Females with ASD...please answer!

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Sorry! I didn't mean to be offensive! I can see why it came off that way. I just have a lot of questions, and the descriptions seem rather vague. My apologies!

Last edited by Shikari on 03 Aug 2013, 4:08 am, edited 1 time in total.

What? You are getting red flags about me, or what do you mean? The last part was situational.

Last edited by Shikari on 03 Aug 2013, 4:13 am, edited 1 time in total.

not all of us on WP are high functioning autists,have personaly never imitated others,apart from using echolalia as its the only form of speech have ever had,was non verbal until about fifteen though to self it felt like being verbal because had had busy image based thoughts constantly going through head.
am just like a male with severe ASD; grew up with what is termed in learning disability/autism services; severe challenging behavior, have been on meds since toddler age,the only thing different is seem to have more of a caring instinct than males do and every female here is the same-this is a residential centre and we are all in the child,teen or adult age groups plus severely or profoundly autistic.

its not up to us or any online test as to whether someone might fit a label or not,labels are a pyschologists tool-moraly speaking we can only agree or disagree when someone shows difficulties,behaviors or traits.
try working towards getting an assessment with someone who is experienced with working with females with high functioning autism.

I have never tried to copy other people because I'm not good at imitating other people's behaviour.

I have an internal world of fantasy I've always had all my life because the world out there is boring.

So, you're your real self spending time with imaginary friends from fiction? In mine I am one of the characters from a series and I imagine myself in different situations with the other characters. Sometimes I'm a version of myself as a character in the imaginary world. In the Harry Potter world I'd be a student which at Hogwarts in Ravenclaw house. If I imagine myself in the Wheel of Time series I'm a newly raised Aes Sedai of the Brown Ajah. I'm usually not the protagonist though and not always friends with the main characters. Often I like the supporting characters better.

It would probably be harder to keep up the pretence of imitation rather than just behaving naturally.

I've never done that aspie imitation thing. It never occurred to me.

There once was a woman some years older than me who was in the military and I looked up to her, so for the year and a half I looked up to her I copied the way she stood, the way she smiled and in my mind, the way she spoke (she had another dialect). It had nothing to do coping or defense mechanism, it had to do with copying someone you find cool and admire. Most people have done that at some time, although they were likely younger than I was. Still the same

When I was 11 I sometimes mimicked the kids in "Mystery at the castle house" when I saw it in my mind (it was one of my fave childhood movies) because I thought Kate, Ben, Rocco and especially Spider were really cool. Not to mention that old bike! I did and moved like they did (or tried to) and tried to say their lines (not easy as I'm Norwegian and the movie was only subtitled).
But it was no different than other kids playing their fave characters from movies and series.

These were things I did when I was alone (or unaware of company) and were thinking of either the movie or the one I looked up to.


A lot of people seem to think that it stems for loneliness. That’s not the case for me. I did what came natural to me, and daydreaming came naturally to me. There were plenty of kids to play with but they never interested me. I couldn’t for the life of me understand why anyone would think they should interest me. Daydreaming came and comes natural to me. I would go the fence in the daycare to be left alone so I could daydream in peace. I did the same in school. I do the same now. I have always needed to daydream. Still do. When the need isn’t met, I can’t focus and get restless and very impatient and irritable. Most of my much needed alone time goes to daydream. (The rest is thinking about different stuff, analyzing situations, thinking about what’s on my mind).

My daydreams vary a lot with my obsessions. They will reflect my obsessions (think infatuations) and my special interest (think real love for life).
I’m always myself in my daydreams, I’m never someone else, nor do I have special powers or anything like that (beyond say being able to help turtles). In the daydreams I do things connected to my special interest or my obsession at the time, and if I’m with anyone, they are connected to said SI or obsession. I’ve never dreamed up a big world like some do. I have dreamt of many smaller worlds, varying with what’s on my mind.

