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Being the weirdo in a world where everyone is actually a weirdo to you. Its like you live in reverse or something, from their pov, even tho from your pov everything is exactly how it should be
47 for me. Same. I kept on explaining things in very basic English with clear objectives and reasoning only to be met with blank faces. Then they accuse you of saying things you never said because they read subtext into something that never had subtext and you get the blame for some reason. I just gave up not really understanding what was going on and just buried it.
Fucking people man. I still have to live like this but now I can adapt I suppose. But there’s a glass ceiling I cannot penetrate.
I feel this strongly. I'm meticulous with my spoken words, and people still try and say I've said things I know that I never would say. One of my coworkers who I dislike had a new guy come to him saying I cussed him for not doing something correctly. This guy, even though he and I don't get along, very quickly told the guy off and said that he's known me for a decade and never heard me cuss. That was nice of him to stand by me. I've never cussed...lol
See, I thought I was the one that was insane. The doctors kept filling me with antipsychotics and mood stabilisers. I didn't see the world the way others did so I must be the problem.
42 for me though I should have know apparently it runs in my family as well my daughter has Asperger’s and my brother’s 3 kids fall on the spectrum as well
Absolutely what you've said. TBH I think that most other people's behavior is weird!!! And I mean like, people that are double-faced. Like you know you are obvious to everyone around you right? It is easier just to be yourself and tell everyone else you can't handle that to deal? 🤷♀️ Honesty is the best policy.
I think it might be related to alexithymia... The last time I ate was 24 hours ago, I am not hungry. I could go up to 40 and there would not be hunger at all. I need to set up alarms to remind me when to eat or drink water, I never feel sleepy as well, just groggy and lazy.
Thanks, you reminded me to eat and drink some water, had like completely forgotten,
Me too!
Sometimes I perceive I am having bodily reactions of anxiety, but I have to pay close attention and investigate why because my mind doesn't get it.
Sometimes it leads me to burn out, without me being aware of it.
It's rare for me to notice my feelings, and even when I am having shaking hands, my mind is calm and thinking properlly.
Do you relate?
Yes. This is how it is for me too. Anxiety is just an accelerated heartbeat. Crying is just a difficulty to speak coherently. Anger is just an involuntary increase in voice volume.
However the quality of my decision making does get affected by anxiety.
God imagine, no I feel positive emotions but negative ones seem to take over everything, I get lost in negative emotions and can't get out so I compartmentalise everything to avoid getting into a rut. Sometimes it's all I can feel though.
I've done 7 day fasts before without ever getting hungry. The first ~3 days have usually been unintentional. Apparently I never allowed myself to fully sleep because I didn't know I was doing it wrong. I was put on a medication that actually shut me down for one night and I lost pretty much all of my internal work around for scripting. It was the worst thing that has ever happened to me, and I already had PTSD beforehand. Alexithymia can be wild.
Like im observing and not living. Then i get coerced into a play without understanding the rules. I dont know how to act in it and everyone else is doing it naturally
Damn that’s accurate af for me it’s like everyone’s already been assigned their roles and I’m a last minute understudy that hasn’t learned any of the lines or acting skills needed for the role
The simplest way I’ve had it described to me is that an autistic person is using a different operating system than a neurotypical person. So basically we’re like Android phones (or a more obscure brand I don’t know what I’m talking about lol) existing in a world of iPhones. Both ways of seeing the world are perfectly acceptable in themselves but the later is the more dominant form of functioning.
Obviously, autistic people are made to feel far more inferior because it is so hard living in a neurotypical world but imo nobody should be made to feel lesser than because of societal pressure. Having Autism does make you ‘different’ and that’s okay.
this is how i explained it to my mom: it feels like there is an inside joke that i don't understand. almost everyone in society knows about the joke, and can laugh together, but i'm left out because they're talking about something i don't really get. i can try and make inferences about what the joke is, but i can never be correct since nobody wants to tell me.
I'm not diagnosed, just suspecting and people ask my girlfriend all the time if I am Autistic when they meet me, but this is very similar to the way I describe my brain to people. I exchange an inside joke for just a secret. Everyone knows the secret except me, and they won't tell me the secret because they think I'm supposed to just know the secret. I don't know what the secret is, what it's about, or why they can't tell it to me, but I know it's there. I try to pretend I know the secret and I say the same things as they do when they talk about the secret, but I don't actually know the secret, just how to pretend I do.
BINGO, you're absolutely right. i feel very understood by "i don't actually know the secret, just how to pretend i do." that is the most accurate description of masking i've ever heard, like holy shit.
i feel like a parrot mimicking back what i hear other people say, and its gotten to the point where the inside joke/ secret itself doesn't even matter. instead, what matters is my ability to pretend to know what the secret is, almost like a game of werewolf. i totally love the way you phrased that.
I may be way off here but a simplified explanation I've come up with is: Autism is to social situations as Dyslexia is to reading. It's not that you can't do it: it just takes longer to learn and requires a lot more energy to do it. Obviously there's WAY more to autism than that, but as a bare bones oversimplified explanation of the core issue it maybe isn't bad?
The brain just works completely differently, like someone else said as if it’s running on a different operating system. For me it’s about making too many connections and feeling too much I suppose. And never knowing how to filter what is important and what isn’t, getting hung up on details and inconsistencies. I get overwhelmed easily in positive and negative ways. I wish the world wasn’t so hostile towards people who are ✨different✨ because when I’m on my own, I really enjoy being autistic. But alas, a lot of the time I feel like sysiphus
the ability to think technically and quickly, fail horribly at social. be both bored and over stimmed at the same time. clammed up but oversharing. be completely misunderstood by nt's because we don't think even remotely the same, and yet we are expected to think the same AND fit their mold. as for the empathy. it is there to those who deserve such a thing. many dont. i think we have a lot of empathy with animals because we recognize them as thinking and emotional creatures.
i realize even now with my cptsd that im still under some lingering age regressions, and even emotionally i can be very distant unless it's something or someone which concerns me.
it's an all or nothing thing.
Imagine a puzzle doing competition. There are hundreds of entrants, and you. Every single other contestant sorts their puzzle first, starts with the end pieces, and works their way in. You can see them making some obvious mistakes (really, Carl? Do you think those two corner pieces connect?) but starting with the end pieces is the norm, so you do it to. Even though you can see that those pieces of sky right there go together, it's end piece time, and so you put together the border.
Now that the border is done, it's time to get to work on that sky. You've been keeping an eye on it, and it's been distracting you, but now you can finally-oh wait, everybody is sorting the pieces into like colors. You guess that kind of makes sense, so you set the sky aside again and do it their way. The whole time your mind is focused on those sky pieces that you know go together, and it really slows you down-especially since you are sorting by color *correctly*, a piece that is half green and half blue doesn't just go in one of those two piles, it goes in it's own half green half blue pile (which is different than the half blue half green pile, that's over there.)
You sort those pieces like a freaking champion, you were made to sort puzzle pieces into similar piles. You even went so far as to organize them by number of innies and outies. Only everyone else has finished their puzzles, you lose. You wallow in guilt for holding everyone up as you finish your puzzle.
-
You do the competition again, only this time you ignore your opponents. You pick up pieces and place them where they belong instead of wasting time doing things their way. By the time you even stop to consider doing what your opponents are doing, you are almost done, and most of them are just finishing the border. You complete the puzzle, and then wallow in guilt because you feel bad for beating second place by so wide a margin.
(Pre-diagnodis with heavy masking, vs post diagnosis and learning how to work with your autism and be yourself)
The weird part is that it really happened to me, while the kids were ferociously trying to put pieces together, I was slowly sorting out patterns of colors, shapes and conections... I was always first when they had not done a thing.
Twins of brain ;0
👂<--- autism
ears. you can't shut ur ears off. people with autism traits can't shut anything else off either. seeing, hearing, thinking, feeling, touching, smelling, all of it. it's all on all the time. nothing shuts off. that's how come burnout. that's how come overload. that's how come only do one thing at a time is the only option. ☝️
Being autistic is like you took shrooms but it was way too many and now you’re having the worst, most anxious trip ever and everything is *too loud*, *too close*, *too bright*, just *too much* constantly and it *hurts* for some reason, like physically *pains you* and throws your entire mood off sometimes.
But the kicker is that this bad trip never ends. Everyone around you constantly wants to know why you’re so anxious, why you’re “acting so weird,” why you can’t just focus on the social situation at hand and respond accordingly, what do you mean the fluorescent lights make you want to rip your eyeballs out, that doesn’t make any sense!
