#i’ve been bullied for my weirdness (autism) throughout my life

[bincliff]

.

[agirldying]

Tw: bullied and ableism

I can’t believe I’m about to say this but I’m 80 percent I have autism and that because of that I was bullied in throughout my childhood in ways that I didn’t realize until now. Or at the very least, got mistreated due to my differences. For context, I am 20f, I have been sexually assaulted various times (but that’s a whole different conversation), I’ve been diagnosed with learning disabilities (dyslexia, dyslexia, and slow processing), I’ve been diagnosed with GAD, ptsd, and social anxiety. I have not officially gotten an autism diagnosis. I’ve however experienced the “your borderline autistic phenomenon” and people have argued about me having autism. I’ve done my own research and I’ve found lots of edvience suggesting I do have autism. It’s a bittersweet feeling, idk how a feeling can be both good and bad but this one is. I look back on my childhood and I see the signs of autistic traits I got bullied for, that I didn’t even realize I was getting bullied for at the time. When I was a kid (and still now when I’m alone) I used to do repeative movements, that I now understand to be called stimming. When I would feel an emotion that was intense or when thinking, I would pacing in a circle or I would make my body go in a circle motion (people used called this circling.) I remember doing this in public, not thinking anything of it. But people would make comments about it, that always made me uncomfortable. They say things like, “look (my name) is circling again” then laugh, or “your pacing again, that’s really weird” or “your pacing/circling why don’t you just leave.” Recently, I’ve even had a memory come up of my abusive ex purposely tripping when I was pacing then laughing. After awhile I stopped stimming despite that the fact that it gave me physical discomfort and sometimes even physical pain not to. When I was kid up until 15, I didn’t understand sarcasm and I still have troubles with it sometimes if the person isn’t a family member. I’ve always taken things literally. My friends would always get really angry at me and yell at me when they were being sarcastic and I didn’t realize that they were being sarcastic. The thing with me is, I don’t struggle to identify emotions in others, I can pick up when someone is unhappy. But I struggle to understand why someone is feeling that emotion or why that emotion is causing them to act that way. I’m good at basic ones though, like crying cause your sad. So when I would get even more confused as to why my friends were angry with me, they would just yell even louder and sometimes curse at me. I’ve been called the R word many times in my life. I’ve been forced to make eye contact even though that makes me feel really uncomfortable. I used to always talk about my interests, but I usually just keep them to myself because I’ve been shut down when talking about my interests. I’ve been told that “I can’t like things in a normal way, so shut up”, “I don’t care, this is all you talk about”, “here you go again” and “I’m done listening to you.” Or just straight up got shut down my others. One of my interests is animals and I really like ferrets, I remember talking to my ex bf about it and he just said, “I hate ferrets, I don’t want to talk to you about them.” Which hurts so much. My interests feel intense and there the core of who I am, that’s one of the few ways I know how to connect with others. Socializing has always been really difficult for me and I’ve never known how to behave properly in social settings. Things I get upset about, have always been that I’m just too sensitive. I get upset cause I don’t want to be somewhere that’s really loud cause it’s scary for example, people just say that I’m being sensitive. I get hurt my a comment someone makes and I get told to “calm down” even if I am calm. If I express that I feel upset because my routine/way of doing things is disputed it’s always been I’m over reacting. I feel like I haven’t been seen as a person and I feel like I don’t belong. I’ve also been hit and punched. I just feel sad about this. Thank you for listening.

Hi anon,

As someone who is diagnosed autistic, your experiences align with mine in pretty much every way.

Unfortunately in this NT world, we are expected to change ourselves instead of others making the effort to understand and respect us. I think the best workaround is to surround yourself with people who are interested in hearing your infodumps / special interests infinite times or who are just overall accommodating to you. Limit communication with people who degrade you and make you feel like you have to mask, as I think you have the right to that boundary. You have the right to be respected, especially as an autistic person. If you need any recommendations of supportive communities to make friends in, I'd be happy to provide.

[spectrumed]

3. sadness

Don’t be like that. Be like this, or be that other thing. Be unique, but don’t be too unique. Fit in, but try to be a rebel. Be a renegade, but don’t rock the boat. Don’t know what you are supposed to be? What? Do you have imposter syndrome or something? Just be yourself, but, y’know, sand down the edges a little bit. Be friendlier. Be the kind of person everyone likes. Be the life of the party! Don’t be some shut-in, some crazy cat-lady with absolutely zero social life. Don’t be sad. Don’t burden others with your sadness. Work to maximise the total happiness of your community. A smile goes a long way. Can’t smile? You really can’t help but being a sourpuss all the time? Well, I guess maybe that if you can’t help but stay in a perpetual bad mood bringing everyone else down… then maybe you should just stay isolated? Better stay alone, away from others. You’re toxic. You’re just so damned sad. You really must be quarantined.

