#but I do remember when I was in maybe high school taking autism tests and kind of tentatively fielding it to my mom

[gowns]

i have made a very funny journey w/ autism which is like...

growing up, mom always tells me she thinks i'm autistic or (90s euphemism pop psychology thing) that i have "einstein syndrome"

and yet she never gets me tested

various accommodations are made for me in school - i am clearly "smart" but also kinda just "doing my own thing" and the teachers are either annoyed but give in to my mom browbeating them, or give me good grades for thinking outside of the box

(various cycles of hyperfixations and limerence and burn out later)

one of my best friends realizes they are autistic and we see the world the same way so we both go "hmm" about that for a while

i maintain i couldn't possibly be autistic because i have worked with high-needs autistic people* *i also tend to be very adept at working with autistic people

i notice that my older child (whose personality is identical to mine as a kid) seems to show signs of high functioning autism

eventually read devon price and other books and take the tests and etc and i'm like hmm ok i guess i have autism

by this point i am so keenly Aware that i am Neurodivergent and maybe that's why i seem to operate in a different reality than a lot of other people, that it seems hard to remember a time when i thought i was "normal" and trying hard to be "normal"

like now i'm just owning being an odd duck and needing my funny little ways of recharging and having fun

and now i find i'm actually a bit annoyed at various influencers who talk about discovering that they have autism because sometimes they don't want to go to parties or w/e and i'm like. "hmm. but is this the same flavor as the thing i have? idk what kind you have but i'm clearly on another level of it."

(very silly, i went to gatekeeping one side of the gate to gatekeeping on the other side of the gate. hahaha.)

anyway, i try not to be judgmental, it's just interesting that autism and adhd are en vogue right now. #relateable.

i still maintain that the bigger problem is Society. like, having tiny computers in our pockets combined w/ unreasonable employers who want you to be Focused on a Task for 8 hours are definitely doing things to our brains and making us feel deficient if we can't do Productive things. and then the pings. ping. ping. ping. check this. do that. ping. ping. ping.

and then it's like -- when people figure they must be neurodivergent because they take a moment to pause and dip out of the constant noise and they're like whoa i feel better for a moment -- well of course, taking a nap in the middle of the day feels good. it feels good to spend some time alone and in solitude when most of your day is responding to PINGS. and guess what, microdosing meth feels good, weed feels good, looking at wikipedia or reddit instead of doing work feels good, etc etc. the fact that adderall feels good =/= your brain works "different" or is "defective" in some way.

ok. you're probably different. sure.

it's like the same basic question of literature, theatre, art, of the last 400-odd-years, what is a human, what makes me tick, why do i feel a separation between me and others, what is that other person even thinking, why are we both looking at each other like "you're insane"? why are the motivations and inner workings of this other person so inscrutable, and mine are so comfortable and infinitely knowable?

--

however. all that being said. i think it may eventually come to a point where more people are considered neurodivergent than neurotypical, and hopefully, you would think, that would mean more accommodations, which would mean society as a whole would be more accommodating towards disability.

but i fear that on the other end, it may end up in situation where otherwise-typical people with an immense amount of privilege (e.g. average white americans) figure out how to weaponize incompetence (so to speak) and automate more labor away from them and giving the global lower classes more grunt work to shoulder. all while not acknowledging the true source of that "i don't belong" feeling ... and creating more alienation ... hmmmmmMMMMMMMMMMM

--

all that being said, it's fun to share autistic memes with friends

[cattistic]

Using AAC as an Autistic Without a Speech Impairment

For context, my ADHD doctor is saying i'm level 1 in social stuff. But wasn't exactly a formal or official one because there was no paper.

Yesterday, i was playing with an iPad that had an AAC software (Proloquo2go) on it, so i played around with it. I did ask the supervisor if i was able to play with it, and she was fine with it. (The AAC app). I made some pretty bad jokes with the app.

But i feel like i was taking away the voice, even though i know the people often using Proloquo2go on that iPad were clearly not in need of it. That iPad was the only one we could use too. It was fun but now i think i was just making things harder somehow. Nobody needed it but i still feel like i was making things harder for the therapists, because they might wonder where it went in a high crisis event yknow?

That's not the main question here though. I'm considered level 1 yet i deal with pain as i speak and my speech is mostly hard to understand to someone who doesn't really know me. And in my IEP, it says i need to work on avoiding defiant comments towards adults and either my expressive and/or my receptive language during social interactions and i think that's why i don't try to make friends.

Should i use AAC? I was figuring it out and testing the app out yesterday, but i felt like i was still taking away someone's voice. If so, i'm sorry for doing that. I'm just afraid to talk to my parents about AAC because it might seem like i'm pretending higher autism level for clout.

Update that was put in since yesterday or 2 days ago: I was snooping (Shh, i know that was a bad choice) back when school was still in session and found out i had an iPad to my name in the school's equipment list. I don't remember why or the reason listed, but i assume it's for AAC or for my autism needs.

I've been thinking and maybe it might not be. Just for some of my other needs like computer option, yet i have a school computer and i bring it to school every day, that's if i don't forget it though.

[birdofmay]

How can you find out if you have an intellectual or developmental disability, besides a diagnosis of autism, and how can you speak up to a doctor or a specialist to request a test or a way to get a diagnosis, if possible?

Ok so intellectual disability is diagnosed at an early age and very very obvious, even when it's mild. If you're in high school (and not the high school of special education), you definitely don't have intellectual disability - it wouldn't be possible for you to go to high school with ID. Learning disabilities are something very different here; with accommodations you can manage high school in most cases if you have learning disabilities, but that's not possible with ID.

Right...

I think what to do highly depends on your country, as always. In my country you have to ask a psychologist or psychiatrist who specialises in these things; they will check if you have developmental delays or developmental disabilities and suggest further testing, for example blood tests and neurological tests (at the neurologist).

You should prepare yourself and maybe make a list with things that were very different in your development.

Write down at what age you could crawl, walk, speak, how your spatial thinking is, how long it takes you to remember a new way in a new area/town, if you can catch and throw a ball and if this skill was always good/average, generally how your gross and fine motor skills developed.

Try to remember if and when you reached these milestones: click here

This will give you a general idea if you were developmentally delayed and/or still can't do some things that are considered important.

The neurological tests will test if you still have certain reflexes that normally disappear as a child, or if certain patterns in your movement and/or gait are abnormal. This is especially common in cerebral palsy, but will also be abnormal in some other developmental disabilities.

Hope that helps; to my followers: Feel free to comment how things work in your country, maybe it's different there

[lucysweatslove]

Health recap, I guess? 2019 to present, because I'm so frustrated with my health atm.

Early 2019, I started with wrist pain whenever I used my hand to push on something. Nobody could figure it out. Did OT without much help. Was told it is "probably functional" but lost ability to do things I love, including lift weights and do yoga.

End of 2019, I got sick with an upper respiratory infection. I get colds periodically like everybody else. Nothing new.

URI did the whole "got better, then it got worse" thing and turned into a sinus infection and then my First Ever Ear Infection.

Went into urgent care; was given... some... antibiotic. I don't even remember the class. When this helped but didn't resolve, and the URI progressed to a cough and lower respiratory stuff, I was put on another antibiotic of a different class.

Eventually that antibiotic cleared it up, but I had a terrible cough for a few months. Also. Finally see a new psychiatrist who puts me on Wellbutrin and I feel so much better emotionally. Not physically.

Enter in COVID! I was working in a derm clinic and had to take my temp multiple times a day. We found I was persistently having fevers! Yay! I also was tremulous, nauseous, and lost weight unintentionally. This was on top of a couple year history of significant whole-body pruritis. Concern is something cancer.

Provider I worked for ordered labs while I waited to get into my PCP. My TSH was marginally high, which was unexpected. My PCP called and was like "let's put you on levo!" to which I said no, let's not, because I'm not presenting with any hypothyroid symptoms. I requested repeat TSH plus additional thyroid tests eg T3/T4.

Those came back normal, PCP was all "its a good thing I didn't start you on meds" like ma'am no, it's a good thing I had some medical knowledge and thusly refused and pushed for repeat studies. My PCP did not additional workup and took my temp via forehead scanner and was all "you're perfectly healthy."

Moved, and thus I needed a new PCP. New PCP did more extensive workup.

Start grad school fall of 2020. Can't focus well, suspect ADHD because my sister has ADHD and my historical depression, which I've blamed all my previous focus issues, is well-treated with Wellbutrin. PCP agrees but because of fevers doesn't think it's a good idea to start a new med yet.

Everything negative/clear/normal, including peripheral blood smear, blood culture, and chest and abdominal CT.

"Well, the next step would be a bone marrow biopsy..."

That sounds painful, no thanks. If it's something insidious, it'll eventually show up on routine labs and then we can do the biopsy. I continue to have fever and ear pain (even when my ears look "clear") and recurrent ear infections. I notice my hair is thinning too, and I keep getting recurrent scalp infections, but oh well. School goes fine even if I can't focus well, so I ignore that, too.

I figure out that my wrist pain is a ganglion cyst that nobody noticed because it didn't grow "up" but snaked its way through bones so it took 2 years for a "bump" to present. Had surgery to remove it in early-Mid 2021.

Constant stuffy nose starts in 2021, but my husband's hips died in mid 2021 and I focused more on him initially. I still can't focus and my nose is so stuffy it interferes with sleep.

Enter into a long discussion with my PCP where she refuses to acknowledge that I might have ADHD and thinks it's from my nose + inability to sleep. We try to treat it. Nothing works. Still. Stuffy.

Apply to medical school. Worried about ADHD and being able to focus and learn. Therapist who I've been working with since Husband's hips agrees it is ADHD but can't medically treat. Referred to testing because maybe if I have an actual diagnosis, my PCP would treat.

Diagnosed with ADHD + autism. Clinician assessor told me that my PCP's office doesn't usually "accept" his diagnoses.

Go to a PMHNP instead who won't prescribe stimulants without assessment from a specific neuropsych.

Placed on Strattera while I wait for neuropsych results. It's terrible. Fevers spike, I'm shaking all the time, can't sleep, like no change in focus. 0/10.

Do assessment with neuropsych. Only did some self-rating scales + the WAIS. WAIS test is voided because I've done it too recently. I still have to pay.

PMHNP finally says she won't make me go through any more hoops and we try Vyvanse. Vyvanse is amazing. I barely have any exacerbation of anything physical even.

Start medical school, things are OK and stable.

A few weeks into school (probably like, 6 weeks after starting the vyvanse, if it matters). I start feeling unwell and dizzy and like my eyes can't focus well, and I can't bring myself to eat. I figure I just need more hydration + electrolytes. Eat more salt, do better.

Two months into med school, everything flares. My scalp flares, I end up with a staph aureus infection not just on my scalp but by both of my ears, neck, and even a small abscess on my arm.

Treated for the staph but two weeks later develop widespread myalgias. Start taking daily Aleve to manage.

Fever is flaring without any particular pattern during this process.

Losing so much hair in the shower and in clumps. Husband can't find discrete lesions of baldness. I look at the hair and they are all telogen stage. Decide it's probably telogen effluvium from the stress of school.

Myalgias get progressively worse until I am in so much pain just sitting in class that if I forget Aleve for just one day, I'm almost crying and can only focus on the pain.

Finally decide to get another appoint with my PCP. It's in 2 weeks.

