Ever feel like you need to act MORE autistic?

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This is totally me. I'm like that even when I haven't interacted with people. Just the thought of it depletes my resources and makes me want to hide. People are overwhelming because they're so unpredictable. You never know what their personality or mood will be that day, what motivates them, or whether they're NT / ND / experiencing mental illness, lying, etc. There are too many variables, and the same person can change moment to moment, day to day, and conversation to conversation depending on the context and who else is present. I like my world to be predictable, familiar, or routine. It's really hard to process, interpret, juggle, and respond to the onslaught of sensory, social, verbal and nonverbal info that just one person can generate. My brain kind of short-circuits after a short period of interaction, even if I like the person and enjoy talking to them. It's so much easier online like this.

I went my whole working career not knowing I was (Level 2) autistic, but that I was very, very, very different from everyone else and that people spoke about me behind my back. I didn't know about "How are you?" etiquette, and I used to launch into my life story with people when asked. I was an oversharer, but I didn't know that term either. I became the brunt of jokes from colleagues who knew the minutiae of my life, because the oversharing made my hardships stand out. I think they saw me as dramatic because I would tell them everything, thinking they cared. I'm sure they had just as much drama in their own lives, but they didn't share it -- so no one teased them.

Yes I'm a logical thinker as you describe. I try to derive meaning from the logic by deconstructing their words but I think most people work the opposite by "constructing". I've never been able to construct logically. I can break apart but I can't synthesise, even in basic daily living. Funny example: I was looking for toothpicks in a shop that had all the aisles labelled. That meant I had to synthesise. I had to start with the idea of toothpicks, and work backward in my brain to generalise which aisle label would help me find them. I couldn't figure out what the "big picture" of a toothpick would be. I kept asking my daughter, "What would toothpicks be? Health care? Medicine? Cleaning products? Is there an aisle called "Picnics??! ! !" (she thought that was funny - in retrospect I have no idea why I associated picnics and toothpicks?) I couldn't figure out which category they'd be in so I gave up and left. Of course I wouldn't ask anyone. About a week later I was in a different shop and there they were! In the ... dental aisle. Whoops! Never, in a million years, would I have figured that one out on my own. If someone gave me a category like "dental aisle" I could deconstruct it and name about 100 products which might be sold there, but given the prompt of "toothpicks" I can't work backward to generalise or find the right aisle.

Sorry for the long example but I thought it was funny and very indicative of the way I think. I'm a details person who can't see the forest (dental aisle) for the trees (toothpicks). This is why it's very hard for me to have a conversation with someone, take all their details or cues, and work backward to figure out what the heck they really mean. People need to be very clear with me, or else I either give up, shutdown, or resent them because I start to feel vulnerable.

Sorry for the long post!

I get frustrated all the time, because I'm "high functioning." I feel like the more obvious people get all the help and services. Nonprofits for the developmentally disabled are not equipped to do much for higher functioning adults. And, yeah, men get so much more respect. Society needs to evolve to adapt to our issues and needs.

I don't look or act "disabled" but I'm on disability. I've fought to have what other people have. This society is not ready to accept autism completely. I've approached legislators and still, nothing. The suicide rate for autistic women is high. Taxpayer dollars are being allocated to what, I don't know.