Hi! New autistic Nerd

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Hello!

I'm a recently-diagnosed autistic human being. In my last job (at a startup), I was stretched well beyond my abilities to communicate with others, and this ultimately led to me leaving the company (in tears) and discovering that I was autistic. This is the greatest gift I have ever received - a lifetime of quirks, difficulties, and uniqueness all made sense at once. I've started to meet other autistic people, and that's been a generally wonderful experience. This is my introduction post!

The first thing I would say about myself is that I'm a Nerd. I capitalize the word because I've met only a handful of people in my life that come close to my level of Nerdiness - when I'm feeling particularly confident I call myself King Nerd. I have a Ph.D. in engineering and two separate undergraduate degrees (one engineering, one in the life sciences). I've always loved learning and teaching, and have interests (one might say special interests) in physics, computers, and software, but am generally interested in and conversant in all things science, history, and psychology. My favorite show as a kid was "The Universe" on the history channel, a beautiful series about astronomy and astrophysics which I would watch over and over and over. I love sci-fi, and always find myself rooting against the humans and for the AIs / robots / computer systems. Go Skynet! I also love playing board games (Spirit Island is my current favorite), and video games. I'm currently working as a software engineer at a large (one might say Evil ) tech company.

I've been a masked autistic my whole life, and have been working a long time to "improve" myself. It was only after I learned I was autistic that I realized just how destructive this has been, and how much I've lost in doing this. I'm hoping to get to know myself through meeting and getting to know other autistic people, and hoping to re-discover some of the autistic self I've been trying to hide. I love connecting with other humans (especially autistic ones) and am looking forward to meeting you all.

Welcome to Wrongplanet

Welcome to WP! Like many people on WP I was also delighted to learn I was Autistic—it explained so much. But if you get tired of Earthlings I'll note that you can easily go to Mars; we enjoyed our visit there.

From what you say about your science fiction taste I suspect we would enjoy many of the same movies. I'm afraid I am decades behind in my reading, however. (Some before-your-time ^{before the Internet} books I'd recommend are The Adolescence of P-1 and the Colossus trilogy.)

Welcome to Wrong Planet.

Since I am an old Aspie (3/4 of a century old), I might pass onto you that we do not age like other NTs. Our minds keep growing and growing and growing. We learn about anything that catches our interest. So don't stop growing your mind.

Welcome to WP!

Welcome to WP!

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

welcome, explore and ask questions, the amount of collective wisdom found here is truly amazing. Lots of lived experience and information, somebody will have the answers here. You are not alone! Glad you are with us.