There’s so much.

• My sports- all of them are things I got into and hard- They became my special interests. I’d get so deeply into whitewater kayaking that eventually I would paddle with professionals and other experts, become an instructor and influencer myself- and then, move on to other so-called ‘extreme’ sports like backcountry skiing and rock climbing- and today, competitive cycling.

• My ability to disappear into writing code for hours without awareness of time elapsing.

• That I’ve figured out I need a place to retreat to in social situations when I’m out of social energy, but didn’t understand that was a thing for neuro-spicy folk. When attending social occasions with my wife, we’ve figured out it’s best to take 2 cars so I can bail on the scene when doing that becomes a matter of self-care.

• The experience, when trying to explain my experiences, of my brain opening multiple browser-tabs as mental placeholders for tangents the conversation has taken or might take

• The experience of understanding an idea or dynamic in terms that aren’t language-bound (like it might have a shape, or play out as a dialectic, or have tensors representing oppositional vectors in its space), then having to translate it into language regular people find accessible

• The constant concern about being misunderstood because it seems to happen so often

• The white-hot sense of justice and how not living up to my own standards can be intolerable

Extreme internal screaming at the feeling of socks that had the wrong texture. I couldn’t find the words to explain what was so intolerable, so I just seemed like a demon child some mornings before school while my mother forced shoes over my feet to trap them in their torture chambers.

The feeling of extreme frustration about people breaking rules. I didn’t realize that an overly powerful sense of justice was a trait of autism until it was pointed out to me. It’s given me a nose for fraudulent action at my job though.

I’m gonna have a running list here that I will update.

• Haircuts: My gifted teacher in high school stopped me one time in the hallway and asked me about my haircut. By the way, I apparently often have unusual haircuts. Anyway, the teacher asked me about it, and I can’t remember what I said, but I remember that her response was like she was mesmerized and said something to the extent of, “Of course, you will always have an unusual haircut.” Much later on, my allistic ex pointed out that some people hate going to go get haircuts because they find the experience overwhelming. I agreed saying, “Yeah! They always want to talk to you about nothing. I don’t know this person, and I hate talking about nothing. Everyone there is being fake anyway, and I don’t like being fake.” Welp, turns out she was talking about autistic people getting haircuts. It explains why I’ve grown my hair past shoulder length twice and went like 8 years shaving my head at home 😆. Anyway, I’m off to go a haircut. My autistic friend is taking me 😋

• Desire for socialization: I could never figure out if I was introverted or extroverted. I would get exhausted by being around people, but crave socialization and fall into a mess if I were alone for too long. What i realized is that I like being around people, but if for too long, I tank out quickly. I would talk to people about this, but it wasn’t really helpful. Turns out, I never really learned the signs of starting to be overwhelmed by social situations and sensory input. Add to this the extra amount of effort and processing power I had to put in to analyze social matters to avoid upsetting people or misunderstandings. I have benefitted a lot from learning about sensory sensitivity and over-stimulation, along with noticing the signs that I’m becoming overwhelmed and socially acceptable avenues to take breaks (e.g. going to the bathroom for a while, leaving on a drive to pick things up for others, etc.). Additionally, learning about signs that a social setting/group isn’t a good fit for me.

• Being an outsider: Ever since about ~9 years-old, I’ve never confidently felt like I fit in anywhere, even with my own family (grew up with only one side, apparently the allistic side). This would look like waves of being included and rejected. I was bouncing from one group to the next wondering what went wrong and trying to develop a list of lessons I learned along the way. It makes sense why I was diagnosed with bipolar II about 8 years ago, though I have confidently disagreed with the diagnosis for ~4 years now. Anyway, I’ve never felt like I fit in anywhere, and now it makes sense. I’m autistic, so regardless of how hard I try to make it work with allistics in any setting, I will always be different and that’s okay. Just having an explanation for this has been alleviating because it is no longer a personal fault that I wasn’t trying hard enough, being rude, or whatever reason. I’m neurologically different, and I need to find others that understand and welcome that.

A selection:

• No food could touch. I would eat the hot dog and bun separately and eat the ketchup with a spoon. Pizza was the same: pile the pineapples, ham, cheese, spoon the sauce, and have the dough on the side. Of course all of them to be eaten in a certain order. The only reason why I have stopped now is due to the time it takes plus the odd looks.

• As others have said, innate sense of justice and fairness with an attachment to rules.

• Asking my mom how kids can play with each other on the playground. She gave me a script to use to introduce myself to other kids and ask to play with them. I was almost a teen when I stopped using this and it was only because it was the first time the script didn’t work and I was devastated.

• Similarly, asking my mom how to “wave arms while walking”. Is it 45° angles back and forth? Same or opposite the legs? Elbows first for a sway or stiff arms?

• Obsessively stacking and organizing objects as “play”. Creamers in the basket at a diner, toys in a circle around me, trinkets in a row.

• New media meant new characters to copy into my personality. From mannerisms to straight up copying the dialogue from the movie; I was a chameleon.

• Pattern recognition is unparalleled to other in my grades. Still to this day, it’s one of the traits that puts me ahead.

• Flip flopping between “a joy to have in my class; my favourite student” for one teacher to “lacking in (basic neurotipical trait here), has a long way to go” for another teacher.