I'm gonna have a running list here that I will update.

• Haircuts: My gifted teacher in high school stopped me one time in the hallway and asked me about my haircut. By the way, I apparently often have unusual haircuts. Anyway, the teacher asked me about it, and I can't remember what I said, but I remember that her response was like she was mesmerized and said something to the extent of, "Of course, you will always have an unusual haircut." Much later on, my allistic ex pointed out that some people hate going to go get haircuts because they find the experience overwhelming. I agreed saying, "Yeah! They always want to talk to you about nothing. I don't know this person, and I hate talking about nothing. Everyone there is being fake anyway, and I don't like being fake." Welp, turns out she was talking about autistic people getting haircuts. It explains why I've grown my hair past shoulder length twice and went like 8 years shaving my head at home 😆. Anyway, I'm off to go a haircut. My autistic friend is taking me 😋

• Desire for socialization: I could never figure out if I was introverted or extroverted. I would get exhausted by being around people, but crave socialization and fall into a mess if I were alone for too long. What i realized is that I like being around people, but if for too long, I tank out quickly. I would talk to people about this, but it wasn't really helpful. Turns out, I never really learned the signs of starting to be overwhelmed by social situations and sensory input. Add to this the extra amount of effort and processing power I had to put in to analyze social matters to avoid upsetting people or misunderstandings. I have benefitted a lot from learning about sensory sensitivity and over-stimulation, along with noticing the signs that I'm becoming overwhelmed and socially acceptable avenues to take breaks (e.g. going to the bathroom for a while, leaving on a drive to pick things up for others, etc.). Additionally, learning about signs that a social setting/group isn't a good fit for me.

• Being an outsider: Ever since about ~9 years-old, I've never confidently felt like I fit in anywhere, even with my own family (grew up with only one side, apparently the allistic side). This would look like waves of being included and rejected. I was bouncing from one group to the next wondering what went wrong and trying to develop a list of lessons I learned along the way. It makes sense why I was diagnosed with bipolar II about 8 years ago, though I have confidently disagreed with the diagnosis for ~4 years now. Anyway, I've never felt like I fit in anywhere, and now it makes sense. I'm autistic, so regardless of how hard I try to make it work with allistics in any setting, I will always be different and that's okay. Just having an explanation for this has been alleviating because it is no longer a personal fault that I wasn't trying hard enough, being rude, or whatever reason. I'm neurologically different, and I need to find others that understand and welcome that.