see gj”s post of that reddit thread got me thinking since i did actually wander over to read through a bunch of the comments

i like how one of the ppl was all

“if these special snowflakes were actually autistic, someone would have noticed. like the whole ‘disorder” thing means it significantly impacts your life”

lol. okay.

if ur instantiation of whatever is primarily social. maybe not anyone would notice. especially if it falls down more to not being able to maintain longterm, intimate relationships. Like. you can do short-term ones, based on superficial qualities (in the same class at school! but never hang out outside of class). or you do ones that, upon examination, are inappropriate for your age (consistently hanging out with ppl younger than you because you can”t get along with ppl in your peer group).

unless you live in a smallish area and never move around, ppl don”t really expect you to have lifelong childhood friends. and if you are like me and went to like, 8 different schools as a child, you don”t really end up having teachers for enough time for them to maybe notice certain patterns in your behaviour that would indicate a problem.

or

the problems that were noticed didn”t cause much alarm because, idk, you”re currently a 30 yo adult and when you were growing up people didn”t pay attention to these sorts of things?

or

idk, you aren”t white and navigating a stereotype of a socially awkward, brainy asian child means that no one really thinks much of the fact that you can”t really get along with or communicate or make friends? that this is pretty much what ppl expect of you so don”t really notice anything strange or unusual?

or

ppl actually do notice. but.

just. don”t. care.

When i still had access to my grade school report cards, I re-read them as an adult and was surprised to learn that my teachers consistently noted behavioural problems. things like me acting out. or not making eye contact with the teacher and always figeting and looking distracted during class. but i wasn”t failing class and that is pretty much the only thing they cared about. oh, and while they noticed these things i was never really disruptive to the class, as a whole, so whatever.

my parents definitely noticed that something was up. they knew i had few or no friends. my mom thought i might be deaf as an infant, because i wouldn”t respond to auditory stimulation. when i started reading at 3, my dad just used it as an excuse to call my sister stupid, rather seeing anything noteworthy about it.

i was raised in a single parent home. my dad did not give a fuck about my emotional wellbeing. as long as i was quiet and compliant, he basically forgot that i existed.

anything he may have observed about me… well, wasn”t anything he cared enough to look into. i didn”t see my mom enough for her to notice anything (and during visitation in the younger years, she actually still wasn”t around that much ‘cause she would go out partying).

the only thing ppl cared about when i was growing up was that i behaved and got decent grades. literally nothing else about me mattered to anyone. but academics aren”t the only place these things manifest (fuck, they aren”t even the primary places) especially not when you learn to compensate for stuff really fast because you are too afraid of your father and the consequences if you do poorly.

but no.

we all grew up in supportive, white, middle class families with parents who gave a fuck, teachers who gave a fuck, and access to tons of super fucking awesome resources.

right?