#autism creativity

[thetherolleroasterrie102]

My Bubble

sometimes my bubbles fun

others its a pain

cant tell you what i feel

cant tell you what i want

no way to tell you what i need

no way to pop the bubble

no freedem to be me

maybe one day i’ll pop the bubble

maybe one day we’ll be the same

will you understand me then?

[emberwhite]

I spent the last 11 months working with my illustrator, Marta, to make the children's book of my dreams. We were able to get every detail just the way I wanted, and I'm very happy with the final result. She is the best person I have ever worked with, and I mean, just look at those colors!

I wanted to tell that story of anyone's who ever felt that they didn't belong anywhere. Whether you are a nerd, autistic, queer, trans, a furry, or some combination of the above, it makes for a sad and difficult life. This isn't just my story. This is our story.

I also want to say the month following the book's launch has been very stressful. I have never done this kind of book before, and I didn't know how to get the word out about it. I do have a small publishing business and a full-time job, so I figured let's put my some money into advertising this time. Indie writers will tell you great success stories they've had using Facebook ads, so I started a page and boosting my posts.

Within a first few days, I got a lot of likes and shares and even a few people who requested the book and left great reviews for me. There were also people memeing on how the boy turns into a delicious venison steak at the end of the book. It was all in good fun, though. It honestly made made laugh. Things were great, so I made more posts and increased spending.

But somehow, someway these new posts ended up on the wrong side of the platform. Soon, we saw claims of how the book was perpetuating mental illness, of how this book goes against all of basic biology and logic, and how the lgbtq agenda was corrupting our kids.

This brought out even more people to support the book, so I just let them at it and enjoyed my time reading comments after work. A few days later, then conversation moved from politics to encouraging bullying, accusing others of abusing children, and a competition to who could post the most cruel image. They were just comments, however, and after all, people were still supporting the book.

But then the trolls started organizing. Over night, I got hit with 3 one-star reviews on Amazon. My heart stopped. If your book ever falls below a certain rating, it can be removed, and blocked, and you can receive a strike on your publishing account. All that hard work was about to be deleted, and it was all my fault for posting it in the wrong place.

I panicked, pulled all my posts, and went into hiding, hoping things would die down. I reported the reviews and so did many others, but here's the thing you might have noticed across platforms like Google and Amazon. There are community guidelines that I referenced in my email, but unless people are doing something highly illegal, things are rarely ever taken down on these massive platforms. So those reviews are still there to this day. Once again, it's my fault, and I should have seen it coming.

Luckily, the harassment stopped, and the book is doing better now, at least in the US. The overall rating is still rickety in Europe, Canada, and Australia, so any reviews there help me out quite a lot. I'm currently looking for a new home to post about the book and talk about everything that went into it. I also love to talk about all things books if you ever want to chat. Maybe I'll post a selfie one day, too. Otherwise, the book is still on Amazon, and the full story and illustrations are on YouTube as well if you want to read it for free.

[west-brooke]

No Water || A comic about autism

[whereserpentswalk]

I 100% believe that the main reason people are scared they'll lose their creativity after they get help isn't because of some sort of self hatred most of the time, but because of the very material reality that the psychological industry exists to make people "normal" rather than happy. Like, when getting "help" means conforming to social standards, and your art is something that actively makes you less normal in the eyes of society, than it makes sense that you see that "help" as a threat to your existence as an artist. Most psychiatrists would openly admit that they'd consider turning an independent creative into an emotionless businessman as a win, why is it suddenly a conspiracy theory when the patient understands that just as well?

[my-autism-adhd-blog]

Autism and the Ability to Hyperfocus

The Autistic Teacher

[schnumn]

There's a LOT of autistic fawners out there... let's explore that  A short comic about autism and the fawn trauma response. Written by @gingergamer1403 , drawn by me :>

[byoldervine]

What Common Writing Phrases Actually Mean

For years I assumed a lot of the common writing phrases that get thrown around were just generic things that were never actually going to help people write because it doesn't actually tell you what to do. But recently I've been able to work out the meanings for a few of them and I'd like to share them with my fellow writers, especially for my fellow NDs with literal thinking

"Write what you know" - it doesn't mean that you should only write what you're already familiar with, it means to do your research, gain knowledge and go from there; if you haven't done the research, don't write about it *until you have*, not just shrug your shoulders and find something else without ever trying to write it. Additionally, things will have more of an emotional impact if you write about things you yourself have experienced, or when you tie in your own experiences to something; you’ve probably (and hopefully) never had acid thrown in your face, but you’ve probably gotten shampoo in your eye and can amp that experience up

