In your experience, do autistic people “flock”?
In your experience, do autistic people “flock”?
I have been recently diagnosed as autistic, and now I seem to see autism everywhere in my social circle. My brother, a daughter, at least two friends. . . Either there are a lot of undiagnosed autistic people out there OR I tend to become friends (more comfortable) with fellow autists, OR I am just being silly and am attributing autism to NT people with strong interests. Fellow neurodivergent folks of all types, what is your experience? (Edit: changed ND to NT. oops!)
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I think it’s a multitude of things:
- autistic people tend to gravitate to other autistic people since we share strong interests and other traits
- although there is a cutoff for diagnosis, autistic traits are everywhere and if someone has them, they might not be diagnosed but still have some traits
- autism is hereditary. So some people in your familiy will have it too
- a lot of people don’t get diagnosed for vaious reasons so they don’t necessarily identify as autistic but they might be.
I could name many more but those are the top reasons I could think of.
Summary: It’s awesome to see that people actually are like you in a way. You‘re in a brave new world. Try to enjoy.
autism is hereditary. So some people in your familiy will have it too
Or in my case, my mother's side was likely autistic, while my father's side was narcissistic (dad was 100% classic NPD), and unfortunately, I lost my mother around ~3 y/o, so I only knew the abusive jerks that thought I was the perfect scapegoat to take advantage of.
Oof. I‘m so sorry. I absolutely know what you mean. My parents are both highly abusive. I hope you have people to talk to.
Thank you! I ran away once I was old enough, and now I keep them far away. I've been finding my own crew, which is pretty hard when I don't have a template of what to look for, but I have an idea of what I don't want.
Thats a rough story man. I can’t imagine the pain you went through. From my experience, we do have a template, it’s just toxic.
It took me decades to understand I‘m building new circles of abusers around me so I had to cut them off one after the other.
Now I‘m very picky about people I let into the inner circle.
Thank you for the warm validation 😊
we do have a template, it’s just toxic
Yep! I agree with that 100%.
Now I‘m very picky about people I let into the inner circle.
What I'm working in therapy is to keep track of places and social settings that make my senses feel comfortable and uncomfortable. Then, slowly start engaging further in the comfortable spaces while avoiding the uncomfortable ones. The goal is to find the places and people that are healthy for me. It's a taking a while and there are a bunch of experiments I have to push my self to complete because I'm going into totally new settings, but I'm hopeful it will be fruitful.
That sounds like a pretty good strategy. What I don’t understand is the comfort thing. I grew up under the impression that we need to step out of our comfort zone. I pretty much lived outside of it all my life. From that perspective, maybe inside the comfort zone should be the norm and outside should be „a dare“. Sorry if I‘m rambling. I‘m trying to find my own place in the world as well. :) good luck in any case.
I pretty much lived outside of it all my life.
Same! So I was constantly burnt out, dissociated, or having melt downs. That's probably why I was diagnosed with so many MH considtions, but the therapies weren't really effective. They were treating the symptom (depression, anxiety, PTSD, bipolar), not the problem (over- and under- sensory stimulation). Part of what we're working in therapy is to switch my perspective of life from something that I have to endure to something that I enjoy.
Thank you!
I wish I was at the part of it where I actually enjoy my life. My father told me that so many times (while also being an abuser) that I can’t hear it anymore. I would be fine if everyone would just fuck off and leave me in peace. But apparently, thats not possible.
So, as you see, much work in front of me still.
I would be fine if everyone would just fuck off and leave me in peace.
I'm sorry you're in that situation. I've had people like that in my life, and the only solution that I could find was to completely cut them off, including blocking their phone number and email. I know you might not be able to or even comfortable with that, so it might help to speak to a professional that knows autism well on changes you can make to be more happy/less depressed.
Thank you and don’t worry. I‘m not alone in that situation. It’s more a systemic problem that bothers me which I can’t „solve“ but need to work around. It’s the „easy answers“ that certain government employees seem to have that often kneecap me. But it’s getting better. Sorry if that upset you in any way.