#ActuallyAutistic

[wheelie-sick]

this is an unpopular take but actually yeah sometimes having low empathy does hurt people. it just doesn't mean that we're irredeemable monsters who need to be sterilized for the good of society.

sometimes low empathy makes people say unintentionally cold, mean, or downright cruel things

sometimes low empathy leads to a lack of care for others causing people to behave in hurtful ways intentionally

sometimes low empathy means that someone lacks understanding of why something is hurtful leading them to double down when confronted about it

sometimes low empathy makes attempts at offering sympathy clumsy and upsetting

sometimes low empathy can lead to attitudes about bullying such as "well I'm just telling [what I think is] the truth" without recognizing that certain comments can be hurtful even if you believe them to be true

while these actions are not acceptable or productive the big thing about them is that they can be learned from. not everyone can learn empathy- that's okay. everyone can learn to be a kinder, more considerate person.

denying that low empathy can lead to harmful behaviors does us no good. it erases many of us in favor of appearing respectable to the people who do not respect us.

yeah, I have low empathy. yeah, I have hurt people because of it- sometimes on purpose. I have learned from it. stop trying to make me the "wrong type of low empathy" or deny that the things I did were directly linked to my low empathy just because you think it makes you look bad. cool, you're perfect and your low empathy has never hurt someone but that's not true of many of us and you don't just get to throw us in the garbage can because we're inconvenient for your "low empathy hurts no one" narrative.

[defectivegembrain]

Many late diagnosed autistics: Earlier diagnosis would have definitely been only a good thing and led to so much more understanding and acceptance of myself

Me, from the age of 11, any time I didn't have an emotional reaction someone else did: Well this is clearly because of what the media reliably tells me is Broken Robot Disorder, I am cold and unfeeling by nature and can never develop emotional awareness, and furthermore this makes me a bad person, if you can even call me a person

[theconcealedweapon]

It's possible that no one is truly "neurotypical", since there could be neurodivergences that haven't even been discovered yet. And every single person in the entire world has some thoughts that no one else has.

Being neurotypical is more about conformity. Neurotypical privilege is being able to uphold neurotypical norms. Neurotypical privilege is being able to trust that if there's a leopard that eats neurodivergent people's faces, the leopard won't eat yours.

[faffreux]

LOOK AT ALL THOSE BEANS

[kanigye]

Back on Tumblr after the tiktok ban and looking for mutuals! Please like or reblog if you post any of the following and I'll follow 😊

🌼 Harry Potter

🌼 Hunger Games

🌼 BTS/Kpop in general

🌼 Steven Universe

🌼 Arcane

🌼 Video Games: ACNH, Stardew Valley, Sims, Hogwarts Legacy, Dragon Age, RDR, Fallout, Legend of Zelda, etc.

🌼 Art/Fanart: Drawing, Painting, Writing

🌼 Witchcraft/Paganism

[pigeon-cave]

Spectrum of overwhelm, now in triangle form due to popular demand

[Image description: A triangle chart titled, ‘Spectrum of Overwhelm.’ The three points are ‘404 Error,’ showing a person with an empty thought bubble; ‘wet beast,’ showing a person sweating and sobbing; and ‘rage beast’ showing a person clenching their fists in an outline of orange fire. The peak is the ‘404 error’ vertex, and the inside of the triangle here is coloured beige and labelled, ‘shutdown.’ The lower half is labelled ‘meltdown’ and is red on the rage beast side and blue on the wet beast side. \End description]

[autie-j]

Accommodation I should have: someone to follow me around and whisper in my ear, medieval court advisor style, how to correctly respond when presented with different social situations

"My liege, that was a rhetorical question you just heard. Do not answer it."

[aw-tysm]

"All autistics have low empathy" - This statement is wrong.

"Autistics having low empathy is a MYTH, we actually have HIGH empathy!" - This statement is ALSO wrong.

Autistics can have low empathy, they can have high empathy, they can have learned empathy. The myth would be that all autistics only experience one end of the empathy spectrum.

In spreading around misinformation that autistics actually have high empathy, you are disregarding the autistics who do have low empathy. And vice versa.

[defectivegembrain]

"Kids these days can't do handwriting" "kids these days can't read analogue clocks" well I was struggling with those things past the expected developmental time before it was cool

[theconcealedweapon]

Autism is a superpower.

Autistic people are like Superman.

But in a world where everything is made of kryptonite.

And they're still expected to function on command as if the kryptonite wasn't there.

And if they're able to do something once because the kryptonite concentration in the area at the time was slightly lower than it usually is, that's used as evidence of "see, you can do it" and they're never again believed when they say that they struggle with it.

In a world where most people are typical humans unaffected by the kryptonite.

[ka3l]

[chaoticneurodivergent]

Extra love today to Autistic people who:

Can't drive

Struggle with shopping

Struggle with cleaning

Need help with simple tasks sometimes (or frequently)

Cannot follow directions that are simple for others

Noticeably lack motor skills

Have interests or hobbies associated with children

Stim in noticeably out of the ordinary ways and can't mask it

Have learning disabilities.

[maxillo]

shoutout to autistic people who have memory issues and can't remember many things about your special interests. you don't need to be able to remember things for the interests to be valid or important to you! if you enjoy them that's what matters

[pigeon-cave]

Diagrams are helpful to me

[vulturesawake]

This is what it feels like when someone infodumps to me. By the way

Edit to add caption:

[desc begin: a six panel comic featuring an everyman character sitting on a couch with an autism creature loafing on the back of the couch. The creature jumps down to the seat and lies their head on the person's leg, much to their delight. Desc end.]