Our collective space

We are very easily confused by people's emotions, actions, words, and tone. As stated above, we're also terrible at handling surprises. We need a within-24-hours explicit notice of any appointment, trip, home service or event the next day. This isn't just about big deals, but small ones too. If a stranger talks to me, I stop thinking about my words in a panic and start saying things that confuse them and me. If we have to order our own food or merchandise, we get caught in the headlights at anything the cashier says that isn't "That'll be $$$." It doesn't help that in food locations, most menus are absolutely CONFUSING and if you get close enough to read it, they start to turn their attention to you! In drive thru's this is practically forced because when you pull up to the menu, you're in everyone else's way and the operator is already asking you how they can help you.

This part of our autism is partly autistic anxiety, partly agoraphobia. Anyone outside of my home or my computer is unpredictable and therefore to protect myself I fawn, because I assume that the worst of the worst could be any stranger I meet. That same kind of anxiety will make us deflate ourselves in any sort of debate or discussion, making us phrase things we are confident about with things to make us seem more uncertain, like "as far as I know," "I think," "but I'm not sure". We fail to assert our boundaries and needs because of this.

Our autism also makes us generally bad at vocal conversation. We're great at typing, and it's frankly superior to mouth words, because we get to think about our words as we see sentences unfurl before us. (This still doesn't help with communicating feelings, we usually struggle to think about feelings in the first place so typing doesn't help that.) In mouth conversation you have to think about what they said and catch it before it's gone, which is difficult as someone(s) with auditory processing problems. This is why (accurate) subtitles help us so much when watching films and such. Sometimes, we don't even respond to others in conversation, but this isn't with intent to be rude. Whenever someone says something we don't know how to respond to, we typically nod to acknowledge it, make a sound like a "hmm" to acknowledge it, or remain silent even if we heard them.

Autism is commonly associated with "developmental delays" and "meeting milestones late" in childhood, but the truth of the matter is that autistic kids simply develop skills at different rates and different orders than neurotypical children. Some autistic peoples may even have different rates for different skills from each other. Autism is a spectrum, and everyone's experience with autism is subjective and personal to them. We were not diagnosed early, but some autistic people are. We may not be visibly autistic, but some people are. We may have had our reclusiveness brushed off as "shyness" because of how good we were in school, and others may be belittled for having trouble understanding 'basic' concepts. We may have developed some skills quicker, and some not so much, and others may develop skills at their own pace. All of us, however, are united by the fact that we're all on the spectrum.

Running late.

This is where I'd put my text... if I HAD ANY!