#autism signs & treatment

[petrow1tch]

They weren't lying, this psychological recovery journey got hands

[buysomecheese]

Maybe I’m not autistic and simply have deeper levels of c-PTSD than I thought

[stemcelltherapyinindia]

10 Early Warning Signs Of Autism In Your Child - You Should Not Ignore

Discover the crucial early indicators of autism in your child with these 10 warning signs that demand attention. Don't overlook these key signals for early intervention and support.

[myacare]

Over the last decade or two, research efforts and awareness have greatly facilitated autism detection in infants and young children, both by the parents and developmental pediatricians, with relative ease. Chances are, there are likely to be many more adults with autism these days who escaped diagnosis during childhood. Investigations into adult autism have revealed that the symptoms are often milder than those seen in children and tend to present differently in men and women.

[main-character-moment]

On one hand I’m like the government sucks so bad I could never be part of that but on the other I’m like okay but who’s gonna change shit? The old fucks who couldn’t care less about the people they’re meant to be looking after? 

[lazarus-centre]

Raising an autistic child can be challenging, but with the right support, it can also be rewarding. We offers a variety of programs and services designed to help families with autistic children. From early intervention programs to social skills groups and parent training , we're here to support you and your child every step of the way. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you and your family. For more info visit : https://lazarus-centre.com/

[my-autism-adhd-blog]

Funny enough, I was cramping so bad last night. It was horrible but thank god I had Advil.

The Spicy Autistic Femme

I actually found a Harvard article about this. Here’s an excerpt:

Autistic people are more likely to suffer from gastrointestinal (GI) ailments than the general population. They are especially more difficult to identify and diagnose in adults with communication challenges. GI symptoms can range from mild stomachaches to serious, persistent vomiting. There is no single set of signs, symptoms, or treatments that applies to all autistic patients.

Another article said:

According to many researchers, the GI issues that come with ASD might be due to two factors: firstly, inappropriate immune activation Trusted Source, causing inflammation of the tract; and, secondly, differences in the types of gut bacteria Trusted Sourcethat are present.

I find this very interesting and kinda annoying too.

[cy-cyborg]

How your disabled character's allies react to their disability can make or break the representation in your story: Writing Disability Quick Tips

[ID: An image with “Writing Disability quick tips: How your character's allies react to their disability matters” written in chalk the colour of the disability pride flag, from left to right, red, yellow, white, blue and green. Beside the text are 2 poorly drawn people icons in green, one is standing with their hand up to the face of the other, who is in a wheelchair. /End ID]

Something I brought up in my big post about Toph Beifong was how the other characters reacted to Toph pointing out that things were not accessible to her and setting boundaries regarding her disability, which were ignored. I had more to say about it than I thought I did, as it turns out (when isn't that the case lol) but I feel like this is an important aspect of disability representation that is all too often over looked.

You can write the best, most accurate portrayal of a specific disability ever put to screen or page, but it won't mean much if all the other characters, specifically those we're supposed to like and empathise with, treat your character terribly for being disabled and having needs relating to said disability, especially if the story justifies their behaviour.

You see this most often with autistic characters and especially autistic-coded characters. The character in question will be given a bunch of autistic traits, most often traits relating to not understanding certain social dynamics or sarcasm, and when they get it wrong, the other characters we are supposed to like jump down their throat, tease them or outright abandon them. Autism isn't the only disability that gets treated this way, but it is one of the more common ones that get this treatment. It doesn't matter if you do everything else right when creating an autistic character if the other "good guys" constantly call them annoying, get angry at them or laugh at them for the very traits that make them autistic, or for advocating for their needs.

Likewise, if you have a leg amputee character who is otherwise done well, but is constantly being criticised by their allies for needing to rest their legs or taking too long to get their prosthetics on, it undermines a lot of the other work you've done. Same goes for having a wheelchair user who is accused of being a bore or a stick in the mud because they point out the places their friends want to go to on a group holiday have no wheelchair access, or a deaf character who is accused of being entitled for wanting their family to learn to sign, or anything else.

