It doesn't really help that I struggle with understanding abstract concepts & fare much better with concrete examples. One hit me today between the eyes while I was ruminating on a TV show I'm rewatching. I was like "Oh I know that this thing here is a metaphor for something else in wider society!"... And my brain helpfully chimed in with "Yes, because someone told you that!"
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One #ActuallyAutistic trait I've struggled to see in myself is overly literal interpretation.
Like, that's just not me! I can understand metaphor. I know how to construct them & apply them, & I recognise them in other people's work... just so long as someone has pointed it out to me... Oh. Welp. 🤷♀️
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The worst aspect is I won't let my OH help because he won't do it right according to some bit of my brain. 🙄
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I'm bad at fitting into a role that doesn't benefit me. I'm bad at doing emotional labour for other people.
I'm pretty good at having agency though, & I'd like to get more comfortable with that aspect of myself over the coming years.
I've reached an age where the prevailing message is that women become invisible. But I've always been pretty invisible in the sense that I think they mean (i.e. male gaze). Not to the people who matter though.
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The caveat, of course, to all of this is that I know I am loved. I feel it every day from people who choose to have me in their lives as much as I choose them. The belief that society would have me hold to be true does not match up with my reality.
I read recently a comment about heteronormativity having one gender as the agent & the other as the object. My gender is the object. And when I say I'm bad at being a woman, what I mean is that I'm bad at being an object.
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I have given up on making my body small. I have never in my life secured the male gaze. I convinced myself for years that not being pretty could be mitigated if only I had the right personality & then failed to contort myself into that person. Failed to be cute or cheerful or sassy or dark/pastel/quirky/dreamy enough.
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I am bad at being a woman & bad at femininity. I rarely prioritise what other people want me to do over what I want. I am selfish. By choice, I have no children. I have not set myself up to be a carer for my family members. I act as if I were a man. I have no inclination to apologise for the way that I am.
I also believe that I am unlovable because of all of the above (because that is what society has taught me). I am torn between not giving a shit & caring very, very deeply about this.
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Anyway, apologies if the language around this isn't very exact. I'm relatively new to the whole examining-my-own-emotions thing & any texts I read about emotions, feelings, bodily sensations just confuse me further because I don't have the right frame of reference for them I think. It's all just a big messy blob to me so the lingo never sticks when I try to learn it.
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I'm feeling something that I've identified (incorrectly) as loneliness. Not caused by not being around family & friends on this of all nights (random nights of the year don't have much impact on me) but because I've had several decades of messaging that I'm supposed to feel lonely if I don't conform to certain social expectations on NYE.
When I focus, I know I'm not lonely right now. But the narrative is that you should be lonely if you're not out with everyone else right now. 🤔
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One of the biggest issues I've had is when what I recognise I'm feeling directly contradicts the narrative because then I know the vague direction of the emotion (e.g. positive vs negative). For years I was very bothered by feeling sad after I spent more than a few hours socialising with friends. It turns out what I was feeling was an almost total drain of my social battery, not actual sadness.
Now I'm having a similar mix-up, although I have caught it a bit quicker.
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One of the things I have most struggled with since realising I'm autistic is how slow I am to process my emotions. I can very rarely articulate what I'm feeling at any time & the realisation/identification of the emotion only comes afterwards. But also a lot of it is guesswork. My method for processing my emotions usually requires little narratives as explainers. E.g. X happened, I like/dislike/hate X, therefore I'm feeling Y. Needless to say, this approach is vulnerable to error.
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I was having a conversation with an acquaintance earlier today about aesthetics & attraction, particularly around #tattoos. I find tattoos fascinating & attractive on other people but I have none of my own & no desire to get any. The person I was discussing this with (who has a couple of tatts) hinted strongly that it's a one-way attraction & now I'm curious.
If you have tattoos (especially a lot, e.g. full sleeves), do you find people without them physically attractive?
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🤦♀️ Some of my family are obsessed with surprises, which I find stressful because they're all whispered between the family members in the know & I never get the whole story even though I'm not the target of the surprise. For some inexplicable reason, they've decided to combine a surprise party with Christmas this year which is also super stressful. I'm seriously tempted to stay at home.
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My initial emotional reaction, after a lifetime of nervous masking, is to view it negatively - I'm clearly doing something wrong & my mask is slipping! I'm not dressing or acting the way people expect. I come across as immature! Cue a mild but immediate panic where I feel like a rabbit in headlights. 😱😭😵💫
Once that passes, I'm neutral about it. I struggle to guess people's ages so it doesn't bother me if people do the same to me. 🤷♀️
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Yesterday, for the 2nd time in 6 months, I told someone my age (early 40s) & they expressed extreme surprise because they thought I was 5-10 years younger than I am. From what I've read, seeming younger than you are seems to be a common thing for #ActuallyAutistic people & I'm curious how you view it if you experience it.
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I'm a smart person. I can understand technical concepts & processes really quickly that other people just can't see meaning in. But this shit just stumps me a lot of the time. Bearing in mind the story I read is aimed at tween/teenagers, I get the impression I was supposed to have understood this about 2-3 decades ago. 🤦♀️
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Does anyone else struggle to comprehend a social concept until they hear (or read) someone else say (or write) it?
This happens to me A LOT & I wonder if it's an #ActuallyAutistic thing. I've literally just read in a story about liking someone (romantically) because they like you as a form of self validation, & I'm all like "ooooh!" 💡
It's like I had a vague grasp of the concept before I saw it written down but I never would have been able to describe it on my own before now.
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I feel like I had some big thoughts about myself this evening that have helped me to understand myself better. But now I'm emotionally emptied out.
Similar to when I have a few days of socialising - I know once I'm over this slump, I'll be happy I did this, but right now I'm very low & really want to curl up under my duvet & not have to go out ever again, maybe have a little cry while I'm at it. 🥺
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I've been thinking about how something can go from intellectually known to emotionally known & if there's a way that that transition can be achieved consciously. I have yet to figure out a way, especially about self-realisations. It feels like either they were always true on an emotional level or that they're only true as a matter of fact that can still be disputed by the illogical parts of the brain. But I can't think of a single time they transitioned from one to the other.
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The #ActuallyAutistic experience of updating your #CV / #resume with new skills & wondering how expert you need to be at a thing before you can feel comfortable adding it, because anything short of "I have lived, breathed & eaten this thing for the past decade" means you are still a newbie & putting it on your CV is a big fat LIE. 😱
A little help please? 🥹
To add a skill my CV, I need to:
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