Anyone had to take a break from reading something because it reminded them too much of their childhood?
I remember being terrified every time I had to complete a task for my parents involving strangers (usually shopkeepers) because I would practice what I was going to say but there would always be something that went off-script. They wouldn’t have the thing but would send me to some other person who might, or the price would be wrong or there would be a buy one get one free deal and I would have to explain why I had bought two home.
Anyway on a recommendation I started reading a story about a girl who was an unsanctioned archmage and had to hide the fact, I was not expecting the protagonist to have mild ASD and unlock a bunch of childhood memories every other chapter.
Story is Archmage Coefficient if you are curious, although I’m only at ch. 7 so I can’t promise anything about later chapters.
Thank you, O kind and wise internet stranger. What you’ve said speaks deeply to me about my own self-limiting behaviors when it comes to social interacting at large. I hate to inconvenience anyone so I avoid starting interactions at a cost to my happiness. I’m finding out that I perceive small inconveniences as much larger than they are, while most people perceive small problems more accurately, like you said.
I think you got it exactly, and if you expand “social interactions” to include text conversations like this one, a narrow idea of what is “correct” is probably why so many of us here seem to care for good grammar.
Going even further, I’d say it impacts any sort of “performance” that might have social consequences of any kind. I’ve been a perfectionist most of my life to the point that I would avoid trying a lot of things I couldn’t reasonably be sure I’d succeed at on the first try. Any failure would also shut me down pretty hard. In other words, other people’s “good enough” was my “unacceptable.” Only recently did I learn that’s common among autists, and it’s something I’m still working on.
On the bright side calibration is improved through experience, so you will only get better and better at it as you live your life 🙂