"Writing is a discipline"/"Write even when you're not motivated" - my reaction to this was always that, since I was only doing this for fun and didn't have any deadline to meet, why should I force myself to write even when I don't want to? But what they're trying to say with this is to make sure you have some level of consistent progress, even if it's only one sentence every week; having a minimum level of progress you can count on is an absolute lifesaver when writing, as well as being motivating in its own right

"Edit as you go" - this one really doesn't mean to change up your entire chapter every single time you get a new sentence down, it means to take breaks from writing new chapters to reflect back on what you've previously written and make sure to fix up any inconsistencies while the next few chapters are still fresh in your mind. Outside of SPAG mistakes or quick one-sentence-or-less tweaks I generally wouldn't advise properly editing the same chapter you just wrote simply because you could easily burn yourself out speedrunning to the final draft before you even get to chapter two

[lizzozzil]

🔴LIVE: SPECTRUM PUBLIC ACCESS

This 24hr live stream celebrates the weird and wonderful creativity of the autism and neurodivergent community, showcasing innovative films, video art, and stories by neurodivergent filmmakers.

The stream encapsulates 15+ years of creations from Spectrum Productions, featuring the work of over 150 different autistic and neurodivergent artists.

Want your work to be featured on a future stream? Check out the link in the stream description. No idea is too small!

Thanks for watching and keep being creative! :D

[awetistic-things]

[n4rval]

mystery pile

[jane-not-rizzoli]

The difference between being a kid and being an adult is my imaginary friends are now called Original Characters and people will say stuff like “[X] is so well observed”

[thetherolleroasterrie102]

TO ALL WHO ARE STRUGGLING

Hi, my name is Andrea & most of you don’t know my full back story.

I have Aspergers Syndrome .

No one knew that I would have this,

But through hardships they’ve accepted me for who I am.

Through the panic attacks & the silence & the anger…

I overcame mountains..

With determination and courage…

I moved rocks of pain

I became happy.

And in a sea of closed ears

People listened…

And helped me fight against statistics

And hypocrites

Because being me..

Is not as bad as it seems ..

So here’s my word to all who are struggling:

You can do this!

Have courage

And lots of hope!

[be-listen-we-are-in-loud]

I Hope My Little Sister Doesn't Remember Me

An Excerpt from an up-and-coming anthology "Intimacy in Institutions: Stories of Autonomy, Connection, and Rebellion"

CW: ableism, institutionalization, seclusion

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. . .

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Her name was Kylie, and she was five years old. Her favorite color was probably pink, but it could just as easily have been green. She liked glitter glue and playing foosball on the hard cement outside and scribbling with markers way beyond the lines in every coloring book on the ward. She ate new foods with a pinched expression like she expected the staff to feed her old socks, and she cheered like they'd just said she got to go home for real every time the kitchen served her favorites. She was the sweetest five-year-old I'd ever met, and she reminded me of myself every time I saw her squeal giddily and bounce back and forth on her toes. She reminded me of myself every time I listened to her scream herself hoarse in seclusion, too.

The thing about seclusion is that it's supposed to be a last resort. This is news to me, and it definitely would have been news to Kylie, since seclusion more or less became the staff's go-to timeout spot for Kylie, probably because of how much she fucking hated it in there. This institution had one of the better seclusion rooms. It was bigger than most and the floors and walls were actually a little bit padded, but it was still just a big closet they liked to lock misbehaving children inside.

Kylie was locked in seclusion a lot. Even though I was barely thirteen at the time, I remember thinking that the staff were cruel for doing things the way they did. Even the nice staff, even the staff I liked, always seemed to screw up when it came to Kylie.

From what I could tell, Kylie was actually a pretty easy case. She was five years old, rocked on her heels, had anger issues related to loud noises, bright lights, and sudden shifts in routines, and she did what she was told nearly all of the time. There was only one rule the staff were supposed to follow to support Kylie and--despite the fact that telling her five minutes before an activity changed that the activity was going to change seems pretty simple--there were zero rules the staff actually followed to support Kylie.

I tried to get involved sometimes, to calm Kylie down before she could be dragged kicking and screaming into seclusion. I felt like I was taking the role of big sister, sorting out the problems before the rest of our terrifying family could descend on her like a pack of angry wolves. It didn't work, didn't keep them from prying her fingers off the legs of the foosball table and lifting her into the air, dragging her inside the seclusion room and slamming the door behind her.

"Don't get involved," a staff member with a kind face said to me after, "It's not your job, and we're trained in de-escalation."

I remember thinking that if that was the work of someone trained in de-escalation, I was terrified to find out what happened to five-year-old girls who stomped their feet and said, "No, I don't wanna go inside!" in the real world.

