Reflective moment.
POV
Im going to try to explain something I never have said entirely.
I am a self learner, autodidact.
I try extremely hard not to assume things about people.
Why they do the things they do?
I personally know I’m not all that special.
Unique maybe.
I do have a desire for accuracy.
My version of extreme sports is learning the basics of difficult sciences that explains how the world works.
I’m not good at standard formulas.
I Frankensteined my own that get me by to survive.
Probabilistic math.
I don’t have a love for proving people wrong.
However I do enjoy getting constructive criticism that’s meaninful and helpful.
I’m an observer and a listener at a whole different level.
I don’t enjoy being right or about things.
It’s actually painful!
Why?
Well because in most situations I drill into my head not to assume things not to infer things.
So when I am right, it means I could have maybe helped someone when I didn’t but I wasn’t confident about my ability.
It also maybe means I wasted precious moments of my life figuring something out only to doubt myself. Humility
Alas I was born like this.
I have a very vivid lucid memory. Apparently it’s immersive eidetic. Which is even more of a burden. Nearly completely lucid recall even if I don’t want it.
I hear this often:
“Wow I wish I could remember verbatim like you do”
For me it’s like never being able to forget things, never to be free of pain, never be simply oblivious, sure I can act that way.
Guess what my brain still remembers!!!😭
I have had to struggle, to know the whys of everything, to every thought I’ve ever had. I’ve had alot of thoughts.
I fight with myself, to find and break l my walls and keep my mind open , all my sensory, all my icks, all my ews I’ve had to learn how to deal with them
I’ve conditioned myself over a lifetime
.
How to accept it and normalize it.
Laughing can be a coping mechanism I think in most humans.
Pretty sad when you have to learn microbiology to learn how we are basically mostly living in clean dirt and dirty dirt.
Life within life.
Symbiosis.
Every fear I’ve had to face alone, like we all do, all fears in mind
I can sit it a cemetery on Halloween and have no fear of ghosts or demons, I can fall 😴
I have my own ghosts that are far scarier. 👻
My memories of my own life.
The longer I live the longer I battle it doesn’t get any easier for me. Although
I am still Alive! 🫣
I’ve delved(not A bot or written by ai) into every facet of science to learn how to normalize everything.
I did this even before I realized I was autistic, I knew I was different.
Quite honestly for awhile my imposter syndrome I semi I questioned my own sanity. Was I delusional?
I guess in some ways that protected me as well.
It causes me to triple rethink every thought I think.
I stayed grounded. Conserve energy know when to use it. Timing
Action or lack of action will change the outcome.
Oh and that memory that everyone wants that recall, makes you feel like you’re crazy btw.
When everyone else remembers through thier world view.
I remember through every lens I can see it at the time and every lens I acquire as I expand my world view constantly adding to my updated schema.
Often time people use me as translator to what people mean.
More then once I’ve been asked to read people for people.
I don’t like it.
I reply I’m confident with x amount of accuracy but I could be wrong.
Do most people think in Confidence Intervals?
I am likely biased. I know
I tell people this even though i can pretty accurate about other people in my life I see.
I remain situationally aware.
I’m choose mostly to say silent and mind my own business.
I’ve grown to know myself fairly well, a work in progress I guess.
I dislike being me.
I do love life though with every ounce of my being despite the pain.
I try with what time I have left to advocate for education and acceptance of those who are marginalized and suffer because of ignorance and stigma.
I wish I could wish away my ability, I dislike the highly functional part. I dislike being viewed as better off when I’m truly not. I feel fucking cursed.
The stress and pressure and anxiety is killing me.
When people fight, grow learn and change you notice. You wonder why they didn’t get the version update.
“I didn’t change they will say”.
Debating whether they did or not is usually not worth the effort.
That isn’t the only curse, this savantish type of ability makes me feel alone in a world of billions of people.
I know I am not.
You can talk and explain until your dead yet others may fully get you.
I thought when I was younger. I wonder if I could train my brain like a computer!
I would challenge myself on accuracy of rough off the cuff calculations.
I thought if I remained situationally adaptive and objective and humble and just learned a little more, listened a little more, worked a lot more I could actually manage my own mind.