Why did I wait so long to see my PCP again? Because I am fat with a history of a restrictive eating disorder and I am absolutely petrified I will be labeled once again as the Overly Anxious Fat Woman that "just needs to meditate and lose some weight," and that when I bring up my new diagnoses and meds, I'll be told I "can't possibly be autistic" because I'm in med school and "present myself well" nor can I have ADHD because clearly I'm just an overly anxious fat woman.

[circusislife]

i have a bit of a personal question so feel free to ignore this ask

can i ask how you figured out you had adhd?(did i spell it right?) and do you have any tricks to making yourself get up and do whatever you got to do?

Wepl, get ready for a rant, because hyperfixations (past and present) are a surefire way to be blab for half an hour.

So, I don't remember 100% /how/ I got diagnosed, It was when I was about six and a half.

Mostly, my mother was Just this side of being an helicopter parent, and she noticed the signs pretty soon. There were many signals, I started to speak later than my sister did, then had problems with pronouncing letters like "r" "s" and "t" despite completely understanding the difference between the words they were used in, used to put my feet wrong which would cause me pain, had bad posture (which would also cause me pain), was extremely energetic in comparison to other kids, would zoon out in the middle of something and become almost completely detached from reality for minutes at a time, would start multiple somethings and leave them incomplete (way more than Is normal for the average kid), when I read out loud, if I misread a Word once, then rereading the exact same passage and helping I'd realize the mistake was a lost cause, my hand to eye coordination was in the negatives, I would bump into things, drop things and stuff like that. Also many more things that don't come ti mind right now.

Because of that I've been misdiagnosed/suspected of having autism (that one also because I have Always liked math, and I think the teachers were a bit too much into the cliché), epilepsy (theory busted with a three day long electroencephalogram), dyslexia, dyslalia and I think I'm forgetting something but want to finish this before tomorrow.

Long story short, each and every single one of those symptoms was because of adhd.

Wrong footing and posture? Distracted.

Same mistake at reading repeatedly? Distracted.

zooning out in maybe low key seizures? Hella distracted.

Couldn't stay still if I tried, no matter classes events or social expectations? Hyperactivity.

Mum noticed It all.

She asked doctors and brought me to visits (I remember a ton of them as a kid, probably why I've always been comfortable in hospitals).

At 6.5 years I had a first diagnosis, but was struggling like Hell at school and barely scraping by (yes in my freaking First year of school I spent more time studying than hanging out with friends with little results).

Lucky me, we live in range of the leading institute and one of the only three in Italy. So when a pediatric psychologist suggested a check up there It wasn't too problematic.

Did some tests. One of the ways to officially determinate if someone had adhd Is doing an IQ test. There are 4 areas analyzed. In regular people the scores are more or less even, but if you have adhd there should be a considerable difference between two areas and the other two. I scored pretty High (I Just Remember It being fun but whatever), but the difference was there. and here's the diagnosis. Also started taking the prescription (and suddenly I could actually follow the lessons without Major headhache) (that still came studying at home, but was better).

Ok, Just realized this went from rambling to oversharing, so back to the point.

As for the ways to trick executive dysfunction?

Mostly stuff I came up by mixing advice and adapting them to my personality.

Like, I find It extremely satisfying to start something at an even hour (like, I don't know, start to study at exactly 14:30?)

Also having someone in the room with me helps (mostly do this with my sister) (not the best in my opinion because I think that's just a way of using anxiety and fear of judgement, but It Is a way to use It go your advantage and if It works It works).

Also, having a set environment/routine for a set task Is good. Your brain Will associate the two and One Will eventually automatically follow the other. (Stuff like, sofa=relax desk=work no exceptions allowed, or cook-eat-clean as a single unit)

Also, starting a task from the easiest part of the One you like the most Is of help. Just like allowing yourself a short break before the task itself with something you reeeeeally enjoy (a fav song, or One of those heaven sent 15 minutes really well written chapters) (those are honestly perfection for a pre-start break, something short and enjoyable with a predetermined and firm stopping point).

Doing so will stimulates the brain to produce dopamine, the neurotransmitter whose underproduction Is the cause of adhd if I remember correctly (tell me if I'm wrong, I'm going on almost 14 years old Memories for some of this stuff). This way you Will have something ti pull you through the hardest part that Is getting started.

When I have to study when tired I have found that working with music Is sometimes an excellent way to trick my brain into believing I have stopped and blessedly chill out with the headhaches. (Other times I become downright murderous if I so much as hear someone breath, but when It works, It works)

You've probably already Heard about setting alarms and using a timer to help keep the tasks contained, or using a planner to make a schedule, but that would imply One actually remembers to use either, sooo... that One really depends on the person.

Ok, now that I've basically written an essay on the phone and probably set to give someone an aneurysm, I bid you goodnight, I'll add the tags tomorrow, now it's sleepy time!

Bye<3

[tuesday-always]

I am [probably] autistic

This is not a self diagnosis, I guess it's just a reflection on some recent events and research that has lead me to believe that I am almost certainly on the low end of the autistic spectrum.

When I was in high school, my mom mentioned off-hand that when I was a young girl, maybe 3-5, she had considered getting me tested for autism. For as long as I can remember, I have hated making eye contact and had a lot of trouble dealing with other people, and as someone with a Master's in Education, my mom knew something was up. One of her specialties, actually, is kids with special educational needs, and she still has those sorts of kids coming through her classroom to this very day. Despite knowing something was different about me, my mom also knew that our school district had a tendency to sort any kid with even a hint of autism into the "special needs" groups (which at that time were significantly underfunded and not appropriately staffed or researched), so she decided not to go through with it and instead brought me to the Gifted and Talented people. I'm sure many people here can relate to the harsh reality of "gifted kid burnout," which I would experience later in life.

Anyway, these past couple days I did some more research into what an autism diagnosis (Is there another word for it? I'm not sick or anything) would look like and how I would go about getting one. I started with two basic tests- the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) and the RAADS-R. Both of these are used by professionals to diagnose autism every day. I got a 38 on the AQ and a shocking 141 on the RAADS-R. I know that online tests are not the answer, and I know that I will need further assistance from a medical professional to confirm a diagnosis. I am fully aware of the consequences of taking these tests and making assumptions off the results. However, I feel incredibly... validated. I mean, these tests were CALLING ME OUT. "I often feel like when having a social interaction, I am performing." Check. "I often reuse phrases that I have heard in conversation, over and over again." Check. "Sometimes I talk too loudly or softly, and my pitch can sometimes come off irregular." Check. "I am very sensitive to touch and sound." Check, check, check.

I couldn't believe how, for lack of a better word, validating it felt to know that other people were experiencing the world in the same way as me. I mean, I have always known I was different- and I don't mean that in a "pick me" way or anything like that. But I feel like I just don't have this crucial piece that allows everyone else to go through life so... easily, if that makes sense. Like when I see all the pretty girls talking in my sorority, I don't understand why I don't have friends like that- I talk to people, but I've never really had close friends since high school. My only friend right now is my boyfriend, who is also neurodivergent.

So anyway. This was kind of just something I wanted to get off my chest, I guess. I want to reiterate that THIS IS NOT A DIAGNOSIS. But, to know that there are others who feel like I do, and to know that there's a word for that and that there's help out there and other people who really struggle with getting through the bizarre realities of each day- It's relieving.

[hersheythecure]

While moving things to storage I had a couple panic attacks. Uncontrolled crying. Hyperventilating. Chest pains. Bent over ugly crying. It's so painful to watch. My body in so much pain and having to be a vessel for my traumatized parts yearly presentation.

My mind kind of absorbed the realization that it is real. Especially with the autism traits. It started going through our memories and showing me all the times we tried to rationalize concepts and wondered why someone else didn't see it that way.

How we'd try to figure out how a situation could've been prevented. How we'd observe the behaviors and place different behaviors with emotional and logical reasoning to make a situation have a better outcome.

My mind showed me. We are like an onion with our DID. How painful it is to be peeled by life. To have a disorder that hides me away until my brain is fully developed just to show me all of the horrible things my body went through. It's not by choice. It's by design. It's natural. Our brains natural response to mass trauma. Sometimes makes me wonder if autism is enviromental and trauma based or if I had an autistic brain that just got traumatized by life.

I never felt the gravity of "it's so much worse" as my mind revealed my trauma and parts to me. It's always going to get worse with this disorder because you're walking through yourself for the first time. You're seeing every crevice as your body builds resilience and your brain develops. It's like being born and having to mass absorb events that you were not even privy too. Of curse I had a shit ton of psychosis. That's a lot. For any brain. Especially one with multiple dissociative parts. I grieve for myself.

It's so heavy.

And not only am I coming to terms with actually seeing myself in a space in the world but also reliving my miscarriage in high-school. Seeing Chrissy have to go through something so traumatic with no one to speak to. Too afraid to tell her mom. The fear of being kicked out the house. It was so crushing. Knowing that I'd be discarded of for something I didn't even do. Didn't even fully understand. Guys sucked. They'd remove condoms and give us stds. I remember seeing why my teenage self gave up on condoms. If she was so responsible and still got stds and pregnant wtf was the point of using them.

It was not you. You didn't poke wholes in condoms. You didn't refuse to use condoms. You didn't refuse to take care of yourself and get tested. They did. They did not love themselves the way you loved yourself. They did not value their bodies the way you still did. Even if there are parts of us that didn't. They did not have the capacity to understand. We were switching so much we didn't even know. The MDD part was so numb and so dissociated from the world. She felt like a zombie waling around hoping someone would care about her. She'd be inside us crying and screaming and the part in the body would be looking for a male figure to protect hs and comfort us. But even then our brain must've known our dad was who made us this way. Or maybe didn't but now is piecing things together the more we learn about our past.

This world was not fit for me. I wonder if that is how people like me feel. Autistic humans. Disordered humans. I know it felt like I didn't belong here. It made me want to die. It made my little adolescent mind go to places that scared the trap out of us.

I am seeing the positive times though. When we had the dream about Nathan. The night he was conceived. I cried. It was so beautiful. I think it's on main somewhere. Back I'm 2010.

The significance of what we saw in our adolescent. The color of love we described as translucent iridescent water flowing all around us. Wow. Cool. Beautiful. Hallucinations be kinda lit sometimes. It's really just an overactive imagination. If your mind gets split up so many times your mental processes kinda get overused. Especially if different identities are present. You know how hard the brain is working to keep it's human safe while also not knowing wtf was going on. Sheesh. Stella you my dawg. You've always been keeping me safe. Thank you. I did my best.

Idk what kind of mind I have. I just know I don't want to cause people pain. I know I want to be kind to my mind because no one else is there to do so. No one. Just me.

[softheartedsadist]

So... continuing to learn that many of my quirks and hang-ups are actually ASD

I don't feel like I was an overly self-aware child... but maybe that's a common phenomenon. I do remember in elementary school that one of my friends remarked on how slowly I wrote. Typically 2-3 times slower than everyone else. Later, like... high-school or after, my mom told me that when I was younger I was actually given extended time for test-taking. In fact they recommended to her that I be tested for... something.... She told me that if the school wants a student tested for something, the school has to pay for it, so... instead, they recommend to parents that they get their child tested for... whatever.... We could not afford it at the time, so I just have never gotten diagnosed for anything.

