I’m going to go out and say it. I’m going to stop worrying that I’m appropriating, that I’m a hypochondriac. I’m going to stop worrying about the people who think you have to be diagnosed when you’re three or it’s not real. Or that you have to be male. Or you have to do X or Y behavior and you can’t do this or that or whatever. Or that you can’t have developed any coping mechanisms to help you pass.
I’m going to say that, all things considered, it’s the diagnosis that makes the most sense, that makes me the happiest and describes me best.
Because I do things, and am things. Maybe these aren’t all autistic things, but these things are me.
I can’t form interpersonal relationships. Or, well, I can. But I’ve done it roughly… twice? In my whole life. And it was hard. Because I can’t take social cues and I can’t understand the context of conversations and relationships and I can’t nurture and grow connections with people because I straight up don’t know what I’m doing. It’s like I am one machine, and people are the other machine, and we just are not compatible unless you’re one of the few special people who has the adapter. This makes understanding the few people that I do entirely beautiful.
Again, I don’t take context. I don’t take cues or understand unspoken things. People tell me things, like that they know people like me, or that they know someone is joking, or that they know whateverthehell about whatever situation, and I don’t see it. Other people see in social situations things that are simply invisible to me, that I just can’t pick up.
I learn my social interaction. It is an art to me, something that I actively think about, actively study- by watching and observing the actions of other people, and mimicking them- and am only capable of preforming as, well… a performance. I take my phrases, I take my attitudes, I take my everything from the people around me and string them together with my own thoughts into conversation as best I can. I fuck up a lot.
I mimic like shit. Seriously, I pretty much am a mirror for people. I echo how people talk and how they act and all of that. I latch onto new dialects and ways of speaking and use them in my stock phrases, use them as templates for how I talk. I even do it on the internet- to a lesser extent, but still to a degree. Thanks to this, Yo Is This Racist made the way I type entirely awesome. When I’m not talking like a lolcat.
I have interests that are intense as hell. Seriously. Cats. My blog is Grimalkin my boy name is Kit after a nickname Kitty and I have drawn, crocheted, programmed and metal-cast cats. Numerous times. I like to meow.
Speaking of meowing, I like to stim. I stim vocally. I sing, endlessly, out loud, and apparently it’s awesome to hear. I do it because it makes me feel good, physically. I sing and hum when I’m feeling hurt, or sick, or sad, because the feeling of the vibrations make me feel better. I just like to make noise.
When I’m nervous, I have to be moving my hands. They will grab anything and play with it.
I move weird. I position myself weird. The most comfortable way for me to stand and walk is with one hand down at my side and the other bobbed up in front of me. I become very conscious of how I walk around people and make deliberate movements. It’s not usually possible for me to “just” walk around- I have to think about how I’m carrying myself and how I’m walking.
I like to just get up and move, sometimes. No, not like- I have to. Sometimes I have to get up and go downstairs and come back up just to be happy. Not do anything, just leave where I am and go somewhere and then come back. Mainly when I’m thinking or excited.
I cannot function with schedules. Apparently this actually is the opposite of what Autistic people are, but I’m listing it here anyways. Seriously, schedules and routines just straight up do not and never have worked for me. Not with planners nor alarms or… anything.
Also, I hate facial expressions. I apparently always need to be smiling? I think that smiling looks like when animals bare their teeth, and eye contact similarly looks like an animal threat. I do both because they are expected but enjoy neither.
I am a lot more things than all of that, I’m sure. But that’s all that I can think to list.
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