Autism

Female masker here, introvert, with social / performance / “being perceived” anxiety, etc. Undiagnosed, waiting for assessment appointment (1 year + wait in my area).

So, I feel absolutely no need (and often like I don’t have the ability) to share my special interests. I don’t know if it’s because of my naturally withdrawn tendencies or due to socialization. I’ve been told I never stopped talking as a kid, but I have very little memory of what that felt like (even though I have some vivid memories of the things that happened around me at that time). I do feel an intense need to engage in my special interests - usually sneaking in 30 minutes over breakfast and lunch because I’m too drained by the end of a work day to engage in anything but dragging myself through essential adult life maintenance until I go to sleep. I get depressed and bored when I can’t fit it in. I get deep satisfaction and enjoyment from learning and engaging in my interests, but it’s entirely an internal experience. It has come up many times in my life that people feel I’m “not passionate” about anything. I struggle with communicating in any kind of coherent / knowledgeable / excited way even about things that fascinate me and that I have this whole internal scaffolding of understanding around.

I also have a terrible memory for specifics, which is why I called knowing about something “having internal scaffolding of understanding around”. It’s like … when people talk about my special interests, I very often understand and “know” the things they’re saying already, but the specific details, facts, etc. needed to verbally discuss the subjects on the spot just aren’t there in my mind when I reach for them. I’m much, much, MUCH more comfortable in the slow, controlled world of writing.

This is one of the big things that makes me doubt my self-diagnosis. It seems so universal among the autistic people I’ve encountered in real life and on social media that they’re like bursting to share their information and they struggle with not steamrolling over other people in conversations about their interests.

As I’m writing this, I’m having an a-ha moment about the fact that I have seen and heard and encountered these people specifically because they are the types of people who are expressive and socially out-going, who are bursting to share what they’re learning. I only see them because they’re the only ones who make themselves seem.

I want to say I want to connect more with other introverted autistic people, but I also struggle with socializing with people who are quiet like me. I feel an anxious need to fill the silence and like one of us is suppose to be the “fun” one. I usually socially exist by hiding among hilarious, creative extroverts who like an audience.