Grandma was a psychologist though and thought... thinks? I have... something. I think she's a bit off her rocker and too many decades off from the current research to be diagnosing me with anything. Especially after all the "meet my eyes when I'm talking to you", attempts to force me to interact socially with strangers, and that one time she tricked me into a therapy session because she thought I was depressed. Nothing came of that session. I have since tried to tell her "I'm an introvert, social interaction exhausts me" ("I know you "think" you're an introvert..."), "I'm not dating anyone, I'm not interested, I'm probably ace-aro" ("I don't believe that's a real thing..."), "I'm probably autistic... I found this test in the papers you were throwing out and I scored..., which is high enough that it indicates I am autistic, but I think my score would actually be higher based on research I've done that indicates that autism expresses itself differently in girls than boys...." (she notably gave no response to this assertion).

I have at this point done quite a lot of reading on autism, some studies, some blogs, etc.

And... it just makes me feel known.

I can't remember faces well, maybe it's because I tend more often to look over peoples' shoulders? Oh, well... there are a multitude of articles about how some ASD people tend to have difficulties with that.

I am frequently quite photosensitive and some sounds cause me something equivalent to physical discomfort/pain. ASD's got that covered.

Difficulty reading tone, difficulty emoting (I have on multiple accounts, independent of each other, been told I reminded people of Data or Spock because of the way I talk and the way I act), tendency to take things literally, distaste for acting outside what I consider "okay", hyperfixation, visual and emotion based thinking, atypical pattern-recognition skills, etc.....

There are just terms for things I've experienced that made me feel like I was failing or held back even though to all appearances I am relatively... functional (for lack of a better word).

Executive dysfunction Task paralysis Demand avoidance Auditory processing disorder

Like currently I am experiencing so many things associated with autistic burnout it's not even funny. I'm just anxious, borderline depressed, it's a struggle to move to the next stage of projects I both want and need to work on, I don't want to talk to anybody, I don't want anyone to look at me or talk to me or ask me to do anything.

Uuuuuuuuuurgh. Maybe I just need to go and actually talk to somebody at my college and be like "surprise, I'm autistic!!!!" But it's not actually a freaking surprise because a properly diagnosed classmate from my second semester was like "yo, I'm diagnosed and I've got to say... you give major ASD vibes, it makes you easy to talk to."

Like... "what? Thanks? You too? Are easy to talk to...."

[larrydempsey]

Commentary for “But I’m Feeling Much...”

–All the events described are as accurate as I and/or my mother can remember them.

–Dedicated to my mom for her research, support, and for putting up with both me and Tom.  She’s the hardest-working person I know.  Also dedicated to the memory of my sister, Carmen, who also had to be raised by Tom.  She endured life as long as she could until she couldn’t take anymore.

–Special thanks to my friends Becky B. and Scott P. for their help and research, as well as for their friendship and their continued interest and support.

–Alternate titles: “The Life of Larry,” “Larry: The Early Years,” “Childhood Remembered,” “The Best Years of My Life,” “Out of My Shell,” and “A Semi-Linear Recollection of Events Which Led Me to Become the Well-Adjusted Individual I am Today.”

–The title comes from an oft-repeated catchphrase (uttered by actor John Astin) on the TV series “Night Court.”

–I didn’t intend to turn this into a story/article.  It simply started as a list to see how many bad things I could remember that happened to me when I was growing up, and then I expanded on each entry.

–My mom saved all of my report cards and grade school class photos, so that made it handy for when I had to look up a few of my teachers’ names that I couldn’t remember.

–My early stomach problems (throwing up three times a day, every day, until I was three years old) were an indicator of autism, but my parents didn’t know anything about that back then.  I wasn’t officially diagnosed until my late 30s (with Asperger’s syndrome, specifically).  Being a picky eater and unable to understand sarcasm were also signs of autism.

–The reason I wasn’t circumcised was because my parents didn't know anything about that back then, either.

–The reason I wasn’t breastfed was because my mom said there was “nothing there.”  But even if there was, she said she “wasn’t into it.”  So it was the bottle for me, followed by a lifelong infatuation with nipples and big breasts.

–My bad habit of going to bed as late as possible followed me into adulthood.  The day is never long enough.  I put off going to bed for as long as possible, instead preferring to stay awake to read, write, listen to music, or watch TV.  It doesn't help that my mind is constantly racing, always thinking and worrying about a million different things, preventing me from sleeping.

–I still own the ruler that I used to hide under my desk in the third grade to help me with subtraction.

–Regarding junior high gym class: No one saw a problem with 40 twelve-year-olds showering completely naked in public every day, all while being “supervised” by the geriatric gym teacher?  He was probably a pervert who got the job just for that reason.  Did the girls have to do that, too?  Maybe it’s just me, but it seems wrong to have a bunch of underage kids forced to do that.  I wonder if that still goes on today.

–The hearing test in junior high was a farce.  I think the company coming there and testing all the kids was just a money-making ploy.  They make you think they’re there to help you, but they’re more interested in failing kids so they can get their parents to bring them down to their office to not only get the “professional” (i.e., expensive) test but also so they can sell them hearing aids.  I have exceptional hearing.  And if it’s great now, it must have been even better back then.  It’s one of the only things I have left that still works well.

–Regarding the test I took in junior high that said I should be a sewing machine operator when I grew up: believe it or not, one of the jobs I had in my 20s involved operating a sewing machine.  I lasted two days.  It was the first job I ever quit.

–Another reason I liked my sophomore English teacher, Mr. Peebles, was because he said he never missed an episode of “Newhart” (the 1980s sitcom that starred Bob Newhart and took place at an inn in Vermont), which was a show I also liked at the time.

–During the divorce trial, it came to the part about dividing assets.  I still remember the lawyers arguing over who got what.  It got to the point where they were actually debating over who got which pieces of Tupperware.  It was completely ridiculous.

–Back in the days when Tom made a surprise visit to our new/third house, I never checked to see whose car was in the driveway before blindly opening the front door.  I’ve since altered my behavior after that incident.  I don’t answer the door at all now.

–Except for the sewing machine job and one retail job (at “The Long Ear” record store, which I had for a month), the only jobs I’ve ever had in my life were as janitors and working in warehouses.  Cleaning toilets and moving appliances.  What a waste of talent.  I wish I would have been more aggressive.  Maybe I could have made something of myself.

–My sister was the one who told my mom and me that Tom was in his fifth marriage, since she was the one who kept in contact with him and kept up with all the latest news (since she was required to, due to him paying for her college).

–Here are a few more miscellaneous events, observations, and related recollections that didn’t fit the theme of my story or because I couldn’t find a good place for them:

The first time I saw Star Wars, I didn't know anything about it.  Tom took me to see it one night because it was the big popular thing at the time.  I remember standing in line, wearing a red Star Wars shirt that Mom had bought me at the grocery store earlier in the day (the one with the famous painting of Luke Skywalker holding his lightsaber above his head with both hands and Princess Leia kneeling on a rock below him).  The movie blew my mind and changed my life.  It was big, fun, and exciting—completely unlike anything I’d ever seen before.  On the drive home in the dark, all the lights across the car’s dashboard made it look like the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon.  The second time I saw the movie was at a drive-in.  Mom went with us this time.  I remember being in the back seat but sticking my head between the two front seats and talking all the way through it, explaining everything to her.  That must have been really annoying.

In all my years of going to public school, I never once ate lunch from the school cafeteria.  I always brought my own lunch from home (in various metal Star Wars or superhero lunch boxes).  Most of the sandwiches I brought were admittedly unusual.  In grade school, I regularly ate relish sandwiches and mayonnaise sandwiches.  They were, literally, just relish or mayonnaise between two pieces of white bread.  Gross.  I ate those for years.  I guess I either liked them or didn’t have a problem with them—except for the day when the mayonnaise sandwich didn’t agree with me and I threw up on the concrete outside the cafeteria (to this day, I still feel sorry for the janitor who had to clean it up).  I wonder if I stopped eating them after that.  On my first day in junior high, I remember asking my mom to make me a sandwich that consisted of nothing more than a piece of lettuce and a slice of cheese on a hamburger bun—something that, I remember thinking at the time, halfway resembled a “normal” sandwich.  I remember sitting alone at one of the long lunchroom tables in the back of the cafeteria (I guess I hadn’t found where my friends were sitting yet), eating that cheese and lettuce sandwich.  I think that was the one and only time I ever ate that.  At least I didn’t bring it in a Star Wars lunchbox.  Being 12 years old, I guess I’d grown too mature for that.

My grandmother (my mom’s mother) occasionally walked me to school the last couple years of grade school (when we were living next to my grandparents).  One winter morning, when we were walking down the street, a woman yelled out her front door, saying she heard the school’s pipes were frozen and that school was closed.  So Grandma and I turned around and came home.  Once in the house, I pulled out some of my Star Wars toys and started playing with them on the floor in the living room.  After I did, Mom decided to call the school to confirm that it was actually closed.  She was told that it was open.  So I got dressed again, and Mom drove me to school.  Having to arrive late, take off my jacket, and sit down in front of the rest of the kids who were already sitting quietly at their desks was very embarrassing.

While my friend Steve may have been good at math, I was good at art.  I couldn’t do what he did, and he couldn't do what I did.  Everyone is good at something that someone else isn’t.  But what he could do was considered significantly more important than what I could do.  Society thinks academic achievements are more important than creative/artistic ones.  Smart kids, those kids who were good at “important” subjects (like math and science), would go on to college and have high-paying careers like doctors, lawyers, and accountants—i.e., important jobs.  What I did wasn’t serious or even considered “work.”  Art wasn’t a real job.  And if art was the only thing I was good at, I would never amount to anything.  That was always the prevailing attitude, and I constantly felt that pressure from my parents and grandparents at home and my teachers in school, even from early on.

There was a day in fifth grade after we got back to class after lunch recess when the teacher, Mrs. Urbanac, came over to me, pointed right in my face, and said, “Don’t you ever come into my classroom looking like that again.”  I turned to the kid on my left and asked, “What do I look like?”  I’m assuming, based on the teacher's comment, that I was a mess, which would have been unusual since it was uncommon for me to play rough or get dirty.

Thanks to Tom, I was almost killed by a Nazi.  One late summer afternoon when I was around 11 or 12 years old, Tom, my grandfather (my mom’s father), and I were on our way out of town to buy some hay for my grandfather's horses and cattle.  We were in a large, black Ford pickup (with a canopy), pulling a gigantic wooden trailer (also painted black) behind us.  My grandfather was driving, Tom was on the passenger side, and I sat between them.  We pulled up to a stop, waiting to get onto a north-south interstate highway.  As we were waiting, we heard someone screaming at us from behind our truck and trailer.  Apparently, we were blocking the bicycle path, which ran parallel to the highway, and a guy on a bicycle wasn’t happy about it.  Tom, not liking being yelled at, jumped out of the truck and ran over to the guy (and the girl who was with him) as they started cycling north.  When Tom reached the guy, he shoved him, knocking the guy off his bike and into the ditch.  Tom then turned around and started walking back toward the truck.  As he neared the truck, there was the sound of a gunshot.  The guy on the bike had a gun and took a shot at us.  The bullet missed Tom and went through two windows in the truck’s canopy, inches from my head.  My grandfather, who had been standing outside the truck on the driver’s side, had gotten back into the truck a second earlier.  If he hadn’t gotten back in the truck at the exact moment he did, he would have been shot in the head.  The guy and the girl took off riding north on their bikes again, riding fast and out of range.  At this point, we had been blocking traffic for a few minutes, so when we had a chance, we pulled out onto the highway, heading south, leaving the scene and deciding not to pursue the matter further.  Days (or maybe weeks?) later, we recognized the guy who shot at us on the news as one of the members of the Nazi party.  They had a national headquarters not much further north from where the guy shot at us.  We assume that’s where the guy and the girl were heading.  Tom could have simply ignored the guy’s shouts.  But by provoking him, Tom escalated the situation and almost got us killed.

