For reference, I am not diagnosed with autism but have sustainable reason to believe I am.
This isn’t about me feeling othered by neurotypical people but rather by fellow neurodivergents. My cousin, who I am pretty close with, and is also not diagnosed (yet), keeps on making comments about how I am “the only neurotypical here” when I’m with my cousins and sibling. This makes me feel very bad, but I don’t want to say anything because I don’t think they’d understand. What makes it even more confusing is they are also not diagnosed? Yet they call them self autistic all the time. Almost an annoying amount, but who am I to say. They mention it whenever they’re freaking out over their new interest or whatever, saying “sorry I’m just being so neurodivergent rn lol” you know? It just makes me feel really shitty and kind of like they don’t and never have seen me for who I am. I’m not really good at explaining or understanding my emotions but it’s something like that. They always mention their (undiagnosed) autism when talking about their favorite things, as if autism is what makes them like those things. Like, neurotypical people like things and find them interesting too? They say this about all of their interests btw. Anything they find fascinating. The thing is, they seem to think all autistic people freak out like them when talking about their special interests. This makes me feel kind of shitty and “less than” just because I usually don’t have that much energy and most of my liking for my favorite things is done internally and not really visible to other people.(I kind of just sit there staring in amazement). Anyway, I was just wondering if other people have experienced this? It just makes me feel really *** whenever they say stuff like that to me.