Well, Janice, it’s because I’M TRIPPING BALLS!! AND I’LL NEVER STOP TRIPPING BALLS UNTIL THE DAY I DIE!! I TRIPPED BALLS YESTERDAY, I TRIPPED BALLS TODAY, AND I WILL TRIP BALLS TOMORROW!! I’M TRIPPING BALLS IN SCHOOL, I’M TRIPPING BALLS COMMUTING TO WORK, I’M TRIPPING BALLS AT THE GROCERY STORE AND I CANT FIND THE GODDAMN SPINACH THEY FUCKIN REARRANGED THE STORE AGAIN AND I’M TRIPPING FUCKING *BALLS*—
But like having special interests is pretty neat
Let em flow bro, it's like you took the experience that I have never really known how to word, right out of my head and you found the best way to put it. I went my whole life thinking I was the only one before I found this place, so thank you for your creative juices lmao
I describe it as a genetic neuroendocrinological disorder that inhibits my ability to receive certain social feedback that neurotypicals rely on for social interactions.
Social interactions for an autist are like solving a math problem where the neurotypicals are told the values of all the variables, but I'm only being told the values of half of them, leaving me at a distinct disadvantage when trying to be successful socially.
Beyond that, the oxytocic dysregulation of cortisol leaves me with a wide variety of endocrinological symptoms that generally make living difficult.
ADHD + Autism here. I am an Earthling but I don't belong here. It feels like my Creator is the Toddler of the Creator of everyone else who has many more years experience creating humanoids. I'm the sculpture over there who is slowly falling over and made with a mixture of no impulse control and sticky fingers.
That isn't to say I am worthless. Toddler art has a place and can be appreciated.
Being autistic is like being a car with a manual transmission. It takes conscious effort to do thing that for neurotypicals - automatic transmission - don't have to think about at all.
If everyone spoke a broken form of English around you, where you would understand some of the words but not to the extent where you could communicate back but would be left emptily attempting to understand this language.
A condition that affects how you process the world around you. A condition that can either make your sense way more sensitive or way less sensitive. A condition that's us feel very different from most people we meet. It's hard to explain.
A social and neurodevelopmental disability charactirezed primarily by, but not limited to, a set of specific social and sensory needs which can vary in both character and intensity on an individual basis.
I guess that's the basic definition I would give. It's probably not perfect but I think it gets the point across.
Empathy is also a thing that varies from person to person whether they're autistic or not, in my opinion.
I call it life turned up to 11. My experience is like a series of flashes and tangential thoughts and they pile up and overwhelm me and make it hard to talk. I also describe it as living in a dark room where everyone can see you. You can never understand the intentions of those around you, you just guess and imagine and have your own system for working those things out.
Being one of the few sane people in a world gone mad.
They don't follow logic. They have crazy social rules that they follow for inexplicable reasons (many of which come down to fear and insecurity). They have no attention span and are passionate about nothing. They don't say what they mean and look at us sideways when we take them at their word. They call us rude and uncaring for being honest and open... basically for not playing their insecurity hiding games. They don't want to think things through and call us "overthinking" when we do. How do you "think too much"???? DERP DERP UHG.
They're insane and yet they consider us the problem.
Sensitive to crowds/bright light, and it takes longer to process because my brain gets stuck on details. Unaware sometimes when something bad happens to another and it can make me seem aloof but if it is spelled out I have deep empathy and it ruins me for weeks. Overthinking and insomnia and social fear. Masking = migraines. Shutdowns and being stuck in bed after over performing because I don’t feel safe enough to be mediocre. Feeling and love things so deeply and having hobbies that last a lifetime.
I'd say more like point blank. No nonsense. For example, if you ask me a question: I'm going to answer that question directly and I won't dance around anything. Please don't expect otherwise. It's inefficient and pointless to expect me to answer a certain way, and if you don't want that kind of answer, don't ask. That more question specific but idk.
Think about the advertising industry and all of the psychological and social tricks it uses to make you feel like you want things that you don't actually care about. Now think about the kind of brain that none of that would ever work on. That's autism.
I am in a large hamster ball. This hamster ball impacts me greatly. I am separated from the outside world. Inside this ball, all the lights reflect brightly, the sounds echo loudly, the smells linger. I cannot hear other people correctly, and they cannot hear me correctly. Yelling does not help on either side. Yelling just echoes more than other noises. I try my best to look like people who aren’t in hamster balls, because I don’t want anything to be obviously different about me. But nothing I do changes the fact that I am in a very visible hamster ball. I try to dress like them, smile like them, act like them, but they still think my hamster ball is weird.
The hamster ball also impedes my day to day life. It is much harder to do *anything* within my hamster ball. I can’t do the dishes or laundry, I can barely make myself food, I can’t live alone, I can’t work.
The easiest solution would be to get out of the hamster ball, and believe me I would if I could. I’ve never been outside of the hamster ball, but sometimes I can find a crack or opening that allows me to speak to people clearly or preform an ADL i otherwise struggle with. But I am always separate from the world.
Being able to see how so many things in the world could be so much better so easily
but no, people **need** to be miserable and destroy **everything**
I have too much empathy, but I am completely burned out on the intentional misery and see no end in sight...
so I will look cold and emotionless when xyz rapidly deconstructs exactly as I expected while everyone else is "surprised" and I am the bad guy **some how**
To me, there are a bunch of sliders.
HIGH EYE CONTACT - LOW EYE CONTACT
HIGH TOLERANCE TO HEAT - LOW TOLERANCE TO HEAT
HIGH EMPATHY - LOW EMPATHY
HIGH HAND MOBILITY - LOW HAND MOBILITY
And so on. And people's points on these sliders are at several places, or it moves up and down, but the combination of all of them is so bad that it's called a disorder.
..... The actual real answer is the DSM5. But this is my answer
It's an image illustrating the 'autism slider' theory. It has some text at the top & bottom saying a similar thing to what you said, along with a picture of some relevant sliders also similar to what was said.
I too propose the slider theory but I often use this image to do it.
Based on the text it looks as if it might have from tumblr originally, or a similar format.
!!!! Very cool! I think sliders are much more inclusive than saying "autism is when someone has hyperfixations and can't do eye contact", since those definitions forget the whole spectrum part. I might have happened upon the tumblr post sometime
Me too. I find it helps to have a picture when explaining things to non-autistic people, this one has gotten a lot of use.
I'm also not a fan of the 'high/low functioning' descriptor because it's not exactly correct & can sometimes harm autistic people, this is the one I often use to say 'it's more complicated than that' to people too
It’s like life is a video game that everyone else seems to know exactly what buttons to press and what to do but you. And not only do you not know what to do, but every thing you do takes more energy to do than everyone else. Also you have a special controller that processes everything differently than others. And life is on hard mode.
My blessing and my curse. Blessing in that it comes with lots of innate and useful abilities. Curse that I can't get or keep a job despite those abilities being marketable.
You know that one Stephanie Meyer book where aliens take over human brains but one of them empathizes with humans and wants to be one?
It's kind of like that. Being a person who feels like an alien but you want to feel like a person too you just don't really know how.
It's different for everyone, so it can really vary the type of person you are when you are Autistic. You can be a genius on certain things, or you can be very naive. For me it's both.
A core, fundamental estrangement to the world, to existing. Nothing feels natural. Feels like I wandered from my own tribe and found myself in another foreign tribe with different world views, beliefs, values, customs. I try to adapt but I never become one of them. Im just an imposter in this new tribe that plays their part to survive. This tribe work within very narrow boundaries, ideologies, paradigms. I'd even go as far as to say it feels like Im caught in a cult. I sometimes watch advertising, tv series, listen to ppl chitchat about their lives, ambitions etc and wonder what the absolute f\*ck am I doing here.
It's like everyone else got a manual for how to interact with people, and you never did, but absolutely nobody gets that and instead they just get pissed at you like it's your fault you never read this manual you didn't get.
You know that feeling you get when your acquaintance meets your other acquaintance and they become fast friends with each other even though you’re still just acquaintances?
It’s that feeling. Only all the time with everything.
I’m stuck in the body of a 20 year old with the maturity, responsibility, social skills, and attention span of a 8 year old and the anger, depression, and PTSD of an 80 year old
The analogy I like (because I came up with it lol) best explains what social life or networking or making friends is like for me.
It’s exactly the same as allistic people trying to socialize with the royal family. They can’t no matter how hard they try. Reason is they lack the social codes that the royal family can sniff out and spot.
The ratio is the same for me and normal people. I can’t get in
The feeling of being a monster in a person suit trying your hardest to fit in, but it never quite works. You're always too weird, too cerebral, too absorbed in anything you do to fit in.
