Thread; A few things have been bubbling through my head while scrolling through Twitter recently about community, identity, engagement and being #ActuallyAutistic on this site. Bear with me as this may be a bit disjointed. 1/
Recently I have seen friends be attacked for not following a particular line. I was attacked because others don't like someone I am friends with and I have seen people worry that they don't fit in, because they don't have all the same traits as someone else. 2/
I count myself as lucky. I have a handful of wonderful friends offline who I can go months without talking to, and then just pick up again as if we spoke every day. I find constant communication with people quite hard though. 3/
Twitter is good for that. I have people on here who I would class as friends. People I will support and a community of sorts. I know others can struggle with that though. It can cause them to seek out communities which unfortunately end up being quite toxic. 4/
Reason I added #ActuallyAutistic to the initial point, despite it being something which can affect anyone, is because I saw a post off a wonderful, kind, person worrying about imposter syndrome because they don't have the same trait as a lot of other autistic individuals. 5/
It was this coupled with other things that got my mind working. I'm "lucky" I have a formal diagnosis. Even so I still question it at times because I don't fit neatly into the stereotypical box for being autistic. 6/
I have no "superpowers". I'm not rainman. I'm just average. I'm happy with that, but there is a presumption that all autistic individuals have to act the same way, and frankly we really don't. The spectrum is more of a pick and mix scatter graph than a straight line. 7/
I also saw people being attacked by the followers of someone who I can only describe as a hashtag variant of Nurse Ratched, because they dared to criticise the methods that person was applying. 8/
All that said, Twitter has helped me find a community of people I trust, something I struggle with. That has made it difficult when at times people within that community turn out to be less than trustworthy, but overall the positives outweigh the negatives. 9/
What is important though, in my opinion, is remembering that people online are still just people. We will agree and disagree, often with friends, on some things but not others. Just because you disagree it doesn't make you "the enemy". 10/
None of us, if we are truly honest, will conform in absolutely every way to someone else. We are all unique and have different thoughts. Some online communities get that. Some gate keep to such an extent that the slightest deviation means vilification. 11/
It's a wishful thought, but a bit more understanding. A bit more tolerance. A bit less instinctive defensiveness and going on the attack, and we'd all be a bit more comfortable and relaxed on here, and maybe actually learn things and gain new viewpoints. 12/
Finding an identity can be really useful in helping us develop confidence. My main point here though is that our identities are as individual as ourselves and we should never think we have to blindly conform to others ideas just to fit in. 13/
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