Lets list the funny things we do.

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Let's just list any and everything you've ever done that feels autistic .

I'll start with my storys from 21+ because the child years were so much worse.

1)After ordering a slive of pizza I would stand near the counter rather then take a seat.
1a)After taking a seat I would sit facing away from the counter
1b)When I was told the chef would be out momently I still stood there akwardly

2)Someone left their cell phones on the bar and I didn't realize that meant the seat was taken.

3)I would wear werid clothing I found at the salvation army that was rediclous looking
3a)I wear stained clothing
3b)I have 0 fashion sense and don't understand "matching" colors.
4)Once at a party there was a line for the bathroom and I for some reason thought people were hanging out and cut in front
4a)I believe someone made a sarcastic comment that they were just hanging out there and not waiting to use the bathroom but for some reason I was oblivious

5)At the checkout in grocery stores I have no clue what I'm doing with my cart and I somehow get stuck with it behind me

6)I forgot to wash my face with soap in the shower for years,no clue why or how but yeah.

7)I walk around the house and pourch with no shoes or socks

I stay in my room all day

9)I throw my arms up in the air when I get frustrated sometimes.

10)"Turrets "cause me to speak out my thoughts some times

11)I once tryed to de ice a mini fridge by hammering it rather then letting it thaw out

12)I forgot to fold a poster board in half before ripping it

13)I'll forget people can't "read my mind" and say only half of what I mean
13a)Example ,I ran a wire to my room to the router so I can play games without lag spikes and I said to my dad "I put the wire there for now so I can download a thing faster" when I really wanted to convey that he shouldnt be upset about it being a eye sore since it was only temporary.

14) I don't like the fact "breadsticks" can mean to diffrent things ,like the ones at olivegarden or the ones in those cheese dippers

15)Sometimes I take a long time to reply to someone without realizing how much time passed

16)Someone saying Cheese sticks vs mozzarlla sticks and the like can sometimes confuse me and I become lost in my mind for awhile without even realizing I'm doing it.

17)My dad asked me my shoe size and then complained about his shoes were too tight ,rather then join the conversation I said nothing making me look foolish ,even though I knew he was hinting at giving me hit pair.

18)Once I didn't look for oncoming traffic when getting out street side

19)I didn't understand excuses and thought people were just being stupid.
19a)like my grandpa didn't want me using his car so my mom said "I don't think he wants you driving it for insurance reasons" which is excuse .Rather then just saying grandpa doesnt want you to use the car because you might crash it.

20)I went to a barber for the 2nd time and rather sit where he put the cape down I panic attacked and went to the seat I was in last time.

21)I didn't realize those hex-gon L shaped peices that come with things you need to put together were tools to tighten the bolts ,I had a hard time putting together my stationery bike because of that .


22)Once I said" I don't get why dunkin doughnuts doesn't accept anything bigger than a $20 bill ,$50 I could see ,even $100 ..oh wait nevermind...

23)I can't learn anything without devouting hours on simple things and struggle to pick up concepts 12 year olds can.

24)I can't hold a conversation ,part because of fear of failing and another because I don't know what to say.

25)I mumble

26)I slur my words

27)I have difficulty pronouncing words

Mod edit: removed ableist slurs

The word "ret*d" is an ableist slur.

28) Post threads that use insulting language.

The thing is, autism isn't a 'mild retardation'. It is a different structuring of the brain in which some areas function more effectively that an NT brain and some are more impaired than an NT brain.

I have experienced many of the issues you listed above. Sometimes they make you feel stupid when you don't know where you're supposed to wait after ordering something. I've felt like an idiot when having to clarify things the person behind the counter it seems thought were obvious when at the pharmacy. The thing is, just because sometimes you feel stupid in missing things the majority of people understand, doesn't actually make it true.

The issue is communication. All people communicate differently, but a lot of NT people, who tend to be the majority of people around us, communicate in a way that requires either a lot of colloquial knowledge or ability to 'read between the lines' that is actually something NT brains also have to learn, they just tend to learn it around adolescence more naturally than a lot of us do.

But similarly, my NT friends had to work hard to learn something I found easy, they disliked exam situations or highly formal situations because it was a strict social setting they found it hard to remember all the rules, where as I loved having situations with strict rules and found it easy to learn them.

'Retardation' is an outmoded way of basically saying inability, but has bred a lot of negative connotations, which is why most people view it as a negative slur rather than a term that should be used medically or otherwise.