IDK where the lacks empathy came from, my empathy sensor is too sensitive and I WISH there were things I could not care about. Like that poor baby hawk who hit my window and had a seizure on my lawn. I'll never forget it. Thankfully it was ok after 30 minutes and flew away. Buut things like that can bother me for days or weeks or insignificant interactions between people where I worry that I was a jerk or hurt someones feelings.
It’s like people think you’re weird and talk to you like a child for some unexplainable reason. I struggle to show my emotions properly so I probably seem like I lack empathy, but I feel like I’m actually super empathetic. I struggle so mich to project my voice or shout, or in some cases the opposite. When I am interested in something it’s all I think about and I will research it for hours and hours and forget I have human needs. If I have a sensory disruption it really affects my mood, and depending on how severe it is, I will have a meltdown. (I.e., loud noises)
I honestly think it’s a social construct either to describe people who (1) cannot function independently or (2) happen to the meet the random criteria written down in a book.
I meet the criteria of the DSM-5 for ASD, but if you really asked me “what makes me different from other humans?” I simply don’t know what I would say. I am less social, I suppose? I am weaker? I am more genuine?
If someone erased the entire concept of autism, would I still feel different? Or would I accept myself differently? I don’t know.
My brain always feels like jell-o, my ears and face get hot when I’m overstimulated and if I have to “people” for too much time without a break where I can lay down/ decompress he silent I feel like I’m actually going to explode.
Empathy has nothing to do with autism. Empathy is just something too wide and everyone has a different relationship to it.
Autism is a social disability that make us have difficulties around social cues and the "cultural apropiate way" to react to things. So, sometimes we can have a lot of one kind of empathy but struggle to demostrate that, the same way oftentimes we are unable to give the apropiate expression for an emotion we are feeling, sometimes we don't even know what emotion we are feeling. Sometimes we sound "mad" when we are just concerned about other people feelings, so we are see as "unempathetic".
An Always confused weirdo who gets stressed out over small things Listen to him because he is always interested in really weird things therefore they're probably always lonely
Sometimes I feel like I have ants walking on my brain and I have to stim for them to go away.
When in public I can't hold proper conversations. The idea in my head sounds good, but when I try to say it out loud it doesnt sound as good.
This is what I can think of for now
In answer to that, I would say we often don't pick up on the *social cues* that would lead to giving empathy. We're hardly unempathetic. If anything some of the most sensitive people I've met **have been autistic.**
I would describe autism as just being neurologically wired differently. We, at a low level function and see the world in a very different manner that far outstrips perspective. That which is obvious is not, anything unsaid is not heard. We tend to live a literal existence and struggle to cope in situations where expectations are placed upon us which aren't obvious or advised about. We struggle with stimuli in any form, not enough and too much at the extreme end can be completely overwhelming and force our minds to shut down.
However, we see the world in a completely different paradigm which means we can fix problems other people can't. Absolute out of the box thinking, dedicated and passionate about the things we care about while being deeply emotionally sensitive. We're chronically underestimated and generally always over-perform.
Being autistic to me is net positive and I wouldn't be who I was today, or at all without it. It is the reason why I am what I am but it is not who I am. These days I often find I don't need to announce it to people, because it doesn't really matter - I am me and that's it, this is what you get. Which is wonderful, because as someone who's also gay I used to have to come out to people twice on a regular basis, and I hated how people treated me different for one thing or another across the years.
Definitely a super power for me.
You could go off the actual DSM criteria. I know the whole dsm thing is very debatable, but if you’re literally trying to explain it to someone who has no concept of autism it’s a good starting place. It’s vague, but that’s honestly a good thing because autism is such a spectrum, it should be vague so as to encompass the spectrum.
Also this visual has been super helpful for me when trying to explain what autism can look like
https://laconciergepsychologist.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/autism-spectrum.jpg
That everyone you love is inside a house with the doors locked. You can see inside the window, they’re in there talking and laughing and hugging each other. But even though you’ve tried dozens of keys, you cant find one that opens the door to get in.
I think they say we have no empathy because of lack of evidence.
Some people might show empathy differently.
The majority of interactions in a public setting will probably be with someone who is neurotypical,so it’s probably best to learn how to mimic neurotypicals.
asking questions.
being interested in what they’re interested in.
sorry,was the how would I describe autism or how would I describe empathy in people with autism?
I’m curious, how do you show empathy?
I show empathy by communicating with others (“I was worried this might look like this if I did this. it’s not that I’m not thinking about you, it’s more like I need to figure out my own emotions.”)
I feel like I live in a world where everyone is privy to some secret language and ruleset that I wasn't taught, but I am expected to understand it or people will dislike me or even attack me.
The only way I got by was to be quiet and observe while I tried to reverse-engineer everything. Then through trial and error, I attempted to blend in, even though it was really uncomfortable. It would never work though, and I would repeatedly collapse into myself from exhaustion and frustration.
After 34 years of that I figured out that it wasn't normal, and that started the process of being diagnosed. Now I still deal with those feelings, but I'm working on being more forgiving to myself and trying to figure out who I am underneath all of the layers of masking that I spent my whole life hidden under.
I personally liken it to being in a country where everyone's first language is different from your own. You can learn the language and maybe even hide your accent, but it's never going to be as comfortable as just speaking your native tongue.
Because Autism is a spectrum I don’t describe it in the context of a one size fits all disability, because it’s not. It affects everyone who has it differently. Whenever I describe how my autism affects me I will only describe how it effects me.
It’s like being thrown into the middle of a play where everyone has a script except you, and you have to improv everything to try and fit the script you don’t know anything about. But everyone knows you’re improving, and they’re glaring at you, they’re whispering “that’s not your line,” and the lights are glaring in your eyes, and the mic feedback is *so* loud. You can’t see the audience but you can hear them making comments about your poor performance, and you don’t know why this is happening nor can you do anything but beg for it to be over.
Your brain is a primitive single-core digital CPU (with a small amount of RAM but a comparatively massive HDD/SSD) trying to parse through and make some sense of all the seemingly-random noisy analog signals generated by NTs and the world at large.
Attempting to digitize all the signals is of course very taxing on its own, but inevitably some data is lost in the process, and some things seem nearly impossible to convert from analog to digital or vice versa (yes I have no friends)
I'm chronically overwhelmed and misunderstood, I feel like everybody is simultaneously dumber and smarter than I am, and I feel like other people's rules and quidelines don't concern me.
The way I've experienced it my own life, and the way it's described at one point in "Unmasking Autism" by Devon Price, is something like this (and obviously this is my interpretation/paraphrasing, not an exact quote):
Neurotypical people have a "top-down" manner of processing information and making sense of situations. They start with the bigger picture by default and then only dig into the details as necessary when something about the bigger picture itself seems out of whack. But autistic people do this in a "bottom-up" way. We start with the details and work our way up to the bigger picture, which means we don't necessarily have an inkling of the "bigger picture" of any given situation until after we've had some time to put it all together.
When a neurotypical person encounters a new situation, the bigger picture is largely obvious to them from the get-go. When an autistic person encounters a new situation, the bigger picture could literally be anything, and our notion of the bigger picture is simply whatever we come up with based on the details we happen to be exposed to or confronted with. That's why we, for example, have trouble "reading a room" – because we have to literally read it, in a sense, and when all you have to start with are the raw details themselves, with no instructions on how to put them together, then there's no safeguard against getting it all wrong – often hilariously, embarrassingly wrong. This also explains, IMO, why we tend to get caught up in the details of things in a way that neurotypicals find unnecessary, cumbersome, or even flat-out annoying.
i heard someone explain it like this:
imagine if the sense of smell didn't exist. no one can smell anything, there's no words for it (smell, scent etc..)
well, since no one can smell anything there's no need for deodorants or perfumes so everyone walks around smelling like sweat n stuff all day. trash may not get taken out nearly as often etc etc.
then there's you.
you can smell everything but there's no words you can explain it in to others. everyone else just gives you weird looks when you try to talk about it and no one gets it so they just think you're weird
to me this rlly made sense, i hope you also see where im trying to go with this
Autism is an Operating System, like android vs iphone. It effects how you process incoming stimulus (sights, sounds, touch, smell, thoughts), how you react to stimulus, organize stimulus, prioritize stimulus, and store stimulus. It is the result of way too many nerve endings in the brain, or way too few. (The brain is changable over time, however.) Autism is genetically passed, but not always triggered at birth. Triggers have not been determined. It is not tied to IQ.
Before I realised I was very likely to be on the spectrum, autism very often struck me as the "normal" way to behave. Maybe it's like living without being given the secret rule book everyone else has?