This isn't to say you can never have moments like these in your stories, but its important to remember that a) people with the same disability as your character will be in your audience. If you spend a whole season of your TV show shaming your autistic character for real traits that real autistic people have, they're not exactly going to feel welcome and may not want to hang around. b) it's going to very, very heavily impact people's perceptions of your "heros" who do this, especially in they eyes of your audience members who share the character's disability or who have had similar experiences. This isn't like calling someone a mean name or being a bit of a dick when you're sleepy, it's going to take a lot to regain audience appeal for the offending character, and depending on exactly what they do and how frequently they do it, they may not even be able to come back from it at all. And finally, c) there should be a point to it outside of just shaming this character and saying the other guy is an asshole. Like I said before, you're character is criticising real people's real disabilities and the traits or problems that come with them, things that they often have no control over, it shouldn't be used as a cheap, quick way to establish a quirky enemies to lovers dynamic or show that one guy is kind of an ass before his redemption arc. If you really must have your characters do this, be mindful of when and how you use it.

[just-antithings]

Anti-ism is psuedoscience and a moral panic rolled into one

One of the most dangerous things about therapyspeak leaving the intended audience is that now antis feel fully qualified to tell survivors how they should and should not be coping, even to the point of attempting to override/contradict the advice of certified therapists.

I've had antis tell me the fiction I enjoy writing is retraumatizing myself, that I am doing harm by writing it; when I responded that actually, my therapist signed off on the stories I wrote (even when I mentioned the specific phrase "consensual nonconsent"), they said that my therapist doesn't know what she's talking about since she sanctioned my coping mechanism and explicitly labels her practice as kink-positive. Antis are attempting to make me, a survivor with mental illness that could ultimately be fatal if I leave a psychologist's care, disregard the advice of the medical professional supervising me when they have no certification at all. This could, if I were a more vulnerable person, be dangerous for not only my trust in my therapist, but it could sabotage my treatment as well.

They are using what amounts to little more than memes, based on misinformation, that use a few intelligent-sounding phrases that very rarely apply the way they think they do, as a wedge to attempt to assert themselves as authorities who can, with certainty, dictate the appropriate course of treatment for a total stranger, including telling them to disregard the therapies administered by a trained professional.

In other words? Antis are frighteningly similar to anti-vaxxers, who took medical terminology they didn't understand, applied it to shaky cause-effect logic models, started a moral panic, used statements generated by that moral panic as a citogenesis-fueled proof their initial starting of the moral panic was justified, damaged the doctor-patient relationship of millions of total strangers, jeopardized the healthcare of those strangers who now believed their doctor to be incompetent for following accepted medical best practice, and fomented dangerous fringe political ideologies that coupled themselves to other conspiracies based on rejecting commonly-acknowledged practices.

"Vaccines cause autism! Narrative therapy that implements any form of controversial kink causes retraumatization of the writer, reader, or both, and starts the writer on an inescapable slippery slope to becoming an abuser themself! It's better to be dead than autistic! It's better to suffer feelings of shame and/or isolation in silence than it is to use fiction to put a voice to your feelings! Your child is vaccine-damaged from thimerosal and is getting sick from virus-shedding! Your fiction caused me to groom myself and you're a porn-addicted monster for not facing your trauma the proper way! Your doctor doesn't know what's good for you, I do! Only I understand how your body/mind work and what treatment is appropriate for you! Your doctor has been manipulated by Big Pharma/kink supporters! The empirical-study-informed best practices for pediatrics/psychology are what's wrong, not me, whose research is carefully informed by TikTok videos and Twitter posts carefully formulated to cause amygdalar growth to keep me afraid so I will continue to engage with fear-mongering content that causes my politics to shift towards the alt-right, who coincidentally also push narratives based in fear, not in medicine! I am being perfectly logical here!"

Antis fundamentally reject empirical medicine just the way anti-vaxxers do. They just seem to get a free pass on it since it's "only" mental healthcare they are sabotaging, and few people acknowledge it as something as legitimate and lifesaving as other medical care.

[callofdudes]

Simon "Ghost" Riley x Autistic Reader headcanons.

A/N: I myself am not autistic but I do know a fair bit about it. So I figured I'd write headcanons before writing a fic just to dip my toes in and see if I can get it right.

