Venus

Funny because cat meows are my biggest vocal stim, like, seriously. And the "story" behind it is quite cute in my opinion.

I love cats, a lot. I dream of having my own house or apartment to be able to adopt a cat because in the moment I live with my mom and she despise cats (say they are messy and other things). But, before my 18 years old, I wasn't thaaaaat crazy about cats, mainly because I interacted only once with a cat when I was what? 12 years old? Can't remember well how old I was.

And I had pet the cat of one of family member, found them cute and remembered my mom saying that cats weren't all that nice and she didn't like them, all that things.

But, thing is, at 18 years old, I began working as petsitter, and my first client had a cat. I was all nervous, because I never took care of a cat before.

Then, I met the ultimate cutesy, his name was Leo. And he meowed A LOT, and from the first day I met him, I got crazy over cats.

Now, because Leo had a very specific meow (his meows were like: meooooooow very long haha) I found myself mimicking him. Even if I wasn't petsitting him, I would randomly have this urge that, if I didn't know what to say, I'll mimic Leo's meows.

I got my diagnosis and, between that and now, I have my vocal stims, they come and go. But you know what stayed my vocal stim from before my diagnosis until these days? Leo's meows.

I haven't been his petsitter for years now, but I still remember him in my heart, I look at photos I took in 2023 and still remember him, I honestly prefer to delete my selfies rather than his photos. He wasn't my cat, but I loved him like he had been mine, I think I still do. He was the cat that made me love cats.

Here's a photo of him, the silly guy:

Like, little me would be FLABBERGASTED that, no, is NOT common to try memorizing the many positions of stars in a list of how bright they are (Regulus is in the 22th position in that list, btw) or that every opportunity you would compare yourself to universe related things (from 12 things I wrote in my diary, 67 was star-related) AND DO NOT LET ME GET STARTED ON HOW MUCH I WAS SET INTO HAVING ANY UNIVERSE/STAR THING THEMED!!

I remember the whole covid period I spent my entire time seeing every little thing about stars, while managing to balance with -- now aware -- hyperfixation on ATLA 😭😭

For anyone wondering, my hyperfixation on universe was so big, that I TOOK GOOD GRADES ON PHYSICS in pandemic period because my teacher was teaching us some equations that involved the Moon and other planets. Detail: I hate numbers, equations, everything. But I made sure to take good grades otherwise I would be disappointing my dear universe.

How do you autistic people find romantic relationships?

I'm asking because I am an autistic girl in my 20s and after getting the diagnosis I started thinking that no one would want not only because of my autism, but also because of the things I like :(

I try talking to people, even downloaded a dating app, but this just made it worse because I now think that I don't fit at all :(

It looks like every time I try talking to someone, a thing goes wrong and then it becomes hell.

I just want a love you know? And everytime I say this, people talk about how I need to love myself more before entering a relationship. But this only makes it worse for me because I don't have myself or anything. I just don't have a big high self-esteem.