Transautistic

This is a great starting point for learning more about being autistic.

You may learn some lesser known aspects of autistic people, like how we can process from two vantage points as once, whereas allistic people tend to process from one.

This allows me greater ease and/or scope in doing some things, like:

• in solo TTRPing, acting as the player and the GM
• being curious about a new idea despite defensiveness and/or skepticism (good example is wanting to learn more about the radqueer community despite being conditioned to disregard it)
• consciously recognizing my hypocrisy or internal contradictions, and being able to do so comfortably (as long as I recognize that hypocrisy isn't bad)
• approaching ideas with nuance, or from two modes, like regarding the physical and metaphysical at the same time, without one being "under" the other
• appreciating anything "meta" in storytelling, double meanings, art with multiple "layers"
• practicing "psychonautics" and related things, like tripping, introspection, and plural system communication
• adopting and understanding "contradictory" identities

A good reason to use a resource like Embrace Autism over something like the DSM is because you can learn more about how autism is experienced rather than how it is perceived by allistic people.

For example autistics are oft categorized as "black/white thinkers" which to some extent is the projection of allistics who don't understand autistic nuance. They see us be passionate/extreme about things because of our strong feelings and care and assume it's the result of allistic-style thinking turned up to 11 (reference).

We've been thinking about different ways we challenge the norm, trying to give ourselves more support in those areas. One thing we do is create every character as autistic, and we pretty much headcanon every character as autistic, conciously or not. Autism is the default to us, which makes sense. We are all autistic, and extrasystem, we mostly interact with certainly or likely autistic family members and friends.

We get this weird feeling about headcanoning so many characters as autistic. There who people who tend to be accepting of autistic headcanons but will argue with you if the character isn't "obvious" enough. There's this implication that you have to have "good reasons" to headcanon someone as autistic, and that you can't headcanon everyone as autistic, and that you certainly can't change a character's behavior to make them act more autistic when creating fan content.

I think this is a byproduct of autism being seen as lesser, abnormal, and purely medical. It's a shame. As an autistic system, we naturally want to imagine and write characters with similar brains to us, and yet we are expected to include token allistics, lest we be unrealistic or water down the meaning of autism or something.

We're trying to embrace this culture of "autistic takeover" that exists inside us despite external pressure (we also call it "autipunk" dunno if that's been coined yet, also ACA meaning "all characters are autistic"). This "culture" embraces trans autistics, any and all autistic headcanons, autistic world-building, autistics 4 autistics, reinterpreting both fiction and non-fiction to be "more autistic", consensual autistic supremacy, evil autism (having "problematic" traits caused or affected by autism), and more.

I've been mulling this over in my head, and I concluded that I am trans-autistic in the sense that I wish I had a different experience as a cis-autistic.

I'll explain, for most of my life, my autism has been unrecognized. It significantly dented my progress as a person. Even worse is that I did get tested for it as a teen, but I was told I couldn't be autistic because I displayed empathy. I was devastated, because I remember even at that age, with the little I knew about autism, it really felt like me. I had to throw in the towel though, and accept that I was 'neurotypical' according to the organizations that were meant to help me with my mental health. I cannot count how many times I beat myself up over not being able to do things I was 'supposed' to be able to do. The hopelessness and misery towards the fact that I could make no improvement. All because those that were supposed to help me, where looking in the wrong places, and trying to fix the wrong things.

Around my mid-twenties, I'd had enough. Evertime I'd scream for help, essentially the answer was always 'just be normal, kek'. I could feel deep down there was something fundamentally neglected, and I figured if they weren't going to try and find out what it was, I'd just do it myself.

I'm really proud of discovering and diagnosing my own autism. Getting the medical confirmation afterwards has allowed me to receive the help that I needed. Life is still going to be a struggle, but at least is not completely hopeless anymore.

Part of me is triumphant I managed to do it on my own, part of me wished I didn't have to go through all that. I'm torn. Also due to the specific circumstances, I didn't have to do a formal autism assesment, which feels like both an ego-boost and a denial of a default diagnosed-autistic experience. What happened was, that because the waiting list for a diagnosis was so long, I was offered to do a combined online and in-person group course about autism. Within this several months long course the autism specialists that would have assessed me otherwise, had gotten to know me so well, they were confident that I was autistic and said it would be a waste of time to go through a full assesment.

I really wish they hadn't denied me that experience. It is so painfully ironic how obvious my autism was at the end of my journey as an invisible autistic adult.

It's a mix of general autistic things, and things I personally do as a cis-autistic. Autism presents very broadly so you'll have to navigate what works for you! Feel free to suggest more in the comments.

• Develop a special interest and learn a lot about it! Tell everyone about it!
• Use obscurer words in your every day vocab. Examples; greetings, mayhaps, overmorrow, variegate, betwixt, whence.
• Stim! Examples; echolalia, repetitive movements, stim toys, music.
• Interpret things literally, especially when it's coming from a stranger.
• Plan everything!
• Develop a more monotonous voice and/or flat/blunted affect.
• Accentuate your quirks!

Other common traits of autism are sensory/processing issues, meltdowns, and social clashing.

So, I want to use the term... But I don't see myself as 'supposed to have autism' nor wanting to develop it. I grew up with an autistic sibling, and developed a lot of their habits and speech patterns. I, because of that, feel safe with other autistics more often than I do with non autistics, and also especially with low empathy autistics due to my ASPD. It's a really big part of my identity and how I socialize, so I'm wondering if using the term in that way would make any sense, or if there is something more fitting.

YIPPEE to everyone here!