Thread by @amyhoy

a friend of mine — an adult woman — recently told me, “i’m autistic.” she just got her diagnosis in her 30’s.

i was blown away; never would’ve expected.

and THEN she sent me some stuff and said, “i think you’ll find it familiar 💜”

me:

the first round of stuff she sent me didn’t resonate. i never had imaginary friends! i was never actually shy!

but then i did some more digging and uh

i’m definitely autistic

and nobody ever suggested it to me, which is SUPER COMMON

so i made a massive youtube playlist, because it’s one thing to read A List Of Traits and say “yes no no no yes no guess not” — it’s another to see & hear women & nb people describing their personal experience

which is very very like mine

youtube.com/playlist?list=…

you can be autistic and really driven to be with people and talk (maybe too much) and look & sound confident and not get hung up on literal interpretations of metaphorical speech and still be AUTISTIC

i didn’t know this. maybe you didn’t either! but now we do.

i didn’t know that hyper-empathy is actually an autistic trait, and definitely one that causes problems for me

https://twitter.com/jbaker_author/status/1189390133906345985?s=21

i have often wondered outloud why i don’t have “whatever it is that makes other people rush to take care of you” and i’m pretty sure that’s it.

https://twitter.com/c1994o/status/1188448840208261120?s=21

i didn’t know that some autistic people “mask” — learn NT social skills either by observation and failure (me!) or even straight-up copying other kids when they’re young.

someone described masking as running endless Social Math in their brain.

https://twitter.com/autistmakingway/status/1180315911326068737?s=21

i’m actually very good at Social Math and reading micro-expressions and all that jazz, and my “mask” is more of a translation layer than a carefully tended front (lol nobody ever accused me of being carefully tended)

but it’s still exhausting! i do as little as possible!

i’m not going to bother trying to get a Dx bc it’s hard to find a specialist for adults, it’s expensive, and won’t get me anything!

but it’s nice to really understand not just how i am, but why

so i can be even more myself

fin

PS: i actually got an ADHD diagnosis recently and that’s definitely helped!

ADHD travels with autism and some people think it’s the same disorder