I am sad, a lot of the time. Are you? But, no, you can’t just admit that you are sad. Don’t be a buzzkill, try to inject a little humour into the things you say. You can admit you’re depressed, if you do so with a joke. Don’t let others know you’re being sincere. Ironic jokes work the best, don’t they? They let you confess your secret gloom to everyone around, but they’ll never know just how serious you’re being. With a wink of the eye, any candid expression of your inner turmoil can become a hilarious post-modern gag. Are they or are they not telling the truth? Oh, I’ll never tell! And it will all work out excellent, up until the day you commit suicide. But every comedian’s time in the limelight has to end at some point, right?

This blog is supposed to be about autism spectrum disorder, why am I suddenly discussing depression? Well, I suppose that it is time we bring to the table this little thing called comorbidity. Psychology is messy. Some would argue that it is barely even a real scientific field (I tend to think that it is the best thing we have, but I acknowledge that in places, psychology is fundamentally flawed.) You may have thought that you’d get just one diagnosis. One simple label that you can work through and overcome. You’re bipolar, now go deal with it! But instead, you find yourself with a whole fistful of diagnoses. What to hear my proud list of diagnoses? Oh, please, don’t think because I am listing them this one certain way, I put them in order of relevancy to me. I love all of my diagnoses equally.

My diagnoses are:

Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD)

Agoraphobia

Possible Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

Asperger syndrome (AS)

No, I was never officially diagnosed with depression, but largely because, at the time I received these diagnoses, my depression was so blatant that it felt as if I was walking around with a cloud of miasma surrounding at all times. Imagine me as Pig-Pen from Peanuts, but instead of being covered in dirt, I was covered in the funk of melancholy. And whatever treatment I would eventually go on to receive (and still am receiving to this day,) would go about treating my anxiety first, and hopefully, the depression would give in alongside the anxiety. It has, for the most part, though, I still feel the presence of that black dog from time to time. I also got only a half-hearted potential diagnosis of OCD, but later, during a trial of an antidepressant that had a freakishly negative impact on my psyche, it blossomed into a fully-grown attention-craving condition. Turns out that OCD can be a real hog for the spotlight, really not allowing any of the other diagnoses to take their turn on stage. Thankfully, when I got off that particular antidepressant, those symptoms stopped, but it has led me to be far more aware of my internal obsessive-compulsive thought patterns. For me, OCD largely lacks physical compulsions, but my mind is ablaze with intrusive thoughts, and I will routinely force myself to repeat certain phrases in my head to make them go away. The funny thing is, I never realised that wasn’t normal.

Diagnoses are an attempt to map out a spiders’ web of problems. Things come hand in hand. While I’m no psychologist, I can speak from the perspective of someone who has been through the psychiatric process, which I suppose, lends me a certain kind of expertise, doesn’t it? Maybe it really doesn’t. Maybe I’m just throwing words out there, thinking that I could serve a good purpose, but instead all I am doing is contributing to this great onslaught of digital disinformation we’re all suffering under. But I’m probably just too doubtful of myself. I am speaking about myself, after all. I’ve got first-hand experience in being myself. I know exactly what it feels like to own this skin, these bones, this heart, and this mushy brain of mine. I’m not claiming to know everything. I’m just claiming to know about this one sad individual writing this hoping it might allow someone to reblog my posts with the hashtag “relatable” one day.

Anxiety runs in my family. The neurosis demon gets passed down from generation to generation, only occasionally skipping a beat. My mother and I share many of the same neurotic quirks, though, she has for the most part of her life not had it to quite the excessive degree that I have it. I really took that genetic predisposition for anxiety and ran with it. And while I’m the only person in my family to have gotten diagnosed as being “on the spectrum,” there are a few members that I kinda sort of in a way actually quite seriously suspect might also be here somewhere on the spectrum. Still, as always goes with diagnosing, there’s no point in doing it unless the person is in need of some kind of treatment. I wholeheartedly believe that most people on the planet belong to one spectrum, be it an autism spectrum, a bipolar spectrum, a narcissism spectrum, even a schizophrenic spectrum, but diagnoses should be exclusively reserved for those who need psychiatric care. The world is a spectrum, and it’s worth noting that the terms “sane” and “insane” do not alone capture the complexity of the human psyche. A person can appear perfectly sensible, yet at some point in their life, they may have been a real silly little bugger who thought that their pet hamster was the reincarnation of the Buddha. Just as with physical health, one can struggle with one's mental health for one period in their life, only to later on in life feel utterly and entirely mentally healthy. Or, well, sadly in a lot of cases, people who were perfectly mentally healthy may suddenly become diagnosed with dementia. But that’s really sad, so let’s not talk about that.

