When I get clocked as autistic I activate a defense mechanism where I play into the stereotype and pretend to be a hyper intelligent child in a 30 year old's body.
This surprisingly works because I'm a woman (meaning society is infantalizing me anyway) and most of my hobbies are childish things like Sonic and Yu-Gi-Oh so it does allow me to indulge in them in public without fear.
So people just tend to think I'm adorable for some reason.
Sadly I couldn't even stop doing that if I wanted to. I kinda do because I hate being stereotyped and I know I'm not doing other autistic people any favors... but... I swear it's not even voluntary it's like a weird reflex.
I even do this softer less intimidating voice that creeps my boyfriend out. Honestly I think I have another personality that's just younger than my main one or something.
I'm depressed AF and I'm supposed to running PretendingtoBeHappyAndNormal.exe but it crashed because its missing some NeurotransmitterBalance.dll files and I can't download the .dll because the internet is too slow 🙃
Same. As an introvert I call this being "on". Like making sure I smile appropriately and then wondering if I'm smiling too much, trying to establish a rapport when I'd rather just get to the point, remembering not to mutter to myself or make faces in response to my thoughts, and mirroring people's body language. It's easier just to be a weirdo!
Most of these types of posts are not really about autism specifically, it is just about social mores and feeling alienated, something which happens to most non-autistic people as well.
Many of us spend way too much time conforming to others opinion on public social conduct. Those same judgmental people spend no time or effort on tolerating us. They probably would have enough brain power to keep breathing if they did.
I often think of neurodiversity as operating systems. Most people, the neurotypicals, are running on Windows. But us neurospicy people, we run on Linux. There are a lot of distros, different, but still kinda similar in some ways, you're usually not taught how to operate them, have to find out a lot by yourself though it isn't necessarily hard to learn if you'really given the opportunity and your environment just lets you be without too much expectations to run Windows software. And mostly, the normies don't get it and can't be bothered to learn about it. (Also there's Mac but that's those weird people who say they are different but really only do it for the clout. Or they're just artists.)
Tbh I'm getting a little tired of neurodivergence being worn like a badge of distinction. People who are neurodivergent aren't necessarily smarter, more creative or in any other way better than people who aren't. I'm neurodivergent myself, but so are Musk and Trump FFS.
Sure, and there are plenty of queer shit bags out there too but I doubt you'd make the same point about being tired of people wearing their sexuality like a badge of distinction. There are terrible people of color out there as well, would you tell entire demographics to stop flaunting their race/ethnicity?
It's as important for neurodivergent people to be visible and vocal advocates for their rights as it is for any other marginalized group
Exactly what i've been saying for a while now. The analogy goes even further: Windows is often used to carry out day-to-day office work, while Linux is used on servers, research/development machines, and anytime you need something non-standard/flexibility.
I kinda embraced that as a teen and honestly hurt me a lot over the years because I have an irrational, pathological need to be different even when it doesn't matter and even when it takes way more effort and hurts me.