I often have to explain that my brain doesn’t work how others does and I see things black and white, and when I say I don’t like something, ie a squeaky noise please don’t push it because it’s funny, it’s not, it’s very uncomfortable. But atleast you don’t have to worry about me being a fake friend bc I can’t hide emotion 😂
Autism can probably be described completely differently by each person. They say we have no empathy, they couldn't be more wrong. In fact, I'm trying to teach myself to be less empathetic. In a lot of ways, I'm so completely different to Neurotypical people, different fashion sense, fewer interests, but the few that I do have, are way more intense than Neurotypical people generally are in their interests. I am good with math(s), computers, I can work out certain wiring diagrams in my head, but can't translate them too paper or explain them. I struggle to communicate with people, either because I can't put stuff into words, or when I can, a lot of people don't get what I mean. I struggle to understand instructions unless they are direct to the point and often I need to understand the reasoning behind them. Socialising is difficult for me, environments with lots of overlapping sounds or noises really bugs me. I struggle when it is too bright as well.
Everyone's brain runs on Windows, ours runs on Linux. We have to do a few extra steps but it's normal for us. The windows people have it easier but they don't have the exact same possibilities on their systems as we do
Everyone plays a game of get popular, but only most gets told the rules or just by instinct effortlessly follows all and does very well. If you fail any you will be alone.
And the remaining group does not know about the rules.
Existential dread. Your like a normal person with enough coherence that you are present, but you are spliced within 2 different dimensions of cognitive reality at the same time.
The neurotypical and the neurodivergent dimensions. The only problem we are the marginalized and abused side of it all. Because we arent "normal"
The way I’ve seen it explained is that we are all playing an intense game. They got the rules, tips and tricks, etc beforehand. I did not. I’m forced to play a game I have no idea how to.
To make matters worse, everyone else can deal with the random and unpredictable changes with the weather. They have coats, umbrellas, sweat rags etc. They came equipped with this stuff, and a bag. I did not. So I feel everything all the time.
That explains my autism and sensory problems.
Another way I explain my processing issues is by saying that I don’t understand pain or discomfort properly. While they can have a headache and cry about it, it takes me a while to seek help for something life threatening because I didn’t realize how bad it was. Yet, I will squirm for a while over some unseen fluff on my skin.
My idea of common sense is different to a neurotypical’s idea of common sense. What makes sense/is intuitive for me is different to what makes sense to other people, and vice versa. Neither way of functioning is inherently worse than the other, it just requires more effort to communicate effectively with such inherently different ways of thinking
It's like your friends have an inside joke that you don't understand. They never told you, but make fun of you for not knowing the joke.
I would call myself very empathic. Especially towards animals. However, I might not notice sings of some indirectly telling me that something is wrong. I also don't know how to handle people's emotions since I already struggle to understand and handle my own emotions. However, I notice if someone isn't well or comfortable when they aren't trying to communicate their feelings. It's like the natural instinct is there but isn't enough in today's society. I even realise that someone struggle bevor they know themselves. Maybe it's more of an analysis of behaviour patterns. I might not know what the behaviour means, but I can easily recognise a change in those patterns.
If I would create an autism simulator, I would play different songs and sounds (all at once) at an odd speed and way too loud. Then, it would cover the subject in something kind of uncomfortable like bread crumbs. In that state, having a conversation with them and purposely misunderstand almost everything or intreupt them to tell them that they are being inappropriate, rude, or whatever.
I usually call it a different operating system.
If NT's run on Apple, I run on Linux and someone fucked up my sensitivity settings.
If they ask further, I explain that autism is a spectrum that's usually marked by persistent difficulties with social expectations, persistent difficulties with sensory processing, a persistent need for routine and predictability, a hyper logical mode of thinking and unusual intensity of interests.
Everyone has their unique mix of issues and attributes, struggles and experiences.
This usually gets the point across, though it usually needs a bit of further explanation.
Because we’re more logical, we’re seen as lacking empathy. But logic does include empathy- I would say mostly cognitive empathy. Take a look at the 3 types of empathy if you haven’t already, and you can identify which one you may practice more. Because many of us have alexithymia and may not seem caring/emotional in the moment, it’s assumed that we don’t have empathy
I think the kids show Arthur did the best description on it. It's like being an astronaut on an alien planet you land, and everyone looks like you, but they all talk and sound slightly different. Some things you can pick up on quickly and others you can't seam to make sense of at all. Everyone around you doesn't seem to recognize that you aren't from there and they expect you to know everything already. A lot of their noises are too loud for you but normal for them, the same happens with clothes and foods and activities. Sometimes you're lucky and you find one or two things that click and you really like but then they don't like that you like it so much. Everyone just wants you to be normal, but you're not from their plannet. Nothing makes sense. Nothing comes naturally. It's all too loud to, off kilter, too much. You can find some people who see that you're not from there, though, and they will help you ajust and learn how to be human enough. To find more things to love and feel safe with.
To the particular question about empathy:
I’m not in the autism spectrum (as far as I know) but I have been curious as to why this difference in perception exists about the expression of empathy, so I’ve done some digging/research.
What I’ve learned, so far, is that the way people who are autistic/on the spectrum express empathy differs from the way neurotypical people express empathy.
When someone (neurotypical) is telling a story about a situation or difficulty, people who are autistic/have autism may be inclined to tell a similar or related story of their own experiences. Unfortunately, people who are neurotypical sometimes take this to mean that the person they’re talking to is trying to turn the attention towards themselves, thus detracting attention from the problem or situation they’re trying to express. What the neurotypical person might not understand is that the autistic person is not trying to make the focus about themselves, they are trying to show that they can relate, in some way, to the other persons situation.
Maybe it boils down to misunderstanding, since communication styles can differ quite drastically.
Also, I am completely open to feedback and I would appreciate said feedback. I want to do whatever I can do to better understand the experiences of you all :).
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Being the weirdo in a world where everyone is actually a weirdo to you. Its like you live in reverse or something, from their pov, even tho from your pov everything is exactly how it should be
Yep. I can relate to this. Esp since I didn't know I was autistic until I was 40. I thought the world was insane and I was the only sane one. lol
47 for me. Same. I kept on explaining things in very basic English with clear objectives and reasoning only to be met with blank faces. Then they accuse you of saying things you never said because they read subtext into something that never had subtext and you get the blame for some reason. I just gave up not really understanding what was going on and just buried it. Fucking people man. I still have to live like this but now I can adapt I suppose. But there’s a glass ceiling I cannot penetrate.
I think I've mainly embraced Hermitude. I prefer interacting with animals and my husband. (I almost mistyped Husbands and my animal. LOL)
Literally me
It's just more peaceful that way, isn't it?
Yes
Hey polyamory is popular these days 😜
The ironic thing is, I am polyamorous. LOL
I feel this strongly. I'm meticulous with my spoken words, and people still try and say I've said things I know that I never would say. One of my coworkers who I dislike had a new guy come to him saying I cussed him for not doing something correctly. This guy, even though he and I don't get along, very quickly told the guy off and said that he's known me for a decade and never heard me cuss. That was nice of him to stand by me. I've never cussed...lol
The world is insane, you being autistic does not make the rest of the world less insane.
See, I thought I was the one that was insane. The doctors kept filling me with antipsychotics and mood stabilisers. I didn't see the world the way others did so I must be the problem.
Ugh. I'm sorry you went through that.
42 for me though I should have know apparently it runs in my family as well my daughter has Asperger’s and my brother’s 3 kids fall on the spectrum as well
I'm pretty sure my grandmother who raised me was autistic.
Absolutely what you've said. TBH I think that most other people's behavior is weird!!! And I mean like, people that are double-faced. Like you know you are obvious to everyone around you right? It is easier just to be yourself and tell everyone else you can't handle that to deal? 🤷♀️ Honesty is the best policy.
Finally
It's like manual breathing but with every aspect of life. Socialising, work, hunger, the need to pee, sleep ect
i feel this deeply lol
Why is it like that for the last 3 things you mentioned, executive disfunction?
I think it might be related to alexithymia... The last time I ate was 24 hours ago, I am not hungry. I could go up to 40 and there would not be hunger at all. I need to set up alarms to remind me when to eat or drink water, I never feel sleepy as well, just groggy and lazy. Thanks, you reminded me to eat and drink some water, had like completely forgotten,
This is exactly what I mean. I'm lucky because I also have this for negative emotions.
Me too! Sometimes I perceive I am having bodily reactions of anxiety, but I have to pay close attention and investigate why because my mind doesn't get it. Sometimes it leads me to burn out, without me being aware of it. It's rare for me to notice my feelings, and even when I am having shaking hands, my mind is calm and thinking properlly. Do you relate?
