Published on 12, July, 2020
My therapist asked me whether I know any other autistic people today and I realised that I don't. Admittedly I've been somewhat isolated due to my mental health, but, I'm working on that and I'm working on getting back out there.
My fear is that I'm too autistic for neurotypical people yet too normal for autistic people due to my high masking skills.
Are there any pros to trying to socialise and get to know more autistic people? Any cons?
I help teenagers with some of the real world skills they need when leaving school and have to say they can be tough to work with - they (we?) sometimes have really weird social interactions, hair trigger anger/fear issues, can be very hard to find an environment they feel comfortable in and their attention span is typically terrible.
It is way more hard work than most neurotypicals in my experience.
The pros are quite variable and really depend on the overlap of your traits on whether there is enough shared interest to overcome your individual issues.
I would say the chances are about even of finding a compatible friend in an NT or ND group
Thank you. I'll definitely keep this in mind as I start trying to be more social again.