Much of the time I can understand speech without trouble. Sometimes, often due to certain types of background noise, I have to explicitly concentrate on underst

Much of the time I can understand speech without trouble. Sometimes, often due to certain types of background noise, I have to explicitly concentrate on understanding. I can do it, but it's mentally tiring to maintain conscious focus on something usually taken care of by an "unconscious" mental process. I mention this because: > To me, [exhaustion when reading and understanding people] is a symptom of a poor Theory of Mind, or a conflict between the consciously held theory of mind and the internalized one. It strikes me as likely that someone who isn't neurotypical may similarly be having to explicitly consciously process the reading of the other people around them. This may not be a poor theory of mind, but simply a side effect of a different neural architecture. Your empathy habits and practices are admirable. I encourage you to cast your net even wider, though, when it comes to imagining versions of yourself with different neurological makeup.