Hi, yes, I’ve been talking about being autistic a lot since being diagnosed this summer.

But if you found out at age thirty that most other people are running on a totally different operating system than you, and you had noooo idea... wouldn’t you want to talk about that too?

I’ve been learning so much the past few months about what it’s like to be an allistic (not autistic) person. You folks are so different than I thought you were! I thought you were all way better at hiding your weird quirks than I am, but no, you just actually don’t have them!

I’ve spent my whole life being frustrated with myself for being weird, giving others wayyyy too much benefit of the doubt because I assumed that they had good or at least existing motivations for everything, & perplexed by why others couldn’t empathize back with me.

Now I know.

It’s freeing to be able to hold myself to more realistic expectations, and even more so, to relax my expectations of others.

I’ve started not expecting anyone to be able to empathize with me, and started not assuming others will do the right thing. It’s brought so much peace

The biggest frustration of my life has been trying to comprehend the motivations behind the actions of others. I assumed they had them

BUT THEY DON’T

Most people aren’t making deliberate choices all the time- they’re running off instincts I lack. Their actions don’t have intent

Look I do unfortunate & sometimes bad stuff more often than I’d like, but it’s always easy for me to own up to it & change because I’m 100% aware both that I did it & why I did it, always.

I *have* to make conscious choices about *everything*. That’s the only way I function.

I want you to imagine that, for every single thing you do in life, a telltale style choice pops up to let you know your options. You have to choose fast, but you MUST read & consider all the options.

For every single thing you do. Always.

That’s what being autistic is like

*for me

*and not just that, there’s fun sensory & executive function stuff too

*but this is the core of it for me

Btw I’m not saying that the fact that I have intent constantly is superior. I, personally, honestly feel the opposite. I MUST make decisions even when I don’t want to, because *almost everything* is cognitive for me.

And I know allistics often have intent but they don’t *always*

TL;DR- neurodiversity is nifty, being neurotypical, autistic, allistic, and/or neuroatypical looks different in every person. We’re all different, not wrong... and I hope maybe this thread helped you learn something about yourself or the world today