We put on a Christmas show for the parents in sixth grade.  We mostly sang Christmas songs and carols.  During one song, my teacher, Mrs. Ruch (for the last time, pronounced “rush”), came into the room dressed up as Santa Claus, waving and ho-ho-ho’ing with a big bag of toys slung over her shoulder.  The whole routine.  As we kept singing, she came over to me and gave me a huge smooch on the cheek in front of everyone.  After she walked away, returning to her waving and ho’ing, I made eye contact with Mom in the audience.  Wide-eyed, shaking my head, and shrugging my shoulders, I gave her a “I don’t know where that came from” look.  Mrs. Ruch didn’t do that in rehearsal.

Everything in my childhood was either difficult or I made it difficult.  I don’t know what I hated more: trying to eat foods I didn’t like or the opposite end of the digestive process.     Throughout my entire childhood and into my mid-teens, I hated pooping.  I hated going.  I hated wiping.  I hated the entire process.  It was smelly and disgusting.  For these reasons, I always put off going for as long as possible.  I would hold it in for days, making it very difficult to be even remotely comfortable.  I would constantly jump from place to place, not being able to sit or stand still (Mom called it “flitting,” joking that I would “flit over here” and “flit over there”).  And after holding it in for so long, it made it next to impossible to go when I finally gave in and went (or was forced to go by my parents) because by that time I was severely constipated.     I remember one time during my teens when my constipation was so bad that I had to go to the doctor because of it.  The doctor prescribed me suppositories.  Learning how to use (i.e., insert) those was not a pleasant experience.  And it was made that much worse by Tom making fun of me for not finding it easy to do so.  I remember wondering why he didn’t find using them difficult.  But then I assumed it must have been because I didn’t have as much experience shoving things up my ass as he did.

Tom tried to force both my sister and I to drink some beer he brought home once when we were young.  My sister tried it, but I didn’t want to.  To this day, I’ve never had a drop of beer.  Whether it’s because of that incident, I can’t say for sure.  Again, as with learning how to drive, unlike every other teenager in the universe, I didn’t want to drink.  I never had any interest in alcohol or saw the fascination that everyone else had with it.  I still don’t.

During one of our family trips to visit my grandparents in Oregon (Tom’s parents, that is), Tom’s mother thought she’d make me some homemade macaroni and cheese since she’d heard that was one of my favorite foods.  Unfortunately, on the day she made it, she decided to cook some hamburger, as well.  When it came time to mix the cheese in with the macaroni noodles, she used the same wooden spoon that she had been using to cook the meat.  As a result, some pieces of hamburger that were stuck to the spoon mixed in with the cheese.  So my lunch went from being macaroni and cheese to something resembling Hamburger Helper.  And for someone like myself who wasn’t a meat eater, the thought of eating that was horrifying.  I saw what was coming, but there was nothing I could do to get out of it.     When Tom’s mother was done making the macaroni, she poured it into a small yellow bowl and served it to me.  I sat at the head of the table, while both she and my mom sat next to me on either side of the table to watch me eat it.  Tom’s mother glared at me as I carefully tried to eat around the meat.  It was easy to see that she was getting mad and wanted to say something, due to my going so slowly and taking so long to eat it.  Finally, she asked me, “What’s the matter?  Don’t you like it?”  I tried to choke out a response, saying that I thought it was good, but it wasn’t very convincing.  Needless to say, I didn’t finish it.  I either said I was full or my mom, realizing my predicament, got me out of it; I can't remember which.     Like Tom, his mother was annoyed that I was “too picky” about what I ate.  She thought that I should be able to eat anything, like “normal” kids.  I don’t remember her cooking anything special for me again.

In a seventh grade English class, we had an assignment where we were supposed to teach something to the students while standing in front of the class.  Since I was an artist, I thought I’d teach everyone how to draw something.  I was a big fan of Garfield at the time (one of the two popular orange cats from newspaper comic strips, Heathcliff being the other), so I thought I’d give a step-by-step tutorial on how to draw him.  Everyone took out a pencil and a piece of paper and followed along as I showed them how I drew him on the blackboard.

In my eighth grade history class, the teacher called on me to answer a question.  I read aloud my answer.  Not only was it correct (and very well written, if I do say so myself), but I got the impression he wasn't expecting much since I could tell he was only making another attempt to bring me “out of my shell.”  He seemed genuinely surprised at how good my answer was.  Then he replied, “I should call on you more often.”  But thankfully, he didn’t.

It sounds like a cliche, but it’s true: since I was the “fat kid” and the least athletic, I was always chosen last when they picked teams for sports in gym class.

Unlike junior high, I never took a shower after gym class in high school.  Luckily, I somehow managed to get out of having to go through that fat, naked humiliation a second time.  I saw the showers from a distance, but I never went in.  As far as I remember, I don’t think any of the other boys took a shower either.

It was bad having Gym as the first class of the day.  I’d spend all that time (and hairspray) trying to make my hair look decent before I left for school in the morning.  Then it would get all sweaty and messed up during Gym.  My hair must have looked like hell for the rest of the day.  Looking back, I shouldn’t have wasted all that time (and hairspray) trying to make it look good in the first place.

I once walked in on someone trying to steal my gym clothes in the high school locker room.  The lockers were rectangular baskets (thin on the front and back, longer on the sides) that could be pulled out like a drawer, were open on top, and were made of widely spaced iron wire so you could easily see inside.  The baskets were stored inside a large, two-sided iron-frame cabinet that was painted dark blue and rolled on black caster wheels.  There were four shelves on both sides of the cabinet, and three baskets could fit on a shelf, left to right, for a total of twenty-four (twelve on one side of the cabinet and twelve on the other).  The baskets were individually secured to the front of the cabinet by small padlocks or combination locks.  My locker/basket was on the top, right corner of one side of one of the cabinets.  One day, I walked in on a kid who was trying to break into my locker by bending my basket around the corner of the cabinet frame to the right, just enough so he could reach in and steal my gym clothes.  I simply stood behind him, watching him.  He grabbed my clothes, but before he could manage to pull them out between the frame and the basket, I asked him, “Can I help you?”  He turned his head to the right to look at me and asked, “Are these yours?”  I replied that they were, and he moved on, presumably to ransack someone else’s locker.

I had a run-in with the high school librarian once.  The library had just installed new security detectors at the exits to prevent theft (I don’t know who would want to steal anything from the library, but anyway…).  I had some important computer discs in my binder, and I’d heard that those detectors were not kind to computer discs since they put out magnetic waves and created the possibility of erasing them.  So, since I didn’t want to risk my discs being erased, I lifted my binder up and over the detectors when I walked out.  The librarian saw what I did and clearly took offense.  He stopped me and told me to come back in and go out the exit again “the right way.”  I didn’t want to go through again, but I also didn’t want to cause a scene, so I reluctantly came back in and went through the exit again.  I was super pissed for the rest of the day, hoping my discs weren’t damaged.  But after a very long day of waiting to get to computer class later that afternoon, I confirmed that all my programs were still on them and that they were okay.

I came back from Christmas vacation one year in high school and realized I forgot my locker combination.  After a brief panic, I decided to try opening it by approximating the turns and moving the dial without putting much thought into it—i.e., just closing my eyes and going “Yoda” on it.  Believe it or not, it opened on the first try.  For years, I’ve always wondered if any three numbers would have worked.  Maybe there really weren’t any combinations on any of the lockers.  And if so, could anyone have opened any locker whenever they wanted?  It’s just that I find it so hard to believe that I opened it so easily.

The Media class teacher showed us the movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”  I didn’t like westerns at the time only because Tom was a big fan of them (I automatically disliked anything he liked just because he liked it).  But as I watched the movie, I fell in love with it.  I loved the characters, the setting, the humor, and the music.  Everything.  I’ve been a fan of westerns ever since, even more so after Tom left.

One of my all-time favorite things Tom ever said: Not too long before my parents broke up, Tom asked me to go somewhere with him one Saturday.  I can't remember why or where he wanted me to go with him, but to get out of it, I replied that I had homework to do (which was my default “get out of spending time with Tom” card).  I vividly remember his sarcastic response: “You have an excuse for everything.”  Hey, whatever works.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to enjoy the news of Tom’s death as much as I wished I could have at the time.  It was just after that event that my sister’s mental health took a nosedive.  She had been physically ill since she was very young, in and out of doctors offices, and on and off prescription medications her entire life.  But for the few years leading up to Tom’s death, she really took a turn for the worse, mentally.  She hanged herself two months after Tom died.

–Here are a few final examples to show what Tom was like:

Tom was always trying to be “the funny guy” when he was around other people, always telling jokes and trying to trick them into thinking he was the life of the party.  Only those of us who lived with him, as well as a handful of other people, knew what a lying, cheating, narcissistic bastard he really was.

As I’ve shown through numerous examples, Tom always treated my mom like crap.  Although he never abused her physically, he constantly insulted and degraded her.  She never noticed it, though.  She just thought that was normal, assuming that’s how husbands treated wives.  Other people noticed, however.  Over the years, several people, including friends, family, and business associates, regularly brought up the subject after witnessing Tom’s behavior toward her.  They would ask her if she knew how badly she was treated by him.  It was news to her.

Tom suggested to my mom that she should start drinking so she would be more "fun" when they went out.

Tom always took off his wedding ring when he played with his band.  He claimed it “got in the way” when he played guitar.  Sure, Tomy (wink, wink).  Whatever you say (nudge, nudge).

Tom regularly cheated people out of money.  He cheated his bandmates, for one.  He would never divide their money equally.  Tom always took the biggest chunk and then gave whatever was left for the other guys to split up, letting them believe it was equally divided among all of them.

Tom had a trick he frequently pulled at the refrigeration equipment company he worked for.  He would intentionally order more equipment for companies than they needed so he could get a bigger commission.  They’d always send back the extra equipment they didn’t need, but Tom had already gotten his commission by then.

After being away from comic books during my junior high years, I started getting back into them in my senior year of high school.  Tom came into my bedroom one night when I was reading and picked up one of my comics to look at it (I somehow remember that it was a copy of Uncanny X-Men #210).  As he did, he bent the front cover back, wrapping it behind the book.  I was (and still am) very particular about my things and always try to be careful with them, so I asked him not to bend the cover back.  He proceeded to bend the cover back farther, just because he knew it irritated me.

Tom was involved in a dispute with a building contractor over the way the guy was building Tom’s parents’ new house here in town.  So to try and get back at the contractor, Tom filled a shoebox with dog shit and mailed it to him.

Tom’s obituary reads that he wants to be remembered as “the poor little rich boy that has left more in this world than he has taken.”  Even in death, he’s trying to fool people into thinking he was8a good person.  I would expect nothing less.

Copyright © 2023 Larry Dempsey.  All rights reserved.

[asterdeer]

i took that raads???? autism test and got a decently highish score, like the “strong suggestion of autism” range, but then i took the masking quiz and got a 150 when the average score for nonbinary neurodivergents is 122. so. is that anything

[dolugecat]

On some Japanese social issues I had learned about at uni and abroad):

(Rb ok!)