That was wishful magical thinking 🤔
Turns out I think I did become more accurate.
Again this is impossible right?
To what scale exactly?
I don’t know
To have a basic mechanistic understanding of everything I learn and how it maybe connected to every other cog through different frames.
A liquid pretending to be a solid
Then there’s the devils advocate.
There’s people who have it worse. Some people don’t have these gifts yet have the same deficits or worse than me.
Unless you live in my head you don’t know how much I suffer 😭Do you?
I know that as well and that is even more painful as I know many have it worse.
Does it make my pain less?
No, it doesn’t bring me comfort or feel better, for they seems is too many.
It brings to me compassion and humility.
I swear some people find people find comfort in knowing some have it worse.
News is classed as entertainment blown out of context for engagement.
Social media polarization? Engagement.
Did you get the update we became the product for AI training?
We are the product in a capitalistic merit based economy.
Did you get that update?
Framing is important. Don’t understand change your lens.
How does it make you feel better that there are people out there starving or being violent or mean to one another?
Does it distract you from your own life?
Not me, it compounds mine, ediditic memory.
Everytime I hear someone say , eww this isn’t good enough or too this or too that, it saddens me. I picture people dying of starvation.
Water is yucky?
I have images in my video memory of people in countries not so lucky without clean water and getting diseases and lead or shit in their drinks.
Do you still want my memory or awareness. I’m biased and flawed.
It’s far from perfect, I am human like everyone else. I don’t know much. With every fiber of my being I try to remain objective.
I realize autism adhd ptsd rsd pda hits everyone differently.
I know we have all our preferences and routines and they bring us comfort.
Nature= You and me.
a part of everything even if minuscule.
I see you out in the wild, not intentionally. I swear most of the time I don’t want to know but my brain seems to save it. Unless it’s occupied with something.
However I try to enjoy the simple things like acorns birds,cats,plants, clouds, stars art, and most importantly MUSIC.
I’ve never felt more connected to everything yet so alone. It’s so incredibly lonely.
I just want anyone to know who read this. I am not what I appear. I’m just like you.
Perhaps it will bring some soul comfort and understanding.
It’s pretty much my only hope in writing this.
Perhaps it makes it more real for me.
The funny part is I can’t force myself to memorize.
Even with this recall, I cannot seem to remember my own shit, I guess my mind is trained on the world most of the time while also trying to be present in the moment.
I will admit a knat has more of l attention span than me.
I have far too many faults to judge others.
I’ve made far far far too many mistakes.
When I was younger I thought I was invincible and had shit figured out.
I understood survival, people were a mystery.
I’m a childhood trauma survivor
I am sorry if I seemed a like an asshole.
I didn’t healthily express my displeasure at times when I was overwhelmed.
I didn’t know how and I didn’t know if anyone actually could understand. I still don’t.
•
I’m sorry for seeming like I don’t care about your problems. I do!
I’m sorry.
I truly am.
As bad as my luck may seem to me. For some reason I’m alive at the moment.
I also have tachycardia most likely from hypervigelence and my anxiety which is tough.
I’m not being critical, judgemental of anyone else I’m genuinely asking, is this easy/difficult to read?
I’m explaining how my mind works.
Often people use me to remember accurately and fight their battles for them.
Why?
I can see through most masks.
I can see something even if I don’t know what it is then my mind uses some inference to give me possibilities.
Too many far too many!
Sort function sure.
Then with all this, can I even be truly loved if I can never be understood?
In the right frame.
I could be wrong. There’s too much to know. That I know for sure.
Are other people like me?
Do they not understand how it affects them?
Do they feel like they didn’t have a voice which diminished their emotional capacity or was a voice for others? Or is it Alexithima? Likely
I spent a lifetime trying to interpret human behavior. My own included.
Most of my life I was so confused litterally. I somehow emerged from the other end of the tunnel since childhood wondering why
I was audhd dx 2022.
Mostly I found out why.
Perhaps they can’t remember. . They are battling for thier life the best they can.😔 I wrote this to maybe see if anyone else knows what this is like.Maybe someone else will find this helpful. You aren’t alone!
