#aspien

[nullkunst]

part of the madness

[darkobssessions]

Autism Things: A List

-when you can’t show your work or follow any particular steps unless they make sense to you (or are YOUR specific way of doing things)

-when you can’t look up anything new without it becoming an hours long journey into obscure details, most likely becoming a special interest, and connecting to your life’s work in some way

-along the same vein, when you cannot do the simplest of tasks without overcomplicating it, like turning a shopping spree into a categorisation and research fest, or setting out to do one specific task and ending up labeling and boxing all your belongings

-when you have to prepare for weeks before an outing, and then sleep for weeks when it is done, especially if you have to mask extra hard around the people

-but also getting very vexed if someone changes plans last minute, secretly relieved that the pressure TODAY is gone, BUT now you know it will be looming over you until it does happen

-meltdowns in simple human language are ‘I have gotten hopelessly overloaded and you would do well to clear out of the bomb’s way.’ Maybe next time don’t pressure that they go out somewhere stressful, or dismiss the fact that every single sound is in an orchestra of disharmony?

-speaking of sounds. Every. Single. One. It’s multilayered. The mosquitos chime in, the bed creaks, the neighbours upstairs are having a fight again. In words it is linear, in senses, it is a simultaneous melted cheese cacophony.

-feeling physical pain at that one person’s voice, or that texture that you cannot stand anywhere near you. Toxic chemical smells? Forget it. I see the sensitivity as an app more intricate than those on smart phones for toxic level detection. If we’re wheezing, it’s altering your hormones and chemistry, Karen.

-barometers. That’s the word. It IS too hot in here, and stuffy, and crowded and messy. You think you don’t care but your spirit is suffering.

-keeping a job approximately as long as it takes to burnout. No more and no less.

-doing things the same exact way because THEY WORK. Watching favourite shows again because they also work. The desired outcome is a given. Yes I WILL be watching the Lord of the Rings extended edition for the 5th time. Nowhere near done.

-doing something with our hands while talking and getting very excitable. Probably don’t even notice ourselves doing it. It feels good, and it’s somehow sound solidified.

-giving you compliments and being really nice. Actually is really nice. No agenda.

-getting fooled when people lie and taking everyone at face value unfortunately means a penchant for attracting predatory behaviour. Cannot compute people being mean, selfish or not wanting to hear the truth.

-about the truth. You will hear it. Facts are facts. They don’t care about feelings. Doesn’t make them insensitive. We need rules, people.

-not finishing a task or assignment because you literally collected 200 pages worth of information more than was required. There’s a fuse button in normal human circuits I think? I can’t locate mine. 

-hopping, twirling, swaying, rocking, squeaking, jumping up and down, flapping, are all ways we show that we are super enjoying ourselves. There’s so much energy in the system it starts to escape in patterns, like a glitter storm all around us.

-similarly, an individual who does not go through meltdowns cannot possibly understand the uncontrollable behaviour that comes from being pushed over the edge. Not in a tantrum way, because we are not getting our way. But a collapse. Everything hurts, words and sounds become jumbled, it feels like a panic attack or paralysis. You might see head hitting, punching things, smacking or pinching which are unconscious ways we try to release the stress or manage the overload.

-when we say we are in burnout we do not mean that we are way overworked and just tired for the weekend. This is bed for days, in the dark, no words, no mobility. This is losing function, friends and ability to do basic tasks. 

-that being said, paradoxically incredibly adept and nimble at seemingly impossible and very difficult tasks while being hopelessly poor at various other things, mostly those people usually find a piece of cake. Depends on the person and their skills and special interests. For example delivering a scientific analysis talk without preparation, understanding deeply nuanced subjects, solving complex problems, identifying the errors in any operation. In contrast, could be poor at hygiene, riding the bus or navigating the supermarket, or knowing what to say to new friends.

