What did you think is autistic that isn't?

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For a while I thought my face made me look autistic, awkward and unsophisticated. I thought the same about my autistic cousin and someone else I knew. I later found out it's just Native American facial features with pale skin. Nothing to do with autism or character failings. Has anyone else had moments like this?

When I first started to read about AS to understand it more and myself, I took it too literal so I thought anything symptoms they listed no normal person ever does so I was confused when I wasn't seeing everyone at school looking at the teacher while they were talking and I was confused about the stimming behaviors I saw in humans and them messing with parts on objects and I can remember my brothers spinning in chairs when I was little and I also enjoyed it too as a kid. So I thought AS was a bunch of bull and I had to be pathologized and here I was being singled out again by being labeled with it. My school counselor told me that just meant I was finally starting to accept myself and cope with it so I was seeing flaws in everyone. None of the pages and books about AS said that everyone does these things but you have to do them all the time or that this has to happen to you all the time and it didn't say for how many hours or how many times a day it has to happen, etc. But I think many people misunderstand it or else people wouldn't be saying it's made up and just a word for those who are awkward or different and they had to turn it into a label. So I am not the only one who took it all literal. Normies take it literal too. I even thought my mom had traits too for a while because she would always hug me and not understand that me pulling away means I don't want to be hugged and also she would get mad at me for my emotions as a child and also she always watched Murder She Wrote and she was always watching home and garden and home decorating stuff on TV and HGTV always mostly whenever she was watching TV. So I thought that was her obsession and she said it was not an obsession because it doesn't take over her life. I can remember my husband telling me "No she does not have any aspie traits, you just want her to have them because you have it but I will agree that your dad has traits because you are both lot alike."

I only recently became aware of my comorbid ADD diagnosis and Generalized Anxiety Disorder diagnosis, before I knew about those I assumed that my inattention and my tendency to get super anxious a lot of the time must be a part of autism.

^Really? That's odd. My family is mainly from all over Europe, and yet my skin is extremely pale [not Addams Family type pale, but pretty close].

My 1/8 Native and Slavic (Bohemians on both Paternal German side and Maternal Basque that trace to Silesia and Pomerania) bloodlines give me high cheeks and a slant to my eyes. Actually more pronounced from the slavic side. I did get small square, hi arched lil froggie feet from native heritage tho *sigh*

My ancestry has Asperger's on the Welsh/French side from my maternal grandfather, that also has Hemochromatosis and quite a few autoimmune syndromes coincidentally.
I still maintain Asperger's is not quite the same though maybe similar in root.

In my early adulthood; I assumed unexpected tantrums, biting, spinning, lack of communicative speech, food rejection, touch rejection were only for autism. And a very blank almost softening of eye color (a specific spacing out expression ) was autism. Ashen pallor with dark circles despite ethnicity. I was under impression growing up that tho severity in both can make dramatic disability but that autism is more often struck dumb and has co morbid syndromes including physical and Asperger's is more likely to speak and more likely to be social enough to "blend" in . Poorly but still on eccentric side of "accepted normal" with rigid training.

I feel like an assimilated martian when with a lot of NT peeps, but diagnosed "Autistic" son seems like he is from a quasar from a black hole in the crab nebula
I am not sure anymore as they try to meld the two into a same condition.
I am still not sure what is or isn't 100% "autistic" other than being short circuited in communication and social reading. But strokes can do that. Alzheimer's can fit there. Schizophrenia, Sociopaths, Narcissists. Meh! My dog reads social cues better than me since her species invested 10k years in trying to figure what humans might want. *sigh*

^That's beautiful! There's nothing wrong with how you look!

^Well, suit yourself. I still think you're beautiful. Then again, I think everyone's beautiful.

There's nothing "wrong" with the way you look, DevilKisses.

I believed that my autism caused me to not be racist. I never understood how anyone could see the other in people. I assumed it was autism because it was so obvious to me that we are all the same. I thought since it wasn't ever an issue I needed to think about that it probably was autism. When I asked my therapist about it, she said it was just me, not autism. That made me feel good about myself...

I couldn't understand why people seemed to be so easily offended. Why was something offensive what a person said. I didn't see anything offensive about it. I thought this was my autism that made me not understand why people were offended and it felt like to be everyone was too sensitive. Then I noticed other people online saying the same thing and I doubt they were all autistic so I realized even non autistics feel the same way too about this so it wasn't just me. I also have an issue with political correctness because it mostly has to do with change and I hate change. I like things to stay the same and I want things to be said the way it is. But anyway I noticed NTs had the same issue too with political correctness and they also wanted things to be said about the way it is than sugarcoat it.

^^I'm the same.