beige.party is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
A home to friendly weirdos. The Grey Gardens of the Fediverse (but beige). Occasionally graphically cacographic. Definitely probably not a cult (though you'll never be 100% sure). Beige-bless 🙏

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I really feel like fedi is disproportionately autistic with comparison to other social media platforms, but I haven't touched any other major ones in years, nor do I have the necessary data, so I don't really know. Poll: do you identify as autistic (not necessarily officially diagnosed, etc, not trying to exclude the experiences of those without necessary medical access or subclinical presentation)?

@fcktheworld587

I'm not sure, but it kind of seems like autism of some sort might be in the mix. Traits, at least. Can't say that I identify as such, though.

@cthulku @fcktheworld587 Yeah, I'm in that category too: I strongly empathize with autistic people's descriptions of information/sensory overload & coping mechanisms around it, but I think the cognitive processing issues that lead to that response in me are different. I certainly don't have classic autistic traits like being good with lists of facts & bad with symbols/metaphors.

Fedi ND talk has definitely convinced me that at least some of my issues can probably be classified as ADHD, though.

@AmeliasBrain @fcktheworld587

It's totally fine if you're not autistic (and yeah, a lot of people have *some* of the traits but not all) ... but I wanted to quickly address one:

> good with lists of facts & bad with symbols/metaphors

That's a stereotype. Yeah, there's autists who are like that. But a *lot* of us have no issues with symbols or metaphors. I'm autistic, and as a writer that's actually one of the things I've gotten a lot of compliments for: the way I use metaphors and similes to build up a vivid image, all of which are *explicitly* grounded in me being autistic :autistic_lurker:

@melindrea @AmeliasBrain @fcktheworld587

Yes this is important.

One of the problems about figuring out wether or not you are autistic is that a lot of the things we think are typical of autism, really are not.

For example, I used to think I'm not autistic because I'm a very empathetic person and that's different from the stereotypes about autistim.

Turns out, autistic people are spiky - we're either a lot more (insert quality here) , or a lot less than most people, and sometimes both at the same time.

So I'm both hyper empathetic, with big emotions, and sometimes clueless that I've offended someone as I didn't pick up on their signals.

That thing about autistic people not picking up on symbols and metaphors is also more often true of autistic children. We tend to figure that stuff out as we get older.

Kevin Davy

@Zumbador @melindrea @AmeliasBrain @fcktheworld587
The stereotypes are exaggerated versions of how we seem to others. The reality of how we are, is far more nuanced and individual. It's why so many of us don't realise we're autistic until much later in life. We don't see ourselves in the stereotypes, because they're not reality.