-no conception actually of the manual of the friendship trajectory. Oversharing on the first date or first meet up? Sure. Best friends after two positive experiences? Yes. Otherwise keeping years long friends at a distance because lacking inner prompts to make things more serious? Also yes. 

-and it goes without saying that the social cues and the ability to unravel the scripts people use to navigate is not the strongest suite.

More to come. 

[aspienwiccan]

aspie struggle

People around you just assume you don’t care/are being selfish but you just don’t know how you are supposed to talk about your struggles and stuff and they  just stay silent and get mad and now you have no friends.

[dmnsqrl]

Posted @withrepost • @laurazdan We can’t control which situations present themselves to us, but we can control how we handle them... #notneurotypical . . . . . . . . . . . . . . #actuallyautistic #autism #autismacceptance #autisticadult #aspergers #aspergerssyndrome #as #asd #aspie #aspien #aspiegirl #aspiewoman #actuallyautisticmemes #meme #memessdaily #spd #sensory #sensoryprocessingdisorder #sensorybin #notneurotypical #neurodiversity #neurodivergentmemes #neurodivergent https://www.instagram.com/p/B6uKjLKjpDCKC0rDN0dRTWEDgr86zIuJDYWHVU0/?igshid=jy62j7juy2wf

[thearticulateautistic-blog]

"Why Autistic People Do That" - Bonus Video - Do You Hear What I (Don't) Hear?

I’m autistic, and I have auditory processing disorder. I cannot tell where sound is coming from, which can be very frustrating at times. Do you have auditory processing issues? Do you know someone who does? 

[alexeiadrae]

The Family That’s Weird Together...

Taking my daughter for a speech evaluation in the morning. I had thought she was going to be the neurotypical one in the family, but things are now at a place where it’s obvious that her language development, while miles above her brother’s, is not a typical 4 year olds. While I now suspect she’s on the autism spectrum, I also think it will be a battle to be diagnosed because she masks so well. She did well in her pre-school with the school readiness skills, which is all they seem to care about. Meanwhile, I’m concerned because she will not interact with any child who is not her brother (though they play very well together, so she has the play skills of a 4 year old). She clings to her brother obsessively and won’t play with anyone else, even when he isn’t there (I love that they love each other so much, and am baffled at how resistant she is to playing with other kids, especially since my son is usually rather friendly). She’s also very particular about her bedsheets being made just so (on the plus side, this motivates her to make her own bed. She’s 4. I’m 36 and I don’t make my bed). She also seems to have these scripts in her head on how she wants us to react to her, and when we don’t respond how she expects it is very distressing for her. And figuring out how she wants us to respond can be a task. Stuff like that. Most likely she’ll be diagnosed with speech delays and we’ll go from there *sighs*

The other more objective thing is head circumference. There are studies showing autistic children have larger than average head circumference. My son was in the 95% percentile in this, so yeah. I found my daughter’s medical records from when she was a baby her she was in the 85% percentile. So they both have heads that are significantly larger than average.

But hey. My friends who have NT children are often amazed by how well mine get along together and perhaps they wouldn’t if they were NT. I really think they’re on the same wavelength and they just get each other. And I think I would have been more mystified by a typical child than an autistic one. We’ll just be one family, united in our strangeness, living values of diversity and tolerance for people who are different.

[priestessofthemoon]