♾️🧬❤️
I may not have the full eidetic memory that some seem to have. But, unfortunately, what I do remember comes with all its baggage. So, no. A fully lucid and immersive memory is no fun at all. Although, to be honest, for most of my life I never realised how unusual it is. I never really thought of my memory as being anything special, not having any real way of comparing it and this despite the number of times I heard, "how do you remember that?"
I too, have a horrible tendency for needing perfection and being as accurate and honest as I can be. I am also my own worst enemy for doubting myself and being my own devil's advocate. It probably doesn't help that rather than in the hard sciences, I sought understanding of myself in the behavioural sciences and philosophy. And one thing a philosophy degree teaches you, is how to doubt. Not that I ever needed much help there.
So much of my life, it seems, was spent using that doubt to mask myself from myself. That I was actually suffering, that my difficulties were real, that I was anything other than broken somehow and always to blame. I think, in so many ways, it is the song that many of us have spent far too long with.
As is that feeling of being alone. In a crowd, with family and friends, always alone. A least until now.
❤️
@pathfinder@everyday_human@actuallyautistic
.
I would free you both and all of us from terabytes of philosophy and human science that is only Allistic, free up all that memory for use by our own operating systems.
.
Have you tried staying fried outta your face 24/7 forever, like I do?
❤️
" free up all that memory" I want this, please. Too much of my brain is occupied by tryng to obey 'their' ways and rules, even in my own home, I have to deny my self needs constantly.
I would like more room in my brain to do more than just keep quiet. I am failing. Minutes ago, my roommate said "huh?" because I guess I said something outloud that I didnt intend to.
"sorry, I was just talking to my social media" I tell him.
Finally got a chance to write back. I thought about what you said a lot.
I would say this familiar to me as well I realized since philosophy and logic seems second nature to you.
Which is super cool to me.
Also we seemed to have gone through alot of the same conversations.
Just different times. Prob some generational differences maybe
See I used to be so horrible to myself I conditioned myself as you read, I didn’t have a lot of empathy for inner me, I was hard on myself, so hard for years. I told myself “Adapt or Die”. Embarrassingly.
Also heads up each of these things you come to realize if you really accept yourself.
going to lighten your load a bit. .
Bottom line, you have put in the effort to get this far.
May as well have fun on that adventure.
See my new life rule was to schedule more healthy habits, like watching out for our health within reason, exercising, relationship activities. Why I was bad at it!! 😆
One of these priorities was food.
I thought I should be grateful about food,part of being grateful is relaxing to eat your food chew taste when I eat, I produce more salivation, more salivation plus more chewing equals easier digestion, which equals less work for your body. And all I had to do was chew and taste and be thankful for what l had.
More energy and it humbled me.
So that’s why I got started so looking at how it could impact my thoughts or ways of seeing the world.
I read books as a category that would expand my world view to try see the world in a basic light. In some of its most basic forms of life .
Oh I wrote the same thing like two weeks ago about being alone
I mean yes we are alone.
In the sense there’s no clone of us out there. However disappointing that is 😅.
That kind of alone can cause loneliness if you ruminate on it and go down a dark path of misery but eventually you would hopefully feel better because there’s only one you on this earth no clone and you shouldn’t base that sadness on the impossible
Especially if you ever want to experience life.
I think perhaps what we feel is under-valued to ourselves at times misunderstood and confused.
I could see perhaps it’s under appreciation of ourselves and each other and our life itself which in turn can cause disallusionment and Impacts a possible sizeable amount loneliness.
I not implying causality.
I do think perhaps we are more connected to everything than we can sense easily.
I could be wrong though. Night
@everyday_human@actuallyautistic
I tend to differentiate between feeling alone and being lonely
The way I see the world and think about things always made me aware of being alone. But I have never felt lonely.
Mostly because I have also always been aware of existing within something far greater. My reason has allowed me to build an understanding of how the inter-related connectivity of the universe could work.
However that same reason knows that my understanding is based on premises that are challangeable. Therefore it is essentially my belief and not certainty.
Plus past traumas of being doubted, misunderstood and disbelieved, have tended not to help this
Finding like minded people is really helping me, not only with this, but also with realising I was never as alone as I thought.
Interesting question, wether facial aphasia has to do with memory.
