The book is Strong Female Character by Fern Brady. There have been several occasions in the past year where friends have asked me if I was autistic and my answer was typically, “probably not.” I knew I shared certain traits with autistic friends but I thought it had to do with my anxiety problems.

By FieldExplores

  • ThorrJo ( ThorrJo@lemmy.sdf.org ) English
    3·
    9 days ago

    I made one autistic friend with a sensitivity profile similar to my own, then lived with a father & daughter (both diagnosed) with a very different profile to my own, and thru that realized that in certain ways, all of us were like peas in a pod. And then I realized many of my friends are in the same orbit.

  • subverted_per ( subverted_per@lemmy.blahaj.zone ) 
    2·
    9 days ago

    Several friends are neuro-spicy. Describing my perspective of things often got a response of how that similar to masking behaviors, or just outright “one of us.” But of course i was like, no everyone’s like that. Then i started going to therapy for other reasons, and therapist is like, “you have a lot of markers for adult add, would you like to do an assessment?” Yall ive been rawdogging add my whole life.

    • bowroat ( bowroat@infosec.pub ) English
      2·
      8 days ago

      This similar loop for me also led to something I had been overlooking; interacting with “my people” was more than just relaxing a mask, I was missing how restorative it was to interact with them.

      I know I blurt things out and interrupt and have built procedures to moderate that. Then when I see a specific sibling and we both get so excited we are almost shouting, interrupting one another, and finishing each-others sentences it feels good to be able to live life for that moment in my “natural state”.