My uncle, from the time he was a little boy, liked nothing more than farming and gardening. He has one friend and they talk exclusively about growing stuff. He had to be forced to finish high school because all he wanted to do was wrench on a tractor. He barely talks unless it's farming related.

He apparently takes after other men in the family, always one or two per generation, who were pretty much mute except when it came to their special interest. And they were 100% focused on their special interest.

Back in the day, it was "Uncle Bob just has those family genes. We get one of them every once in a while. He sure is a helluva good farmer." Today he would be diagnosed with autism.

I took one of those autism tests and I can't remember off the top of my head what the score was but it was very high which both surprises and doesn't surprise me. I mask extremely well according to most people I meet. Telling me "You seem normal" or even "You aren't autistic".

I've only had two people tell me "It's obvious" ever, my mom and a single friend of mine.

But holy hell all the other autism personality/psychological aspects are like cranked up to 100 and I have a love/hate relationship with that. Hyperfocus is a double edged sword for instance. I love that I can get super into something and get really fucking good at it but I don't love obsessing over the same thing for months to the point of it keeping me awake at night and hurting other aspects of my life because I can't change mental direction.

It also isn't good for social anxiety, way too much rumination on single awkward conversations MAKE IT STOP.

I’m out of the loop here. Could someone ad some context for me? What’s this about?

This exoplanet pandemic is getting out of hand. We're seeing them everywhere now!

I just want to take the moment to say, nice to have you all around, especially if you are different. Thanks for enjoying the shit that I don't. And thanks for sharing my love for something for a different reason. Thanks for showing me a different world.

Also If everyone was like me, my girlfriend wouldn't be who she is, but ignoring that, I would have a lot of competition and it would be really boring for all of us. Wtf do you talk about if we all would be the same? I would hate you all, and consequently myself. Thanks for being different, seriously.

I will argue that the mild part of the autism spectrum, what we call functional autism, is not a mental illness, not a disorder.

It's like being left handed, not the most common thing, it can cause troubles in a world made for right handed people, specially if being left handed is not accepted. But by itself is just another way of being just as "healthy" and "normal" as being right handed.

I think this is an open debate. Some folks prefer it being considered an illness because they want diagnosis and treatment. Others, like me, just love to be this way, and there's nothing I think is wrong with me. The only problem is that the world is not accommodated for people like me, just like it wasn't accommodated for left-handed people not so long ago. But as soon as it's 100% accepted as something normal I don't see it causing any trouble, so if there's no harm there's no illness we can talk about.

Epidemic? That means it's a contagious disease, how do I spread my autism to others? By biting them? (If you ask: I consider some vampires "autism-coded", and I might be making a game with even more autism coded vampires)

isn't this also, like, a tweet about queer people?

... so what you're saying is that exoplanets cause autism!

When left-handedness became acceptable the number of left handed people was far higher than experts had predicted.

It's the same about depression. I doubt people got "more depressed", society have just ignored depression for almost the entirety of human history. My mother still tells me to "just be happy" like I can control brain chemicals. Literally nothing makes me happy. Petting my cat only slightly lessens my suffering. Ugh 😓

Just as easily applies to queerness and gender expression too. My favourite part on the these specific issues is the ignorance in the west, acting like being trans and queer is uniquely American and new.

Meanwhile South East Asia is right there...