I know that autism can present a bit differently for some things across different people. Please feel free to let me know if something in this list is not correct. ❤️

Ghost would be lying if he said he didn't give you extra special treatment apart from his other teammates. And it's well justified. Simon knows not to compare you to a child but he also knows that you need things the others don't.

Simon has picked up on subtle signs throughout the months working with you. How sometimes when things didn't go according to plan on base it would leave you more stressed out than it should have. Sometimes if your food wasn't what you had expected it to be, he'd notice how you'd react.

He eventually consulted your file before making any decisions. That's how he'd found out you are autistic.

Simon knew someone who was autistic, so he made sure to keep his eye close on you.

He noticed each little shift. How you would stim with your clothing or your hair, too embarrassed to carry a fidget toy around base. But that didn't matter to Simon. He made sure to take care of everything. He bought some fidget toys small enough to fit in his jacket and when in meetings or just sitting around, he'd pull a toy like magic from his pocket and hand it over.

You'd been incredibly grateful the first few times, and then it just became routine that Simon would carry around the toys for you and have one on hand whenever you needed.

He also noticed which ones you liked, and didn't like. Some you would hand back because they didn't feel right on your fingers. Others clicked and slid in a way you didn't quite like, and he kept a tab of that. He compared fidget toys you did like to similar ones and was very precise every time he got you a new one.

He made sure that in every environment he was nearby. How you'd react to the lights, different sounds. How you'd react when it got to loud and crowded or too quiet. What noises bugged you and what calmed you.

When on missions, Simon made sure to talk you through each step. He thought his voice would help you to face the unexpected. Telling you where to go and exactly what to do, ready to face any situation.

"Take a deep breath y/n, you're doing great. Two Shadows on your left, you can take them out from where you are without being spotted"

Your level of empathy and emotional awareness was also something he had to take into account. You could sensitive to anger. You could feel a great deal of empathy and almost take on the burden of It being your fault even if you had nothing to do with it. Because of this, Simon made sure that you were aware his anger was never on you.

"Simon? Did I do something wrong? You looked really upset when you looked at me earlier and I just thought that maybe-"

Simon places his hand on your shoulder. "No no, just had a rough morning. You did absolutely nothing wrong. Got it?"

Simon has also become much more aware of how he teases you. You were emotionally aware to the point that you very clearly understood Simon would joke about being hurt, or would make fun of you and it was all jokes. He understood that you understood how his emotions worked as well.

But there was the occasional time where Simon would pretend to be hurt by your words and you'd have genuine regret. It doesn't happen as often as he would have thought, but when it does, he's right there to reassure you he is completely fine.

Simon actually gets more upset than you do when people call you a child wrapped up in an adults body with a nice little bow on top. Of course you have your traits but Simon has seen your hobbies and interests. You're no super genius but you are more than a child. You just have a different trajectory point on life's train tracks. And Simon makes sure to remind anyone he doesn't think is being respectful of you as a person.

Nightmares can affect you more harshly because of your emotional investment with things and the people around you.

The first time Simon saw you become overstimulated he was a little scared he'll be honest. He panicked a little bit. But now he knows exactly what to do. At first he tried to comfort you, allowing you to be swallowed up in his embrace, he crushed you tightly in his arms and smoothed his hands over your muscles. It would sometimes take a while for you to come down from your high, but he was there for every moment.

When he becomes a bit better at knowing how to handle a situation when you get over stimulated the process is smoother. Simon will notice how you can completely shut down. Sometimes it's near a meltdown with tears flowing everywhere. And other times you just disconnect. You don't move, don't speak, completely distant. Simon approaches you gently and picks you up in his arms.

"This ok?" He whispers near your ear as to not startle you. You cling to him tightly, burying your head in his neck. "Alright, come on, you've had a long day."

He rubs your back and brings you to your room. If you're away from base he just finds a separate room that is quiet. Anywhere he can go to separate the noise and bustling energy from you. If you're in your room he'll lay you down and just get you to relax.

Tears flow down your cheeks, hands still clasping the material of Simon's hoodie. Simon gently rubs your collar and down over your shoulders. He presses on different parts of your arms until you relax. "Take a deep breath. Take a deep breath." Simon breathes in deeply, prompting you to mimick. He wipes the tears from your cheeks and fetches your heavier blanket from the end of the bed. "See? You're ok."

