Some friends of mine who are on the neurodiverse spectrum (#ADD and/or #autistic) think I'm probably on the spectrum too. Their experience is that they get on better with people on the spectrum. They think that they like me is a strong indication.
What is your experience? Do autistic people have a "detector" for this characteristic?
Or is it really the case that you feel more comfortable with other neurodiverse people than with neurotypical people?
It's dramatically easier to relate and have conversations with other ND people, especially the closer they get to my flavor of ND. It's so much less stressful and much more relaxed. Communication flows so much easier.
And yeah, the mental 'detector' is not 100% reliable like other people have mentioned, and not every ND person is automatically someone you vibe with, anyway, but the detector is very apparent. But it's not just ND people that have the detector, it's just that they're more conscious of it. NT people have it, too, but their lack of consciousness about it can involve, for example, othering ND people, it's what leads to them labeling ND people as 'weird' or even into bullying, etc. Not that this is all NT people, just that these phenomena clearly demonstrate that NT people sense us, even if they don't understand what they're sensing.
@LeelaTorres@actuallyautistic Before I realized I was autistic I found my way over to another Mastodon instance and, having grown apart from my former allistic friends, it was the bulk of my social interaction. It was so much easier to talk with the people there.
As I started to realize I was ND I posted a poll asking how many people identified as ND in some way. 80% said they did.
And as I realized I was autistic, so too did my partner of 20 years.
@LeelaTorres@actuallyautistic Most of my friends have all had ADHD (which I always thought was a funny coincidence). I can sort of tell if someone else is autistic, but that's more of a recent thing. I was able to determine a coworker was autistic, tho.
I thought he had first day jitters (constant chatting), until I noticed he seemed oblivious to my lack of interest, and then it clicked. Also helped that he had a puzzle piece tattoo, but I didn't see that right away.
If someone had told me I might be autistic before I’d started to work it out for myself, I would probably have dismissed it because my knowledge & understanding of autism was so out of date & sketchy.
But I’ve always had empathy for autistic people, & even suggested to a parent that autism might be something to check out in their 12yo daughter who was struggling socially at school. ( I was her teacher.) So I guess my … autidar? was working to some extent?
When I started reading & doing quizzes online, the indicators were all vague. It was only when I started reading articles & books by autistic people, including autistic researchers, that the bell started to ring loudly & clearly.
Stuff written by non-autistic people is focussed on what they can see, that matches their ideas of what autism is. Kind of like the tip of the iceberg. Stuff written by autistic people is about the whole picture including how autism feels for autistic people, including the very wide range of traits, rather than just the classic ones we see on screens.
I definitely have a detector. I’m not psychic. Nor do I know with certainty the people I meet on the street are ND.
However, so far I haven’t been off base, which is somewhat strange if you don’t understand the way some of us recognize patterns.
Whether you see your own patterns and thresholds and habits and whether they match up. Can someone else have these and not be ND ofc.
I haven’t many yet though, that are not ND that I thought were irl. 0
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