Is it all genetic? Well, no. Or well, maybe? In regards to autism, I am pretty sure that, yes, it is genetic. While, yes, I do admit that I’m just a dummy on the internet, so what do I really know? And the brain is such a complex bit of mushy meat, so I could always be proven wrong. Though, I tend towards thinking that there most likely is principally a genetic factor to conditions like autism, or attention deficit disorder (and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder,) or things like bipolar disorder. But with anxiety, quite frankly, I can’t say how much of it is nurture and how much of it is nature. I mentioned that my mother and I share many of the same neurotic quirks, so that would imply that there is something in one's genes that can make some more prone to anxiety than others, but my mother does not struggle with agoraphobia, nor does she seem to have any obsessive-compulsive tendencies. In fact, in my family, even those that exhibit some element of heightened anxiety, they don’t seem to show any milder symptoms of this kind. I can’t help but feel as if these conditions I gained through that tortuous period of every boy’s and girl’s (and boy-girl’s) life is called puberty. I hate to conform to stereotypes but I did indeed hate being a teenager. Believe it or not, I wasn’t a jock, and no, I didn’t go to parties. I mostly spent my time crying.

The question that no doubt plagues every movie psychiatrist to no end is what kind of trauma must a person undergo to make them go mad? Abusive parents? Abusive uncles? Abusive teachers? Abusive dogs? Honestly, to be an adult raising a child must be rough, considering how any mistake you make might suddenly turn your little babe into a future serial killer. Now, there’s no doubt that there are some seriously terrible parents out there, and that a lot of people have mental woes that definitely came about due to their parents and their abysmal lack of parental care. But generally, how much can you actually blame on your parents? We know the cliché, let’s go sit down on the sofa and complain to our Freudian hack-shrink all about those times as a kid our dad missed the big game, or that time our mother embarrassed us in front of all of our friends. I have plenty of things to complain about my parents, like I believe we all have. Our parents are flawed, messy human beings, of course they occasionally made mistakes throughout our upbringings. But is that nearly enough to turn a person mentally ill? Putting up with an at times really embarrassing mom? No, I don’t think so. And of course, there are some real awful parents out there, I’m not doubting that. Trust me, I’m a fan of true crime, so I’ve heard some real grizzly stories of what some kids are forced to grow up with. But I am thinking that those instances are more rare than they are common. Most people with mental illnesses can most likely not blame their parents.

How ‘bout bullies? Yes, them bullies. Them awful mean bullies that made all of our lives so painful. It’s funny, it seems like every school had their own fair share of bullies, and yet no-one as an adult ever comes forward to admit that they themselves were the bullies. It’s almost like as if no-one ever thinks of themselves as being a bully, even when they are throwing rocks at that weird chubby kid with blonde hair who happens to be named Fredrik and who just wants to be left alone. Was I bullied? Well… yes. But I can’t say I got the brunt of it. I got bullied, but overall I’d say I only ever had it slightly worse than most people. I was still quite tall, typically taller than my classmates growing up, and for the most part I could roll with the punches. If you really want to talk about a kid I knew growing up that got bullied, let me tell you about this kid who knew all the right dances for all the right Britney Spears songs. He was gay, I think. Not quite old enough to have come out, I suspect, but, well... He liked all the female pop stars, but not in that way of wanting to kiss them and fondle their boobies, but in the “I want to sound just like them when I grow up” sort of way. I don’t know what happened to him (or them, or her, depending on how they identify now,) but that was real bullying. Like most folks, I found myself stuck in that limbo of seeing others get bullied far worse than me and being too cowardly to intervene, in fears that I’d end up taking their place. Yes, isn’t school just a marvellous place? It’s a wonder any of us turn out okay.

No, I think that, fundamentally, the problems I have arose with myself. This, blaming myself, is not something that I am unused to doing. I have a long history of blaming myself, that’s really the problem. As a teenager I knew that I was different, and I was frightened and scared of being exposed. I didn’t even really know what it was that was different about me, I just knew that I didn’t fit in. I felt as if I didn’t deserve to fit in. The older I got, the more intense these feelings got. And I started taking it out on myself. I started hating myself. And I really mean furiously hating myself. It wasn’t some casual self-loathing, it was searing self-hatred. I did not physically hurt myself, but I did engage with self-harm. I kept repeating the mantras of “I hate myself,” and “I am pathetic,” over and over again, with the ultimate goal of making myself cry. For a period, I couldn’t go to bed without making myself cry first. I began taking days off from school, pretending to be sick. Well, I suppose I was ill, but not physically. I began failing most of my classes, I only ended up doing well in art. I stayed away from school for whole weeks at the time. Once, when I shame-facedly returned to school some of the meaner boys came up to me and said that they were surprised to learn that I was still alive. They were surprised, but also a little disappointed.