I have never taken any interest whatsoever in people around me. I could play with other kids because I liked the game they were playing, but had I been able to play the game alone or with robots or with strange kids, that would make no difference. I was only into the activity, never the people. (Only exception being my mother and my grandfather). People are something I quite frankly don’t care about. They’re annoying when I notice them, otherwise I don’t think about them. I’m a misanthrope and I find them a pain and boring IRL.
But the people who are or have been in my daydreams are exactly the way I want them, and no real person besides first degree rels can hold a candle to them. They are so superior (lol they should be, they’re made by me after all, so if I didn’t like my mind’s creations, that’d be lame!) and far more interesting than anyone I have ever seen IRL. And that definitely includes the one I looked so up to years ago. I’ve never taken refuge in my dreams because I had no one to be with; I rejected the bores of real life so I could do what I wanted; daydream. I have never understood people who are bored when they’re left to their own devices, I never am. I’m only bored out of my wits when stuck doing something I hate. Back in school kids would sometimes suggest we do something after school. I never wanted to because I’d much rather go home and daydream, be with my pets, read and daydream some more. I always had to be talked to into it. It was never how I wanted to spend the day.
The same really goes for my dreams (night dreams). I’m far more preoccupied by them than I am with real people (not including family) and real interactions. Sometimes I have even had obsessions on my dreams. For instance, last September I started dreaming about a woman who turned out to be a vampire and that reawakened y obsession on vampires. (I have that from time to time). I’d write down the dreams about her, and really liked her and thought she was dead cool. I tried writing stories about her, but couldn’t really come up with something good. I’ll readily admit that I am still a bit obsessed with her. Wish I could come up with a good story lol.

I have always spent most of my life in my own mind, and I want it no other way. I have never confused reality and dreams; sometimes I wish I did and that I could stay in a world where my beloved Nemo and Nikita and Viggo were alive and well. I miss my pets so much!


Help me? I don’t know if they’ve helped me directly, but without them I don’t feel well (as explained above).
Sometimes I have written stories based on something I have daydreamt (or even a daydream based on a dream, or a story based on a dream), so they influenced my creativity in writing. Many stories have been daydreamt up.


Oh yeah, definitely. Until my father pointed out that I had no idea what signals I sent out (I was 9), I didn’t know that body language was something I was supposed to be looking at. I have never considered that how you sit or stand would make a statement of how you felt. In high school a teacher talked about it (in class, not to me) and most of what he said seemed wrong to me, as I would often do it otherwise or mean something else when I did this or that, or not mean anything at all by it.
Facial expressions: I had seen people show things on their face, and some of them were easy to understand, but I thought they were private reactions that you were supposed to overlook if you were decent. When a playmate showed how gross her ordeal of sickness had been by screwing up her face, I looked away so she could get her face under control again. I was 4 or 5, and no, I’m not from some non-western culture. There are expressions I still can’t interpret, but I have never been completely blind to all expressions, not even when I was little. Sometimes I can’t identify the strength of the emotion or exactly what it is, only that it’s negative. Sometimes I can identify the emotion but not the reason. Example: When I was 8 or 9, CM and I trash talked another girl, M. I said what I thought about her, and I assumed she did too. Then M approached us. In a sneering voice I told M something of the same I had said to CM (can’t recall what exactly). Then I looked at CM to signal her that it was her turn to have a go at M. CM looked at me with a horrified expression and I couldn’t understand why. I knew girls formed clusters and excluded other girls and picked on them, and that seemed entirely natural to me. I thought that was what we were doing, like I’d seen other girls do. We were showing M that we were two and she was nothing, we were in and she was out etc. Evidently that wasn’t what we were doing. The thought of trash talking behind someone’s back and be fake-nice to their face was entirely new to me and not natural at all.
One big one that sometimes throws me is that occasionally when people are really pissed off, it looks to me like they are about to start laughing. (Not all but some). Subtle expressions can be very hard to get. Most of all it depends on who it is, how they show it and how well I know them. I can almost always understand what my mother’s face shows.
What I often tend to forget though, is what I show on my face, not to mention body language like stance etc.
I can get some gestures, like come, or good work, but some will just confuse me.

ToM: Occasionally I can understand how people think when they differ from what I think (especially when it comes to people I despise; I get a gist of how they think and am disgusted). Mostly I only get it if it’s like me, or I get that it’s different but not how. I cannot usually predict how will people will respond or react. I was never tested when I was little, so I don’t know how I would have done with the Sally Anne test. I certainly understood some types of deception at a young age though (like practical jokes such as giving someone a candy bag with something boring inside).

