way that's almost like a compulsion. Like constantly, to the point where before I say something with say like factual information, I like quadruple plus plus check everything on Google before I say it (and even then I might get shit wrong and my reaction to that is....oh boy). And even then I sometimes end up not saying anything because I'm too scared I said something wrong and mislead or upset someone. Or worse, this information is unwarranted and annoying.

If anything I'm someone who's neurodivergency made them OVER COMPENSATE the need to pick up on social cues, eye contact, sociability, etc because it was a way to defend myself (by making it harder to pick on me without push back) or keep myself safe.

But at the end of the day the constant need to keep up with ALL of this burnt me out by the time I was in college and it made me incapable of masking very many noticeable things anymore, especially my over sensory and stimming when I'm stressed (which isnt helped by the fact that I have synesthesia), the anxiety it produces, and ultimately that it leads me to having a panic attack and has me in the place I am now where that shame of freaking out in loud spaces gave me agoraphobia. Now my threshold for "neurotypical behavior" is like SIGNIFICANTLY shorter when I leave my house.

And I constantly apologize for sharing information when I do. Like I have it instilled in me now to say sorry for information I share because I think I'm bothering people. And my capacity to understand jokes is flawed if the person I'm talking to isnt someone I'm consistently around because I haven't completely been able to process the way they speak or their sense of humor. I sometimes take jokes that are lies, unreality, or sarcasm as literal and people have to say "oh no I was joking I made that up".

When I first meet people I'm actually told I'm way too quiet and kind of intimidating because I guess people can sense that I'm analyzing them like a lil computer and I look them in the eyes TOO much. Funnily enough one of my close friends in high school didnt like me very much at firsy because she asked me if I liked her after very little time of being introduced and I straight up said no without much thought as to why that would offend her alskdkdmkfkd but after a while of getting to know her more, we got close, and like most people, after a while they say I seem pretty "normal" and "nice".

And this isnt even touching on my emotional responses and my horrible rejection sensitivity. That would make this even longer. But the one thing I'll say is it's made my relationship with my family VERY bumpy, and especially tumultuous when young, and it's something they struggle to understand still A LOT.

And outside of situations where I cant mask anymore from exhaustion, I get why it's sort if unsurprising to me when I've met white autistic folks who mistakenly assume I'm neurotypical because I can just navigate conversations with a sheen of "normalcy" (and lol racism), until we talk and they're like oh shit I get it now (usually white people with ADHD can pick up on my neurodivergency much faster which is funny lol) where as other people of color with adhd/autism dont ever make that assumption, they just get it. They pick up on ME analyzing them and we just look at each other like 🧍‍♂️🧍‍♀️