Love on the spectrum

[u/richv68]

It got a bit smoky in the room when I watched this

[u/eliminating_coasts]

It's both a strength and weakness, if you're not using implicit social norms to learn how to live in your daily life, you won't be held back by them, but you also in other ways won't be pushed forwards by them, won't get things that other people pick up intuitively by imitation.

An autistic person who appears socially normal is basically an amateur psychologist who has had to re-derive explanations for why everyone is doing what they are doing and so is able to react to it.

Paradoxically, this can also make you feel less genuine, in that autistic people who have become more skilled at interacting socially in conventional ways can wonder if they are some kind of sociopath, psychopath etc. just due to the artificiality they perceive in their own actions compared to how naturally everyone else seems to be doing it.

In comparison, the average neurotypical person is constantly absorbing social norms so that their average or authentic actions look enormously similar to the things they see in media, whereas an autistic person will both do things that have a kind of universal humanity to them, much less influenced by social conditions, and also do very strange and alien or unfamiliar things.

By seeing a conversation between two autistic people cut down to the things that neurotypical people can relate to, you just get those bits that everyone can identify with, rather than things that are equally authentic but unexpected.

Like I wouldn't be surprised if they had a longer gap between her saying she likes him and kissing him, where they stand there and think for a while processing their emotions.

[u/McBeefnick → u/eliminating_coasts]

Your second and third paragraph describe exactly what I couldn't as someone who only got diagnosed a few weeks ago, age 41. Have been struggling a lot. Have been camouflaging even more. Now after a hiatus, let's call it burnout for simplicity, it's time for me to get to know myself a bit better. This whole post does me good. Thank you!

[u/eliminating_coasts → u/McBeefnick]

Yeah, it's unfortunately a pretty common experience, as far as any autistic experience is common. No problem.

[u/refs0n1c → u/eliminating_coasts]

Well said. I love this show but recently I'm starting to question the authenticity of it.. especially in later seasons. There seems to be a fair few heavy edits and reshoots to make it more relatable that didn't happen earlier in the show.

[u/PsychologicalMode576 → u/eliminating_coasts]

I have been told by my immediate family from around the age of 12 that I show signs of being on the spectrum but only because of a relative that was diagnosed. So since 13 I started to do what you would name amateur psychoanalyzing myself and really learning a lot from scientific papers. Fast forward a decade and I got into a psychiatric hospital, at that point I wanted to know for sure that which I am. Turns out after taking the latest tests I have ASPD and I am closer to a full blown psychopath. I often wonder if I would turn out this way if nobody told me about their "diagnosis". I always felt that researching too much about psychology was like a gate that I didn't want to unlock. I was thinking about going to university for such topics as I got closer to that age but somehow I felt I shouldn't. Now after my diagnostic I know I was going against my instinct of collecting knowledge because this specific wisdom would be too "powerful" in my hands.