Highly sensitive people and autism
Most people, if not all people, who identify as HSPs are autistic. They don’t realize it because most people don’t understand what autism is really like. I didn’t until two years ago when I got diagnosed.
People find the stigma around autism to be distasteful so they reject that autistic traits could pertain to them. Autism horrifies them because the unknown is scary and being marginalised is hard.
Those of you who identify with HSP and deny you have social or communication differences are likely so highly masking (hiding your autistic traits) that you think you can’t be autistic because you are social and have a lot of friends. So was I and so did I.
If you look closely, you may find that you aren’t quite as accepted in your social circles as you think you are or you just sort of float from group to group with the appearance that you belong.
If you admit it to yourself, you will realize no one really knows the real you because you keep that person hidden. You may not realize you are autistic, but you know something is off which is why you have latched onto the Highly Sensitive Person label because it fits.
The Highly Sensitive Person is an illusion and its marginal acceptance in psychological spaces does not make it valid. The practitioners and researchers who believe that HSP is a thing in and of itself are using a very outdated model of autism with which to compare and contrast.The papers and articles I’ve read that claim there are differences, all claim that autistic people lack empathy, are unable to read facial expressions, never understand social situations, and blah blah blah repeating myths about autism that have either been debunked in recent research or do not apply to all autistic people on the spectrum.
I can not retriate enough that autism is a spectrum and that autistic people have more varied presentations than previously thought. That is why so many women and AFAB non binary people are being diagnosed now.
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