Legit had an epiphany about the true hidden meaning of the last arc of Mob Psycho 100. It’s hella projection but for real there is nothing neurotypical about Mob or Mob Psycho. I do not wish to enforce my interpretation on others (ironic bc I do that all the time but this is a serious social theory). There are some interesting and very sad social issues in Japan that the west really doesn’t understand but would I think help people understand a lot of context behind not only Mob Psycho, but also a lot of other anime. I learned this at my shitty university (prestigious but horrific) and while studying abroad in Japan and talking with Japanese peers. Get ready here we go (and tw for bullying and darker things):

Unfortunately in East Asian education systems, bullying can be extremely intense. Growing up I assumed it was over exaggerated extremely in anime for drama but it really can be so horrific. From what I’ve heard, there is often a single kid or so who is just shit on by everyone else, even the teacher. Mogami land *is* the reality of some Japanese kids. I’ve read that in Korea, this social punching bag sometimes is just the darkest skinned person (yayyy colorism /angry) and or someone who does not fit in. I mean, we have that in America too, but maybe not as common for the bullying to be as focused on one misfit rather than several. These kids just can’t escape the stigma too, kids from other schools find out they were a major victim at their old school and it starts anew. Thus there is so much stigma and incentive to join in on bullying so you aren’t the one. Sadly, this also ofc leads to higher suicide rates. That’s where the “shoe on building roof” anime trope comes in, bc somehow taking off shoes is relayed to death (I forgot why sorry)

There is a difference in how intense in general high school vs college is too. In the West, commonly college is the more intense curriculum and is harder than high school, but in Japan it’s usually the opposite. Grind suuuupppeeerrrr hard for entrance exams (huge standardized tests that determines what college you can qualify to) bc unlike the ACT or SAT here, that test is by far the most important factor for college admission. Then chill and relax a bit in college. Can’t relate. Name and prestige is very critical for job application, more important than here. That’s why planning out your future is sooo much more intense for Japanese high schoolers than in America, and why there is sooo much more pressure to excel in high school than here. Japanese school years and holidays are done different than ours, I’d suggest looking it up.

Social prestige of going to an American high school or college is nuts. Like whyyy do you value our shitty education, Japan’s is much higher quality (it’s bc we neo colonized them). Being able to speak English is very, very highly valued and any association with Americans make you cooler. From my experience, some Japanese students got very excited to practice speaking English with us, and their biggest issues with learning it is pronunciation, lmao. Wasai english is unique slang that is indeed English words but it’s kinda different and it’s kinda jarring to remember lol. So, Teru having parents that are working overseas isn’t too uncommon, idk about leaving him absolutely alone, but I did have a ex-friend who just came from Japan in middle school who’s situation probably wasn’t too far off from that. Empty wealth with no love, it’s no wonder those kind of people can end up being huge bullies (minori?)

I did a presentation on 引きこもり(hikikomori) for which means “shut in”, (like Serizawa) and it’s fucked up. It’s a social phenomena where according to some Japanese researchers a mix of undisciplined parenting, guilt/not living up to expectations, and hopelessness makes an alarming amount of youth/ young adults literally never go out side their house/room. Often a parent is “enabling” the behavior by supporting them, but idk the articles seemed a bit victim-blaming to me when I read it, but I don’t think I should make a judgement too hard, not my place. I will say I do suspect and believe I read something to support that ASD might play a role in hikikomoris (there is pitiful resources for autistic people in Asia, much much less support than even here, to the point I don’t think most know it exists). Like come on, with the other points I laid out my personal opinion as an Asian American with autism is that it really seems it’s unknowing ableism against autistic classmates, but I didn’t grow up in Asia so I don’t want to say.

Mental health in general is tragically quite abysmal in Japan, and with it being so hyper competitive and brutal work culture, it’s no surprise birth rate in Japan is so low; some Japanese young adults say it seems unethical to bring a life to such hostile world. Suicide rate is of the highest in the world. It’s fucked, I’ve interacted with some of the locals in Tokyo and they were so nice, but the business men just looked dead inside, it’s so sad.

Relationships between child and parent is also strained bc of this intense work and school culture. Quality time is too scarce when you gotta work so much. And the pressure from parents to do well in education or else you might end up socially stigmatized is rough. Bc your job is who you are, it’s hyper capitalism (thanks us for making them do this)

With autism being so unknown, support for parents in raising autistic kids is almost nonexistent. What happens if the “darker” side of ASD shows up in kids? I used to be a menace when I had meltdowns, I felt so bad but really just became so indiscriminately violent. See where this is going? Legit, I think ESP is a sort of metaphor for neurodivergance to ONE. There is so much stigma around it, and even less way for kids to understand why they are different than the others. My Korean family can’t admit we all got ASD, too much fear and internalized shame.

I got finally diagnosed with ASD as an adult and I’ll tell ya, I relate too much to Mob hurting Ritsu. I felt so bad, but also not in control, I knew what I was doing but not how to stop. Luckily, is was blessed in that my hyperfixations involved science and logic, so I did well at school. Sadly, our boy Mob just don’t got the passion or ability to do well at school. His kanji is very bad, even to point of not being confident he wrote a kanji (世) they learn when they are 9, in elementary school (thanks @katyatalks). Him being a bit berated by his parents for having bad grades and bending spoons seems harsh to Westerners I think, but IMO it’s pretty tame from what I’ve seen of some Asian parents (I get to say that lmao). Ofc, however the shaming is very real and Mob just agreeing with them about how weird and stupid he thinks he is so sad. There is even more pressure for the eldest to be better than here, I feel from some interactions. Nonetheless, it’s implied Mob is quite emotionally detached from his parents, even though he loves them, which also adds to his emotional complex. Combined with originally fragile self esteem and feelings of worthlessness, we got one emotionally stunted boy. However, contrary to common belief people with ASD are sometimes hyper empathic and experience emotions very intensely. We are prone to having “meltdowns” which if not assisted with can be quite violent if very intense. For me, my worse meltdowns as a kid came from when I didn’t understand why I wasn’t getting what I wanted, it seemed selfish and cruel of me but I couldn’t control it. I wanted to be a good kid, so why did hit my moms leg at target when she refused to buy me Pokémon toys? I couldn’t come up with a good reason for why my mind just commanded my body to do bad things, just a single thought was controlling me, I want I want I want I want I want ____. Which I argue could be what ???% represents… bc well…. Yeah….. hmm….. not in control of self (mob unconscious), selfish (not actually, I’ve forgave myself but my “normal” kid self was so ashamed), destructive, hurt family, wanting to stop but can’t, that’s kind of…. Too relatable.

But legit, since realizing my new HC, I’ve started to think of the last chapter of mp100 when I “explode” and it helps me feel better and I do gain “control” a bit easier. I don’t feel so bad anymore either, Mob!

[jasmine-the-fox]

Autism can’t be treated!!!

OK so... When I was 11 there was an attempt to diagnose me with autism... It failed and we left it be until at the age of 18 and in high school, someone believed I had autism so I got tested and was confirmed at the age of 19 with autism spectrum... I looked online and there are no diets, no exercise routine, no food restriction plan and no medication that can cure it... Adding the fact that some parents think there so smart by self-diagnosing there kids with autism... So here another salt fic starring me!!

Jasmine never thought anything strange would happen until the second week after she told the class about her autism, it all started on a Friday when Alya came up to her about the pool party they were having on Saturday, Jas not liking last minute plans of any kind said she wasn’t going... Causing the class to get mad at her and demand answers... So she gave them an answer.

“I’m sorry but your telling me this at the last possible minute, I didn’t know about your pool party until now and I already had plans for tomorrow, plus changing my plans all of a sudden causes me stress because I have autism... If you had asked me weeks ago I would have said yes” she explained as the bell then rang to end the day so everyone could head home for the weekend, Alya was pissed at Jasmine’s explanation and wondered if it had something to do with the three bullies of there class (Chloe, Sabrina and Marinette)

So while Jasmine was with her friends, Chloe, Sabrina, Marinette, Luka, Kagami, Marc, Aurore, Mireille and Felix... The class was at the pool furious at Jas from what Lila says “I used to have autism myself, but for a year and a half I took this medication and was cured of it, to think she would still blame everything on her autism when she could have gotten it treated is horrible!” Alya asked her if she had the medicine but Lila claimed she got them for each month.

So they formed a plan, for now Lila couldn’t get the “medicine” until the week after, but when she does they planned to everyday leave her one with a note making her take it, then at the start and end of each month they will talk to her at the last minute about plans and see if she starts to get better “It’s the best way to get her started when it works, once she agrees to come and is fine we can start going further” Lila claimed making them agree to the plan as they tried to work on who would leave the note and “medicine” on Jasmine’s desk.

Jas didn’t understand on Monday why the class acted so strange all of a sudden, the fact they spoke about her in whispers made her nervous and she wasn’t excited to know what they were planning, even so she focused on her own thing and got to studying and meeting with her friends to talk about what they wanted to do next, she was excited and couldn’t wait to have fun with them once again heck Chloe had planned for the roof of the hotel to be reserved for them to have fun and she couldn’t wait to relax on the roof and in the pool with them.

And then it started.

The next Monday, she got to school and found a note with what looked to be a candy shaped like a pill on her desk, the note was from Rose saying how she hoped this note helped make her day and Jas was so confused that while she did eat the candy she threw the note away, it didn’t make sense to her at all... But she got this everyday, everyday she would go to her seat and someone she wasn’t friends with would leave her a note with a candy of some kind and they would act like when she ate it that it was the best things ever, still she left it all be and focused on her own thing.

Then a couple of weeks later Alya came over again, she talked about this new horror movie that came out and she couldn’t wait for her to join... Once again she refused, claimed it was last minute, she would be stressed, she has an autism and she hates horror movies, class ended and she walked out of class getting ready to head home, Alya was pissed that the “medicine” wasn’t working but Lila explained “The pills take time Alya, remember? It took me a year and a half before I was cured of my autism... Who knows? Maybe it will take less time for Jasmine... Or longer” she explained as they all headed home.

After that the class decided to talk to Jas at the last minute about plans for the weekend twice a month, once at the start and once at the end of the month to see how she was doing... But there were no changes at all, the class still listened to Lila about how the medicine takes time to work and claimed they should start small, but Alya ignored her words and told the class to keep inviting her at the last minute to things and see how it goes in the end, with time Jasmine began to not understand the pills and decided to secretly pocket one to get answers “I brought this back with me” she said while showing the candy in her hand “It’s always there with a note from someone in the class and I don’t know why and what it is” she explained as Felix took it with the promise of getting answers.

A few days later he had the answer “It’s a candy from Italy, I presume Lila must have had them shipped to her and more then likely made the class believe it was something else” he explained as Chloe then took an extra Jas brought to try like the others before spitting it in the trash “It’s not even that good... Why give these to you?” she asked as they all did the same “I don’t know, I also don’t like them but I eat them to be nice, the only thing I know is that they look like medicine” she said making Sabrina wonder if they had some kind of plan connected to these little candies.

Still the candies kept on coming, and since Jas now knew what they were she decided to secretly collected them just in case while Felix order some candies just in case, slowly a year had gone by and she still got these candies and instead Jasmine began to take pictures in secret while editing the picture to say the day the picture was taken just in case before getting rid of everything... The class still spoke to her about last minute things she was invited to and she still refused and repeated the same thing, stress and autism... She was certain Alya and the class were getting pissed at her... But mostly Alya.