I have an acute visual memory and I'm really bad at recognising people.
I remember a story of a child who didn't understand the news story about bank robbers covering their faces so they would not be recognised. The child didn't realise that to most people, the face is more important than the rest of the person when it comes to identifying who is who.
Or the joke about the guy who dealt with being naked in public by using a small wash cloth to cover his face as he walked naked through a crowd.
I think other people focus their ability to recognise and recall visual detail to the face alone, and I take in every detail of the whole person the face isn't more important. And looking at the whole person is not an effective way of recognising them because so much of that changes.
@Zumbador@everyday_human@actuallyautistic
Indeed and as we know it's constantly fluid, perhaps we don't even try. Perhaps It's also why character or physical quirks are what we are more likely to use, because they tend to be consistent.
It depends on how familiar I am with the person but I think I can recall details other than the face a bit better. I don’t have a problem with recognizing faces if I see them but when it comes to recalling they detail, I find it easier to recall hands or the general body shape a lot easier than the face.
One thing I know is that I’m much better at recalling sound than I am recalling vision, when it comes to people. I can very vividly recall someone’s voice, even the sound of their breathing. Even the way people move sounds different from person to person and I can recall that in great detail.
I have very vivid visual imagination but recalling actual detail in a real memory is difficult unless I keep focusing on individual details. With faces, I can recall someone’s eyes, nose, their skin blemishes separately but when I try to put those together in an entire face, it all becomes blurry and vague.
@pathfinder@Zumbador@actuallyautistic now that you said it, I think I remember faces in photographs easier than “real faces” whatever that means. It’s fascinating!
@everyday_human@actuallyautistic you're definitely not alone 💝 I have similar "skills" & I've managed to navigate their impact on me by shifting my focus from how >>I<< experience stuff to... what positive experience can I facilitate for >>others<<
Initially, when I was little, it was always for animals, insects, plants... observing them, their needs & their responses (even plants) & making their experience of life a bit "easier" 🤣 ahhh! Sometimes, the littlest thing a person CAN do... means a lot! 🐜💝
@juliasnz@actuallyautistic
Thank you so much for the kind and thoughtful response. My goal is to be as comfortable but also pushing my boundaries a bit and be transparent as possible.
😆 Yes I do have pet ants 😆 not like my fellow enthusiasts. Mine are wall ants who just come out for some snacks I leave them.
More like things that just happen to be in my life.
So are you a late dx?
Thanks for reading that ultra long post. I’ve been on mastodon since EM fired the whole accessibility staff at xitter, I was a fact checker, birdwatcher,I quit. I most was there to connect with science and other people who shared similar passions.
I love love love nature. I’m a both a believer in fate and serendipity somewhat.
What im struggling most with is unifying myself sort of. Finding balance. Within everything. I can cognitively Que fairly well when I’m synced or in what some call a flow state.
However I’ve learned I can’t force anything.
I’m also in a community of autistics, my whole building,
Mostly that either know they are but have no idea why they feel they do because they don’t see how it would help.
Been marginalized too long and it’s systemic.
I’m disabled by the state due to what stress does to my whole system.
Just trying to find my path while embracing myself and others as they are.
@everyday_human@actuallyautistic I'm both late & also dx as a child (but not told) Both my younger brother & I were dx when I was 4. I was hyperlexic, started spontaneously reading around 2 & then would just read anything I could get my hands on... including encyclopedias, lol. My brother was non verbal & never learnt to read but was extremely smart. I had the advantage of not knowing but also of having a little brother to look aftercwho was divergent too... so... I guess we knew we were different but we weren't "alone"
Frankly, I would not be alive if I wasn't autistic. There's no way I could have survived what we went through if I hadn't had autistic stoicism, hyper focus, hyper sensitivity to sound... to me they are survival adaptations & my best guess is possibly fetal exposure to high levels of cortisol combining with having the genetic capabilities for adaptation. There are obvious "challenges"... my least favorite is hyper mobile joints 🤔
My favorite autistic trait is high attention to detail or maybe hyper focus so... I'm very comfortable being by myself, I guess low oxytocin with few receptors helps with that 🙂
What puts you into your flow state? My favorite way of triggering it is drumming!