This was a time in my life when I really needed psychiatric care. This became increasingly obvious to my parents, and my teachers. I was clearly suffering from depression. Not just some teenaged angst, but full-blown, wholly insidious, depression. But, well, I didn’t get the care that I needed. Oh, I did go to see a psychologist a couple of times, but she saw no reason for me to continue seeing her. I don’t know why she felt as if I wasn’t in need of help, frankly, I can’t fathom why she felt as if I wasn’t in need of help. I suppose I avoided telling her the truth of what went on inside of my head, but I feel like as if any good psychologist would have been able to tell that the kid sitting across from them was clearly suffering from something a tad more intense than just some common concerns about puberty. At most I was able to confess was that I was feeling ashamed over myself for getting so fat, but it should have been clear to anybody that I was only using that as a hook to hang my self-hatred on. There very clearly was some underlying condition that I had that should have gotten addressed. But it went ignored.

At most I can think to explain this is the fact that I wasn’t “problematic.” Not in the way some kids are, when they’re struggling with their mental health. I did not act out, I did not take drugs, and I was certainly not violent. Even to this day, though I have at many times suffered from suicidal ideation, I am a real low-risk for actual suicide considering my intense fear of dying (yes, that’s an odd combo to have.) So, I’ve come to realise that the only way I am getting treatment is if I actually seek out treatment. And back then, I was just as placid as I had previously always been. I was quiet and introverted, just desperate to get back home so I could go and hide in my room. Many teenagers are like that. And it is easy to ignore them, because they want to be ignored. They just don’t want to exist. When you are desperate to be left alone, eventually people will leave you alone. I would go on to receive psychiatric care later on my life, but only after several years passed. I did have a better time living in my later teenage years, but like with a bone that heals wrong, I needed someone to come in and sort me out. I was sad as a teenager, but I would become really sad as a twenty-something. Hopefully my thirties will be jolly.

[maddie-grove]

My Top Ten Victorian (Ish) Romance Novels

Notes: Queen Victoria’s reign lasted from 1837 to 1901, but I learned in a literature class that sometimes the Victorian era is defined as lasting from 1832 (when the First Reform Act was passed) to 1901 (when Victoria died). When it comes to historical romance novels, I think the second definition works better; a romance set in 1831 usually comes at the tail end of a series or universe beginning in the 1810s/1820s and still has a Regency flavor, while a romance set 1832-1836 has a decidedly non-Regency feel. Incidentally, I’ve noticed that 1830s-set Harlequin Historicals are labeled “1830s,” rather than “Regency” or “Victorian.” No one knows what to do with the 1830s! Also, many of these novels are set in the USA. Three are specifically set in Chicago, which is kind of weird!

1. The Heiress Effect by Courtney Milan (2013) 

Exact Setting: 1860s England.

Premise: Politician Oliver Marshall has ambitions of enacting egalitarian laws, including the proposed Second Reform Bill, but his illegitimate birth and non-aristocratic upbringing make that an uphill battle. Then a marquess makes him a peculiar offer: in exchange for supporting the Second Reform Bill, he wants Oliver to publicly humiliate Jane Fairfield, an heiress who is despised by high society for her bad taste and oblivious rudeness. Oliver, too often the object of aristocratic bullying, has no desire to harm Jane, but he doesn’t feel that he can refuse the marquess outright. Then he realizes that Jane isn’t what she seems; instead, she’s a brave, clever, lonely woman who’s putting on an act so she can stay unmarried and continue protecting her younger sister. Also, he likes her and finds her wildly attractive, despite her nightmarish fashion sense.

Why I Like It: This is my favorite romance EVER. Jane is an all-time-great heroine: intelligent enough to engineer a complicated marriage-repellent scheme (and change it when circumstances require), strong enough to expose herself to ridicule out in the world (and come home to an uncle who thinks she’s inherently a bad person), and vulnerable enough to break your heart. Oliver, a bruised idealist who must reassess his go-along-to-get-along approach, is nearly as compelling. Their romance is full of top-notch banter and solidarity in the face of a world that wants them to be enemies. And there are almost too many excellent subplots to count: Jane’s sister’s secret romance with an Indian student at Cambridge, Oliver’s younger sister’s foray into activism, and Jane’s brittle frenemy-ship with the Johnson twins, to name a few.

