Ritchie’s Reads

If you are hoping to accomplish something perhaps try actually telling me what has upset you. Otherwise, a decade might pass before a mutual acquaintance gets drunk and decides to randomly enlighten me as to WHY you went from being a friend to a stranger over night.

It may also be noteworthy, that when a neurodivergent person says they did a literal verb, they likely meant that literal verb and not some innuendo of that verb… because ND people typically say what they mean even if it is too blunt for you.

Autobiographical memory is an individual's personal history. Things such as where you went to school, how old you were when you learnt to ride a bike, what year you graduated etc.

Autistics have more difficulty recalling these memories at all, have fewer of these memories, or find that there are disjointed episodic memories (memories of the event occurring) but bad semantic memory (the ability to store and retrieve the memories).

This can lead to a difference in how we socially share our own history and narratives and our own social identity. Autobiographical memory is important in letting an individual understand their own experiences, social ties and place in a group.

Memories may take on a third person view rather than a first person view.

It's because so much work goes into masking. Talking to people in general, let alone when I don't actually want to, is exhausting in itself. Even the brightness of the sky can be overstimulating at times, and that's before I've done my shopping or done what I need to do, where there's too much talking and excessively loud music and workers who are often pressured into getting into your space before you've even walked several metres through the door.

What is considered background noise to some people is all I hear. I can't openly stim or do the things that make these jobs bearable because I'll get those looks from people that remind me that I'm not actually welcome unless I can be "normal".

I have to remember the script that I've created in my head for when I talk to the person I'm seeing. If they stray from what I had planned, I then have to create a new script on the spot without them realising that I'm on the verge of an anxiety attack because it's not going as I had hoped.

I have to make sure my facial expressions don't slip into what's natural, because it looks like i'm bored/disinterested. I have to make sure I'm making eye contact on occasions even when I don't want to because it's seen as disrespectful/impolite. Nobody wants to accommodate my needs more than they absolutely have to, but I spend every hour of every day - sometimes even in my own home - accommodating the people around me.