He grabs your fidget from your desk and place it in your hand, or sometimes he'll lean over you and allow you to play with his sweater.

He talks softly and calmly, he does know kinder and softer words of reassurance help.

Sometimes all you want to do is hug Simon under the warmth of your weighted blanket, his arms wrapped around you like mountains compressing you from all angles.

And sometimes Simon will shut the door, lay you on your back and lay the weighted blanket just above the bend in the bottom of your spine. If you want a fidget toy he'll get you one to distract your hands while he runs soothing motions along your muscles, feeling them relax and contract. He plays white Noise in the background for you, or he'll give you his phone so you can watch soap cutting videos or other visually satisfying things.

"How are you doing?" He whispers near your ear, thumbs rubbing over your stomach and up around your back to cup your shoulder blades. "Look at it." You flip the phone to show a satisfying paint video. "Oh, that's a cool one isn't it?" You nod and go back to watching it.

Wherever Simon got so good at doing massages, you would not change it for the world. You've expressed before how nice they feel and how they calm you down. And Simon continues to do them.

Simon always makes sure that when you're over stimulated you have something to do with your hands. Again, if you want to play with his hoodie he'll stay with you so you can. If you want to run your hands through his hair, he's become comfortable enough to allow it.

"What are you doing up there?" He asks with a smile. You hum, combing your fingers through the short hair of his nape and up into the longer locks. "Soft." You express the feeling over your fingertips. "Yeah? I did shower." "I like your hair."

The occasional times you go nonverbal and are unsure how to express your needs, Simon will pull out a few toys and just crawl up next to you. He holds out his hoodie strings and comb his fingers through your hair.

He lays next to you, holding up one of the fidget toys. You gently take it and allow your fingers to move over it. Simon stays, fingers moving to drift through your scalp. You abandon the toy quicker than he expected and reach for his hoodie. "Oh you want this?" He smiles and moves closer so you can play with the strings of his hoodie.

Simon knows that you are incredibly passionate about what makes you happy. He often bugs you that you never shut up, but he knows you love it. One time when you both couldn't sleep early on the morning, Simon made you both tea and sat silently while you went on for nearly four hours about the lore of your favorite game/movie/TV show. He'd add little key points and poke out certain details, which would lead you down a detailed side rant before coming back to wrap everything up. The conversations would ring you dry of information. Simon would be lying if he said he didn't like it when you info dumped on him.

It was one of your ways you expressed your love. Sharing these things that made you so incredibly happy and Simon wanted to be a part of that.

Simon is still learning, and honestly he's very happy to learn. Sometimes he gets things right and sometimes he doesn't. But he is always here to make sure you get the care and provision you need. Whether it's taking a step back or a step in.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Dear becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys ! Please suggest to your dear sister with the fibromyalgia epiphany, to pursue an Ehlers-Danlos diagnosis! Fibro symptoms are often a sign of this also-very-undiagnosed-in-women condition. (Signed, an EDS-sufferer's wife)

Yeah, she also checked that out last year, a lot of people suggested it (some got... weirdly pushy and insistent about it, and should probably examine that urge). But we're confident it's not.

Thing is, both conditions don't have firm diagnostic tests, so in both cases the game you're playing is 'Can we draw a circle around enough symptoms to say it's X condition?' In this way, it's like a physical version of neurodiversity. There's no solid answer to whether a person has autism, ADHD, dyspraxia, more than one, all, none, etc - you just have to see how many symptoms they have before they trip the diagnostic threshold.

And sometimes, you get symptoms (or, in the case of neurodiversity, characteristics) that apply to more than one category. Time-blindness is common to ADHD, dyspraxia, dyslexia, and dyscalculia, and there's growing evidence that temporal perception is atypical in autistic people; Executive dysfunction is common for all five; etc.