Slowly another year was close to it’s end... Alya was her limit as Jas wasn’t getting any better and she was done since Jasmine once again gave the same excuse for the before summer dance “Were making her go! Adrien will pick me and Nino up and then will stop by Jasmine’s place and i’ll grab her! We just need to keep her there” she claimed and everyone agreed and for the first time ever... Lila was scared of being found out for her lies.

She was certain that Alya’s plan would be her downfall.

Jasmine was so excited, today she was dressed to head on a triple date (her with Luka, Mari with Felix and Chloe with Kagami) she was wearing a nice outfit Chloe got her and she was so excited to show off, she had just gotten outside to wait for Mari to join her when a limo stopped right before her and Alya jumped out and grabbed her to get into the limo that then drove, she tried to make her let her go but Nino and Adrien moved to help her, she was shocked in what they were doing as took her to the school gym for the before summer dance, once in Kim and Ivan blocked the doors as the girls rushed over to her with Alya beside her talking about her happy they were she was here.

She tried to get out, but every possible exit were blocked, she could feel a panic attack coming as she quickly went into the bathroom to message her friends on the situation and begging for help because of what the class was doing to her right now, once done Alya came in with a smile “Come on Jas! Dancing will be amazing and Adrien will be happy to finally get to be with you!” she claimed with a smile as Lila looked panicked at what Alya was planning.

Once on the dancefloor, Jasmine was moved around until she got dizzy and just felt like she would faint, then Adrien grabbed her... She really wanted to leave and was trying to find an exit, she could hear the class getting upset with her for not trying, Alya yelling at her to focus on Adrien, her phone filming them, Lila yelling at them to leave her alone and Adrien trying to get her attention... She was at her limit, she couldn’t take much more of this at all, she then her the door slam open.

And then nothing but silence and darkness.

By the time she came to, she was in a hospital, her throat was very dry and she saw her friends in the room, the first thing she did was ask for water, then she asked for the doctor to ask what was her condition... Simple enough she was over stressed and lacking water so she needed to hydrate herself some more before being allowed to leave, once gone she asked her friends what happened after she collapsed.

After she had messaged them, Sabrina called her dad about everything, Chloe told her father, Felix, Kagami and Luka told there mother’s while Marinette called Nadja about needing to leave Manon alone with her parents for a bit, when the gang got there, Luka and Felix worked together to get in, by the time Luka got to her, Jas was on the floor, puke was by her with Adrien and Alya covered a bit in it, Felix moved to check on her and began to quickly yell for an ambulance because Jas was breathing weakly.

Officer Roger demanded answers on who’s idea it was to force an autistic person to be so overly stressed to have a panic attack, once no one answered and the gang got Jasmine out, the mayor asked again “It was Alya’s idea!” everyone turned to Lila “Alya planned this! She said she with Nino and Adrien would grab Jasmine from her home and force here, all exits needed to be blocked so she couldn’t leave was also her idea!” she admitted and with that Alya was cuffed with Nino and Adrien being done the same for they helped her.

The class was all at the police station being questioned after there parents arrive, from what Sabrina found out, the class was blaming Lila for everything while Lila claimed Alya caused Jasmine’s panic attack, three days later, Jasmine was in front of Lila’s building complex, she had to find out why she would make her have Italian candies and what she did “Hello, are you looking for someone?” she turned to find a woman who looked like Lila to her surprise “I’m just here to ask questions to Lila Rossi” she replied making the woman blink and have her follow her inside “I’m her mother actually, I presume it’s about the before summer dance incident?” she asked and Jasmine nodded.

Once inside, Lila comes out of her room to find Jasmine “I’m guessing you want answers” she said making Jasmine nod as the three sit down at a table, Jas pulls out the little bag of candies she collected “What did you make the class think these were?” she first asked making Lila look down while her mother looked at them “I lied about having autism, claimed these candies were pills I took for a year and a half to be cured” she explained as her mother dropped the bag on the floor.

“They had me get one everyday hopping to “fix” me... But it was a lie and because of you I had kidnapped to go to the before summer dance, had a severe panic attack and puked” Jas hissed as Lila’s mother looked to be shaking with anger as Lila nodded, Jasmine demanded that Lila admits everything and her mother agreed so Lila did as told, she went to the school and admitted everything was a lie, then she went to the police station and told them it was her fault that Jasmine had a panic attack.

As a result, the mayor didn’t think Paris was safe so he had her deported back to Italy, after that he had the class be punished for what they caused Jas, of course Alya and Adrien tried to force her to pay for there clothes but Chloe told them how it was there own fault they pushed Jas to have a panic attack in the first place, after that the class got sued for everything they did to Jas and Mari after Lila lied about them... There parents were having them pay back for anything they destroyed, some were forced to work and were punished for there actions while Jas and Mari ended up happy.

When school started again, Adrien tried to get Jas to date him... Only to see her with Luka all happy as they headed to class, when he turned to Mari he saw her with Felix so he turned to get answers from Chloe or Kagami only for them to ignore him and leave him there... He was so pissed about that, but with time students heard about what Caline’s class did to Jas during the before summer dance and they all protected her and her friends and kept the class away from them... Then five years later, Caline’s class either worked in a way there dream job (well not there dream job but something connected to what they love) or they worked something they never wanted to do.

Meanwhile, Jas and her friends had massive success in life, each of them had amazing jobs and had the perfect life that Caline’s class envied.

Goes to show that they should have never thought Jasmine’s autism could be cured.

Do you guys see where I went with this fic? See, I was diagnosed 2 years ago when I was 19 of autism spectrum, I found out many things that I do or did were normal to people with autism... But when I explain this to others they say this “You can’t blame it on your autism” which the thing is... I wasn’t, all I did was explain to people that this is natural to those with autism like me, and here’s the thing everyone, if you self diagnosed your kid with autism... Your wrong and need to have them tested by a professional or it won’t end so well, also there is no diet or type of eating way that will help “weaken” your autism, only a medicine that between the age of 5 and 16 can be taken for a specific thing autistic people do or something therapists can have them do.

But that’s it! So don’t think there’s a vaccine being made or a medicine! Cause there isn’t! So listen to me when I say that your crazy to think that! Autism isn’t caused by a way of eating, a vitamin of any kind, an activity you do, a routine you have or being in the sun!!! It’s genetic!!! Simple as that! GENETIC! And if you think other wise then look it up on our good friend google!!!

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #530

i’m sorry i’m spamming tf out this tag, y’all. I missed surveys a lot bro.

Do you know anyone who does have cancer? I don't believe I know anyone with active cancer, no. Has your house or where you stayed ever flooded? My childhood home, at least outside, got pretty damn flooded from Hurricane Floyd. Thankfully, our porch was tall and it was a brick house with a strong foundation, so we were fine. Who or what would you like to be remembered as when you leave this earth? I want to be remembered as someone who deeply cared about others and animals, and hopefully as a relatively talented artist of some sort. Ever felt like punching a hole in a wall? Yes, but I would never actually do that. Ever been a part of a search party? No. Have you ever had swollen ankles? Yes, from edema. I actually experienced awful swelling leaving the hospital yesterday that I nearly collapsed going to the car and came so close to crying. I'd done a lot (for me, anyway...) of walking, power-walking at that, and my legs just can't handle it. if you could have any accent which one would you want? British. What is your least favorite fruit? Maybe cantaloupe? I'm not sure. [insert a random fact about yourself here please: Ummm I was born in an ice storm. If you could own your own foundation what would it benefit? Maybe like, abused and rescued pets? I'd have to think on this a while. Are you against wearing real animal fur? Unless you live in the arctic and absolutely need to for survival, absolutely. Would you know how to use a flare gun in case of an emergency? No, but it looks easy enough to figure out. Ever seen a woodpecker? Yeah! do you know anyone diagnosed with autism? My niece, and Mom and I speculate I might be a high-functioning autistic for a pretty big number of reasons. I was just never tested for it and by this point in my life really don't care. Have you ever been bullied because of the things you like? I was never really bullied, but I felt very judged in elementary school for being a girl that loved Pokemon. Have you bullied others because they like things you do not? No. Never, ever aim to make people ashamed of what makes them happy. Have you ever been a bad friend? I'm sure I have. Do you like Elton John? Not particularly, no. I do enjoy quite a few covers of "Rocket Man," though, and I like his parts in "Ordinary Man" by Ozzy. Have any celebrity deaths hit you hard? Which one(s)? Steve Irwin hit me the hardest; he was my hero. Chester Bennington was also hard. Have you ever been ghosted before? No. Would you prefer a black or white cellphone, or a bright colored one? Brightly colored. Does your mom, dad, or siblings play any instruments? No. My older sister played the clarinet in either middle or high school, I don't remember, but I'm sure she couldn't play it now. Your last ex: how did you two get together? My mind was kinda drifting while I was riding in the car with Mom, and I rather suddenly had a daydream about her and realized "oh shit I like her" and not long after told her. Does your mom dye her hair? Yes. She's self-conscious of her gray. If yes, does she deny that she does? No. What's the last thing you searched on Google? The definition of "succor" because I heard it in Elden Ring, and it was a very familiar word, but I just couldn't quite remember what it meant. How would you react if your mom got a lip piercing? THAT would be shocking. What animal is really common to see in the woods where you live? Squirrels. Would you like to follow in one of your parents' footsteps? No, honestly. What/who do you take the most pictures of? My cat, lol. Be honest, does the person you like actually deserve you? Or are they actually not worthy of your affections? I don't deserve him. But I'm trying to be what he's worthy of. Who were you in a relationship with last October? Girt. What is better, history or science? Science, for sure. Would you ever wear black lipstick? Do you know anyone who does? If I ever wear lipstick, it's always black. If you wear eye shadow, do you put on a dark colour or a light? And if you wear mascara, what colour is it? Always black, bby. Do you combine your socks and underwear in the same drawer? Yes. If the last person you kissed told you that kissing you was a mistake, what would your reaction be? I'd cry, like, a lot. What’s the meanest thing anyone’s said to you? I don't want to think of this. Which one of your friends should be a stand-up comedian? GIRT! I have believed since I met this dude that he's the funniest person I know. He makes me laugh so damn easily. Is your mom a better driver or your dad? Yes; my dad has a tendency to tailgate. What did you do the last time you hung out with your boyfriend? We played Shadow of the Colossus! We've only got two bosses left. What was the last food item craving you had? Peach rings. John had them in his Elden Ring vid I was watching yesterday, and I'm just like,,,,, bro mail me some What do you think of archaeology? It's super interesting! Do you like D&D or Magic The Gathering the most? I've never played the former because I'm too awkward for it, but I do enjoy Magic. Did you get enough rest last night? Nowhere NEAR enough. I was too excited to be home and wanted to do stuff instead of sleep. Who would you like to spend one day with that is no longer living? Steve irwin. What are you least proud of? My body. Have you ever kissed someone in the rain? Yeah. Do you think anyone has feelings for you? I know he does. When’s the last time you talked with the opposite sex on the phone? A few days when Girt called me at the hospital. Where did you get the shirt you're wearing? Wal-Mart. It's actually a really cool candy skull tank top. Honestly, what’s on your mind right now? BRO if the recent surveys have been enough of a sign, I've been really, really appreciative and thankful for my boyfriend lately, more than usual, or ever. Where is your boyfriend/girlfriend right now? He's at work. Favourite place in your country? Bro I haven't explored NEARLY enough locations to answer this. I just know I love mountainous areas. Do you get confused with other nationalities? No. Which of your neighbouring countries would you like to visit most/know best? Canada. Which stereotype about your country you hate the most and which one you somewhat agree with? Uhhhh... most hated, I suppose that we're all starving for war or that we see America as flawless. One that I agree with is we absolutely stick our noses into places they don't belong. Are you interested in your country’s history? To be real, no, but I'm not interested in history, period. Do you like your country’s flag and/or emblem? What about the national anthem? Our flag is fine, imo. I don't have much of an opinion on the anthem. What makes you proud about your country? I mean, I guess we're probably the most free? But I'm not interested in world politics like that to really know. Do you have people of different nationalities in your family? Ancestors, yeah. Not close family, though. If the last person you kissed invited you to a family dinner, would you go? I'd be stoked! I wanna meet his family so badly, he's just self-conscious of his house because it's apparently hectic and likes to get away from it. Do you remember what you were wearing last time you cried? Hospital scrubs. Do you have any friends you have never gotten into an argument with? I know with certainty I've never had an argument with Tez! Have you ever been in an on-and-off relationship? So annoying right? No. Have you ever developed a crush on someone the first day you met them? I don't think so? I thought Jason was kinda weird at first, but I did develop a crush on him quickly. Would you be able to tell me your mom’s favorite food? No. Maybe something Chinese. Would you rather have a pet snake or a pet cat? Those are the two pets I have and adore! ;-; IF I had to pick between the two though and my current babies weren't in the question, I'd probs choose a snake. Have you ever gotten anything racist about you yelled at you? No. Does the last person whose house you were at like anyone? Yeah, she's married. Has a boyfriend/girlfriend ever given you a stuffed animal? Yeah! I love that. What is your opinion on sex without emotional commitment? It ain't for me for sure, but if others are safe, smart, and knowlegeeble about any precautions they need to take (like if having a sexually transmitted disease), you do you. I've heard there's science about an almost inevitable attachment, so it may not be the smartest choice, but I'm not sure about it. Name of your first grade teacher? Mrs. Jones. What books, if any, have made you cry? Oh god, many. Whose car were you in last��? My mom's. Who was the last person to piss you off? My mom and I got into a fight earlier, and I was STEAMING afterwards.