I have a younger brother who has severe learning difficulties. But growing up with him I kind of learnt to see that all humans work in their own way, and there is no gold standard by which people must meet or be termed deficient. There is the average, which is usually a Neurotypical brain, specialising in the parts NT brains do, with an average level of intelligence etc. And because this is the average it is what most of the world's social situations etc. are built around. That just makes it the basic version of a human brain that will fit the most of how society is built. It doesn't make it the ideal brain.

My brother cannot do a lot of things 14 year old boys his age can do. He cannot be trusted to perceive danger, or understand instructions if they're not basic and clear. His writing and reading level is far below most of his age, and he is academically below the majority. He doesn't know how to be subtle. His speech is impaired. And he gets scared by simple things sometimes if he doesn't understand them.

However, my brother also has no inhibitions about showing affection. If he sees someone in need he will automatically go to help them, stranger or not. He can read if someone is upset and will not rest until he has helped them feel better. He has set up a basketball team at his school and keeps order when there are fights, he has pretty good diplomacy skills but will also be very honest, which breeds trust. He's on his school council heading up a project to help people who struggle to make friends. He is gifted in ways most NT people are not.

He does not temper his enjoyment of things and enjoys life more thoroughly. He has an amazing ear for music and is not ashamed of asking about music he hears whether it's on tv, in church or wherever. He can pick out notes and harmonies so well. He recently took up keyboard lessons and despite the fact he struggles with holding a pen, his love for it is so strong, his inhibitions about how other people perceive him so low, he practices over and over and over and shows everyone when he improves to the stage he's actually reading scored music now at the level of most NT children beginning an instrument.

'Retardation' is an old scientific term for impairment in an area if ruled against the average. That doesn't make it accurate for describing a person though.

Autism brings impairments in some areas and advantages in others when ruled against the average. Yes it's a trait of my autism that I stood in the same spot for three hours at my first scout leader event because I didn't know what to do or where to go and felt stressed out at the end of it. That doesn't also make it a 'ret*d' trait. It's a consequence of my impairment to adapt to a new social situation governed by NT rules. But does that then make my Mum 'ret*d' when she struggles to understand a logic puzzle as quickly as I do, or struggles to follow a conversation about perceiving the connections in a puzzle because he brain doesn't have the same ability to think broadly as mine does?

It's fine to want to talk about things you find difficult, things that can make you feel 'stupid' or deficient in some way. But that doesn't make your perception a fundamental truth of 'what autism really is'. Autism is a mix of many things, but mostly, it's a general descriptor for the type of brain you have. Using the term 'ret*d' or 'retardation' adds a kind of value judgement on where you believe our perception of the autistic brain should lie.

Yes. We tend to have disabilities in certain areas. And yes, those disabilities sometimes feel like all you can see. But that is not the truth. That is an insecurity. We all might have disabilities, but that isn't all that autism, or we, are. I hope you can come to see that at some time.

Autism is not mild retardation, and mild retardation as a diagnosis isn't even used that much anymore in the medical field because of the many flaws and variants the IQ testing system doesn't control for (a kid raised by wolves is going to test significantly lower than a kid raised by humans even though they may have equal intelligence).

I hide in my room a lot when we have guests....or I just go for a walk with my dog for an hour. Um...I tend to not find the word I'm looking for, which results in huge awkward silences. I space out and lose track of what a conversation is about. I have trouble smiling when someone is saying something that I'm supposed to laugh at, which results in a facial twitch (I just look down now so they can't see my face and try to emulate a laughing noise). I go out of my way to avoid people who work at the grocery store if they've tried to talk to me in the past. I walk stiffly, and I don't swing my arms; they stay stiffly at my side while my hands fidget all the while. I get along better with children than I do with adults.

-to calm down (when in stress) i rub my nail over my lips
- I always wait in my car till 1 min before the sceduled meeting (cause i don't know if it's ok to come earlier/ don't know what to say to the people)
- i love to get a very nice view of my surroundings by climbing higher
- I am very chaotic because my mind works unstoppable
- i sing (bad) when feeling lonely/ scared/bored
- i seem to lack smooth movements ==> robotic movement all round ==> has advantages when dancing like a robot
- a usual conversation between me and others goes something like this:
other: hello
me: hello
other: how are u?
me: ok, thanks
it ussually stops pretty early don't seem to understand why
-@kaylamyarne i seem to know exactly what u mean ==> that is one of the things i do hate: the awkward silences ==> i usually become stranger when this happens ==> which causes people to run away aaah well

lamala1: I think the point the OP is making is that things can either be perceived as stupid or funny depending on a mindset that has nothing, afaik, to do with autism.