EDS and fibro have similar crossover symptoms, but also plenty that don't. Last year we went through every description we could find for every type of EDS we could find, but ultimately, the only EDS symptoms she had were the crossover ones. The ones that were specifically fibro, she has. The ones that were specifically EDS, she doesn't. Plus, there's no equivalent family symptoms in parents or grandparents, plus a whole bunch of other variables that I obviously haven't spelled out in a short Tumblr post but we who have been there for 41 years of her life (well; I'm younger than her, but eh) know about.

So we're confident it's fibro and not EDS. But, it kind of doesn't matter in one sense - there's no actual treatment anyway, so management now becomes Whatever Works. If that means using some techniques common to both conditions, then who cares what the name is? As long as it works.

However, I shall leave this here in case anyone else wants to consider EDS for themselves! It's always worth exploring.

[cripplecharacters]

Sorry to bother you,

Your blog is wonderful! Since it's one of the most dialogue/explanation oriented, i wondered if i may please come to you with a more general doubt. i'm sincerely confused... Why is "curing" disability bad per se?

So far, the arguments (on Tumblr) seem to be,

i. Consent.

ii. Generalisation. ("Everyone will want this same thing".)

iii. The undercurrent ideology holding disability as a flaw to be "cured" (including the use of the term "cure").

On which we all agree, they're implicitly bad no matter if it's disability or a haircut. Very well.

But.

What of magical healing per se is inherently bad? Because being given a choice implies that for every given person agreeing, there are going to be others who won't. So we should still write our fantastical society around them, that's not in any way in question.

But these, the possibility of magical treatment and the non-necessity of the same, are not mutually exclusive. You don't have to "take one before the other", they can very well coexist.

Last question (i promise), is seeking treatment for oneself bad?

Like, if there came up a quest to get the glittering flower blooming once a millennia guarded by the Evil Dragon of Evil and capable of magically taking away OCD and PTSD, sign me up! Or if there's a spell to resuscitate my thyroid or an alchemical pill that solves ADHD's executive dysfunction. i mean, that's kind of what my medications should do if they weren't so costly and inaccessible, and that would be a one-time thing too.

Autism's doing alright, i'd keep everything, thanks.

Disclaimer, i'm obviously not advocating for eugenetics (as this term has been often used and misused in these discussions, better to precise).

All these conditions in one way or another define me and effect my life in a pervasive, quotidian way, or/and on a more existential scale. Not always in bad ways -my life is not a tragedy, and this i wish to make clear. i'm not saying that a "magic cure" should come before a change in society to accommodate disability. What i'm advocating for is their coexistence, as a choice -not evil per se, but nocive if inserted in a context of ableism, negation of individual consent, and, indeed, choice.

Or at least that was what i was arguing for until a few months ago. Now however, seeing as the collective opinion is one of strong rejection for these ideas, i believe there must be some important fallacies in my reasoning, and i wish, before everything else, to correct them. To understand.

Sorry for the monologue, but, may you help me?

Thank you for your time and for your kindness,

Anonymous Sloth.

Thank you for your ask! The reason curing disability is bad in media is because the disabilities cured often cannot be cured in real life. People with incurable disabilities already have so little representation, taking away the characters they see themselves in with an impossible cure is incredibly disheartening. I live with multiple incurable physical conditions, and I’ve accepted that I’ll live with them for the rest of my life. Day to day I already deal with people saying how much better my life would be if I didn’t have these conditions I had no choice in getting, I don’t want to see that in my stories! If someone has my conditions I don’t want the author to get rid of them with magic, I want to see that character going on cool adventures and being badass! Sure a magical cure might be nice, but that’s never going to happen. I’m going to be living in this body for the rest of my life, and I want to see stories where people like me get to live their lives with their conditions!

Disabled people should be allowed to see themselves in sci-fi and fantasy stories! People who can’t be cured, who can only have their symptoms managed, who have to be on medication/assistive devices the rest of their lives and who don’t want to be cured should be allowed to see themselves in media without the constant reminder that most able bodied people think their lives would be so much better is they would simply stop being disabled.

Additionally, even conditions that do have cures or ways to manage them aren’t realistically portrayed. There are never any symptoms, side effects or rehabilitation, it’s always portrayed as a magical cure that completely gets rid of the disability. This rarely happens in real life, and I don’t think it’s wrong for someone who shares a condition with a character to want to see that condition accurately portrayed.

