It's loud here...

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is it okay if I don't capitalize the beginnings of my sentences? it feels quieter this way.

the grownups think I might be on the spectrum, although it was my aspie friend who first pointed it out and I had to yell a bit before they would listen to me. (we'd been friends for many years already, but he only recently "put it together", a really bad experience sort of brought stuff to the surface that I'd been pretty good at compensating for or masking I guess.) (I'm over 18, but there's a difference between grownups and adults and I'm neither I think.) it's really hard to get any answers out of the grownups, and I feel bad asking my friend dozens of questions at a time. plus one person knows less than one hundred persons.

there's a lot going on here, and it looks really busy and intimidating, but I want information. um, am I intruding? the only other forum I belong to is a depersonalization/derealization forum, and I just reply to other people's things since I guess if I am on the spectrum and I do have special interests psychology/the human psyche is one of them. I started a thread there once but no one came. how can I sort through all this to see what I'm looking for, or who might be good to ask? or just. where can I start instead of just having millions of unread posts sitting there? I'd appreciate it a lot if someone was willing to give me a direction. I read the rules but I don't know the rules, y'know? although maybe it's a little more okay to not know the rules here. idk.

thank you for even looking at this, it matters. did I talk too much?

(I also have some resources I've hoarded that I'm willing to share, although I found all of them through googling or through a particular person who gave me a link to here along with the other information they gave me, so I doubt it's anything new.)

hello and welcome to Wrong Planet. don't worry about intruding or talking too much or any of that. most people here seem pretty open. I'm new here, too. what exactly are you looking for? maybe I can help.

hi thank you for reassuring me. I think the two things I'm most looking for are a better understanding of what asd "looks" like, in actual people, and people I can ask questions when I come up with them, usually along the lines of "if I explained [x] like [y] would that make sense?" or "is [a] probably a result of [b]?" type of thing. I don't know if there's a good way to go about that or not.

is there any information you want that I might have?

well, asd really varies from person to person. for example, my friend and I both have asd. he loves talking to people (even though he isn't very good at it), but really hates doing new things. I like trying certain new things, but hardly ever speak to people outside my family. I guess the main thing we all have in common is poor social skills, when compared to neurotypicals, but even that varies. also, many, but not all of us have some sort of special interest. something that we obsess over and study intensely.

as for asking question, there are many forums here that you can start threads in. people here seem pretty good about not leaving unanswered questions.

I do have a question for you, actually. any idea why psychology/the human psyche is an interest of yours? what do you like about it?

Last edited by Luna Aquarius on 22 Apr 2017, 4:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

thank you for the welcome, nonny

I know it looks different for everyone, and that's why I want to see more of what it looks like. thank you for the advice.

it's possible that psychology is interesting to me because I may not just understand social interaction by default like others supposedly do so I spend more time looking at why and patterns and structures and the like. or it could be because I was kind of forced to learn how to be a crisis counselor when I was younger, so I want to get better at it because it makes people around me happy. or it's just really, really interesting to me. I know not everyone cares for the term 'allistic' (my friend dislikes it, for good reason) but I find it useful for myself, as it allows me to succinctly encompass both neurodivergent people without asd and neurotypicals without recklessly mislabeling non-autistic neurodivergents as neurotypical, but I find that both allistics and my aspie friend have a lot of trouble coming up with reasons for people's actions, or "thinking ahead" in social interactions like good chess players do [in chess]. but I try to look for motivations and interactional effects and environmental factors like I would in a science experiment. I've done it enough that I have a shortcut to a lot of it, which makes me look pretty good at socializing I think. it makes things a little more understandable/reasonable, and sometimes makes it easier to predict things, especially the more I know of a person. and, sometimes, I notice things that the person hasn't noticed yet, and can help them figure it out. I'll try not to ramble about it too much without invitation :s thank you for asking though! do you have any special interests?

this is definitely the place to see more of what asd look like. there must be thousands of users.

my special interest used to be astronomy. (that's where the internet name comes from. Luna for moon, and Aquarius for the lunar module that saved the lives of the Apollo 13 crew. it's certainly better than "anonymous"). the interest faded away after I stopped learning from the books. I'd pick up a new book, and know most of the stuff in there. it's hard to learn more without taking a class or something, and I wasn't in college yet, then. now, it's a quartet of books, called the Chronoptika series, by Catherine Fisher. I'm not really sure why I like them so much. it's not really like me to get so caught up in a fictional world, but I read the first one three years ago, and I still can't stop thinking about them, so I guess they're my special interest. they're about time travel (sort of), and I really like a couple of the characters. also, there's no romance in them, unlike every single other young adult book ever written. I'm not really sure if this makes sense, but I like the way the words fit together. they flow together in a way that feels natural, like thoughts, if that makes any sense. does any of that make sense?

I didn't know that about the lunar module, that's neat. and yeah, the words fitting together nicely does make sense, that's something I don't personally look for a lot but I know how grating it is when they don't flow right. they sound like neat books, I can see why you like them so much. what do you like about the characters you like?

again, I'm not actually sure. they sort of stick around in my head. I guess they seem more realistic than most fictional characters. they're flawed like real people, but not as gritty and dark as many other characters created by authors trying to make them lifelike.

do you like to read for fun? do you have a favorite book?

I hate it when people treat gritty and dark as synonymous with real. it's so cynical of them.

I like reading a lot, but I get distracted and forget to read for stretches of time. I like manga for that reason, it's easier to digest. but I also like "normal" books. my uncle got me the first few books in a series about a druid in modern-day arizona, I've only read the first two but I really liked it a lot. he may or may not have a thing going with death? so that might lose your interest. but it's well-done first person with that whole magic in modern settings thing that I really love. I don't know if it's my favorite, just the one that stood out to me right now when I looked at my shelf. (it's the iron druid chronicles by kevin hearne, if they sound interesting.)

I like that you see the difference. Have you ever read The Little Prince? It's a french children's book but it's absolutely lovely and worth a look. It explains grownups and follows a young human with a different perspective on life in his adventures. It has a surprising ending for a story geared towards children.

yes, the little prince is a very nice book, I like it a lot. I think my copy is at a parent's house though. but it's a very good book, thank you for reminding me of it (and I'm glad someone else knows there's a difference)