2y ago

In your experience, do autistic people “flock”?

I have been recently diagnosed as autistic, and now I seem to see autism everywhere in my social circle. My brother, a daughter, at least two friends. . . Either there are a lot of undiagnosed autistic people out there OR I tend to become friends (more comfortable) with fellow autists, OR I am just being silly and am attributing autism to NT people with strong interests. Fellow neurodivergent folks of all types, what is your experience? (Edit: changed ND to NT. oops!)

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gestures all around
Uh... Yeah?
- Hahaha

In my experience, I tend to feel more comfortable around other autistic people, but there are some types of autistic people where I feel the opposite way. It's called a spectrum for a reason!

We absolutely find each other unconsciously. I think it's a combination of factors such as shared interests, dislike of small talk, the way we look, body language. Those quirks don't seem odd to us, they feel familiar and comforting.

Nearly everyone in my discord server is somewhere on the spectrum. We seem to gravitate towards other ND people when we can
- I think we do it automatically. I only realised recently how prevalent we are, to the extent where my favourite comedian 'came out' to me in a conversation with him the other month.
  
  Same thing happened to me with music. I have two favorite musicians that I listen to mostly 95% of the time: Ren Gill and Residente. About 2-3 weeks ago, I heard a new-to-me song from Residente where he says that he was diagnosed as autistic in childhood. I haven't heard Ren come out as autistic, but it's evident to me that he is. A lot of his songs cover struggles that autistic people endure. He even has a songs where he sings "na-na-na-na-nee-nee-nee" and shares how his mind works, which sounds pretty autistic to me. I almost want to go on his YouTube channel and tell him that I think he's autistic in case he has as much self-awareness as I did before I found out (zero), but it might come off as rude. Perhaps if I frame it in a caring and inclusive way, it will come across better.

I think it’s a multitude of things:
autistic people tend to gravitate to other autistic people since we share strong interests and other traits
although there is a cutoff for diagnosis, autistic traits are everywhere and if someone has them, they might not be diagnosed but still have some traits
autism is hereditary. So some people in your familiy will have it too
a lot of people don’t get diagnosed for vaious reasons so they don’t necessarily identify as autistic but they might be.
I could name many more but those are the top reasons I could think of.
Summary: It’s awesome to see that people actually are like you in a way. You‘re in a brave new world. Try to enjoy.
- autism is hereditary. So some people in your familiy will have it too
  Or in my case, my mother's side was likely autistic, while my father's side was narcissistic (dad was 100% classic NPD), and unfortunately, I lost my mother around ~3 y/o, so I only knew the abusive jerks that thought I was the perfect scapegoat to take advantage of.
  
  Oof. I‘m so sorry. I absolutely know what you mean. My parents are both highly abusive. I hope you have people to talk to.

I find that autistic people tend to attract each other the same way stand users tend to attract each other. It's a little weird tbh.
- What's a stand user?
  
  It's a reference to the anime JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (hahahah, I said the funny). A Stand user is a person that possesses a Stand, a sort of supernatural manifestation of one's fighting spirit, which can take on many forms (though most commonly, they appear humanoid.)
- Autism is a stand confirmed

I would consider the inverse to seeking them out at first.
You tend to avoid people you don't "click" with, are draining to be around or don't accept you. Meaning you sort them out, until you have the people left that you are comfortable around, which are often other NDs.
And then it switches around. You increasingly enjoy their company and THEN you seek them out more and more, while the prospect of spending time with NTs becomes less appealing.
Eventual result: NDs attracting each other

Legit, tho.

Trans people are said to have a telepathic way of identifying and finding one another, even when they cannot clock each other.
Before I really understood ND, autism, etc. I thought my 'type' in romantic partner was... well, essentially females with ADHD.
Now that I understand myself better and have experience reading people, I just intentionally seek out NDs. Like those memes about how introverts don't make friends, extroverts simply adopt them? I'm the extrovert. I understand my social needs and I can assemble my tower of friendly interactions wherever I go.

I imagine most people flock along some set of similarity characteristics; even if there were no attractive force between neurodivergent people, ND people would flock by the nature of being otherwise excluded, as per hydrophobic molecules
- TIL I am a hydrophobic molecule ❤️

My NT girlfriend has two (other) autistic friends. Apart from that there are none or at least none, who would describe themselves as ND or "on the spectrum".

There are a lot of undiagnosed autistic people. And you, like all other humans, are going to be more comfortable around people with similar modes of behaviour to yourself.

I'm not autistic, but uh, I can see it from my house. Autism runs strongly in my family (enough so that our genetics have been studied). And I happened to marry an autistic woman. She was undiagnosed at the time - we only learned after getting our son diagnosed a couple years ago.
Since we started learning some of the less common symptoms of autism, we've started noticing them in family members on both sides. Pretty sure both of our fathers are autistic, for instance.
It's just that... If you're "passing" for NT, and/or of an older generation, you probably won't seek out a diagnosis. Remember, autism was only described a couple decades back. As diagnoses go, it's still pretty young - we're still learning a lot about it. Including how prevalent it is.

I understand this post is old, but I tend to flock more with the ADHD/ADD crowd than with fellow autistics. I don't know what that says about me mentally, but I find it easier to get along with the attention deficit folks. Probably because they talk more which lets me listen more. I do still have friends on the spectrum, but usually from circumstance (coincidence or being in the same places like in school.)

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