The Opinionated Aspie

  I posted the meme you see above to my Instagram last year, and it cracks me up every single time I see it, no matter how many times! The look on that kid is so priceless too. It's what one of my daughters looks like when she's online, and how my other daughter looks when it comes to Anime. And perhaps I would have looked this happy about my interests too, if I hadn't had the kind of upbringing I had. But perhaps not. I can't really know if I would be any different than what I was.   After all, I'd still be autistic and I'd also still be me. We aren't all carbon copies of some original form. That being said, I may not be able to speak for all autistic people on how they handle their obsessions, but I can  tell you that we all tend to be hyper-focused on what we're interested in, and little else. These "special interests" may manifest differently from person to person, or you may not even know someone has them if like me (when I was young)...

  I remember the first time someone told me I was a genius. I thought that was absurd. I was a terrible student in school. One of the worst in class sometimes. I was one of those students that the 80's traumatized because they didn't know enough about ADD and high functioning autism, to spot me and give the help I needed.   Because I was constantly put down by teachers and comparing myself to my friends and sister, who were always the best students- I came to the conclusion that I was stupid and it took decades for me to shake off that feeling of inferiority.   It wasn't just in the classroom that I discovered how different I was from other kids. It was on the playground and during sleepovers. Even at church I just didn't quite fit in. My own best friends would scold me at times, for things I didn't understand as "being bad", or for being honest about things I didn't think of as hurtful or were meant to be kept confidential.   Now that I...