Published on 12, July, 2020
I was just scrolling through and reading some of the older posts on here when I began to realise that even though I love reading, when I come on here and read posts, it's so much more than just reading.
I was off the forum for several months, mostly while I was having intensive one to one autism support. And even though I missed the people on here, I didn't realise just how important coming on here is to me.
It's like I get that feedback, that I think nt's get on a daily basis. It doesn't come from somebody agreeing with you or you with agreeing with them. It's more like a deeper sense of identification and I think it's a necessary part of our human make up, whether we're nt or nd. We're social creatures but a tiger, for example, isn't going to do as well with a group of sheep as he is with a group of tigers.
My friends at my autism group are so different to me in every single way, apart from having autism, yet we get on so well. There are none of the arguments that happen when I'm with nt's. You know how I talk on here ~ few can understand me ~ well I talk like that with them also (because this is how I talk!) and it doesn't cause arguments and even though they haven't got a clue what I'm talking about, it doesn't matter, the conversations continue. It's like there's a deeper level of understanding, that surpasses what we say. Our conversations are so random and I've said it before, they're also almost childlike, but they feel real and natural and enjoyable. More so than even when I'm talking about my special subject, because that's really just me talking.
It's like when I communicate with nt's, it's almost like I want to treat them like my teddies. I want to line them up and have them simply listen to me and when I've finished, I just want to put them away again. But when I'm with my autistic friends, it's different. I'm actually learning about them and getting to know them. I'm actually doing that thing they call 'building friendships'.
I feel so honoured that one of my friends (I sit with 3 guys) who has been going to the group way longer than me and lives in the area where the group is, and they all know each other anyway, has opened up to me in a way that he hasn't to anybody else. He always gets images in his head that make him laugh, but he never tells anybody what he's laughing about. He always says nothing. But he's started telling me. In fact, I now know when he wants to tell me. I can tell from his facial expressions and body language (I've never been able to do this before!) that he wants to tell me, so I ask him, and he doesn't hesitate, he gets right in there and tells me straight away. This means that I am able to successfully read his body language.
I also learn a lot from my autistic friends because even though I'm older than them (in years on this planet), they've all been autistic longer than me, meaning they've had their diagnosis longer, so they have a lot to teach me.
Financially, there's a huge gap between them and me but that doesn't even come into it. It doesn't matter that we don't share the same interests or have any similarities in our life styles because we get on regardless of all those outer, superficial things.
I guess if I ever have doubts about being autistic (even though I have an official diagnosis), I should just look around at who I am most comfortable being around. Even my 'deficiencies' i.e. my inability to read body language, is not true when I'm with autistic people. Ok this is only one time when I've been good at reading body language but I did do it.
I guess we're all just like animals really. We are most comfortable in our own pack. The difference is, human beings have something animals don't have, even though most humans don't make use of this faculty at this current time in our history, and even different kinds of animals live peacefully side by side.
Anyway, my point was (before I go off on a tangent, whatever a tangent is!) ~ would an nt person even suspect they're autistic (if they're not), and if they did, would they obsess about it as much as many of us did and still do sometimes and would they relate to us as well as we relate to each other and would they feel like they had found home, their people, their tribe, their pack, if they weren't?
I think you raise a really valid point about humans needing to be able to spend time talking with people that they can identify with. I also have a need to talk to other autistic people, I've never really felt mentally connected to anyone ever, but what I have come to realise is that with other autistic people, I get them, it doesn't matter if they're disagreeing with me or even talking about something completely different, I still understand them, if that makes sense? It's a level of insight that I've never experienced with regards to NT's.
Which brings me on to another interesting point you bring up, that of being able to read the body language of fellow autistic people. I have never been able to read body language well, I learnt a little bit about body language when I was a teenage girl reading teenage girl magazines that would have the occasional feature on body language and how to interpret it but I'd have to say that the scope and real life application of this information was somewhat limited. One of many things in the last few years that really made me realise that I have ASD is that I realised that I can read the body language and facial expressions of autistic people, I can kind of synchronise my brain with autistic people in a way that I have never been able to with NT's. I guess it makes sense that we would be better at recognising non verbal gestures of our own tribe as opposed to others. It's great that the guy at your group feels comfortable enough to disclose the images that he sees in his head to you.
And no, if a NT suspected they were autistic, though I think that it would be more of a fleeting thought. They wouldn't obsess about it as much as we do, they wouldn't spend all there time meticulously thinking through our own history to pinpoint evidence of being autistic, they wouldn't spend every spare moment researching autism. Because their brains don't work like ours do. And no they couldn't relate to us as well as we relate to our own, because they're not part of our tribe, they don't get our facial expressions or our body language or our non verbal gestures. Because the two tribes use completely different social language.
Sorry for the waffling
This isn’t waffling on, this is brilliant, thank you, I really appreciate your insights ~ this is all new territory for me, friendships, reading body language etc etc so I really appreciate the feedback.
I understand what you said in your first paragraph completely, that’s exactly what I was getting at. When I’m with my autistic friends it’s like we understand each other on a level that goes beyond the words we’re using and it’s like I listen to them more as well. For example, one day one of the girls I was sat with (I don’t usually sit with the girls, but this day I did, for awhile) and she said ‘Bluerays’ getting angry ~ and she was right. It sounds stupid but I realise now that I don’t usually realise when I’m getting angry and if anybody else had said that to me, I would have denied it completely (defence is the first act of war) and continued on in the same vein! Jeez, no wonder people don’t want to be around me! But when she said it, something happened to me. It’s like I stopped what I was doing, and I could actually see she was right! Amazing! And because I could see it, I simply changed the subject I was talking about. It’s like I’m learning so much from these people, who I now call my friends. I never learned any of this by being around nt’s.
And yes, my heart fills up with so much love every time my friend tells me what he’s laughing at. It’s so cute, because he would never say something like, do you want to know what I’m laughing at or he would never ask me to ask him what he's laughing at and it took a while, maybe a year, before he started to tell me but now, I can see that he’s bursting to tell me as soon as he gets an image. My heart swells every time and I am reminded, this is real, this is what real love looks like and feels like. It’s a beautiful exchange of real love from which we both benefit greatly, in our own ways. I know he benefits from sharing his joy with somebody and I benefit in several ways because he has chosen to share his joy with me.
I really like what else you said. You articulate it well and it really helps me and will help me to move forwards with much more confidence in myself, thank you. I did a really great job of passing for an nt, like many of us, which still lingers a little and makes me doubt who I am, but it’s getting less and less and with feedback like this, I can move forward with much more strength.
When I first got my diagnosis, I read or was told that it takes about two years to come to terms with and accept the diagnosis and work things out and I think that’s going to be right in my case. I had a year doing nothing, just waiting for the assessment and so far it’s been just over a year post diagnosis and this coming year I’ve set five precious goals for the year (which I have named with really great names) and they’re all about building my daily routines around me really, covering health and wellbeing, the soul, femininity and my finances - but in relation to finances, I don’t mean starting my own business or anything, I just mean getting stable with them as they are and learning how to manage them a lot better. All of this will lay the foundations and lead naturally on to when I do start moving into creating my income, which will probably begin to happen this time next year. There are other things more important than that to come first, such as building on the friendships I’m making, learning how to have fun and creating balance in my life.
So thank you so much for your insights, they match what I was thinking which gives me more confidence in myself, thank you