I only post on Instagram whenever I feel the need to express my frustration of having ADHD. My previous post did just that, but I don’t want to leave a negative impact on everyone reading. So, here’s a follow-up post, with a positive note this time. 🙃 • Being a “dreamer” requires great mental effort. We’re not good at physical tasks because our strengths lie within our minds. We have the ability to navigate layers of complex thoughts and emotions (a double-edged sword for sure), we have the ability to imagine, innovate and invent; to create SOMETHING out of NOTHING. That’s not easy. • Dreamers like Walt Disney, Bill Gates, and Albert Einstein are the ones who leave a big impact on the world. Why? because they created something that didn’t exist before. How? By dreaming it up and conjuring the power to make it a reality. • Guess what they all have in common? ADHD. Yep... even Einstein. He couldn’t hold a job as a physics professor (lol), so he settled on a low-paying government job instead. To pass by time at work, he would come up with theories and kept them written in a drawer (ironically named the “Bureau of Theoretical Physics”). 😉 • In the words of Jessica McCabe (@howtoadhd)—“you cant teach a fish how to climb a tree”—So... STOP trying to climb and find your ocean, fellow dreamers. Only THEN will you be able to put in the amount of time and relentless effort it takes to cultivate a dream into reality. Only you can make your dream come true; no one else can do it. 💖🌙✨ • • • #adhd #adhdproblems #adhdawareness #adhdmemes #adhdparenting #adhdsupport #adhdkids #adhdadults #adultadhd #adhdexplained #add #dyslexia #autism #smartbutstuck #dream #dreams #dreamer #dreamers #aspien #aspienwoman https://www.instagram.com/p/B65iwbsB8vw/?igshid=1x4t7wq6xp8sz

[zebrasbazaar]

Reblog or comment if you're a Rainbow Zebra, too.

[watches-and-windchimes]

Because some neurotypicals are still having trouble getting the message:

If you're not autistic, you do not speak for us

If someone is non-speaking, you're not doing s favour by speaking on their behalf, unless they have actively requested that you do so. If you've just assumed that they have no voice because they're non-speaking, back off

Autism Speaks is a hate group. That is not up for debate

ABA is abusive. That is also not up for debate. There are autistic people out there with PTSD from ABA therapy

Functioning labels aren't a thing anymore. Please stop calling Music "low-functioning"

Similarly, "mild" and "severe" are terrible descriptors

For the record, the current terms most approved are "low/high support needs"

Vaccines don't cause autism

Don't be afraid to say the word autistic or disabled. They are not dirty words

If you call me special abilities I'm going to ask what you think my magic powers are

Posting videos online of an autistic person having a meltdown is extremely immoral. That is someone who is in an incredibly vulnerable position where they need compassion and comfort, not a camera shoved in their face and published without their consent for the world to mock

Seriously, if you're not autistic, you don't get to decide whether or not Music (or any other autism media for that matter) is ableist

Not even if your child/sibling/friend/third cousin twice removed is autistic

For good representations of autism, look at autistic YouTubers like AspienPrincess, Yo Samdy Sam, The Aspien World etc. Search up autism headcanons for characters who the actually autistic community identify with (my personal fave is Matilda Wormwood, specifically from the musical)

[nullkunst]

He looks like a sad wet dog

[neurodeervergent]

Please delete this if you dont want to answer! I've seen a lot of reasons why ppl will headcanon certain characters as autistic- mostly based on how they interact with other people and just their personality triats in general, I have a character who fits into a lot fo those traits, if I wanted to make them autistic and learn more about autism in adults/older teens, do you know any places I could find some information on that? I've also seen a lot of talk on how sites talking about autism tend to refer to kids and I'm not sure where to look to find info on how to properly write that.

Hi there! Tbh I think it's awesome that you're asking for advice from the community directly :D

Honestly the best thing to do is to just talk to some autistic people and ask them what they want to see represented/what they think a character like this could be like. Obviously you can look at assessment criteria, especially if it comes to comorbid conditions, but it's best to chat with autistic people, watch autistic people's videos, read their blogs and their writing. A few YouTubers I could recommend are IndyAndy, Purple Ella and Princess Aspien (Chloe Hayden) - actually there's quite a few but I cannot remember too many at the moment. I'm sure others would pitch in and recommend more of their favourite creators. Checklists for self-diagnosis might also be useful to some extent?

The thing about an autistic character is that, first and foremost, they are a character. They're not a pile of autistic traits, they're a person, just like every well-rounded character. That's all I can think of for now , but feel free to send asks or DMs if you'd like to ask more specific questions.

