What does autism mean to you?

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Thank you! That's a great idea; I'll give it a listen!

I used to do that too when I worked retail! The previous book I wrote was an alternate world fantasy about a girl who fell into a fantasy world and had to figure out how to get back to the real world. Sort of an aspie theme too, now that I think about it, being in the wrong world and all... This new book will be a fantasy too, but set in the real world.

Oh cool, those takes on fantasy aren't usually what I have in mind when I use the term, but both concepts seem interesting.

I just invented a secondary world and started writing out little biographies for people and then started making their stories overlap. I'm not sure if it should be done as a collection of short stories, a series of novels or novellas, or some other form yet to be determined.

I would also look at videos by Sarah Hendrickx that focus on the female experience of autism.

That sounds cool! I love a fantasy world with really rich world building. I also like when a secondary character in a novel becomes the main character in the next novel...maybe that could work? Short stories are fun too though!

Good call!

Hello.

What it means to me... I have not been assessed, but it makes a whole lot of sense. A clarity that I did not have before.

I am not saying I understand what autism means or what non-autiam means as... Uhmmm. It is something that I have now explored and explored thinking at first I was not within the spectrum but having issues with an aspect that was a trait (Partial and full shutdowns) which took me most if my life and then prayer to find out what it was, as doctors just did not have a clue and I did not know how to describe them...

The other traits came as a shock apart from prosopragnosia. Oh, I knew I had other traits but I always thought they were part of my character. I never knew they were autism traits. That is the part that shocked me!

So from what others have said, they believe I am on the spectrum (Not all agree but most do and a few are certain) and from what I have learned about myself and traits I have is that it has come to me that who I call "Normal people" (I thought of myself as "Not normal"... I never knew there were others like me!) who seem to not need to mask to make people accept and like them... Well. It occured to me that I do not know how allistic people think.
You see, I did not know what Autism was. I thought it was a severe dissability as one sees the worst case scinarios on TV. I feel for them... Somehow... You know when you are in a group due to being in school or college, and some of the youthful people would say some silly remark to make fun (They don't realize what they say is hurtful. They are just young and stupid!).. Well I could not do that. Somehow though I was not physically dissabled and though they may not be able to speak.. Somehow when my eyes met theirs it was as if we were of the same family and I could never work it out. (I can't explain it but I connected more through them then I could with others. Somehow I could make eye contact with them. I tended not to do a lot of eye contact with others and if anything, I habe been told off for not making eye contact).

But anyway... I can see what an NT does and how she or he lives as I have spent years watching people. But I can't say I fully understand why they do it! Haha! I can understand why an autistic person does some of what they do. I don't fully understand those whose traits hit them differently to mine but I do understand the reason and the causes of them (Or I can relate to a similar experience which may not be the same but it may work in a similar way, for example, certain smells can cause me to have a partial shutdown and if I can't remove myself from the smell, a full shutdown... But if someone is sensitive to light and bright light causes a meltdown, I can relate as it happens to light instead of smell as a trigger, and it causes them to react but react like a train safety valve rather then a train controller overload cutout (Meltdown and shutdown in relative railway and model railway comparisson terms)).

I have forgotton where my train of thought is trying to say...

Hey - welcome here! Even that Fnord is right I don't think it was your intention to just take advantage of others. So how about a little bit of contribution to that community here in return? Btw. there are lots of very different and interesting people here because autism isn't just a single condition as you may know.

Welcome to Wrong Planet. Sorry. I wrote too much.

Haha, not at all! Thank you for your insight! I don't think I've ever had a shutdown, just a meltdown when I ignore my emotions and they're boiling under the surface and that safety valve needs to be opened...

Yes, I've always sort of wanted to post but communicating online gives me anxiety, more so than conversations in person even, which I know is sort of backwards to how a lot of people here feel, but yeah that always made it hard to post. But now that I've ripped the bandaid off, I'll have to post more often! It is nice to feel like part of a community.

Don't be afraid to much. Some people here may be sometimes a little bit unsensible but the moderators here do mostly a nice job. Most people here are totally nice. Some few are very depressive. Don't get emotionally to much involved into that because people have to leave their depression themself and you can't help them really much with this.

Shutdowns are annoying. Were you on TV? The name sounds familiar.

What it means is all the stuff that's been discovered about it since it was first identified as a condition. In summary, a cognitive/behavioral condition characterized by repetitive/restricted behavior, sensory (hypo)sensitivities, and atypical communicative and social behavior.

I don't relate to feeling like an outsider/alien.

Hah, no, my name probably sounds familiar because it's the novelist from the movie Romancing the Stone. Picture too, just in case anyone thinks I'm '80s Kathleen Turner.
Meltdowns are annoying too, but shutdowns sound like something else! Smells can give me migraines sometimes though, so I can relate to smells being a trigger.

Being rational in a sea of irrationality.