Favorite Scene: The first time Jane drops her act in front of Oliver, or the defeat of the marquess.

2. A Hope Divided by Alyssa Cole (2017)

Exact Setting: North Carolina, USA, during the Civil War.

Premise: Marlie Lynch's life has always been complicated. The daughter of a free Afro-Caribbean root worker, she spent half her childhood with her mother before being sent to live with her white paternal relatives. Now she works for two different secret organizations: the Underground Railroad (with the help and approval of her white abolitionist sister) and the black-Unionist-run spying organization the Loyal League (with the knowledge of no one). When she’s not doing that, she’s pursuing her scientific interests while still honoring and using her late mother’s rootworking practices. Her situation becomes even more fraught when she agrees to harbor Ewan McCall, an escaped Union POW, in a secret chamber behind her bedroom wall. They bond over their shared intellectual interests, but is there any time for romance when Marlie’s home is being overrun by loathsome Confederates?

Why I Like It: Many historical romances have good love stories but don’t do much with the setting, while a few excel at portraying the past but fail at creating a compelling central relationship. Alyssa Cole’s Loyal League novels are the total package, and the Southern-Gothic-tinged A Hope Divided is the standout among them. Marlie and Ewan’s courtship is portrayed with tenderness, intelligence, and delicacy. Cole brings just as much sharpness and nuance to her portrayal of the time and place, representing groups of people who tend to disappear in popular discussions about the Civil War. I also really appreciate Ewan as a character. His mind works differently from most people’s (in that he would probably now be considered to be on the autism spectrum), and he worries that he’s a bad person because he doesn’t feel a lot of angst about some morally complicated decisions he made in the past. The narrative does a good job of showing that Ewan is no better or worse than anyone else for using tools other than empathy in his moral reasoning. Also, Marlie is a top-tier Gothic heroine.

Favorite Scene: Marlie reflects on the villain’s oh-so-convenient conception of Southern womanhood. I’m also a big fan of the entirety of the bedroom-wall courtship.

3. The Suffragette Scandal by Courtney Milan (2014)

Exact Setting: 1870s England.

Premise: After his hateful father and self-serving brother abandoned him to a grisly fate in war-torn Strasbourg, Edward Delacey narrowly survived, with his faith in himself and the world around him shattered. Now he’s back in England, and his younger brother stands to inherit the viscountcy that legally belongs to him. He’s not interested in the title; however, he does feel compelled to stop his brother from ruining the life of Frederica Marshall, a daring investigative reporter who writes about discrimination against women. As he lends his (jaded, reluctant) assistance, Frederica’s optimism begins to infect him...and that’s not the only reason he wants to stay around her.

Why I Like It: I love Frederica as Oliver’s little sister in The Heiress Effect, and she’s even better as the cocksure firebrand heroine of her own story. It’s rare that a heroine is allowed to be so successful in her chosen field at the beginning of a romance novel, but Milan accomplishes this while still giving Frederica enough vulnerabilities and flaws to make her interesting. Yet Edward, a wounded cynic who chooses to do good despite believing that he’s a garbage bag and the world is a shit-pile, is what really pushes the novel to all-time-great status. Their story is a wonderful illustration of the best things that love can do; his faith in the world is revived by her ideals, and her worst impulses are tempered by hearing about the lessons he’s learned in his darkest moments. Plus, they have some really funny banter. 

Favorite Scene: Edward explains why torture is ineffective and wrong. (I put years of hard work into getting my torture degree at torture college! Fuck off!)

4. After the Wedding by Courtney Milan (2018)

Exact Setting: 1860s England. 

Premise: After her father was accused of treason and committed suicide, Lady Camilla Worth was passed from home to increasingly shabby home, eventually fading into obscurity as Camilla Winters, a housemaid in a corrupt clergyman’s home. Adrian Hunter, the son of a black abolitionist activist and a white duke’s daughter, is visiting the clergyman in disguise to gather information when he and Camilla fall victim to a dastardly plot. Force to wed at literal gunpoint and thrown out of the house, they must work together to annul their marriage and get to the bottom of the clergyman’s sinister doings. 

Why I Like It: Camilla is the first bisexual heroine I ever encountered in romance, so I was already primed to love her, but it would’ve happened regardless of her orientation. Desperate for any kind of affection after losing her family in a particularly cruel way, her struggle to find love while trying to protect herself is extremely moving. Adrian also has an affecting arc, in which he learns how to let go of family members who don’t really care about him and acknowledge his grief for his brothers who died in the Civil War. Finally, the conspiracy plot is absolutely explosive.

Favorite Scene: Camilla deals with trauma through legal research. 