Sensory issues: Mine have always been very mild. There is one sound (metal utensils against a plate without glazing) that gets to me. It feels like my teeth are about to fall out and I have to eat carefully.
Loud music that isn’t my type makes me dizzy, even a little disoriented.
The terrible sound of the vuvuzela is the worst sound I’ve ever heard, it made me really dizzy and disoriented. In second place is the dog whistle someone poster here some time ago.
Some bright surfaces (like sunny snow or white walls in the sun) can hurt my eyes, but I have little problems with it in everyday life.
Few smells get to me in a worse way than most people.
When I was little I was very sensitive to the labels inside clothes. They’d gnaw on my skin. I very rarely have that problem now.
I hate being touched or touching someone but I think that’s a preference, not a sensory issue.
Taste is troublesome. I easily go tired of types of food, sometimes for many years, and I have a hard time figuring out what to eat every day. The better I like something, the less healthy it tends to be. That is the most problematic of my sensory issues by far.
I can’t really relate to the extreme problems some people here talk about sensory wise. I don’t like crowds but I have never had a meltdown on a crammed subway. If I can avoid the rush hour, I do, it’s pretty stressful but it’s not my death. I can’t even remotely relate to it when some people here talk about the stress of going to the store. The only stressful part of it for me is finding something tempting in the grocery store. Besides that, it’s not a problem.

Empathy: I definitely lack empathy for people. I have never lacked empathy for animals, nor for objects. But I have always lacked it for people. I can feel t for my loved ones, but not always, sometimes I just feel bad. Say my mother is in pain. I can understand how she feels, but mostly I feel helpless, even angry, because I can’t help her get rid of it.
I very seldom feel any empathy for people I don’t love. If I do, it’s usually because I relate to them/identify with their problem or they’re connected to my SI or obsession. I also feel it a bit when something big like the terror in 2011 happens.
I am more lacking in affective empathy than in cognitive, although I am lacking in both where people are concerned. I have it in abundance for animals though.


I don’t know, but I doubt it. If she’s never met any of the actual criteria, I don’t see how she can be.


We can’t tell you that for sure, but if she doesn’t score Aspie on any of them, I doubt she could be. She’d certainly have to be very mild then right, and then she might not get any diagnosis anyway.


Are you still talking about the online tests here? If not, please clarify.
I stand by what I said above. You have to remember that the problems and issues we Aspies have aren’t some weird non-human problems. Everyone can have slight problems with them, everyone can have parts of our traits. Someone here said recently that NTs could definitely have obsessions. I’ll have to take their word for it. But obsessions is only one of the triad of impairments you have to meet in order to be diagnosed with AS. And the problems must be big enough for you to have actual impact on your life.
You can have some traits that are the same as ours without having a brain wired the way our brains are.
Just like most aspies will tell you that aspies don’t feel judgmental, nor do they exclude people. Well, excluding came natural to me, and I do judge people, always have, always will. That doesn’t make me NT. I’m still an aspie. We can have any trait any human can have. So can you, including traits that are less seen in your peers. That doesn’t change the connections in your brain.
I would also like to point out that some questions on the Aspie tests are more connected to whether you’re introvert or extravert. If you’re introvert, you’re likely to score some Aspie points on those.

Yes, it always has been.



I don't do it when I'm among people who I really trust. It's my biggest social survival strategy.



"Did" isn't the word. "Do" is. I copy their small-talk scripts, I reflect their questions back at them, I watch them to see what behaviour is appropriate in any given situation,and I semi-mirror their body language.



Enjoyment.



No, but often enough to get in trouble at school for daydreaming.



They varied.



How would they help anyone? Don't neurotypical children daydream?



Ah, yes. This would be because I have Asperger's.



If you don't meet any of the diagnostic criteria, you are not autistic.



I'd say it would be very unlikely that she'd have any kind of ASD.

I don't have a fantasy world and I don't imitate the behavior of others.
I am always daydreaming but it is not a made up world with characters, it is more like thinking about the events of my life and analyzing things that I read about or interest me.
To me, real things are more interesting than fantasy.
It has never occurred to me to imitate the social behavior of others. I was always too oblivious to everything. I was oblivious to how weird my socially isolated life was. I couldn't act like other people if I tried.

Neither imitation nor intense fantasy life ever applied to me. I can't stand fake people nor people who act almost schizophrenic in their inability to tell reality from fantasy. I'm very grounded in rules, in physical, sensory reality.

While I can talk comfortably to people about things, it isn't the normal type small talk. I talk about my background or observations about our environment, although sometimes I manage to turn it into small talk about weather etc.

I don't have the multitasking ability and skill to sort out sensory impressions quickly enough to read people and imitate them. Not if I'm supposed to be talking to them. If I pay attention to someone's face, tone, body language etc then I lose awareness of myself and can't interact, and vice versa.

