I was looking into theories about fictional characters, and a few of the blogs mentioned this place. However, that isn't what led to me checking out this website. I had an online therapist briefly speculate about autism, but nothing concrete. Just a passing speculation. Still, I decided to have a look here to see if anything resonated.
At first I felt rather out of place, it seemed different to the forums I was used to. Mainly because it is.
Sometimes I felt as if I were intruding where I didn't belong, and I questioned what I was doing here. But after a while I got used to being on this forum.
I could relate to some parts, but I have since come to the conclusion that I am probably not autistic. However, I don't fully see myself as completely neurotypical either, so I wasn't a fan of having to pick one or the other on the drop-down menu on profiles. Although, it depends on what you count as neurotypical. I know that people often debate about that. Usually whenever I do autism quizzes, I get a result that is kind of in the middle between the two.
Sometimes I post something, and I get responses such as "Yeah, neurotypicals will do that to you," or "this post clearly shows that people on the autism spectrum *insert positive quality here*". I can understand the assumption though, I am on autism forum after all. But it sure is weird being used as an example of "why we're better than neurotypicals" by a few people. Uh, you picked the wrong person for the point you're trying to make. This has happened to me in other places as well.
If you define neurotypical as someone who doesn't have any neurological differences that differ from the norm, then I'm probably not neurotypical. My visual processing abilities are way below the average, and how I think has always been considered a bit strange by others. However, if you define it as someone who isn't autistic, then I think the term fits. Although, I do relate to certain parts. So I guess I kind of am in the middle. Maybe the Broad Autism Phenotype (BAP) applies here. Granted, some of my issues could potentially be explained by my weird childhood. I'm getting off topic here anyway.
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25. Near the spectrum but not on it.