Also, please, actuallyautistic community, if you've got more advice, feel free to reply or reblog with your input!

[darkobssessions]

Coping Tips for Autistic Women

I am compiling a list of resources for aspie women along with tips to manage symptoms and navigate the world. Regretably, most of my personal experience comes from living undiagnosed and unaware about this for the last 27 years. There was a giant elephant in the room with everything, and I have only recently worked it out. This means that most of my habits prior to this point were ones attempting to cope with a giant unknown, the limits of which were unclear. But they more or less worked, because, as I am realising, there’s always been something they are attempting to address.

With other diagnoses and ways I attempted to explain and understand my difficulties, there were finite causes and treatments. I should have been improving if I tried x, y, or z. And I did improve my symptoms in many ways, but there was something missing from the picture. That is that autism is my personality, my state of being, how I process and view the world. And no tool, medication, process or treatment was ever going to change who I really was. Being misdiagnosed (or being missed and failing to receive the autism diagnosis) means that I have been trying to correct something that you cant ‘correct’, and shaming myself for something fundamentally me.

Some of the tips I learned over time, from how I am as a person, without the framework of reference of neurodivergence or autism:

Sensory:

My sensitivity has always been a big waving flag. I felt and saw things others didn’t. I felt more deeply. I sensed the microeffects and changes in everything. I responded harder and faster to any chemical, environmental shift, any positive or negative event, As we all do on the spectrum, we attempt to navigate our sensory environment. And we come up with coping mechanisms, good or bad, before or after we realise we are on the spectrum. For me this was a strong aversion to the things that upset me, that disturbed my senses. It was an orienting of myself in a way to avoid the disturbances, going inwards, withdrawing and even shutting down. I learned that I could not and did not want to handle crowds, loud places, supermarkets. I lived in a giant simulation attempting to minimise and avoid as much as possible the things that hurt. I learned that I was extremely sensitive, no one else seemed to be, and I just had to manage it. Since discovering autism in the last weeks, I am able to embrace the fact that sensory overload is a thing, and I really do feel pain in my body when things are too much and too loud, and just wearing earplugs has mitigated so much of this. I was gas lighting myself before about feeling a certain way because there was no explanation, that I was aware of anyway.

Physical:

I have had so many problems over the years, since I was a young girl. I used to get food poisoning symptoms really easily. I had hidden allergies. I remember a lot of my childhood spent doubled up with stomach pains, or having a fever. My family didn’t know any better and fed me and treated me as they did every other member. I was not the same, I did not feel the same, but I took it all in. By the time I was in my early teen years, I had cemented my aversion to certain foods, taken the only control I had at the time against an encroaching and controlling mother and turned it into anorexia. I avoided things I didn’t like, again, and set up a system of control that made more sense than the gaping wounds and confusion within me. Starvation triggered bulimia. And a viscous cycle of malnourishment and dysregulation unfolded. I didn’t learn until many, many years later that my system was so sensitive and damaged that if I tried to go back to how I used to eat as a child, I would get terrible symptoms. So my coping tips as I have healed from the eating disorders and become more aware is to figure out what the triggers are, what hurts, and to avoid it. This along with adding in nutrient dense foods and working on the deficiencies has done wonders for me. I’ve done tremendous work on my autoimmune conditions, gut problems, sensitivities and inflammation levels and the difference is like night and day. That I can induce psychotic symptoms by deviating or introducing foods I am intolerant to is no joke. The tip I can share is elimination diets truly do work, the keto diet is recommended, and eating the carnivorous way saved my life. My eating disorders for almost 15 years INCLUDING the 7.5 years I was a vegan, mostly high raw and fruitarian depleted my nutrients so badly that every symptom was enhanced 100% and I was eating pretty much ONLY food I was actually intolerant to. Ahem, plants, I’m talking to you. The peace I feel, the nourishment and rest on a nervous system level having eliminated them is unreal.