5. An Unconditional Freedom by Alyssa Cole (2019)

Exact Setting: USA (mainly Illinois and Mississippi) during the Civil War.

Premise: Daniel Cumberland once believed that freedom and justice would prevail for black people in America, but then he was kidnapped and enslaved for several months. Now free, he works for the Loyal League, fueled not by hope but by pure rage. Janeta Sanchez, a mixed-race Cuban-Floridian lady from a wealthy Confederate family, is also working for the Loyal League...as a double agent, because she believes that’s the only way to save her father. Paired with Daniel to gather intelligence about possible European aid, she begins to question her loyalties as she sees more of the world and gets to know the people her hypocritical white family has kept her away from. Daniel, meanwhile, begins to see a way of coping with his trauma and an uncertain future.

Why I Like It: Historical romance often shies away from the worst parts of history, or at least frames them as remaining firmly in the past. Alyssa Cole not only starkly portrays the horrors of American slavery, but also confronts head-on the terrifying realization that things do not inevitably improve over time. Yet Cole’s frankness doesn’t reduce the novel to a horror show; there is plenty of joy and kindness and hard-won hope between Daniel and Janeta. Deceived and guilted by her family into supporting an appalling cause that hurts her, Janeta is a complex heroine who develops wonderfully throughout the novel. Daniel is also one of the best-written heroes in romance. Finally, as in A Hope Divided, Cole sheds light on an aspect of the Civil War (the involvement of Europe) that doesn’t get a lot of attention in popular culture.

Favorite Scene: Janeta and Daniel talk alone for the first time.

6. Wild at Heart by Patricia Gaffney (1997)

Exact Setting: 1890s USA (Chicago, Illinois).

Premise: Lost as a child and raised by wolves in the wilds of Canada, the Lost Man has been discovered by “civilized” people and forced to “live” with a Chicago anthropologist for study. (Really, he’s being held captive.) Only Sydney Darrow, the anthropologist’s widowed daughter, has the sense/compassion to say, “Hey, maybe we should treat this man like a person and not keep him locked in a glorified cell where a disgruntled employee can taunt him.” She gently introduces the Lost Man back into human society, and the two find themselves getting along better and better. But can the Lost Man ever truly adjust to the human world? Or will he forever express his love by giving dead fish to people? Or is okay, sometimes, to express you love with dead fish?

Why I Like It: This is one of the most bizarre romances I’ve ever read. It sounds like a romance that someone made up for a sitcom. It sounds like a fever dream. It’s absolutely brilliant, too, because Gaffney commits. The Lost Man thinks of everything in animal terms; he accurately identifies Sydney’s aunt as the “dominant female” of the household, he has decided opinions about which animals are neat and which ones are pains in the ass, and he shows his love with a beautiful, freshly caught fish. There’s a real sense of loss in his arc; it’s necessary for him to transition into human society, but he’s also lost a beautiful, meaningful world. His romance with Sydney is also a great version of the Monster Boyfriend story; she’s the one who sees his humanity and recognizes many of his more “animal” traits as positive. The backdrop of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition is also charming.

Favorite Scene: Michael reflects on who’s hot (otters) and who’s not (wolverines) in the animal kingdom.

7. To Love and to Cherish by Patricia Gaffney (1995)

Exact Setting: 1850s England.

Premise: Jaded Anne Verlaine moves to the tiny village of Wyckerly after her wildly unhappy and unpleasant husband Geoffrey inherits a viscountcy. They’re greeted by Christian “Christy” Morrell, the local vicar and Geoffrey’s childhood best friend. Christy is dismayed to see the man Geoffrey has become, but he’s even more disconcerted by the attraction he feels for Anne...who returns his feelings.

Why I Like It: Although she stopped writing historical romance in the late nineties, Patricia Gaffney remains one of the most stylistically inventive and emotionally intense authors in the sub-genre. Anne, a warm and witty bohemian atheist, is a wonderfully unique heroine, while the sweet and scrupulous Christy is a similarly refreshing hero (and, really, an ideal clergyman, with high standards for himself and hardly a judgmental thought towards others). Despite the (delicious) angst involved in their relationship, they’re one of the most convincingly happy couples I’ve seen in romance; they don’t just grow close because of sexual chemistry or their shared complicated feelings about Geoffrey, but also because of their shared interests, oddly compatible senses of humor, and respect for each others’ differences. The village of Wyckerly is vividly portrayed, plus Gaffney makes great use of Anne’s writings and correspondence with Christy to shape the narrative.

Favorite Scene: Anne gets angry with Christy for being so good in the face of Geoffrey’s bullshit. 

8. Silk Is for Seduction by Loretta Chase (2011)

Exact Setting: Mid-1830s England and France.