I really can't identify with most female AS authors because they seem to have multi tasking skills and a level of social awareness that's way beyond what I'm able to process. I'm more comfortable with descriptions by autistics like Temple Grandin, even though I'm a spatial not a visual thinker.

Help me? I don’t know if they’ve helped me directly, but without them I don’t feel well (as explained above).
Sometimes I have written stories based on something I have daydreamt (or even a daydream based on a dream, or a story based on a dream), so they influenced my creativity in writing. Many stories have been daydreamt up.


Oh yeah, definitely. Until my father pointed out that I had no idea what signals I sent out (I was 9), I didn’t know that body language was something I was supposed to be looking at. I have never considered that how you sit or stand would make a statement of how you felt. In high school a teacher talked about it (in class, not to me) and most of what he said seemed wrong to me, as I would often do it otherwise or mean something else when I did this or that, or not mean anything at all by it.
Facial expressions: I had seen people show things on their face, and some of them were easy to understand, but I thought they were private reactions that you were supposed to overlook if you were decent. When a playmate showed how gross her ordeal of sickness had been by screwing up her face, I looked away so she could get her face under control again. I was 4 or 5, and no, I’m not from some non-western culture. There are expressions I still can’t interpret, but I have never been completely blind to all expressions, not even when I was little. Sometimes I can’t identify the strength of the emotion or exactly what it is, only that it’s negative. Sometimes I can identify the emotion but not the reason. Example: When I was 8 or 9, CM and I trash talked another girl, M. I said what I thought about her, and I assumed she did too. Then M approached us. In a sneering voice I told M something of the same I had said to CM (can’t recall what exactly). Then I looked at CM to signal her that it was her turn to have a go at M. CM looked at me with a horrified expression and I couldn’t understand why. I knew girls formed clusters and excluded other girls and picked on them, and that seemed entirely natural to me. I thought that was what we were doing, like I’d seen other girls do. We were showing M that we were two and she was nothing, we were in and she was out etc. Evidently that wasn’t what we were doing. The thought of trash talking behind someone’s back and be fake-nice to their face was entirely new to me and not natural at all.
One big one that sometimes throws me is that occasionally when people are really pissed off, it looks to me like they are about to start laughing. (Not all but some). Subtle expressions can be very hard to get. Most of all it depends on who it is, how they show it and how well I know them. I can almost always understand what my mother’s face shows.
What I often tend to forget though, is what I show on my face, not to mention body language like stance etc.
I can get some gestures, like come, or good work, but some will just confuse me.

ToM: Occasionally I can understand how people think when they differ from what I think (especially when it comes to people I despise; I get a gist of how they think and am disgusted). Mostly I only get it if it’s like me, or I get that it’s different but not how. I cannot usually predict how will people will respond or react. I was never tested when I was little, so I don’t know how I would have done with the Sally Anne test. I certainly understood some types of deception at a young age though (like practical jokes such as giving someone a candy bag with something boring inside).

Sensory issues: Mine have always been very mild. There is one sound (metal utensils against a plate without glazing) that gets to me. It feels like my teeth are about to fall out and I have to eat carefully.
Loud music that isn’t my type makes me dizzy, even a little disoriented.
The terrible sound of the vuvuzela is the worst sound I’ve ever heard, it made me really dizzy and disoriented. In second place is the dog whistle someone poster here some time ago.
Some bright surfaces (like sunny snow or white walls in the sun) can hurt my eyes, but I have little problems with it in everyday life.
Few smells get to me in a worse way than most people.
When I was little I was very sensitive to the labels inside clothes. They’d gnaw on my skin. I very rarely have that problem now.
I hate being touched or touching someone but I think that’s a preference, not a sensory issue.
Taste is troublesome. I easily go tired of types of food, sometimes for many years, and I have a hard time figuring out what to eat every day. The better I like something, the less healthy it tends to be. That is the most problematic of my sensory issues by far.
I can’t really relate to the extreme problems some people here talk about sensory wise. I don’t like crowds but I have never had a meltdown on a crammed subway. If I can avoid the rush hour, I do, it’s pretty stressful but it’s not my death. I can’t even remotely relate to it when some people here talk about the stress of going to the store. The only stressful part of it for me is finding something tempting in the grocery store. Besides that, it’s not a problem.