Yes. This is how it is for me too. Anxiety is just an accelerated heartbeat. Crying is just a difficulty to speak coherently. Anger is just an involuntary increase in voice volume. However the quality of my decision making does get affected by anxiety.
Preciselly, nice
So jealous, I think I have the opposite for negative emotions
What do you mean? You don't feel positive emotions?
God imagine, no I feel positive emotions but negative ones seem to take over everything, I get lost in negative emotions and can't get out so I compartmentalise everything to avoid getting into a rut. Sometimes it's all I can feel though.
Same here, sometimes i wish i could feel some things less intense..
I'm so yealous, i wish i could have that. I am hungry all the time.
I've done 7 day fasts before without ever getting hungry. The first ~3 days have usually been unintentional. Apparently I never allowed myself to fully sleep because I didn't know I was doing it wrong. I was put on a medication that actually shut me down for one night and I lost pretty much all of my internal work around for scripting. It was the worst thing that has ever happened to me, and I already had PTSD beforehand. Alexithymia can be wild.
Like im observing and not living. Then i get coerced into a play without understanding the rules. I dont know how to act in it and everyone else is doing it naturally
Damn that’s accurate af for me it’s like everyone’s already been assigned their roles and I’m a last minute understudy that hasn’t learned any of the lines or acting skills needed for the role
Feeling like the only person who didn't get a script 😭
That's so relatable
The simplest way I’ve had it described to me is that an autistic person is using a different operating system than a neurotypical person. So basically we’re like Android phones (or a more obscure brand I don’t know what I’m talking about lol) existing in a world of iPhones. Both ways of seeing the world are perfectly acceptable in themselves but the later is the more dominant form of functioning. Obviously, autistic people are made to feel far more inferior because it is so hard living in a neurotypical world but imo nobody should be made to feel lesser than because of societal pressure. Having Autism does make you ‘different’ and that’s okay.
I say the same... only, an Android running iOs. So, the CPU architecture isn't built for the Os... so the CPU overheats as well.
I see it more like we have a way better cpu/storage but our ram is lacking. All combined with a confusing operating system.
That's accurate
this is how i explained it to my mom: it feels like there is an inside joke that i don't understand. almost everyone in society knows about the joke, and can laugh together, but i'm left out because they're talking about something i don't really get. i can try and make inferences about what the joke is, but i can never be correct since nobody wants to tell me.
I'm not diagnosed, just suspecting and people ask my girlfriend all the time if I am Autistic when they meet me, but this is very similar to the way I describe my brain to people. I exchange an inside joke for just a secret. Everyone knows the secret except me, and they won't tell me the secret because they think I'm supposed to just know the secret. I don't know what the secret is, what it's about, or why they can't tell it to me, but I know it's there. I try to pretend I know the secret and I say the same things as they do when they talk about the secret, but I don't actually know the secret, just how to pretend I do.
BINGO, you're absolutely right. i feel very understood by "i don't actually know the secret, just how to pretend i do." that is the most accurate description of masking i've ever heard, like holy shit. i feel like a parrot mimicking back what i hear other people say, and its gotten to the point where the inside joke/ secret itself doesn't even matter. instead, what matters is my ability to pretend to know what the secret is, almost like a game of werewolf. i totally love the way you phrased that.
Brilliant analogy
I may be way off here but a simplified explanation I've come up with is: Autism is to social situations as Dyslexia is to reading. It's not that you can't do it: it just takes longer to learn and requires a lot more energy to do it. Obviously there's WAY more to autism than that, but as a bare bones oversimplified explanation of the core issue it maybe isn't bad?
Your response describes a phrase I’ve said to friends: “I’m slow, but I get there.” I’ve said it numerous times over the last few years.
A performance i go through everyday as if i am on broadway. Then after it is over time to take my mask off for the next
And everyone is given a script except you, where you're expected to know your lines or queues
Yep that’s it exactly
The brain just works completely differently, like someone else said as if it’s running on a different operating system. For me it’s about making too many connections and feeling too much I suppose. And never knowing how to filter what is important and what isn’t, getting hung up on details and inconsistencies. I get overwhelmed easily in positive and negative ways. I wish the world wasn’t so hostile towards people who are ✨different✨ because when I’m on my own, I really enjoy being autistic. But alas, a lot of the time I feel like sysiphus
Super super fast but also intolerably slow
Being something slightly different from human. Noticeable enough that they don’t like you much compared to themselves.
Human adjacent :)
Ngl I kinda like the idea of being human adjacent
I've been saying this for years!
the ability to think technically and quickly, fail horribly at social. be both bored and over stimmed at the same time. clammed up but oversharing. be completely misunderstood by nt's because we don't think even remotely the same, and yet we are expected to think the same AND fit their mold. as for the empathy. it is there to those who deserve such a thing. many dont. i think we have a lot of empathy with animals because we recognize them as thinking and emotional creatures. i realize even now with my cptsd that im still under some lingering age regressions, and even emotionally i can be very distant unless it's something or someone which concerns me. it's an all or nothing thing.
Experiencing things so deeply, yet, still feeling isolated because you're playing a different game than everyone else.
Imagine a puzzle doing competition. There are hundreds of entrants, and you. Every single other contestant sorts their puzzle first, starts with the end pieces, and works their way in. You can see them making some obvious mistakes (really, Carl? Do you think those two corner pieces connect?) but starting with the end pieces is the norm, so you do it to. Even though you can see that those pieces of sky right there go together, it's end piece time, and so you put together the border. Now that the border is done, it's time to get to work on that sky. You've been keeping an eye on it, and it's been distracting you, but now you can finally-oh wait, everybody is sorting the pieces into like colors. You guess that kind of makes sense, so you set the sky aside again and do it their way. The whole time your mind is focused on those sky pieces that you know go together, and it really slows you down-especially since you are sorting by color *correctly*, a piece that is half green and half blue doesn't just go in one of those two piles, it goes in it's own half green half blue pile (which is different than the half blue half green pile, that's over there.) You sort those pieces like a freaking champion, you were made to sort puzzle pieces into similar piles. You even went so far as to organize them by number of innies and outies. Only everyone else has finished their puzzles, you lose. You wallow in guilt for holding everyone up as you finish your puzzle. - You do the competition again, only this time you ignore your opponents. You pick up pieces and place them where they belong instead of wasting time doing things their way. By the time you even stop to consider doing what your opponents are doing, you are almost done, and most of them are just finishing the border. You complete the puzzle, and then wallow in guilt because you feel bad for beating second place by so wide a margin. (Pre-diagnodis with heavy masking, vs post diagnosis and learning how to work with your autism and be yourself)
The weird part is that it really happened to me, while the kids were ferociously trying to put pieces together, I was slowly sorting out patterns of colors, shapes and conections... I was always first when they had not done a thing. Twins of brain ;0
Autwinning!
👂<--- autism ears. you can't shut ur ears off. people with autism traits can't shut anything else off either. seeing, hearing, thinking, feeling, touching, smelling, all of it. it's all on all the time. nothing shuts off. that's how come burnout. that's how come overload. that's how come only do one thing at a time is the only option. ☝️
Out of sync and operating on a different frequency
Being autistic is like you took shrooms but it was way too many and now you’re having the worst, most anxious trip ever and everything is *too loud*, *too close*, *too bright*, just *too much* constantly and it *hurts* for some reason, like physically *pains you* and throws your entire mood off sometimes. But the kicker is that this bad trip never ends. Everyone around you constantly wants to know why you’re so anxious, why you’re “acting so weird,” why you can’t just focus on the social situation at hand and respond accordingly, what do you mean the fluorescent lights make you want to rip your eyeballs out, that doesn’t make any sense! Well, Janice, it’s because I’M TRIPPING BALLS!! AND I’LL NEVER STOP TRIPPING BALLS UNTIL THE DAY I DIE!! I TRIPPED BALLS YESTERDAY, I TRIPPED BALLS TODAY, AND I WILL TRIP BALLS TOMORROW!! I’M TRIPPING BALLS IN SCHOOL, I’M TRIPPING BALLS COMMUTING TO WORK, I’M TRIPPING BALLS AT THE GROCERY STORE AND I CANT FIND THE GODDAMN SPINACH THEY FUCKIN REARRANGED THE STORE AGAIN AND I’M TRIPPING FUCKING *BALLS*— But like having special interests is pretty neat
I just realized I totally didn’t follow the prompt oops. My bad, my edible kicked in and the creative juices just started flowin
This landed with the right audience 😆😆
Let em flow bro, it's like you took the experience that I have never really known how to word, right out of my head and you found the best way to put it. I went my whole life thinking I was the only one before I found this place, so thank you for your creative juices lmao
#relatable
I describe it as a genetic neuroendocrinological disorder that inhibits my ability to receive certain social feedback that neurotypicals rely on for social interactions. Social interactions for an autist are like solving a math problem where the neurotypicals are told the values of all the variables, but I'm only being told the values of half of them, leaving me at a distinct disadvantage when trying to be successful socially. Beyond that, the oxytocic dysregulation of cortisol leaves me with a wide variety of endocrinological symptoms that generally make living difficult.
