This community is for people who have a special neuronal configuration and I’d like to hear how you discovered it. Were you told? By who? How did you take it? How is life today?

Here’s my story:

I was only told by my mother that I’m smart but never anything else. She took me to a school psychologist for evaluation to decide what school form I should go to after elementary.

My teachers in elementary school thought I should go to a more basic school form but my mom was convinced I was too smart for that. So I went to sort of an advanced school. It was no problem intellectually but I became an outcast pretty much immediately. Had to switch schools later because of my social difficulties.

It took another 20 years for me to go out on my own and search for the reason why stuff wasnt working. Neither normal “desk” work nor “supervisor” positions worked really. When I went self employed, I found a spot for the first time.

When covid hit and I had to give up my company, I went digging for answers. “Gifted” was the first thing, but it wasnt the whole picture. When “Autistic” was added it all started making sense. Too much going on in the head to “be normal” but no social talent to actually make something out of myself in the corporate world.

Its an ongoing process of resolving trauma as much as possible and learning to live with what isnt resolvable. Explaining the process and situation to people, sometimes against opposition is not easy but all in all my life has become a lot healthier.

Thanks for reading. Have a good one!

  • Ms. ArmoredThirteen
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    13 months ago

    I’ve pretty much always known I process information and social interactions differently. As for figuring out what exactly was going on: it was after I finally managed to find a social group I really vibed with in my late 20s early 30s. Every one of them is autistic, all of them. They were all very surprised when they learned it never occurred to me I might be autistic too they all already knew what was going on. Suddenly a lot of things started to make more sense for me

    It hasn’t really changed much in my life to be honest. I had already built up a lot of ways to get through everything reasonably well. I think the main thing is it is a bit easier to talk to understanding people now because I can just be like “hey I’ve got autism bear with me while I butcher this conversation, I mean well” instead of putting in the effort to mask. Also people are more understanding at group things if I just stand up and fuck off for an hour now that I have words to express to them it isn’t because I don’t like them