Empathy: I definitely lack empathy for people. I have never lacked empathy for animals, nor for objects. But I have always lacked it for people. I can feel t for my loved ones, but not always, sometimes I just feel bad. Say my mother is in pain. I can understand how she feels, but mostly I feel helpless, even angry, because I can’t help her get rid of it.
I very seldom feel any empathy for people I don’t love. If I do, it’s usually because I relate to them/identify with their problem or they’re connected to my SI or obsession. I also feel it a bit when something big like the terror in 2011 happens.
I am more lacking in affective empathy than in cognitive, although I am lacking in both where people are concerned. I have it in abundance for animals though.


I don’t know, but I doubt it. If she’s never met any of the actual criteria, I don’t see how she can be.


We can’t tell you that for sure, but if she doesn’t score Aspie on any of them, I doubt she could be. She’d certainly have to be very mild then right, and then she might not get any diagnosis anyway.


Are you still talking about the online tests here? If not, please clarify.
I stand by what I said above. You have to remember that the problems and issues we Aspies have aren’t some weird non-human problems. Everyone can have slight problems with them, everyone can have parts of our traits. Someone here said recently that NTs could definitely have obsessions. I’ll have to take their word for it. But obsessions is only one of the triad of impairments you have to meet in order to be diagnosed with AS. And the problems must be big enough for you to have actual impact on your life.
You can have some traits that are the same as ours without having a brain wired the way our brains are.
Just like most aspies will tell you that aspies don’t feel judgmental, nor do they exclude people. Well, excluding came natural to me, and I do judge people, always have, always will. That doesn’t make me NT. I’m still an aspie. We can have any trait any human can have. So can you, including traits that are less seen in your peers. That doesn’t change the connections in your brain.
I would also like to point out that some questions on the Aspie tests are more connected to whether you’re introvert or extravert. If you’re introvert, you’re likely to score some Aspie points on those.[/quote]

Thank you! You answered everything I was curious about after reading Tony Attwood's description of girls on the spectrum and why they could be missed on getting a dx. The latter questions was something I was curious about because I know online tests are not meant for a dx because you can score AS without being so. I was just wondering that if you scored NT on all the tests even though you might have AS traits....that that would be a clear indication of not having AS. Some people made comments about whether or not I was wondering if I was on the spectrum or not. I'm not, and was asking these questions for me. I was simply asking to get some clarification on the subject, and understand it better. There are a couple of aspies in my life I'm trying to relate to better. But the more I read up on the spectrum the more I could AS traits in just about everyone I know..myself included. Although I know it's not AS. I was just seeking out a little clarification on this mysterious syndrome, and you helped me a great deal!! Thanks again!

Was this imitation something you were aware you were doing?
Not until very recently, when my therapist pointed out and I realized it myself. But yes, I absolutely imitate. I don't always do the best job of it though and often nonverbal cues are too discrete to pick up. I wasn't lucky enough to have a mother hen show me the ropes in HS.

Was it something you did all the time, and a major process?
Yes. In fact, I took up acting (with miserable results which in retrospect could be attributed to deficiencies related to my ASD) and got really good at imitating. Not so much at acting (i.e. I'd be really good at a role if someone else acted it out before me, but if I had to act it out first it normally didn't go as well).

Imitating became my #1 coping mechanism for my deficiencies in picking up social cues. I figured, when in Rome, do as the Romans do.

In what ways did you imitate others?
I tended to copy body language and tone of voice (not always perfectly, granted). I also tried to imitate the rhythm of the conversation.

Second, diving into a fantasy world. What was the reason?
I needed escape from a world that I felt (and today still feel to an extent) didn't want me. I wanted to go into a fantasy world (in my case, Neopets) where I felt wanted and admired for the things I do well, behind a screen where socializing didn't rely so much on nonverbal cues. I haven't been on Neopets since 9th grade, but I have found solace in other places such as online forums about my special interests.

Was it something you did all the time?
Yes, they became my aspie obsession/addiction.

What were these world like?
They were places where I didn't have to worry about being misunderstood due to nonverbal mishaps and engage in something I liked and was good at. As a result, the focus was on my talents/impressive skill at these things, since I spent all my time doing them, let them become my obsession, and paid such close attention to detail (which was appreciated).

How did they help you?
They gave me an escape. An escape where I felt like a valuable member of society for once. Where I could escape the IRL social scene wherein I constantly felt ostracized.