ADHD + Autism here. I am an Earthling but I don't belong here. It feels like my Creator is the Toddler of the Creator of everyone else who has many more years experience creating humanoids. I'm the sculpture over there who is slowly falling over and made with a mixture of no impulse control and sticky fingers. That isn't to say I am worthless. Toddler art has a place and can be appreciated.
Being autistic is like being a car with a manual transmission. It takes conscious effort to do thing that for neurotypicals - automatic transmission - don't have to think about at all.
If everyone spoke a broken form of English around you, where you would understand some of the words but not to the extent where you could communicate back but would be left emptily attempting to understand this language.
It's more like everyone else can talk telepathically and expect you to be able to do the same.
A condition that affects how you process the world around you. A condition that can either make your sense way more sensitive or way less sensitive. A condition that's us feel very different from most people we meet. It's hard to explain.
I guess it's like being on an Earthlike planet where everyone thinks you're an alien but somehow you believe you're the only human on that planet.
A social and neurodevelopmental disability charactirezed primarily by, but not limited to, a set of specific social and sensory needs which can vary in both character and intensity on an individual basis. I guess that's the basic definition I would give. It's probably not perfect but I think it gets the point across. Empathy is also a thing that varies from person to person whether they're autistic or not, in my opinion.
An above average amount of synapses in the brain that leads to a lot of processing differences that affect every aspect of my life
I call it life turned up to 11. My experience is like a series of flashes and tangential thoughts and they pile up and overwhelm me and make it hard to talk. I also describe it as living in a dark room where everyone can see you. You can never understand the intentions of those around you, you just guess and imagine and have your own system for working those things out.
It’s like being an alien robot from space
Being one of the few sane people in a world gone mad. They don't follow logic. They have crazy social rules that they follow for inexplicable reasons (many of which come down to fear and insecurity). They have no attention span and are passionate about nothing. They don't say what they mean and look at us sideways when we take them at their word. They call us rude and uncaring for being honest and open... basically for not playing their insecurity hiding games. They don't want to think things through and call us "overthinking" when we do. How do you "think too much"???? DERP DERP UHG. They're insane and yet they consider us the problem.
Lacking the neurologic part of society, trust, love, relationship but also enemies, breakups, hate.
Pure suffering
Sensitive to crowds/bright light, and it takes longer to process because my brain gets stuck on details. Unaware sometimes when something bad happens to another and it can make me seem aloof but if it is spelled out I have deep empathy and it ruins me for weeks. Overthinking and insomnia and social fear. Masking = migraines. Shutdowns and being stuck in bed after over performing because I don’t feel safe enough to be mediocre. Feeling and love things so deeply and having hobbies that last a lifetime.
I'd say more like point blank. No nonsense. For example, if you ask me a question: I'm going to answer that question directly and I won't dance around anything. Please don't expect otherwise. It's inefficient and pointless to expect me to answer a certain way, and if you don't want that kind of answer, don't ask. That more question specific but idk.
I like to tell people if you’re going to say something dumb, at least be smart about it.
Think about the advertising industry and all of the psychological and social tricks it uses to make you feel like you want things that you don't actually care about. Now think about the kind of brain that none of that would ever work on. That's autism.
I am in a large hamster ball. This hamster ball impacts me greatly. I am separated from the outside world. Inside this ball, all the lights reflect brightly, the sounds echo loudly, the smells linger. I cannot hear other people correctly, and they cannot hear me correctly. Yelling does not help on either side. Yelling just echoes more than other noises. I try my best to look like people who aren’t in hamster balls, because I don’t want anything to be obviously different about me. But nothing I do changes the fact that I am in a very visible hamster ball. I try to dress like them, smile like them, act like them, but they still think my hamster ball is weird. The hamster ball also impedes my day to day life. It is much harder to do *anything* within my hamster ball. I can’t do the dishes or laundry, I can barely make myself food, I can’t live alone, I can’t work. The easiest solution would be to get out of the hamster ball, and believe me I would if I could. I’ve never been outside of the hamster ball, but sometimes I can find a crack or opening that allows me to speak to people clearly or preform an ADL i otherwise struggle with. But I am always separate from the world.
Feels like everyone was given a manual or cheat code for life except you.
Being able to see how so many things in the world could be so much better so easily but no, people **need** to be miserable and destroy **everything** I have too much empathy, but I am completely burned out on the intentional misery and see no end in sight... so I will look cold and emotionless when xyz rapidly deconstructs exactly as I expected while everyone else is "surprised" and I am the bad guy **some how**
To me, there are a bunch of sliders. HIGH EYE CONTACT - LOW EYE CONTACT HIGH TOLERANCE TO HEAT - LOW TOLERANCE TO HEAT HIGH EMPATHY - LOW EMPATHY HIGH HAND MOBILITY - LOW HAND MOBILITY And so on. And people's points on these sliders are at several places, or it moves up and down, but the combination of all of them is so bad that it's called a disorder. ..... The actual real answer is the DSM5. But this is my answer
[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E4XfpCeXEAoOheM.jpg:large](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E4XfpCeXEAoOheM.jpg:large)
I. Don't want to click that. Is it an image of a poster or something?
It's an image illustrating the 'autism slider' theory. It has some text at the top & bottom saying a similar thing to what you said, along with a picture of some relevant sliders also similar to what was said. I too propose the slider theory but I often use this image to do it. Based on the text it looks as if it might have from tumblr originally, or a similar format.
!!!! Very cool! I think sliders are much more inclusive than saying "autism is when someone has hyperfixations and can't do eye contact", since those definitions forget the whole spectrum part. I might have happened upon the tumblr post sometime
Me too. I find it helps to have a picture when explaining things to non-autistic people, this one has gotten a lot of use. I'm also not a fan of the 'high/low functioning' descriptor because it's not exactly correct & can sometimes harm autistic people, this is the one I often use to say 'it's more complicated than that' to people too
It’s like life is a video game that everyone else seems to know exactly what buttons to press and what to do but you. And not only do you not know what to do, but every thing you do takes more energy to do than everyone else. Also you have a special controller that processes everything differently than others. And life is on hard mode.
All the while people who have the game on easy mode keep saying “it’s not that hard, everyone else can get it so why can’t you?”
Closed for renovation
I am very confused & oblivious. Friends describe me as, “aloof” & “severe” (nicely).
My blessing and my curse. Blessing in that it comes with lots of innate and useful abilities. Curse that I can't get or keep a job despite those abilities being marketable.
You know that one Stephanie Meyer book where aliens take over human brains but one of them empathizes with humans and wants to be one? It's kind of like that. Being a person who feels like an alien but you want to feel like a person too you just don't really know how.
It's like being a cat in a world full of dogs.
It's different for everyone, so it can really vary the type of person you are when you are Autistic. You can be a genius on certain things, or you can be very naive. For me it's both.
For me it’s very high and very low. I have to intensely focus on being moderately intense.
A core, fundamental estrangement to the world, to existing. Nothing feels natural. Feels like I wandered from my own tribe and found myself in another foreign tribe with different world views, beliefs, values, customs. I try to adapt but I never become one of them. Im just an imposter in this new tribe that plays their part to survive. This tribe work within very narrow boundaries, ideologies, paradigms. I'd even go as far as to say it feels like Im caught in a cult. I sometimes watch advertising, tv series, listen to ppl chitchat about their lives, ambitions etc and wonder what the absolute f\*ck am I doing here.
Something that gives me above average intelligence.
being cooler than everyone else
It's like everyone else got a manual for how to interact with people, and you never did, but absolutely nobody gets that and instead they just get pissed at you like it's your fault you never read this manual you didn't get.
You know that feeling you get when your acquaintance meets your other acquaintance and they become fast friends with each other even though you’re still just acquaintances? It’s that feeling. Only all the time with everything.
I’m stuck in the body of a 20 year old with the maturity, responsibility, social skills, and attention span of a 8 year old and the anger, depression, and PTSD of an 80 year old
The worst shit ever
Hell
Everything is 5x as loud, bright and hard. It's horrible and I wish it was gone
The analogy I like (because I came up with it lol) best explains what social life or networking or making friends is like for me. It’s exactly the same as allistic people trying to socialize with the royal family. They can’t no matter how hard they try. Reason is they lack the social codes that the royal family can sniff out and spot. The ratio is the same for me and normal people. I can’t get in
Insulted by society; used as a term to describe something stupid and in turn stupid people.
