These concepts of ‘conform’ and ‘mold’ of which you speak, these are strange and somehow irksome to me. 
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Any evidence that trans is a real thing, whether it’s brain structures, the only treatment that works being transition, or anything else, will be ignored in favour of chromosomes or features at birth. Because they don’t care about truth, only that we make them feel weird and they hate us for it.
Anyway, getting off topic so I’ll get off my transgender high horse here.
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That’s a privilege, actually! So happy for you, that you get to be yourself without any pressure to ‘fit in’!
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We are trying to be this place for kii-kitten and her friends. Not sure how successful we’ve been so far except the kids seem to like being at our place.
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Not fitting in for me starts with cars and airplane seats these days. 
I’m wildly lucky to have grown up in a community of scientists, then engineers and farmers (the latter quite happy to treat me as odd, but mostly harmless), then go to a university that I think was Margaret Atwood’s inspiration for the ND institution in Oryx and Crake, then be tall enough that trouble tends to wander away… the list goes on.
It has been noted by an expert that I’ve “self-selected” a bit for my situation, but yes, been lucky to have space to do that. And it behooves those of us so lucky to pay it forward.
We’ll give the occasional corrective stare if boundaries are being pushed in uncomfortable ways. If it’s just being yourself or needing a welcoming space? We try to be that as well. Having kids like to hang out is a good sign; they are often surprisingly OK. 
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My spouse always described this framing (especially in the context of the work of one H. Asperger) as:
- Those whose labor can be exploited for profit, and
- Those to be sent directly to confinement
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I am old-skool ADHD- I was diagnosed in the 80’s as a “Ritalin Kid”, punted to Cylert (until that got pulled from the market and we moved across country), spent the bulk of 5th grade in a ‘timeout’ room because the teacher was retiring that year and didn’t want to deal with an unmedicated ADHD kid. (and turned of off to coffee until my mid-30’s) and finally got back on some ADHD meds around 2007 or thereabouts, because as an adult, it manifested as a very angry frustration with almost everyone, which landed me in hot water (and the unemployment line) a few times.
I’ve been doing a bit of poking around in the past 3-4 years, and while I don’t have any formal diagnosis of autism, I exhibit a few of the known co-morbidities that the two disorders share.
One thing I will also admit to: since I started on HRT back in April, the ADHD meds seem to work SO much better.
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My MIL’s cousin in his 90’s. From the stories I heard, he was tied up in public school for being too “restless.” I interpret that as something along the lines of ADHD, but who knows.
That was a long time ago. I hope nothing like that happens now.
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I at least missed the physical torture for being neurodivergent, but working through my issues in therapy it’s shocking how much comes back to feeling like a disappointment to my mom for not being able to live up to her standards as a ‘gifted’ kid… sharp as a tack, unable to complete an assignment.
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We are divergent nerd sisters!
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My oldest son meets that description. I have described him as “having a Ferrari for a brain, but can’t reach the pedals.” He was literally reading at a 5th grade level in kindergarten. He was not very happy in the educational system, although he did get his BA in graphic design and is now a tattoo artist of some renown. He also has pretty much cut ties with his entire family and has some pretty serious mental health issues. It’s a sad story.
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Including you? I’m sorry to hear that.
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Yeah, including me. He calls occasionally, but that’s about it. He seems happy, which he was not when he was young, and I follow him from afar, but yeah, it’s kind of a mess. He has done what he felt he needed to do, but has alienated everyone. The final blow for us was when he reneged on attended my daughter’s wedding because he “needed to get his car inspected.” Ah, well.
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I’ve always read at a high level and was a voracious reader until I got a really bad english teacher in grades 9 and 10. I also never really had to try to do well on tests, it was assignments where I fell down.
Interestingly, when I finally got around to university I found I really excelled. Part of it was that I wasn’t being forced to go to class. I don’t do well with external coercion as a motivator. It triggers my demand avoidance. But if I’m doing it for me I don’t have that issue. Still struggled with due dates though.
I’m sorry to hear about your son cutting ties though. Family is hard. I’m LC with my dad thanks to the way he has made no effort to remember even after 3.5 years that I’m his daughter, not his son, though he is accepting of my being trans. Every time we talk, I leave feeling like garbage. So I’ve stopped making an effort.
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Yeah, it’s complicated with him. He is my ex’s son from a previous marriage, abusive dad, I adopted him, but there was so much damage done he decided his only way out was to cut all ties. It’s OK, he seems to be doing OK. I wish it were different, we were very close at one time, but when his mom and I divorced, it gutted him, and he never really recovered, just avoided. But yeah, very complicated.
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We are LC with my SIL. We were supportive of her coming out as trans but the rest of my spouse’s family, particularly his mom 
we miss her and occasionally reach out and offer a visit or send a card with a cash gift. We were able to give her a place to stay while going thru the Texas bureaucracy to get her birth certificate and driver’s license changed. So glad she got that done before Paxton fucked it all up for everyone.
It seems to be what she needs. We told her that was fine, whatever level of engagement she needs. If she’s in trouble, we’ll be here
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I read like crazy when I was a kid (*), could ace most kinds of tests, but actually doing homework was an uphill battle. Especially if it was math problems.
I found out in high school that when learning a language, I do have to actually study, and that messed me up.
(*) My parents took me to a psychologist once because I got upset about a lot of things. My dad told a story about me sitting on the floor in my underwear reading a novel while I was supposed to be getting ready for school. I knew it wasn’t true because I always felt super awkward to just be in underwear, even in private… if he’d said I was sitting there not putting my shoes on because I was reading it could have been true 
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When I was in years 7 and 8, I learned French. I wasn’t hugely great at it. I mean, when there was something written, I’d power through, but then the teacher would start making mouth noises at us and I was instantly lost.
I changed high school in year 9 (to a selective entry school), where I changed to Japanese. And it was the same story. I could read it. I could kind of write it. I could sometimes speak it. But say anything to me and I was lost. In year 11 I had an oral exam, which I just bombed. The only thing I could meaningfully answer was wakarimasen “I do not understand”.
I had my hearing tested at one point, and was somewhat surprised to learn that it was actually better than average. I was conscious of tones at volumes and pitches that most people couldn’t even detect.
Many years later, I read about this thing called the Cocktail Party Effect. The upshot is that there’s this thing where you’re at a party, lots of conversations going on around you, and you’re hearing clearly the one you’re actively engaged in. From a pure signal processing point of view, this is sorcery. Then they found that if someone mentions your name in a different conversation, you actually have context around it. It turns out that you’ve been listening to all the conversations, at the same time, keeping them distinct, then ignoring all but the one you’re focused on.
I thought this was a super power, like tetrachromacy, or double jointedness.
Then I found out that apparently this is a thing that most people just do and don’t even think about it. Like, it took so long for scientists to start studying it because it took them that long to figure out how hard it should be.
Once I learned that, I started calling what I have “Cocktail Party Deafness”.
I now know it’s called Auditory Processing Disorder.
It turns out that I’m not bad at learning languages, or understanding them, I’m bad at hearing them.
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How I describe it is “my ears hear fine, it’s my brain that doesn’t”.
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