Social:

I have always known I was different, in a deep, visceral way. How the adults in my life answered questions was inadequate. I saw through people and things. I was far too intense and serious. I learned to watch and observe humans and pick up cues so as to attempt to fit in. I spent the majority of my life masking, something I am only now finding out about and unraveling. I kept notes on the human experience, and saved colours, sounds, feelings, because I felt like I couldn’t communicate the truth of myself otherwise. Over the course of my life there have been inexplicable (until now) events. Lost friendships and relationships, strings of broken promises, people not acting on what they say, confusions and miscommunications, and many dangerous situations and predatory bonds. I made what sense I could of it from whatever lens I could find. It was the trauma, it was my soul contract, it was what I deserved, it was being targeted- all close, but not quite within the realm of being so naive, open and fundamentally different as you are on the spectrum. I just always assumed everybody was like me. I had to learn the very extremely hard way that not everyone felt and thought in the same way, nor had good intentions. I still struggle with the fact that humans don’t tell the truth. It is of no relevance whether they secretly know it. Most people are more comfortable with illusions. I always knew this, but the diagnosis gives me a lot more peace around it. It’s allowing me to accept the fact that if I look around the majority of the people I see are not walking around processing and over-analysing everything, feeling sounds, decoding patterns and obsessed with hacking the code of reality. Less pressure that way, and more in the way of what can be viewed as natural interaction on my part. I will solve the mystery of the universe out loud otherwise, and get the blank looks and the discomfort. I have found my people, a tribe of likeminded individuals, I have gathered friends over the years that didn’t run from my weirdness. But I am mostly content to be on my own, knowing that I can only use what is around me to try to convey how I feel and who I really am. And that will probably be a book, a movie or a work of art, much better than a 2pm rendezvous when I can’t stop talking about the hidden signs.

Emotional:

With the intensity of my emotions I have developed borderline personality disorder as a means to cope with being autistic and not knowing. I have been diagnosed with both that and bipolar because I have intense stints of emotions. They come and go in waves, lasting hours, lasting days and weeks. I consider it to be an energy management system to cope with the demands and stressors of modern day living. Creatives always withdraw and hibernate, and come out with new insights and art to share. The way that I feel and view the world is special. It’s at the basis of my writing, what I choose to engage with and how. My emotions make me who I am. I feel intensely, I share passionately about how I feel. I snap, I break, I shutdown, I come out again and I am a bright, shooting star. There is an excited little animal that lives within me and it is the strongest most passionate thing known to man. I thought that my negative experiences or trauma killed it, but this is before I knew it IS me and cannot die. So I have stopped trying to cram these emotions in or explain them. Stopped trying to attribute them to whatever script people were following when they dealt with me. Throwing me into the depressive, anxious, panic stricken, eating disordered basket case category. The missing piece now makes so much sense. The ways I responded to being autistic were coping mechanisms, such as developing a personality disorder, to deal with the pressure. My psyche splintered under the weight. My tip here is in embracing your inner life and world, embracing that you are different, so that all of the mental and emotional acrobatics needed to attempt to explain the issues or fit in can be put to rest.

Spiritual:

Being different and feeling differently means I naturally saw and expressed things in quite a strange way. I was convinced of a secret world to reality, behind reality, living on behind a paper shell, so to speak, that would rip if only I could reach out and tear it aside. That conviction was rewarded as year after year my awareness grew, my gifts multiplied, and the experiences I had revealed to me the hidden hand of god. There was very much design to the universe, a pattern, weaving through all things. And i was a part of it, not some discarded afterthought or simple byproduct that had no place. In the early years, I kept my convictions to myself, nursed them with experience. I died a thousand deaths in dark nights of the soul, crashing against the turf of my ignorance. I broke open, and everything I had been so sure of as a child was revealed to me again and again. I was convinced I had a purpose, I could feel the deep tides of human emotion and motion, could feel into the genetic sequence that had birthed me. I felt like an alien, but that slowly over time the map of my operation was being revealed to me. This is what it feels like so many years later to stand here and find out about being autistic and realise that how I felt in my soul all these years was real, and that I can begin to truly fulfill this mission now, to share my experience in words I know others will understand because they feel the same way too. It was the challenges that I never understood, while the gifts were the reason to stay alive. My message to myself and others now is that there is a point, a reason to persevere and understand yourself more. The suffering reveals so much of the true state of things, so that we can protect our tender hearts and build new things that honour who we really are, our souls. 

