earlier i was thinking about how i used to be really reticent to call myself "autistic" because i don't have super severe symptoms that are well-known (like really bad sensory issues that cause frequent meltdowns and etc. i can get overwhelmed in certain situations, but for the most part i don't have extreme sensory problems, just mild sensory problems or none at all), and my symptoms tend to be on the more abstract and harder to quantify side of things.

the other thing that kind of alienates me from the online autistic community is the focus on special interests as a main pillar of autistic identity. i feel like depression stole the huge variety of special interests i used to have from me and left me with, like, One, and it just feels like it's another thing that keeps me from fitting in and that sucks. did you know some autistic people don't have a single special interest? how must they feel about it.

but like it's just an undeniable fact. "why can't i breathe air and survive?" says the fish out of water, "it's not like i'm a fish or anything." <- how i sound being like "i can't be autistic because i don't conform to a stereotype."
brother you're flopping around and gasping and can't figure out why you can't breathe air, and every friend you've ever connected to on a really intimate level was a fucking fish or at least an aquatic mammal, or an amphibian, and for the life of you, walking on "legs" has been a concept invented on the moon for you your entire life. but no man. you're definitely 100% neurotypical, faking being A Weird Kid for online validation or whatever. cuz you wanna belong somewhere, cuz you've always felt like everywhere you ever tried to relate to other people was a sisyphean struggle always culminating in quitting and going back to being alone. <- wait but if you're just "Normal" and neurotypical, how come you feel that way?

when i was a kid, i got really confident in my ability to understand other people, because i felt like i was doing a really good job puzzling out normal social behavior. i was really proud of myself for figuring out the most basic types of social interactions and meanings and was like, "welp, guess i got this Being Human shit down-pat. haha, yes, due to my immense intelligence and observational ability!"

i bragged about how i could tell when people were lying to someone i was friends with as a teenager, because i was genuinely proud of all this like i was getting a good score on a test. it turns out the person i was bragging to was also autistic, was also playing the same "game" as me, and taking the same "tests," except he was way smarter than me and way better at the game than me, and he could see that i was an amateur and easy to fool. we connected deeply and we did genuinely really care about each other. i believe in my heart that he really did love me, and part of the reason he didn't manipulate me from the beginning was because of that. he didn't want to hurt me until he could justify it for himself by casting me as "deserving" of being hurt by doing something to hurt him first. it's strange to look back and realize that a lot of what he was doing was contriving situations for him to extract "bad behavior" out of me in order to justify how he would later treat me. because i had always been very kind, understanding, supportive and loving toward him. i cared a lot about him and it was obvious just in how i acted that i would never do some of the disgusting shit he later accused me of, but he needed to believe that i would do those things. he was deeply paranoid, didn't trust anyone, and assumed by default that people were two-faced and self-serving. i don't blame him for that, it's a natural defense mechanism to develop when you go through the kind of abuse he went through. but anyway, we were literally teenagers, this happened over a decade ago.

back to the original point: so when i started trying to figure out why i've always felt this immense alienation socially, not just from being treated like garbage for being fat, but for ..... Everything Else (if i'd always been thin, it wouldn't have changed this fundamental "difference" i seemed to have that made my interfacing with the world really fuckin difficult), the only thing i ever landed on was autism, but i felt like i COULDN'T be autistic because i didn't relate deeply to the really prominent things like i mentioned in the beginning. and that doubt still follows me around. but once again: why do i always relate to autistic people, why are all my friends who i relate to most autistic/ADHD, etc. etc.

anyway i think i'm starting to talk in circles. i was just thinking about this is and wanted to write it somewhere is all.
i'm going to read this later and be like "what the fuck is bro rambling about."