[canirim]

Things I want to do in 2022

I really hope this new year is better and kinder to all of us. Now, dividing my wishes in topics:

My Art

I want to experiment even more, with new mediums, colors, compositions...

If classes in real life start again AND I manage to go to my uni’s city, I really want to work on their ateliers, specially the ceramics!

Learn more about art printing

Online

Finally get to 500 followers on my social medias

Actually have an streaming schedule

Get better and faster at editing my videos

Understand the algorithm of social medias better so I can take advantage of it

Start an online shop for art prints and stickers

Health

Start dancing again! I don’t know yet what kind of dance, maybe try ballet again, or jazz dancing. I enjoyed a lot doing belly dance and aerial silks too. But I also would love to try pole dancing and tap dance - so many options!

Remember to stretch everyday correctly, never stay sitting down for longer than 2 hours without getting up.

Drinking at least 3 bottles of water per day - I already got a lot better at remembering to drink water, but it’s still not enough.

Get a bike and start going out with it.

Taking sun baths on the early morning - before 9 am.

Other things

Start reading again - let’s set the bar “low” for this year, at least 30 books. (Low comparing to before high school, where I would read at least 50 per year - was so proud of one year I got 84!)

Get back to writing - doesn’t matter what, fanfiction, poetry, short tales...

Learn to sew a few clothes - I really want to make all of my clothing someday, if possible.

Learn embroidery!

Get a better comprehension and speaking of spanish!

If possible, I would love to visit Chile again, and get to know Argentina and Uruguay, since I’ll be studying so close to the border.

I also really want to be able to visit Portugal and Spain again, meet the family that I haven’t seen since I was 6.

IF I manage to get better at spanish, I would like to try and start learning a fourth language. Don’t know which yet - italian, japanese, mandarin (modern), french or arabic.

IF possible, I would like to be able to *slowly* let go of my antidepressants. My dosage has already gone down this past years, but since 2020 I’ve been stuck.

Get actually tested to TDAH and autism, and if confirmed, learn ways to cope with what bothers me. I’ve been thinking about buying some ear noice reducing plugs for when I am out, since it sometimes makes me anxious.

And above all, I want to make the most out of my time on this world. No matter what happens, or where I am, I hope I can continue trying and hoping for better things. I wish all of you the same. Happy New Year to all of us that survived these trying times -  I hope I can say that again at the end.

[cardboardangel]

My Disability Experience

CW: Medical trouble, pain, gaslighting

(When I refer to a 'you' I am talking to a roommate)

Most people would start by saying 'in a typical day', but I can't because there is NO typical day. No day is the same for me, as much as I wish it was. Like today. I woke up, my right shoulder feeling like there was a rusty screw somewhere in the joint, and my left hip feeling like someone was shoving a nail into it every time I moved. And my uterus feeling like something inside is stabbing outward every so often. Yesterday, for most of the day, i felt like I had a balloon full of oobleck behind my face, my ears were killing me. But I wanted to make soup for all of us, cuz I know soup is super comforting and can help a lot with recovering. Plus minestrone has beans, veggies, spinach and such, so good nutrients to aid recovery. I threw away my trash, and put away the remaining veg and that was all I had energy for after cooking. Hell, if I didn't use the instant pot I couldn't have even done that much... the main reason I WANTED an instant pot was because it's something that can cook without me having to stand over it, and takes much less time than the crock pot... When I cleaned the yard? That pain in my shoulder was in both shoulders, and in both my hips and knees. I was completely wrecked at the end of each day it took for me to do it all. The end of each day meant a sunlight hangover--my sinuses swelling, my joints throbbing, my head and neck aching like whiplash. On the last day of it, even my goddamn FINGERNAILS hurt and my asthma was beginning to act up because of the exertion and inflammation it all put me in. And yet I could not stop, because after months of trying to get all of the household involved in it, I knew I had to lead the charge.

Some days I am lucky and I'm in very little pain. Those are the days that I start doing things, even though I know if I'm not careful I'll trigger the pain.

But often on those days, it might not be the pain, but the lack of energy. And when I say lack of energy, I mean it feels like I am moving against a current in a river, fighting the weight of my own limbs just to get shit done. On real bad energy days, I am trying to wade through that thick kind of mud that is often on the sides of some rivers, so much so that even getting out of my chair to get something to eat is a monumental task. When I don't tell you how I'm feeling, there are several reasons behind it. First and foremost, I have been conditioned my entire life to minimize my pain, don't complain, it's unbecoming to bitch about things all the time...

The next biggest reason is because for most of my life, I've been told that I was imagining the pain. That I was just lazy, or just a baby about the usual aches and pains of life. My own mother didn't take my pain seriously until I was 18, and learning how to drive. After an hour of driving, I was unable to close my hands. To the point that I couldn't open our front door for myself because my hands hurt so badly. Then she finally said 'yaknow, that ain't right' and we began my quest through dozens of doctors telling me that it had to be imaginary or I was exaggerating, or perhaps wanting attention.

The third reason I often don't broadcast what pain I'm in... because I don't WANT to make you guys feel bad. I don't WANT to give excuses, I don't want to make you guys have to do more because of me, when I SHOULD be able to do things.

Getting my Sjogren's diagnosis was a day I actually cried in relief, because there was a name for why I was in pain for so much of my life. Why I was always so tired. Why being outside always seemed to drain me and make me sick. Yes, Sjogren's could kill me if it ever comes out of remission and begins to attack my internal organs and not just my joints. But it's real, and it has a name. It's something I can take a blood test for and it tells a doctor why I'm complaining about this stuff. But... overall?

It's bittersweet. I might know that I have a real diagnosis, but I can't help but start to remember all the years I was told it was fake. That it is an excuse. Year after year after year of that shit wears down on your mind. You start to doubt your own experience, your own ability to judge reality.

Something I also have run into is, even with an official diagnosis, people tend to get frustrated because I can't reliably do things. I can't guarantee I can do a thing one day to the next, because I can have three good days in a row--and then suddenly I can hardly get out of bed. And people tend to get annoyed when a condition doesn't go away. When you can't get better.

More than once, I've told someone I'm feeling icky, and they've replied with 'don't you always feel icky? push through it!'. Some days I can. Like the days I cleaned the kitchen or laundry room. Other days, my neuroses--anxiety, feelings of inadequacy, feelings of obligation, feelings of compulsion--overpower my pain. Those days are the worst because I start out knowing that I'm going to be in absolute agony as a result of whatever task I've started--and yet my brain won't let me stop. Even though it knows that what I'm doing is probably going to make me sick for days as a result.

As for being autistic... that compulsion is part of it. The neuropsychologist who diagnosed me was stuck for days trying to decide if I had OCD or if I was Autistic. She decided that I was Autistic with strong obsessive compulsive features. And those obsessive compulsive features have pushed me to do things that I know I shouldn't, because GOTTA DO THIS is all that drowns out the static and pushes me forward. So when you say things like 'I don't wanna hear excuses', it is a trigger for me. It brings all the voices of those doctors, teachers, authority figures telling me that I was making it all up. I hear my own voice telling me that my pain doesn't matter, that everyone's in pain and I should just suck it up. That is why I started crying, why I got so upset. I wanted to be a nurse, or maybe even a doctor. I went into medical training right out of high school. Slowly but surely, each career I tried to train for was eliminated because I couldn't physically do it. I know I am a highly intelligent person, that my knowledge could be valuable to someone. I wanted to help people--others like myself in particular. But my health kept deteriorating more and more. In college, I had to have a handicap placard so I could park closer, get to my classes on time because the books were SO heavy.

Then I trained for a desk job. And I couldn't even do THAT because of my autism. Because I was so unpleasant to be around, and no one wanted to work with me. No one wanted to have to deal with me, train me properly or be in the same room as me after my first day. I went in to work the second day and they told me to leave. That they didn't want me anymore. The thing you mentioned, about my face not changing? It's called masking, and it's often something I do as a coping mechanism, or defense mechanism. It's not something I do intentionally, and it's not something I really control.

If I was JUST autistic, and not physically disabled, maybe I could deal. But... yeah. That is what I feel, and what I experience.

[lost-in-the-spectrum]

How did I get my diagnosis for the Asperger-Synrome?

Hello Folks,

I hope you are doing well and hopefully this post will help some people out there with… whatever they need help in.

Today I’d like to tell you the story of how I actually got to my Asperger diagnosis: How did I know that there could be smth like that? How was the assessment? This post could help some people with getting prepared for an assessment like that, it could also help with even figuring out how to get to an assessment like that tho. All things which I am describing and writing in that post is only about me. These are experiences which I made and that doesn’t mean that you’re about to make the same experiences at all. Never mind if bad or good experiences ... don’t let this story unsettle you!

So... Everything started with meeting dad’s girlfriend for the first time. It was after a long search for a place to stay at. I was forced to be homeless for, I guess 6 months – luckily not longer – because me and my sister didn’t come along very well and my mother died 2013 which took my only home away from me. I also had a weird relationship to my other relatives which is the reason why I absolutely couldn’t imagine to live with them. And in addition, I couldn’t expect from the few friends I had that time that they take me to their homes and try to, you know... support me with food and all that stuff. They all had their own problems and at the same time they all haven’t had money either, especially not for a second person to feed.