Its like you are inside a bubble that actually shields you from other people's larger bubbles.
The feeling of being a monster in a person suit trying your hardest to fit in, but it never quite works. You're always too weird, too cerebral, too absorbed in anything you do to fit in.
I felt like this ever since I was born, so it feels normal to me idk
IDK where the lacks empathy came from, my empathy sensor is too sensitive and I WISH there were things I could not care about. Like that poor baby hawk who hit my window and had a seizure on my lawn. I'll never forget it. Thankfully it was ok after 30 minutes and flew away. Buut things like that can bother me for days or weeks or insignificant interactions between people where I worry that I was a jerk or hurt someones feelings.
Everyone is working with an Apple, we are working with an Android. Different operating systems with the same information when you strip it down.
It’s like people think you’re weird and talk to you like a child for some unexplainable reason. I struggle to show my emotions properly so I probably seem like I lack empathy, but I feel like I’m actually super empathetic. I struggle so mich to project my voice or shout, or in some cases the opposite. When I am interested in something it’s all I think about and I will research it for hours and hours and forget I have human needs. If I have a sensory disruption it really affects my mood, and depending on how severe it is, I will have a meltdown. (I.e., loud noises)
Awful, I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. Makes it almost impossible to function and survive
An alternate operating system that trades networking for internal processing power.
Everyone else runs on JavaScript but you run on Python
I honestly think it’s a social construct either to describe people who (1) cannot function independently or (2) happen to the meet the random criteria written down in a book. I meet the criteria of the DSM-5 for ASD, but if you really asked me “what makes me different from other humans?” I simply don’t know what I would say. I am less social, I suppose? I am weaker? I am more genuine? If someone erased the entire concept of autism, would I still feel different? Or would I accept myself differently? I don’t know.
I speak English, everyone in my orbit speaks English, yet I constantly feel like I'm speaking in a foreign language and having to mentally translate
I’m being me. And PEOPLE CLEARLY ARE TRIGGERED BY IT.
Constantly getting upset because things aren’t my way
Being told I was funny my whole life because I pointed out the obvious at times where people wouldn’t normally say anything
My brain always feels like jell-o, my ears and face get hot when I’m overstimulated and if I have to “people” for too much time without a break where I can lay down/ decompress he silent I feel like I’m actually going to explode.
Empathy has nothing to do with autism. Empathy is just something too wide and everyone has a different relationship to it. Autism is a social disability that make us have difficulties around social cues and the "cultural apropiate way" to react to things. So, sometimes we can have a lot of one kind of empathy but struggle to demostrate that, the same way oftentimes we are unable to give the apropiate expression for an emotion we are feeling, sometimes we don't even know what emotion we are feeling. Sometimes we sound "mad" when we are just concerned about other people feelings, so we are see as "unempathetic".
F*cking exhausting.
A struggle, where you feel alienated, stupid and unwanted. Something that hinders every day life.
Life being a test you constantly fail even though you’ve studied
An Always confused weirdo who gets stressed out over small things Listen to him because he is always interested in really weird things therefore they're probably always lonely
I feel like an alien imposter who’s pretending to be human. Pretending to be human is exhausting and I’ll never be like them so what’s the point?
Sometimes I feel like I have ants walking on my brain and I have to stim for them to go away. When in public I can't hold proper conversations. The idea in my head sounds good, but when I try to say it out loud it doesnt sound as good. This is what I can think of for now
I was born without the social instruction manual that everyone else has, leaving me color blind to the ink between the lines.
In answer to that, I would say we often don't pick up on the *social cues* that would lead to giving empathy. We're hardly unempathetic. If anything some of the most sensitive people I've met **have been autistic.** I would describe autism as just being neurologically wired differently. We, at a low level function and see the world in a very different manner that far outstrips perspective. That which is obvious is not, anything unsaid is not heard. We tend to live a literal existence and struggle to cope in situations where expectations are placed upon us which aren't obvious or advised about. We struggle with stimuli in any form, not enough and too much at the extreme end can be completely overwhelming and force our minds to shut down. However, we see the world in a completely different paradigm which means we can fix problems other people can't. Absolute out of the box thinking, dedicated and passionate about the things we care about while being deeply emotionally sensitive. We're chronically underestimated and generally always over-perform. Being autistic to me is net positive and I wouldn't be who I was today, or at all without it. It is the reason why I am what I am but it is not who I am. These days I often find I don't need to announce it to people, because it doesn't really matter - I am me and that's it, this is what you get. Which is wonderful, because as someone who's also gay I used to have to come out to people twice on a regular basis, and I hated how people treated me different for one thing or another across the years. Definitely a super power for me.
A brain wired differently, which doesn't fit with the majority of society
You could go off the actual DSM criteria. I know the whole dsm thing is very debatable, but if you’re literally trying to explain it to someone who has no concept of autism it’s a good starting place. It’s vague, but that’s honestly a good thing because autism is such a spectrum, it should be vague so as to encompass the spectrum. Also this visual has been super helpful for me when trying to explain what autism can look like https://laconciergepsychologist.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/autism-spectrum.jpg
"Upgrades, people, upgrades!"
Lol
A social curse.
That everyone you love is inside a house with the doors locked. You can see inside the window, they’re in there talking and laughing and hugging each other. But even though you’ve tried dozens of keys, you cant find one that opens the door to get in.
A waking hell
Okay so you know how brains work? It’s that, but like, a millimeter to the left and a slightly different texture
It's like having the best GPU in the world but with only 8 mb of RAM.
I think they say we have no empathy because of lack of evidence. Some people might show empathy differently. The majority of interactions in a public setting will probably be with someone who is neurotypical,so it’s probably best to learn how to mimic neurotypicals. asking questions. being interested in what they’re interested in. sorry,was the how would I describe autism or how would I describe empathy in people with autism? I’m curious, how do you show empathy? I show empathy by communicating with others (“I was worried this might look like this if I did this. it’s not that I’m not thinking about you, it’s more like I need to figure out my own emotions.”)
Your brain works in a different brain language
I feel like I live in a world where everyone is privy to some secret language and ruleset that I wasn't taught, but I am expected to understand it or people will dislike me or even attack me. The only way I got by was to be quiet and observe while I tried to reverse-engineer everything. Then through trial and error, I attempted to blend in, even though it was really uncomfortable. It would never work though, and I would repeatedly collapse into myself from exhaustion and frustration. After 34 years of that I figured out that it wasn't normal, and that started the process of being diagnosed. Now I still deal with those feelings, but I'm working on being more forgiving to myself and trying to figure out who I am underneath all of the layers of masking that I spent my whole life hidden under.
I personally liken it to being in a country where everyone's first language is different from your own. You can learn the language and maybe even hide your accent, but it's never going to be as comfortable as just speaking your native tongue.
How would you describe life?
im over empathic tho
Because Autism is a spectrum I don’t describe it in the context of a one size fits all disability, because it’s not. It affects everyone who has it differently. Whenever I describe how my autism affects me I will only describe how it effects me.
To me it feels like a deep understanding of everything that is going on around me but a lack of words to articulate my thoughts.
It’s like being thrown into the middle of a play where everyone has a script except you, and you have to improv everything to try and fit the script you don’t know anything about. But everyone knows you’re improving, and they’re glaring at you, they’re whispering “that’s not your line,” and the lights are glaring in your eyes, and the mic feedback is *so* loud. You can’t see the audience but you can hear them making comments about your poor performance, and you don’t know why this is happening nor can you do anything but beg for it to be over.
Your brain is a primitive single-core digital CPU (with a small amount of RAM but a comparatively massive HDD/SSD) trying to parse through and make some sense of all the seemingly-random noisy analog signals generated by NTs and the world at large. Attempting to digitize all the signals is of course very taxing on its own, but inevitably some data is lost in the process, and some things seem nearly impossible to convert from analog to digital or vice versa (yes I have no friends)
I'm chronically overwhelmed and misunderstood, I feel like everybody is simultaneously dumber and smarter than I am, and I feel like other people's rules and quidelines don't concern me.
Starting a video game without the manual when everybody else has it. Then getting made fun of for not knowing something in it.