Does making people guess and confuse the crap out of them by making them guess what's my current age counts? XD As autistics in general are either perceived too young or too old for their age.

Also making them guess who's the elder sibling between my NT sister and me? And surprise people if they get it wrong... Because the norm's concept of 'maturity' is based on social standing and body language. (Just because she has a boyfriend, a job, a sense of fashion, and a social life while I don't)

I made people laugh if I did the above sometimes.

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When I was young and went to schoolfriends' birthday parties, if there were Marmite sandwiches among the party food (this may only resonate with British members), then I would lock myself in the toilet until they had all been eaten. I had, and to a lesser extent still have, a utter dread of the sight, smell, taste and even the idea of Marmite and being forced to be polite and eat it. On one occasion when I arrived at a party I asked the mother if there were Marmite sandwiches. When she said there were, I asked my mother to take me home.

Again when I was young, (about 5-6) I had a phobia about immersing my hands in water, which drove my mother mad when she was try to bath me, so she took me to the doctor - who dismissed it as a minor thing. This fear still haunts me, to the extent that if I go swimming I leave a towel beside the pool, swim a length then dry my hands, then swim another length etc. If I have a bath, to this day I still won't put my hands under water. Oddly enough I don't mind showers or washing my hands, but have to have a towel nearby so I can dry them quickly.

Another thing: if people ask me simple questions like 'was the traffic bad today?', 'did it rain where you were?' I lie to them.

Lets see... I have:

Told the flight attendant "thanks for flying"
Asked the other team why they wouldn't pass to me in soccer (I was 5)
Told someone who I accidentally tripped "it's okay"
I think of a really good joke in my head and I deliver it TERRIBLY (this is pretty much every day)
Yelled at my friend for being mean to me when he was just being sarcastic
Almost pet a police dog


And a whole lot more that I can't remember right now!

At the age of nine, a girl who was a year younger than me just got her ears pierced. Her ears were constantly bleeding. She offered for me to taste her blood, saying that it tasted like ladybugs (a Special Interest of mine at the time). I took the offer and tasted her blood. My mum caught me and I was sent to my room until dinner time.

I don't know if I do funny things now but when I was a child I used to tell the ice cream man that it was my birthday every Friday so that he gave me an ice cream for free.

I also used to pretend I was from Greece and I would go to another housing estate and make friends with the kids by speaking in a made up language. I actually can't believe I did that. I did it every Sunday morning for weeks, I was only about 7 or 8.

When we used to play hide and seek I would get on my bike and disappear for hours, still expecting people to be looking for me when I got back.

1. I like to rub the skin between my index and middle knuckle of my left hand on my lips cos it just feels soft and nice and neat? And I like the smell of my hand for some reason? This one drives my mom crazy.

2. When I was little I'd literally grab people and just... hug them as tight as I could even if they didn't want to be hugged and would struggle. This is thankfully something I grew out of fairly quickly. (but pretty much all the way up until middle school I had a lot of trouble with poking/touching people who didn't like it. I've gotten better but I'm not good with my impulses so sometimes I slip up but I try to be mindful of it.)

3. In 6th grade I took an interest in the German language (sadly due to my attention span my attempts to learn it were ultimately failures...but I still practice a little from time to time) and I told a bunch of people that I had a cousin named Karl from Germany?? I don't, lol.

4. This is a common thing I think, but I always get all quiet when it's time to order at a restaurant. But the reason is because I always feel like I'm gonna be judged as a 19-year-old who's ordering "kid's food" and chocolate milk.

5. In middle school I had a thing where I'd draw cars with faces and assign personalities to them. On deviantArt and around the internet I'd even pretend I was a car, lol. (Think of the Pixar movie, Cars). Eventually though I got pretty badly bullied for it so I stopped.

6. The idea of driving is kind of scary to me. It's less the idea of driving a big heavy dangerous machine and more the idea of I somehow have to navigate through all these lanes and maybe even get HONKED AT! (which makes my anxiety go through the roof) and find where I'm going, and possibly get totally lost...

7. All my life I'd rather walk around and daydream and esp when I was little teachers would force me to play games with the other kids... even though I was happy walking by myself and having to play some game which inevitably I'd wind up getting "out" [as in, say, getting hit by a ball during a dodgeball-type game] and feel miserable. Or just feel miserable anyway!

I know I do tons of weird things but I draw a blank when I need to list them haha. I'll probably think of some more later.