And how it has a like 84% correlation with autism. Pretty sure I'm in the 16% because I'm a dead ringer for ADHD and only have some autism spillover, mostly sensory processing issues and being a bit slow on the social uptake due to lax attention, but still, you'd think people would look at a 3 year old reading books without ever having been taught how and go "hey that's kinda weird" instead of thinking "he was reading at 2, he's smart, he'll figure out this social stuff and not grow up self-isolating from rejection sensitivity and abandonment issues"
EDIT: The more I think about it the more I think I might have some more ASD issues than I thought and if so that's fine I guess, life's a constant struggle to cope either way, if it's true it's another avenue to follow that's already well-explored.
ah yes, another 'my personality and awkward social development is entirely a result of my ADHD and its consequences' tally on the board :kermit-pain:
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and its consequences have been a disaster for my social life and self-confidence :sicko-wistful:
Fuck fuck you just enearthed a strain of memories of my parents constant praise for learning to read Spanish as a child :ohnoes:
Your final sentence hits home too. Just have to trudge onwards and do better for others I guess
I was feeling down when I wrote this but I just spent an hour in a Zoom class for creative writing and it felt really good to vibe with people and make them laugh and laugh at things they say
The solution is arming yourself with the skills you never picked up as a kid and then getting out there and having some corrective experiences, so you can learn to trust yourself and forgive your own mistakes instead of letting them fester and spiral out of your control because you were too scared your attempts at reconciliation would be taken badly and just make things worse
Or just you know whatever just an example :blob-no-thoughts:
3 year old reading books without ever having been taught how and go “hey that’s kinda weird” instead of thinking “he was reading at 2, he’s smart, he’ll figure out this social stuff and not grow up self-isolating from rejection sensitivity and abandonment issues”
To be a bit charitable to most peoples' parents, most people lacked any language and knowledge about mental health like, one and a half generations ago, so it's likely they found it odd, but not something worth looking into. Besides, living in this hypercompetitive hellworld, parents are constantly anxious about whether their child will be able to function (i.e. Sell their labor for money) well in society, and those early markers of "intelligence" are what most people think will set you up for life, because the next ~17 years of their expected lives are going to depend on academic achievement.
I managed to learn perfect English by watching Youtube and playing video games starting at 7. Some people even think I'm Br*tish, and this post made me interested if whatever I went through could be described with a condition.
Oh, I also taught myself to read at 2. In multiple languages. I just thought it was because languages are neat. My (professionally diagnosed) fiance says that he thinks I have autism too, so I guess that's just another of the 'symptoms' I've been displaying since I was a kid. :thinkin-lenin:
I do wish that some of those sorts of skills could transfer over into other areas of my life, like ability to deal with certain sounds/textures, or knowing when to stop info-dumping about linguistics because my conversation partner is clearly bored with me talking about thorn, eth, and ash for the 100th time.
Very young children cannot be diagnosed with low grade autism/ADHD because part of the diagnostic requirement is the condition having a severe enough negative impact on part of your social life, and a 4-year-old for example does not really have a solid enough baseline for what their social life should look like to diagnose much beyond the most severe stuff. An 84 % correlation may be cause enough to have a talk with the parents about the possibility, but you sure as shit cannot diagnose a neuropsychiatric condition with a 16 % error margin. As for people going "He's smart", they were probably proud. You picked up a difficult skill much earlier than most and while it is a bit weird how early it was, it is not by itself a problem.
oh wow ok i should really get a formal diagnosis one day.
my mom said i learned to read at 1 and a half and could read books at 2. thought it was just being "smart" or so i was told. all the rest sounds pretty familiar. not sure if i'm on the spectrum, i had pretty intence sensory issues when younger and i definitely have ADHD, i just didn't "believe" it was real when i was younger.I'm split on whether I might be autistic, but I'm definitely ADHD and would hyperfocus on reading as a kid
Actually the more I look into it the more I suspect that I actually am on the spectrum to some degree because I seriously have lots of sensory processing and relationship issues and I'm realizing that my development of coping strategies for those things doesn't mean they aren't there
It's hard to untie the Gordian knot that is the relationship stuff though, because ADHD is enough of a hindrance in and of itself, not to mention trust issues and depression