Also you you guys have a lot of the same issues as the males with ASD, like trouble with body language, facial expressions, theory of mind, sensory issues, lack of empathy, etc?
I have a lot of the same problems but not all. I have huge trouble with body language and nonverbal cues/facial expressions. I really can't pick the more subtle ones up, and the ones I can pick up I often have no idea how to react to them. I am extremely psychologically minded and aware - I often intuitively know how people feel and why, but often have trouble figuring out how to fix my behaviour to avert crises. I also love playing roleplay inside my mind why people think the way they do, why they do the things I do, etc. That doesn't fix the fact that I have gaping holes in my ability to instantaneously socialize and pick up cues whilst socializing that would change the course of the discussion to prevent the other person from getting annoyed. I can observe and interpret social cues, and I can socialize, but I have trouble doing both at the same time. Too many balls to juggle.

I have minor sensory issues. Loud noises and flashing lights are harder for me to tolerate than most people, but the differences are very minor. I have learned to adapt. My empathy is quite good for an aspie, and intellectually I can often put myself in others shoes (again, only when thinking about it whilst not concurrently socializing. If someone were to explain how they felt I would understand and empathize. Again, it's the nonverbal stuff I struggle with. I am, however, really compassionate and sympathetic.

What if a female was to have a deep fantasy life, and copy others, but have non other stuff...would she be an aspie?
You'd have to ask a psychologist that, but in my opinion my AS is solely the result of my inability to handle and interpret social cues and avoid social faux-pas in conversation that result from my lack of interpretation.

What if a female was to take all the online AS and score NT on all of them, would she NT for sure, or could she still be an aspie? In your opinion how likely is that if the answered as honestly as possible, and even leaning towards AS on some answers?

If she were an aspie, she'd be an aspie, however my guess is that females have come up with better coping mechanisms, resulting in a lower overall severity of AQ than males, on average.

Yes, in my daydreams I am always myself. Even as a child I had difficulty creating fantasy alter-egos. The only thing that differs from my real life is that in my imaginary world I am an anime character, because everyone in my world is anime-styled (regardless of whether or not they are in canon).

Rather than imagining myself in different worlds (for example, one day visiting the Phoenix Wright universe and the next day visiting the Trauma Center universe) I instead imagine characters from different series meeting and having relationships with each other in my own original setting (for example, the title character of Phoenix Wright having a romantic relationship with Dr. Derek Stiles from Trauma Center in my fictional world called Aspergeria). In fact, I enjoy playing matchmaker for fictional characters so much that it could probably qualify as a special interest in and of itself.

I wouldn't say imitation i just watched others in social situations and learned from their body language, eye contact, when you should do the right facial expressions maybe that does sound a bit like it though my problem with people before was i would never ask anyone any questions about themselves so then it would be rather awkward when i didn't know someone very well so i learned that i would just ask lots of questions about the other person which i generally don't care about i usually end up very bored and feeling drained (though i want to have friends)and everyone sees me as being a listener which hasn't worked out well because everyone wants to offload their problems on to me when I'm not very empathetic and don't care, it deflects the attention off of me usually the person leaves not knowing much about me, and i get called mysterious which is a good thing i suppose but like another poster in this thread said past how are you i don't really know what to say about myself i dread when people ask what my favorite movies/films are.

I can't think of any examples of me directly imitating someone's behaviour...though I did take it upon myself to learn a lot of social behavior by observation and finding patterns in the behavior of others. It wasn't anything direct or awkward, but rather, picking up on the subtleties of social behavior and noticing the things that people responded well to. For example, when I first started doing this in high school, I saw that people expected you to ask questions about them and their lives, and give cues to show you understand (like adding supportive comments, nodding, etc.). I imitated this behavior and people started to pay more positive attention to me. I seem to pick up on new, very subtle things all the time with my existing social relationships, so I am always continually learning and in a way, imitating.

Fantasy worlds were huge and predominant in my life and existed in various forms until the end of high school. I hated the real world and thought it was too bland, boring, and did not have enough order, patterns, and highly sensory-based experiences which I craved. However, as I gained more self-awareness around the time I was 11-14, these worlds became an outlet for me to role-play social situations and express my feelings of not belonging (this is before I knew I had AS). I would draw cartoons of my imaginary friends (who had a hierarchy, just like the kids in my school) showing them in different social situations and expressing different emotions. In a way, this was a "safe space" for me to examine the people around me. During these years, I also became very interested in the people at my school but in a rote, systematic way: I would draw diagrams of different social groups and what they liked/valued instead of attempting to enter a group or make a friend.

I did imitate when I was little but now its fading as I get better socially. The only thing I imitate is body language and eye contact.