#ActuallyAutistic

[spongebob-autisticquestions]

[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]

[titleknown]

There's some other philosophical dialogues from folks in both engineering and philosophy in other reblogs (Which I didn't reblog because Long Post Is Long) but yeah, speaking as the son of an engineer, with said engineer being a very "You can't fight city hall" guy who always discouraged my interest in the arts...

...Yeah, I have a hunch that being Mother's Most Special Boy in capitalism's eyes might have a bigger role in the shaping of perceptions than the idea of "people attracted to fixed/concrete ideas naturally tend towards both engineering and fascism"

Doubly so given how, I mean, that does throw a lot of autistic people under the bus too. Tho, leftist pathologizing common autistic behaviors as inherently fascist/reactionary is nothing new, as I will bitterly note...

Here’s a hot take which I am now half-convinced of

[defectivegembrain]

It's unfortunate how often the solution to a problem is just talking to people. You'd think it could be something easier like making a comprehensive chart or list, or reading everything you can find on the subject, but no, so often you can do all that and you still have to talk to people.

[catgirl-kaiju]

based on a true story

(side note, it's very euphoric drawing my kid self as a girl! i'll have to do more of this!)

Edit: this has a proper image description now, written by @disasterhimbo

thank you very much! ID below the cut and in alt text:

[ID: a comic titled “Weird Girl: a comic by Scout Forester.” It’s full-color and in a cartoon style. It opens with close-ups of each of three children’s faces, all with big eyes and open mouths, observing a praying mantis in awe. An older kid comes up to them and says, “Hey shrimps! Don’t ya know we’re playin’ boys vs. girls right now? Why’re y’all weirdos just sittin’ around? Are y’all scared? Y’all chicken?” He is depicted towering over the younger children as he says this, but in the next panel, he is much less intimidating, just standing across from them on the playground equipment. One of the children, a girl with curly red hair, replies, “Um, we don’t wanna play that. We’re busy.” Another kid says, “We’re watchin’ a prayin’ mantis here, it’s real cool.” The bully, red-faced and sweaty with a red explosive background behind him, yells, “Sh-shut up! I’m big and you’re small, so I can make you play with me!” The redheaded girl looks at him inscrutably.

The next two panels are larger, with a black background. The redheaded girl closes her eyes. When she opens them again, she looks righteously angry, and only her eyes are in color. Next to her is a bust of a dinosaur with lightning bolts striking the dinosaur’s portrait. She says determinedly, “spirit of the pachycephalosaurus.” In a tiny panel, a simply-drawn version of the bully says, “wait, wha-” The last panel is the biggest, and depicts the redheaded girl headbutting the bully and knocking the wind out of him with a comic-book style, all-caps “wham!” The praying mantis is perched on the bars of the playground equipment and the sun is shining behind both kids, giving a dramatic lighting effect. End ID.]

[thevoipolloi]

Okay, but this is a serious problem that genuinely needs to be addressed.

When I was misdiagnosed with BPD, the ingrained bias I faced from people (even those closest to me) was INSANE.

Once these people found out I was actually autistic, they suddenly became a lot more willing to exercise patience and express empathy. To do the emotional labor that they outright REFUSED to do when I had a diagnosis that was on what I call "The ScapeGoat List".

It's amazing how toxic so-called "neurotypicals" actually are. They're like a shitty kid who abandons all pretense the minute his mom turns away.

It's not okay to pick and choose which mental illness or neurodivergence you're gonna validate/accommodate based on your personal comfort levels. That's a shortcut to eugenics.

There’s literally no winning when you have BPD. People will tell you you’re too depressed one day, then too excited and loud the next day, and then too stressed and anxious the day after. How about I just kill myself and then you don’t have to deal with any of it.

[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.

[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.

[spongebob-autisticquestions]

[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.]

[theconcealedweapon]

When you're autistic, it's impossible to miss how much society normalizes child abuse.

I could dedicate my entire life to studying how to interact with people and I'd still never master the social skills that young children are expected to have on command.

Say the wrong thing? That's disrespectful and you're punished. And you don't even have to actually say anything wrong. Pretty much anything you say can be considered "giving lip" if your parent wants some excuse to punish you. But if you say nothing, then you get punished for ignoring. You also have to calculate your response to their mind game quickly because taking too long to respond is considered ignoring. Also, if you're being wrongly accused of something, saying nothing is considered a confession. And even if you somehow manage to say exactly what your parent wants in exactly the correct tone, they'll still punish you for "sarcasm" or "not really meaning it".