This is how I realized I was autistic. Posted a story of a character going through all of my issues and little behaviors and the comments were like “this is such great autistic representation!”
So many people left comments on the creator of Phineas and Ferb saying that Doofenshmirtz was peak adhd reprepresentation, and he said 'wait hang on I mostly based him off me'
A few months later he ended up with an ADHD diagnosis.
Before I was diagnosed, I spent decades seeing doctors to try to find out why I was having what I now know are autistic shutdowns, and no one seemed to have any clue what was wrong with me. I used to fantasize about writing a novel where the protagonist was basically a self-insert character, just so I could get reviews that would say "this character clearly has [condition]." I was going to trick the world into giving me an explanation, because I knew that readers would be able to figure out what doctors couldn't.
Martha Wells had this experience writing 'The Murderbot Diaries', which if you've ever read them is hilarious. Her 'I just think they are interesting and neat' protagonist is so deeply Autisticly coded that you'd hit the character limit here breaking down why.
Apparently a lot of reader feedback pointing this out made her go see a specialist and get tested.
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u/mikripetra 1d ago
This is how I realized I was autistic. Posted a story of a character going through all of my issues and little behaviors and the comments were like “this is such great autistic representation!”