Kylie spent her sixth birthday in the institution. She was supposed to go on a home visit, but too many visits to seclusion dropped her levels--the staff's favorite game to play with us--to low for her to leave. She spent a few hours with her parents in a side room, probably just the same as I had spent and would go on to spend my thirteenth and fourteenth birthdays respectively inside of the acute ward at that same institution. Her parents brought in special birthday food and played games with her until their time was up and they had to go home without her.

There were three, maybe four of us, in the institution then. In an effort to distract her, the staff let us sit around the television and watch her favorite Studio Ghibli film. I can still remember the way she'd excitedly cry, over and over, "Haku! Haku! Haku!" every time the dragon's face appeared on screen. The way the word spilled out in an excited mess and the way her eyes seemed to sparkle were dug deeper into my memory each and every time I've thought of her for the last seven years.

At the time of writing this, Kylie should be about fourteen years old. She's the same age as my younger brother, something I probably realized at the time but forgot quickly. It's only now that I'm doing the math again that I realize she'll be starting her first year of high school soon, or finishing the last year of middle school, assuming she's not a part of the statistic that says youths who are discharged from an institution face a suicide rate that is "more than 30 times the general population rate for as long as 5 to 10 years thereafter." (Fontanella et al, 2020)

Assuming the best of things, Kylie's a teenager now, with hobbies and interests and hopefully a halfway decent support network. She's probably got a favorite subject in school, and passions she dives into intensely. She's probably got a handful of close friends and a dozen acquaintances, and her time in the institution is probably as distant of a memory as her baby blanket.

Probably.

Hopefully.

I wonder if she's seen Spirited Away again since that day. I wonder if it triggered something in her brain when she did, if she remembered cheering for Haku on her birthday with tear tracks still drying on her face as she sat on a couch only a few yards away from the padded room. I wonder if she remembers the staff who failed her again and again and again. I wonder if she remembers the coloring books and the glitter glue and the foosball table. I wonder if she remembers the girl who tried desperately to be her big sister when no one else would.

More than anything, though, I wonder if she remembers seclusion. For her sake, I hope she doesn't.

---

. . .

---

Citation:

Fontanella CA, Warner LA, Steelesmith DL, Brock G, Bridge JA, Campo JV. Association of Timely Outpatient Mental Health Services for Youths After Psychiatric Hospitalization With Risk of Death by Suicide. JAMA Netw Open. 2020;3(8):e2012887. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.12887

[jokeroutxoxo]

The struggle having autism and being a writer is real. You be searching for hours on Google, trying to figure out what a certain feeling/emotion is, because you can't identify emotions yourself, so Google becomes your best friend and dictionary.

[anghraine]

Politics vent, though not about specific politicians:

It is wild to have conversations about White Poverty in the US and the desperate straits in which conservative white bigots allegedly live with left-wing white people who have never ever been poor. It seems like they just can't process that creative/literary people like J and I could conceivably have grown up in actual for real poverty and ... idk, it feels very patronizing (and frustrating) at times.

[thequeefdealer]

[SURVEY ENDED]Hi, anybody with any neurodiversity! I really need some help with something!

Can you answer this questionnaire on having ADHD, autism, or any other type to neurodivergence and is impact on your creative endeavours or career? Doesn't matter what gender you are or if you're professionally or self diagnosed, or if your creativity isn't a job and just a hobby! All opinions are valid and useful!!

This is for my final project in uni so it'll help me get a banging grade of I have a good sample size! Thank you so so much if you do this. I'm so grateful!

If you can't take the quiz please reblog it so it finds someone who can! Thank you so much!!!

(BTW it's completely anonymous, no signing in, no exact ages (as long as you're over 18), no names, no genders, and the only ppl seeing the stats from the quiz are my tutors marking this and myself, so go ham!)

Here's the link!!!

Thank you so much. You're amazing!!!!

(Edit: I got asked about the security of Google docs and them seeing your answers and your data. I am really sorry about that, and I understand the fear. You honestly don't have to answer if you feel uncomfortable about google having that data. If you still want to do it, maybe opening it on an incognito window will help it not link back to your Google account. Either way, it's entirely your choice to answer these or not! Thank you)

Thursday 20th June Update:

This survey is now closed with an absolutely amazing pool of data and more support than I could have ever expected! Thank you so much, everyone, for your support! You've helped me to no end! Once the Paper is done the Data will be destroyed (no skin off my nose, if my uni ever wants me to publish this dissertation or I ever want to use it in future I'll just redo the survey and probably better than before!) Anyway, thanks again for all your trust, insight, and answers. They're invaluable!