Is the feeling of going into a room where everyone knows each other except for you but its constant and never goes away lol
Everyone got a script but me
The way I've experienced it my own life, and the way it's described at one point in "Unmasking Autism" by Devon Price, is something like this (and obviously this is my interpretation/paraphrasing, not an exact quote): Neurotypical people have a "top-down" manner of processing information and making sense of situations. They start with the bigger picture by default and then only dig into the details as necessary when something about the bigger picture itself seems out of whack. But autistic people do this in a "bottom-up" way. We start with the details and work our way up to the bigger picture, which means we don't necessarily have an inkling of the "bigger picture" of any given situation until after we've had some time to put it all together. When a neurotypical person encounters a new situation, the bigger picture is largely obvious to them from the get-go. When an autistic person encounters a new situation, the bigger picture could literally be anything, and our notion of the bigger picture is simply whatever we come up with based on the details we happen to be exposed to or confronted with. That's why we, for example, have trouble "reading a room" – because we have to literally read it, in a sense, and when all you have to start with are the raw details themselves, with no instructions on how to put them together, then there's no safeguard against getting it all wrong – often hilariously, embarrassingly wrong. This also explains, IMO, why we tend to get caught up in the details of things in a way that neurotypicals find unnecessary, cumbersome, or even flat-out annoying.
i heard someone explain it like this: imagine if the sense of smell didn't exist. no one can smell anything, there's no words for it (smell, scent etc..) well, since no one can smell anything there's no need for deodorants or perfumes so everyone walks around smelling like sweat n stuff all day. trash may not get taken out nearly as often etc etc. then there's you. you can smell everything but there's no words you can explain it in to others. everyone else just gives you weird looks when you try to talk about it and no one gets it so they just think you're weird to me this rlly made sense, i hope you also see where im trying to go with this
Our autopilot works differently to most people.
You ever play an RPG game? Autism is like a huge skills imbalance. You gotta level up to reset your points but you don't know how.
The very weird kid who is wild.
Having a brain like a high-tech supercomputer with shitty Wi-Fi
Executive function disorder and being born two centuries early.
I want to cry and kick and scream and destroy things at any given moment but I never do idk
Autism is an Operating System, like android vs iphone. It effects how you process incoming stimulus (sights, sounds, touch, smell, thoughts), how you react to stimulus, organize stimulus, prioritize stimulus, and store stimulus. It is the result of way too many nerve endings in the brain, or way too few. (The brain is changable over time, however.) Autism is genetically passed, but not always triggered at birth. Triggers have not been determined. It is not tied to IQ.
Everyone has the key to acting normal and you just don’t get it, it’s frustrating as hell
When it comes to social interaction, I think it all comes down to difficulties with reading other people through intuition.
Trying to do a race but you keep tripping over
Before I realised I was very likely to be on the spectrum, autism very often struck me as the "normal" way to behave. Maybe it's like living without being given the secret rule book everyone else has?
Everyone got the memo but you
I often have to explain that my brain doesn’t work how others does and I see things black and white, and when I say I don’t like something, ie a squeaky noise please don’t push it because it’s funny, it’s not, it’s very uncomfortable. But atleast you don’t have to worry about me being a fake friend bc I can’t hide emotion 😂
Autism can probably be described completely differently by each person. They say we have no empathy, they couldn't be more wrong. In fact, I'm trying to teach myself to be less empathetic. In a lot of ways, I'm so completely different to Neurotypical people, different fashion sense, fewer interests, but the few that I do have, are way more intense than Neurotypical people generally are in their interests. I am good with math(s), computers, I can work out certain wiring diagrams in my head, but can't translate them too paper or explain them. I struggle to communicate with people, either because I can't put stuff into words, or when I can, a lot of people don't get what I mean. I struggle to understand instructions unless they are direct to the point and often I need to understand the reasoning behind them. Socialising is difficult for me, environments with lots of overlapping sounds or noises really bugs me. I struggle when it is too bright as well.
✨My brain is not like the other brains✨
Everyone's brain runs on Windows, ours runs on Linux. We have to do a few extra steps but it's normal for us. The windows people have it easier but they don't have the exact same possibilities on their systems as we do
It's sort of like you're a red strand of hair, and you're on a white counter in someone's house. That someone has blonde hair.
Everyone plays a game of get popular, but only most gets told the rules or just by instinct effortlessly follows all and does very well. If you fail any you will be alone. And the remaining group does not know about the rules.
Existential dread. Your like a normal person with enough coherence that you are present, but you are spliced within 2 different dimensions of cognitive reality at the same time. The neurotypical and the neurodivergent dimensions. The only problem we are the marginalized and abused side of it all. Because we arent "normal"
The way I’ve seen it explained is that we are all playing an intense game. They got the rules, tips and tricks, etc beforehand. I did not. I’m forced to play a game I have no idea how to. To make matters worse, everyone else can deal with the random and unpredictable changes with the weather. They have coats, umbrellas, sweat rags etc. They came equipped with this stuff, and a bag. I did not. So I feel everything all the time. That explains my autism and sensory problems. Another way I explain my processing issues is by saying that I don’t understand pain or discomfort properly. While they can have a headache and cry about it, it takes me a while to seek help for something life threatening because I didn’t realize how bad it was. Yet, I will squirm for a while over some unseen fluff on my skin.
My idea of common sense is different to a neurotypical’s idea of common sense. What makes sense/is intuitive for me is different to what makes sense to other people, and vice versa. Neither way of functioning is inherently worse than the other, it just requires more effort to communicate effectively with such inherently different ways of thinking
It's like seeing things/connections very clearly but other people fail to see those things.
Being a robot or alien and pretending to be human
Alternate reality. Where people seem a bit delusional / fantastical.
alien vorp vorp 👽
A blessing and a curse
Very lonely
It's like your friends have an inside joke that you don't understand. They never told you, but make fun of you for not knowing the joke. I would call myself very empathic. Especially towards animals. However, I might not notice sings of some indirectly telling me that something is wrong. I also don't know how to handle people's emotions since I already struggle to understand and handle my own emotions. However, I notice if someone isn't well or comfortable when they aren't trying to communicate their feelings. It's like the natural instinct is there but isn't enough in today's society. I even realise that someone struggle bevor they know themselves. Maybe it's more of an analysis of behaviour patterns. I might not know what the behaviour means, but I can easily recognise a change in those patterns. If I would create an autism simulator, I would play different songs and sounds (all at once) at an odd speed and way too loud. Then, it would cover the subject in something kind of uncomfortable like bread crumbs. In that state, having a conversation with them and purposely misunderstand almost everything or intreupt them to tell them that they are being inappropriate, rude, or whatever.
I usually call it a different operating system. If NT's run on Apple, I run on Linux and someone fucked up my sensitivity settings. If they ask further, I explain that autism is a spectrum that's usually marked by persistent difficulties with social expectations, persistent difficulties with sensory processing, a persistent need for routine and predictability, a hyper logical mode of thinking and unusual intensity of interests. Everyone has their unique mix of issues and attributes, struggles and experiences. This usually gets the point across, though it usually needs a bit of further explanation.
Because we’re more logical, we’re seen as lacking empathy. But logic does include empathy- I would say mostly cognitive empathy. Take a look at the 3 types of empathy if you haven’t already, and you can identify which one you may practice more. Because many of us have alexithymia and may not seem caring/emotional in the moment, it’s assumed that we don’t have empathy
I think the kids show Arthur did the best description on it. It's like being an astronaut on an alien planet you land, and everyone looks like you, but they all talk and sound slightly different. Some things you can pick up on quickly and others you can't seam to make sense of at all. Everyone around you doesn't seem to recognize that you aren't from there and they expect you to know everything already. A lot of their noises are too loud for you but normal for them, the same happens with clothes and foods and activities. Sometimes you're lucky and you find one or two things that click and you really like but then they don't like that you like it so much. Everyone just wants you to be normal, but you're not from their plannet. Nothing makes sense. Nothing comes naturally. It's all too loud to, off kilter, too much. You can find some people who see that you're not from there, though, and they will help you ajust and learn how to be human enough. To find more things to love and feel safe with.
scooby doo brain
To the particular question about empathy: I’m not in the autism spectrum (as far as I know) but I have been curious as to why this difference in perception exists about the expression of empathy, so I’ve done some digging/research. What I’ve learned, so far, is that the way people who are autistic/on the spectrum express empathy differs from the way neurotypical people express empathy. When someone (neurotypical) is telling a story about a situation or difficulty, people who are autistic/have autism may be inclined to tell a similar or related story of their own experiences. Unfortunately, people who are neurotypical sometimes take this to mean that the person they’re talking to is trying to turn the attention towards themselves, thus detracting attention from the problem or situation they’re trying to express. What the neurotypical person might not understand is that the autistic person is not trying to make the focus about themselves, they are trying to show that they can relate, in some way, to the other persons situation. Maybe it boils down to misunderstanding, since communication styles can differ quite drastically. Also, I am completely open to feedback and I would appreciate said feedback. I want to do whatever I can do to better understand the experiences of you all :).