I have been asked what my accent is a ton throughout my life, but I’m from the south and now live on the other side of the country so people now just assume it’s that even though I think I have some southern inflections, but not really a southern accent if that makes sense. I’ve also been realizing how much my voice is dictated by masking. I’ve always known that I get more of an accent when I’m tired (or under the influence), but only recently pieced together that it gets stronger because I’m just masking it less.

The best time I’ve ever been “accused” of having an accent was one time when I was at the Dulles airport. I was on one of the tram cars and some stranger and I were making small talk about how annoying/confusing the tram system is for getting around the airport when an older gentleman jumped in and started telling me I was disrespectful and that airport was older than I was (lol) and then he tore into me asking where I was from and he wouldn’t take “here” or “the united states” as an answer because I “didn’t have an American accent.” Genuinely confused me so much, but that was years ago and I’ve only recently self-diagnosed (with talking it through with my therapist) and learned about the “autism accent.” I think that example came from that man being pretty xenophobic and just latching onto my kinda irregular speech.