It’s perfectly fine for a disabled person in media to want to seek treatment, plenty of disabled people in the real world also have to fight to get treatment (though the fighting is usually against insurance and doctors, not dragons and wizards). But like I said above, it should be at least somewhat realistic. The world is already over saturated with stories of people getting magical cures that make everything better forever, but what about cures with long lasting or permanent side effect? What about healing that requires extensive physical therapy? Or someone who needs to take potions for the rest of their lives to manage their condition? These realities should also be portrayed. Sure maybe some people want to see an escapist fantasy where their conditions could get cured, but not everyone wants that and it’s almost entirely done by abled authors who fathom why anyone would want to see a disabled person who isn’t trying to ‘overcome’ their disability.

We’ve also reblogged this post & answered this ask that deal with similar topics if you want to check them out.

I hope this helps! Have a nice day,

Mod Rot

-

Everything Mod Rot said.

Basically, it's like giving us representation and then taking it away. Readers with that disability are going to read that book and relate to that character. Having a character like you in a work can be so important. But then the character is magically cured of an incurable condition, and now they're completely abled. Good for them. But the reader is still disabled. The reader will still always be disabled.

Disabled representation is already so rare. It's not really nice to take away what little we have.

- Mod Aaron

Echoing what everyone else has said, I want to add an extra thing:

If there was a wealth of disabled characters in media, represented with respect and nuance and care and all that, some stories involving disability being cured wouldn’t feel out of place, because there would already be so much to see that it would be an interesting departure and not posed as the only option for a happy ending.

And if you’re writing something about curing a disability that you have because that’s your experience and it’s what you want, that would make sense as well.

But since so many representations of disability in media have the underlying message that the only way to truly be happy or worthy or whatever with a disability is to have it cured, to have the least amount of signs of disabilities ever, then adding more of the same to that can be not just frustrating but harmful.

An “overcoming” of disability, a “making invisible” of a visible disability, or a cure for a disability are not the only stories worth telling about disabled people—because they are also not the only lives worth living for disabled people.

— mod sparrow

[maargamindcare1]

Pediatric mental health specialists | Pediatric psychiatry

Discover expert pediatric mental health care at Maarga Mindcare Hospital. Our specialized pediatric psychiatry services provide comprehensive support for children's mental well-being. Trust our dedicated team of pediatric mental health specialists to guide your child towards a brighter future

[carlislewoods]

A message for the occult community, as it pertains to practitioners with conditions that can distort the perception of reality — from psychotic disorders, to personality disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorders, dissociative disorders, trauma disorders, the autism spectrum, and so many others that can make trusting ourselves difficult at times.

There is a stigma everywhere, including in spiritual circles. There are also uneducated or malicious individuals that can exploit our conditions, or ostracize us.

These disorders do not discredit us. We are not subhuman. We are not unintelligent, weak, nor are we gifted, blessed, or touched by the divine — our conditions and divergencies do not determine our worth.

Our treatment plans, whatever they may be, enhance our spiritual experiences. Treatment does not harm our journey. Receiving help does not 'block our powers' or otherwise disturb the supernatural.

We deserve treatment and support that brings us clarity and allows us to discern between what is real and what is not.  We deserve to be believed and given equal consideration when we provide input. We deserve a good quality of life.

We deserve to be helped, rather than mocked, enabled, or aggravated, when our symptoms appear to mislead us. Those preaching love and light should not encourage the sick to become sicker.

Many disorders can discolor the perception of reality; this effect is not exclusive to disorders with psychotic features. Even healthy individuals can find themselves consumed by dangerous misconceptions.

Do not encourage someone to stop taking their medication, quit therapy, or trigger themselves.  Do not enable delusions or hallucinations. Do not prey on us, do not bully us, do not ignore us.

If you believe anyone is showing signs of psychosis, please do not barrage them. Help them. It may look stupid or bizarre to you, but for us, it is often humiliating and scary.

A quick google search will tell you how to approach someone who has warped perceptions. It can also illustrate the difference between a person experiencing psychosis versus a sane person that is just being very eccentric.

In conclusion. Please have compassion, and treat people as you would like to be treated.