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@pythno Hi! Autistic (diagnosed within the last five years) here. I, too, thought it normal to be exhausted after peopling. I'm quite social, I'm good at talking with people, and all those other things. I even have quite high empathy.

Are you sure you don't stim? How about tapping fingers, playing with pens, chewing at the inside of your cheek, tense-relax specific muscles, wiggle your toes inside your shoes, hum, suck teeth, cluck with your tongue, snapping fingers, cracking fingers, rolling your shoulders ... all of those can be used as stimming, not just what the stereotypes say.

@melindrea Wow. Interesting and thanks for sharing. I definitely do wiggle my toes! I always "snap" the big toe against the one next to it back and forth. Playing with pens is something I always do in class or on the phone. Especially on the phone. I would feel "empty" without it. But isn't that also something "normal" people do?? And I wonder why that wasn't diagnosed when I was young at routine checkups we have for children in Germany?

@pythno It's honestly only been rather recently that psych has started to recognise that autism is more than the stereotypes. I wasn't even on the charts, because I was vocal, smart, good at (subconsciously) doing eye contact.

I was 9 when I told my mom that I never smiled. I was always different from other kids too. I was hurt by things they weren't, and I didn't always react the way they expected (and they didn't react the way *I* expected).

Have you ever been in the situation that there's something you need to do--maybe even *want* to do--but you just ... can't? Or that you procrastinate and get overwhelmed easily. Maybe there's stuff that you "should" be able to to do, but it feels like you *literally can not*?

I recommend checking the hashtag #ActuallyAutistic and the group @actuallyautistic (the "actually" is in contrast to people who posit their expertise because they know someone who's autistic, not in contrast/opposition to people who are self-realised or just wondering and unsure)

@melindrea @actuallyautistic Thanks for sharing. Well, I resonate a lot with the *things I should be able to do* but just cannot. A teacher in highschool talked to my mom that it is odd because I am obviously not dumb as I would write elaborate essays in german class that were considered to be on a level above my age but then just completely fail at very simple tasks. Others would make fun of me why I am so *slow* and stuff. And I would get overwhelmed a lot, yes. From there it derailed and my

@pythno @melindrea @actuallyautistic kind of tangential, but long division was the one thing I always struggled with, even though I was good at maths. I didn't understand it until we did algebraic division in A Level Maths. And I've promptly forgotten it again.

Also, I just didn't get WHY we had to do long division at all. My mum taught me short division and I just couldn't for worlds understand why we had to take this pointlessly scenic route. I still don't. Algebraic division is the only time this skill was needed for me.