Resources, movies, literature to follow. I just wanted to share something of a summary now of my realisations since coming home to myself.

[chaberkowepole]

So you know an autistic person?

What you, an allistic person can do if someone discloses to you that they're autistic, a guide:

Rethink the way you perceive how they speak. Do they seem rude? They probably didn't intend that. Check with them if something they said hurt you or made you think that they don't like you. They probably like you a lot, their communication is just different!

Understand that there's going to be a lot of misunderstandings on both sides. Avoid, where possible, allusions, hints and implications, you're not going to be understood.

Most likely they're not passive aggressive to you, but state what seems like a fact to them. You can let them know if this hurt you, but we can't always tell what you will interpret as passive aggressive, to us this is one of those really common misunderstandings! Meet us half way and don't assume immediately that the intent was aggressive or hurtful.

Educate yourself on autism, especially if you're in any way close to the person or meeting them often. Content made my autistic people is best. Watch YouTube videos by autistic people (some good channels to start out from are Autistic Tyla, Aspergers from the Inside, Yo Samdy Sam, Princess Aspien, Purple Ella)

Make sure to accommodate our sensory needs. Ask the person if there is anything you can do to make them feel better in your presence!

Be patient. Sometimes we need more time to make decisions, switch tasks, get accustomed to a change. You can do that fast, we can't.

Tell us to slow down if we're too fast for you. Sometimes we're quicker than you, we infodump, we make an impulsive decision & forget to tell you what's going on. Don't shame us for it but just state your needs, we're gonna listen!

I can't reiterate how common it is that neurotypical people interpret our signals completely off & how many fights and miscommunications arise out of that. Be aware of that! You cannot use your usual mental interpretation toolkit on us, you need to build an entirely new one. This is more important the closer you are to an autistic person.

Don't :

Don't say "oh but you don't look autistic!" just.... Don't do it. We've been over this.

Don't say high functioning or Asperger's. H. Asperger was a eugenicist Nazi (sending disabled children to their death level bad) and functioning labels hurt us, because they either take away our agency or diminish our struggles because we seem "mild" to the outside, when actually we put a lot of effort to get there and are on the brink of crashing at any time.

Don't brush it off immediately or change the subject, wait for them to do so. Mostly we'd like to talk to you about our needs and what this means to us after we disclosed, because the discovery can be quite important to us, especially when we got a late diagnosis. If you dismiss us at this point, it feels like you're dismissing our entire being.

This is just my personal list, autistic people can add on that because we're very diverse! Allistic people are very welcome to reblog or ask any questions!

[dmnsqrl]

Posted @withrepost • @laurazdan Whoever made this is clearly neurotypical. I’m assuming they are into football and apple pie. Just a guess... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . #adhd #adhdbrain #adhdproblems #actuallyautistic #autism #autismacceptance #autisticadult #adhdadult #adultadhd #aspergers #aspergerssyndrome #as #asd #aspie #aspien #aspiegirl #aspiewoman #pdaautism #actuallyautisticmemes #meme #memesdaily https://www.instagram.com/p/B6uLmd_jFuG3XtJ2RKpL4A7U_KHODO2WzD1saI0/?igshid=2gl8r0xp9quq

[thearticulateautistic-blog]

Do you agree? 

[alexeiadrae]

Damn. This hit so close to home I nearly cried at some points, it explained so much about me.