Growing up I noticed that when I was excited a surge of energy would ramp up my spine and I'd involuntarily flap my hands, and sometimes even vocally squeal!

As I came into adolescence, I noticed no one else was having the reaction I had. Eventually I was teased and bullied for it, so I learned to suppress it until I was alone.

This reaction was still fascinating to me though, because it was so involuntary and had to come out. When I felt comfortable enough around a friend I would ask them if they had an "excitement charge" like this, and the answer was always "no." So I kept my excitement to myself as best I could.

After my initial autism diagnosis I was reading about what that meant and found the term "Happy Flaps." My jaw dropped to the floor, there was even a name for it! Other people did it too! It wasn't just me! and it was a GOOD thing to have happen. I still have trouble being able to happy flap around people, but I'm slowly healing from my masked excitement that has been bottled for 2 decades.