So I had no other choice. My dad picked me up at my sister’s house and we both drove all the long way to Berlin, where he lived with his girlfriend. The story between us three is very difficult and private. Let’s say it at this way: Living with my mum became kinda impossible for my dad which is why he has chosen an other woman he could imagine to live with. Yes, I know, first I was furious about that decision too but after talking with my dad I could understand his point. Just to make that point clear that there is no reason to dislike him for the choices he had to make, also for himself. Anyway his girlfriend was a hard thing for me. I didn’t want to have an other woman except my mum by dad’s side and in general I was always scared of meeting her because I have never met her in my life before... and she has been in dad’s life since I was about five years old. So when we arrived at their apartment and ringed she opened the door for us. First of all: She didn’t look like I have imagined. I saw few photos of her somewhere as a kid – and thought she’d be only a good friend of dad... I was naive – and on these photos, I think, she looked a bit different. I was a little surprised, she too. But not because she didn’t know that I am coming – she did know – later she told me that she was stunned by my beauty and she was honest and serious about that thought she had. She also told me that she was scared too to meet me for the first time. She actually expected me to hate her by first sight because she knows what kind of role she’s playing in my life. I was nervous of meeting her for the first time but I’d never have been mean to her, never mind what kind of role or position she is having in my life.

We spent some time together, not only to get to know her better but also because I kinda liked her, at least for the first moments we had together. We talked a lot and went up to the bakery to bring some bread for the morning. We have done that together for many times so that I could see where to go and one morning she told me to bring the bread. So I did, I mean, we have walked that way for three times! I should know where the place is. Well, I didn't.

I walked the way I remembered but suddenly the streets and surrounding looked a little different to me. Or no, they didn't. It was the same as before but I couldn't find the way we both walked together. My “inner navigation” was so bad all of sudden, I didn't even know that it apparently was. So I went to the wrong bakery where the bread we always used to buy was a little more expensive. I was so overdone with that that I didn't care. I bought 5 breads for us, two for dad, two for her and only one for me. We all used to have two breads for the morning but I couldn't afford the second one for me. When I came back I told her my issue and explained that I didn't know where to go so I bought the bread in that bakery where I was. I was disappointed and upset and I didn't hide it. I never really do. She was understanding or at least not angry at all, she just said that we can go the way again or she tries to explain me the way. In the next times I found the right bakery but I seriously needed a self drawn map to find it … even though we have been walking there for three times.

Then one evening, she made some dinner- stuffed paprika with beef and rice and a really nice tomato sauce – and we started talking again about the issue I had. She started telling me that she thinks I could have a kind of disorder which I should already have had since the age of at least five.* She asked me then: 'Have you ever heard of the Asperger-Syndrome?” I of course said that I've never heard about that and asked what it is supposed to be. 'It is Autism or at least one of the many sorts of in the spectrum.' First I thought she's kidding me and in fact annoyed that I have got so many issues with things so that she called me like that or seriously thinks I should be autistic because I seem to be unable to do things. I thought she was offending me because all I knew about these people to that time is that they have a special or even strange behaviour. Also I mixed all these people up and have put them in one box because that is all I heard about them. I didn't know better. Then before I could ask if she's serious she already started telling me why she thinks like that: The way I talk, the fact that I never or barely looked in her eyes while we talked, the fact that I had that issue with finding the way which is actually a simple one – yes, it was... - and my talent and passion for drawing comics and illustrations in a really little time and almost totally perfectly. In addition the things my dad told her, how I was as a little kid and that I had problems to find the one or other friend at school as I never wanted to play with other kids in the kindergarten... she told me that all these things are very familiar to her. She is French-, English-, and German teacher and at the same time she worked half time in the school psychology to test children if they are gifted or having special problems with certain exercises and subjects. She has met many children there and some of them where autistic and behaved almost exactly like me. She also told me what's typical for that syndrome and the more she told me the more I recognized myself in her description. I was surprised and confused, nobody has ever told me about that before, no one ever mentioned that I could have it. I was only the antisocial, bad behaving kid – fun fact: bad behaving because I didn't always say thank you to someone – and many people didn't like me for that. She told me that we could make an online testing first before we start to maybe contact someone who's an expert in it. I agreed, what could go wrong? And I really wanted to know.

So, we made the online test which includes some general questions about my behaviour and “attitude” and the result told us: there is a high possibility for me to have the Asperger-Syndrome. It wasn't to 100% sure that I have it but it was a reason to contact that one person who's an expert in it and who could tell if I have. So dad's girlfriend contacted him and made an appointment. Unfortunately I was meant to wait over a year to get an appointment there and to finally figure out what's wrong with me. We didn't want to wait so we paid... and then we had an appointment just one week later.

We drove to Potsdam near Berlin where the person lived. We met him at his house – yes, where he lived and had his private life – and introduced ourselves, told him that we made this appointment with him because we think I could have the Asperger-Syndrome. And then he started to test me in different tasks. First of all I had to answer some several questions on a piece of paper. How do I feel in certain situations, what are my interests and hobbies, in which things I am absolutely not interested in even though these things are normally interesting to people at my age. I also had to watch pictures of human eyes to tell if these are happy, sad, angry or else. Then he asked my father about my childhood and if there was any special behaviour those days. Dad told what the matter was: I haven't had many friends, spent a lot of time alone in my room drawing comics for almost 2 hours because without that I got nervous and also aggressive. I needed this to feel comfortable. I had a strong imagination and fantasy, could create adventurous stories in a short time and when I was little – about 5 years old – I walked around with a little piece of paper or a small straw of wheat and talked to it or had conversations with it. Sometimes I even created conversations between two personalities, some kind of role play and all in my mind. People kept saying that this isn't a point because little kids mostly have a huge imagination in playing but the way I imagined was special and maybe a little odd. He also mentioned that on some days at my age 'now' – so eighteen those days – I've been sitting at the computer for about three hours – on some days less or even more – playing The Sims 3 creating crazy characters and building crazy houses. The way my dad told him seemed worried and I had such a feeling that my dad tried to convince that man to tell me that this isn't normal and I should stop that. But the man didn't say anything about it. He just wrote it down for the results if I've got the syndrome or not. The  assessment was made of talking and answering to questions on a paper including some “riddles” I had to solute. And at the end of it – after six hours including a little break in between – the man told us that he'll check my answers out. He wasn't sure if I really got it but he could tell that he thinks I may got an attention disorder which prevents me to be focused all the time and which makes me easy to get distracted. And so we left the place and got prepared to wait for the results... until today.

Yes, you read correctly: I haven't got the results by that man until today and the appointment at his place was already about six years ago. Getting a diagnosis never lasts that long so we've tried to contact this man for many times. Not only my dad and his girlfriend but also doctors and psychologists later. Never got an answer and never got the diagnosis if there even was one.

Before this the relationship between me and dad's girlfriend got worse and dad and her began to argue really often. I didn't know if this happened more often than I realized and if they already argued before I came around but I felt kinda uneasy and even a little guilty for that. I also have an insecure personality disorder which makes me often and easily think to be guilty in many things even though it's not the truth. The arguing lasted pretty long and I realized it was probably because of me just like I thought. One time I passed their bed room and just by accident I listened and heard what she said about me. She said since I've been there they argue really often and that I might be the reason for it. I felt very bad for it and that situation got worse.

Later my dad apparently decided to leave with me. He planned to live at his brother's place with me as long as we try to figure out what to do next. The late afternoon before we left, dad's girlfriend sat at the table in the kitchen and she was sad, crying of course. I joined her and before I could ask what the matter is – I mean I knew it but yet I wanted to ask – she just looked into my eyes, furious, sad, disappointed, that's what I could tell because there wasn't anything to misunderstand in that look... she told me again, that dad is gonna leave her for me and I just replied that I am sorry for that, feeling guilty and that I never meant to make that happen.

She just said: 'Well I can't take that feeling of guilt away from you. And I don't want to. If I have to suffer, you should suffer too.'

Those words were very hard. They hurt me and made me feel like a huge mistake. I started thinking many thinks because... I wasn't just depressive. I was suicidal. And that feeling got stronger after hearing this. My dad gave me my suitcase and took his own one. We went downstairs and put them into the car. Then we left.

Some time ago I got a kind of 'legal guardian ', a very nice woman who took care of formal things and who also took a look on my money on my bank account. Her job was it to support me with all these things in life. My dad told her about the disaster we were in and that it's an emergency. So the woman did her best and found a place for me to stay at: A 'social psychological' commune for young people with depressions and other conditions – like me. This commune was in Kiel. My dad and I drove to that place for an introducing meeting to get to know the commune. It was a very nice place, the house was kind of 'JugendStil', so pretty vintage but also modern in either way. The educators there and also the Chef of the commune, a woman at the age of about 35 I guess, were totally nice to me. They noticed the emergency and understood why it was so important to me to finally get help. They met me as a very skinny, depressive person who was tired of life and being. I moved there and had finally the chance to be able to build up an own life.

Living in this commune I also found a psychologist there where I mentioned my Asperger-Syndrome which people think I could have. She started to contact the man in Potsdam too, even twice, as did my 'legal guardian '. No success, no answer, neither to the phone nor to the mail address. But it was certain that we need this diagnosis to maybe find the right therapy for me. So my psychologist contacted an other woman who is also making  assessments   like that. She came around one day and met me, started the assessment. But this  assessment was different. This time my dad wasn't there to tell how I was a child. I repeated the things he told the man in Potsdam and answered to some questions the woman asked me. About my attitude, behaviour and so on. Actually the same but without testing sheets. At the same time she had a white board next to her and explained me what the Asperger-Syndrome actually is, how differently 'our' brain works in contrast to people without the syndrome. That was pretty interesting and something the man in Potsdam didn't do. I got tested in it and at the same time  I learned what it actually is. I also gave permission to be filmed while she's testing me. I still have the video here and it's so weird to see how I looked those days. Much more different than now.

At the end of it all she told me: 'Well, you indeed got it. There is no doubt.' I was happy but confused at the same time. How is it possible that a person who is known for  assessments  like that wasn't sure about my syndrome but this woman who got the same knowledge has no doubts that I'm having it?

I then finally got my diagnosis that day and to be honest: I had a feeling that my life would turn into a better and more confident one because I finally knew who I am.

So Folks, that's my story how I got the diagnosis. It's a pretty long text but I needed to tell you everything what happened to finally get the explanation of who and what I am. You see, the way to this diagnosis can be very long and complicated. The man hasn't given me my diagnosis yet until today, there for I got it from an other person at the same day where I got tested and it was obviously clear that I have it.

Maybe you're prepared now if you should ever want to get tested and as I've already said: This is only my story. It could be that you'll get an appointment much quicker than me and that you get your diagnosis just some days or weeks later – not like with that man who has never given me this until today – maybe you also get the result on the same day as I got from that woman. Just be sure and think about these things before you try to get an appointment: Do you really need it because you want to know what's wrong with you? Because you need special help which you can only get if you have that diagnosis? Would it help you or others to understand you? Or do you actually have no issues with it so that it doesn't matter? Think about these questions before you go on a probably exhausting journey as me, prepare yourself and listen to what your heart needs. My heart needed an explanation for my personality to realize that it's not because of me people got problems with my personality. It's because of them because they have never taken the time to figure out what kind of person I am.

Just saying: There are many people who love the way I am. I seem to be a cool person, not as crap as some idiots tried to make me think.

Have a good day, friends! See you later!