@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!