Common Autistic Experiences/Traits I Don't Relate To.

For those of us who are self or late diagnosed, it can be difficult to hear many autistic people sharing common experiences that we don’t relate to. 

It can bring on intense imposter syndrome. 

So I thought I’d list some commonly-talked-about experiences/traits that I don’t experience, to show that you don’t have to relate to every single trait/experience of autism!

1. I was not bullied in school.

   
   

   I was actually somewhat “popular” in primary school, (though I tended to hop between who was my “best friend” every few weeks or so) and was never bullied.

   In secondary school, I wouldn’t consider myself to have been bullied at all, I was more so just a bit invisible. I had some close friends, but they were all also outcasts, weirdos, the others who were bullied. I think I was just less of a target I guess because to others I likely seemed like such an empty shell there wasn't much to bully about me. No one cared about me enough to bully me.

   
   

   In college, I was mistreated, maybe I’d call it bullied, by a teacher, but not by anyone else my age. Again, I was ignored more than I was bullied. I could not connect with my peers, so I became this invisible ghost people only noticed when they needed to. The only reason I was bullied by that teacher, was because she was a theatre teacher, and she didn't like that I didn't fit the out-going, loud stereotype of most theatre students. I guess because I challenged her ideas of what a theatre student should be, she felt a duty to bully me out of it. Didn't work though. Just made it worse. Jokes on her I suppose.

   
   

2. I don't experience meltdowns.

   This was a huge point of contention for me in the early days of my self diagnosis. It gave me a lot of imposter syndrome.

   I heard all about meltdowns online, and I almost felt guilty, because I had never experienced that (at least not to my knowledge). All I heard about meltdowns online, sounded like a huge, intense explosion of violence and screaming and crying. I felt like I’d “gotten away with” not having to go through meltdowns. I though I just got lucky that I was "happy" enough to not end up dealing with meltdowns. Which led to me thinking I wasn't "autistic" enough.

   
   

   I got hung up on definitions, which was part of the problem. Now I consider myself someone who occasionally experiences shutdowns, but not meltdowns. I've always been someone who tends to push my emotions inwards. I push them down to hide them from the world. So those emotions have nowhere to go but in. And thus, rather than exploding outwards in a burst of violence and screaming, my brain shuts off, I dissociate, and am frozen still for a while. All sensory input becomes too much and I have to just sit in silence for a while.

   I still sort of feel like i've "got away with it", a bit. I feel like my experience of a shutdown is likely much less intense and harmful than some peoples experiences with meltdowns.

   
   

3. I'm not sure if I have special interests.

   Similarly to meltdowns, I tend to get hung up on definitions, and so I often sit here and wonder what counts as a special interest, what counts as a hyperfixation, what is just a ‘normal’ interest.

   I hear many different definitions from different people, and that can get very confusing for me. At what point does something go from being a ‘normal’ interest to be a special interest? At what point has a hyperfixation lasted long enough that I can call it a special interest?

   There's plenty of topics I love to infodump about, like rollerskating, or filmmaking or linguistics, but I wouldn't call those special interests, nor would I call them hyperfixations.

   I tend to get what I think are quite intense, long-lasting hyperfixations, but I don’t know at what point that becomes a special interest.

   
   

4. I don't struggle with showers.

   It sounds so silly and arbitrary, but it’s a very common experience I hear talked about a lot in the autism community. People often talk about how they struggle to find the motivation to shower, hate the sensory experience, and that leads to hygiene struggles.

   I don’t really relate to this. I quite like showers usually, I like coming out of it feeling refreshed and ready for the day (I’m a morning showerer lol). I tend to daydream in the shower so I come up with a lot of ideas while in the shower.

   I have a strong shower schedule that I like to stick to wherever possible. I shower every other morning, unless that gets thrown off when I go swimming, or during the summer if I get especially sweaty and gross and the feeling of the suncream is driving me mad.

   
   

5. I am not high masking.

   I feel like it’s a very common experience for late diagnosed people to be high masking, and they always cite that as the reason they were missed in childhood.

   However, I don’t really relate to this. I don’t consider myself a high masker.

   I can force a smile, try and supress some stims, force eye contact, but that’s about it. I attempted to mask more heavily when I started college (without knowing that was what I was doing of course), but I failed right away, because I am physically incapable of forcing myself to talk more. I can't just mask my way through not knowing what to say next. In theory I knew of the things I could say, but I just couldn't get myself to speak. I know the social rules, but that doesn’t mean I am able to execute them. I know when someone asks me how my week was, I'm supposed to ask them back, but I just can't get myself to say those words no matter how much I want to. And that's not something I can really just mask.

   
   

6. I'm not sure if I experience PDA.

   I hear a lot of talk of PDA these days, but I don’t really know if it applies to me. I feel like it’s almost conditional. In some aspects I experience it, in others I don’t.

   I think I experience it quite a lot related to health and exercise. Eating healthy and exercising feels like a demand most of the time, and that makes me not want to do it.

   
   

   However, there are plenty of other occasions where I rely on demands to get things done. If there isn't the pressure of someone relying on me to get something done, the chances of me doing it and finishing it are very low (which is why i never finish any of my personal projects... what do you mean I haven't posted a blog here in... 8 months?). I always struggled with revision/studying in school, because I didn't have that pressure of a detention looming over me if I didn't do it. Homework, I always did on time (even if it was in a rush the night before...), because the threat of a detention was enough for me to get myself to do it. The demand made me do it, rather than made me avoid it. I rely on those demands sometimes. So is that PDA? I'm not sure.

So, that's all I can think of for now. Maybe hearing those things helped to ease some imposter syndrome for you, knowing that there are autistic people out there who don't relate to every autistic experience! Feel free to share some things you don't relate to in the comments, to help to further ease the imposter syndrome of any other readers who end up here!

Why have you suddenly returned to this blog? You may ask. Well, I started an instagram account of the same name! And I figured maybe it would be a good excuse to start this blog up again if I can cross post everything, maybe with some extra details here that I couldn't fit on an instagram slideshow. So go give me a follow if you want! at: https://www.instagram.com/autismwrites/

And if you've come here from instagram, welcome! Make yourself comfy, have a look around. Enjoy my old, mildly cringey posts. And stick around for future posts!