Does the degree of your autism vary a lot?

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Sometimes I'm close to being normal, other times my autism is very severe. Sometimes I can easily communicate with people, other times I struggle really bad. I only stim when my stress level is high. I'm very sensitive to loud or sudden noises.

My AQ score is 36 and my RDOS score is 138 neurodiverse/88 neurotypical.

Under various types of stress, especially "many things coming in at once," I can seem quite overtly autistic.

I don't do well in certain situations. I am lucky enough to have a job which doesn't involve too much social interaction.

Yup. If you want to see me go full Autistic on you, ask me out to a job interview or first date.

This is probably why some people at my high school believed I was doing drugs – one day brilliant, another day unresponsive. I still have that variation. I try to use the brilliant days and calm on the low ones but there are deadlines sometimes and I can't deal with them Now I need to check some students' tests and I'm so dumb I can't process what they wrote But on my good day I would do it in an instant.
Lastly I went so prone to overstimulation that I needed to send my kids to my mother to stop a big series of meltdowns. But other days I can deal with my "normal" life with full time work and family and be happy with it.

My functioning level can definitely vary from day to day, or it can even change throughout a day. I think factors such as stress, tiredness, sensory stimulation, etc. affect it. It's very frustrating because people see me at my best and assume I'm always capable of that, and accuse me of being lazy, not trying hard enough, or not caring when I can't meet their expectations, when in actuality I'm trying my hardest. That just makes me feel like my best is never good enough.

I loathe this expectation of consistency too. The decline in my ability to mask and process communication, and the build up of over-stimulation, can become apparent over the course of a single social event sometimes. When out in a group, I've even been asked "has someone upset you?" etc. a few times when other people have noticed the change in my demeanour due to my "battery running down."

I was basically considered ret*d as a kid. My mom won't admit it, but I think she thinks I was too. When I ask, she'll just beat around the bush and say I had "learning disabilities". I do have dyscalculia and probably have some dysgraphia too, but somehow I don't think that's what my mom means.

But most people I talk to tend to assume I'm some kind of genius. My friend at the time didn't believe me when I told her I was autistic, but that I was some kind of genius. I get that from a lot of people who actually bother to talk to me and get to know me a little. Maybe I just give off some kind of "genius" vibe?