Premise: After emigrating from Paris to London, Marcelline Noirot and her two younger sisters started a dress shop catering to newly rich and middle-class women. Thanks to Marcelline’s innovative designs and her sisters’ sales/accounting skills, they now stand a chance to be the favorite shop of the entire aristocracy...but first they need an early adopter. Help comes in the form of Lady Clara Fairfax, a beautiful but dowdily dressed girl who’s starting to have doubts about her perfect-on-paper betrothed, the Duke of Clevedon. As Marcelline devises a new wardrobe for Clara and spends more time with Clevedon, it becomes more and more clear that Clevedon is perfect...for Marcelline.

Why I Like It: I’m a simple woman; I like elaborate descriptions of over-the-top 1830s fashion. What’s more, I love Marcelline. She’s a fully realized character with interests, talents, and history that have nothing to do with Clevedon; she misses the sweet husband she lost to an epidemic, is anxious to build a future for her young daughter and her sisters, and spends a lot of the book demonstrating her talents in gorgeous detail. Just like the massive gigot sleeves on her dresses, she takes up space. Overall, the romance resembles a really good 1930s romantic comedy; Clevedon is a great straight man, the love triangle is elegantly resolved, and everything just feels beautiful. 

Favorite Scene: In one of the best sex scenes in romance, Marcelline tells Clevedon that she loves him, knows they don’t have a future, and wants him for one last night just the same.

9. The Hostage by Susan Wiggs (2000)

Exact Setting: 1870s USA (Chicago, Illinois and Isle Royale, Michigan)

Premise: Beautiful new-money heiress Deborah Sinclair has always done what’s expected of her. When her aristocratic betrothed shows his true colors, though, she works up the courage to tell her dad that she wants out. Unfortunately, Mr. Sinclair is not receptive...and the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 is literally happening around them...and this random dude just showed up to kidnap her in all the chaos! Before she knows it, she’s on a boat to remote Isle Royale with Tom Silver, a rugged frontiersman who lost many of his friends and his adopted son in a mining accident caused by Mr. Sinclair’s negligence. Because Mr. Sinclair was found not legally liable, Tom has resorted to holding Deborah for ransom. Although he has no desire to harm her, he’s prepared to hate the daughter of his greatest enemy; she’s also not too fond of him, given that he kidnapped her and all. As they wait for Mr. Sinclair’s reply on Isle Royale, however, they get to know each other better.

Why I Like It: I never thought I’d love a kidnapping romance that wasn’t Beauty and the Beast, but Susan Wiggs can sell me on pretty much anything. (It helps that Tom has excellent motives, yet isn’t validated by the narrative for choosing to kidnap Deborah.) This is one of the best adventure-romances that I’ve ever read; much of the first act is an incredibly tense, complicated chase sequence through the flaming inferno of Chicago, while the later chapters consist of their trying to survive together on Isle Royale in the depths of winter. The emotional  journeys of the characters are just as compelling as their physical ones. One of my favorite romance tropes is when one protagonist feels like they should hate the other one, but instead ends up going “wow, this person is obviously not doing okay...wait, am I worried? Should I help them? Actually, I kind of admire them now???” The Hostage has this trope in abundance.

Favorite Scene: The entire part where they’re trapped on Isle Royale together. So many survival details! So cathartic!

10. The Firebrand by Susan Wiggs (2001)

Exact Setting: 1870s USA (Chicago, Illinois)

Premise: Outspoken and awkward, Lucy Hathaway (Deborah Sinclair’s BFF) is a failure at being a lady, but she’s far too passionate about women’s suffrage and dress reform to care (much) about society’s scorn. On the night of the Great Chicago Fire, her world is upended in two ways: her family loses most of their money, and she catches a baby who got thrown out of a burning hotel window. Years later, she’s a kick-ass activist and single mom running a proto-feminist bookstore. Then she learns that her daughter’s father, banker Randall Higgins, is still alive. Once a proud, thoroughly conventional family man, Rand has been a practical recluse since the fire that scarred his face, ended his marriage, and (he thought) killed his daughter. He’s overjoyed to have his daughter back, but now he and Lucy must figure out a way to raise the child that they both love so much.

Why I Like It: I was worried when I began this novel, because Rand starts out as a smug, boring sexist who thinks that a woman’s place is in the home. I would probably hate the book if Rand didn’t end up completely changing his worldview, agreeing with Lucy’s parenting methods, and risking the wrath of his bank colleagues by joining Lucy at a protest. As it is, Rand’s character development is incredibly satisfying, particularly because it’s emotionally realistic. (Instead of being swayed entirely by romantic love or overwhelmed by Lucy’s vast superiority, he learns to see things from her perspective and recognizes that her actions make the world a better place.) Lucy, for her part, is probably one of my top ten heroines. She’s an active, thoroughly engaged progressive who listens to people more marginalized than her without making a big show of it; she’s a thoughtful mom who genuinely likes her weird kid; and she’s got massive insecurities and a stubborn streak that keep her from being too perfect. 

Favorite Scene: Rand sees Lucy’s ideals reflected in their daughter’s response to his kind-of-messed-up face.

Further Note: Is Victorianish my favorite type of historical romance? I think it is!

[altissiavibritannia]

I feel dead inside....

Why is everybody being so mean to me for?! What’d I do...in order for you to tell me to stop liking my favorite things...? Why should I not finish Hetalia for? Besides...Hetalia and Code Geass has helped me out so many times over whenever I was depressed...I have very bad depression to the point it’s not even funny...not this again...I used to be a huge Yu-Gi-Oh GX, Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’S, Arc-V and such fan with Yu-Gi-Oh!...until so many people hated my art and stories about it...I still duel and such...but...I dropped out of the fandom and stopped reading my GX manga set (never even finished reading it, left off on vol. 5 or 6...) and stopped writing fics and stopped doing fanart of it completely...Am I not good enough for anyone...? It’s like first my art and story ideas for Yu-Gi-Oh! and now this...it’s like I’m not even allowed to be happy...Yu-Gi-Oh! GX and 5D’s has saved my life, alongside Fruits Basket, Naruto (before this Baruto garbage and the Shippuden stuff happened), and Inuyasha whenever I was age 12....maybe younger than that...but mostly was a Beyblade, Dinosaur King, Tai Chi Chasers, and Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s person back then...cuz it was on Toonzi or 4Kids before they stopped playing them, cuz 4Kids had been cancelled and my favorite animes had vanished, due to me being poor to offord cable and me and my mother had moved a lot...so I’ve only known bits and pieces of those animes whenever Saturday mornings came by...and I watched Yu-Gi-Oh! GX on YouTube whenever I was waiting for Yusei and the signers of 5D’s to come back on whenever I was able to watch it.

I even saw bits and pieces of Fairly Odd Parents, Jonny Cash, Storm Hawks, and American Dragon: Jake Long (before that got cancelled) whenever me and mom had to babysit her friend’s kids and I watched cable with them a few times, whenever I wasn’t in a artistic mood or writing mood...and the only times when it was time for the Adult Swim to show up, she allowed me to watch some Family Guy, Naruto (saw the very first episode when it came on), and Inuyasha...but then mom changed the channel whenever that ever came on and told me to stop watching it...yet I’ve watched only Naruto and Inuyasha behind her back on YouTube whenever I felt too depressed...and I still love these animes but forgot the plot to them, due to not watching them and such...

And now it’s like I’m not to even be alive anymore...due to people not wanting to be my friend...due to all of my health issues and for my ideas...all they want to do with me is make me into their puppet for their own attention...if I have to go back to that...then I’d rather die...had this go on for most of my life and I’m sick of it...and if I’m not allowed to like Hetalia, Code Geass or anything else that I love to death...then I guess I’m not meant to be here or be an artist or author anymore then...even though writing stories/fics is what I do, same with drawing...I’ve been a fucking nerd ever since growing up!

I’ve started doing art by doing finger paints and such in preschool. That was my spark in life, I’ve loved doing art throughout my life, cuz it helps me get rid of my depression and what other feelings I had bottled up. My imagination is what driven me this far in life. Then years later as I was growing up, I loved to read book, even though I hate reading out loud, due to my speech problems and not being able to understand or say hard words. But it drove me to the next level of my creativity, I wanted to become an author someday. As I grew up some more...I quit public schooling, due to being bullied too much and nobody giving a goddamn shit about me...then I felt smart for a bit until I found out that I was really tired...and I didn’t do my homework for the rest of my 7th grade semester. I basically skipped a whole grade, almost 2. I only made it to the last bit of my 8th grade in public schooling, cuz mom got sick and tired of me sleeping too much and not doing my homework. She felt concerned that I needed to try to make friends again.

Sadly whenever I graduated (never showed up, I hate crowds, due to being scared of being made fun off like now...) 8th grade in my middle school that I didn’t stay in after yet another move, they gave me my diploma for 8th grade...and whenever I became a freshman...the bullying got worse and worse...I’ve been blamed for being the bully for once I wasn’t and sure enough I might have a Bakugou  kind of temper and I did say “I’ll kill you!” back then towards my bullies, but I didn’t know better. I was talking about a tickle fight, cuz I figured that tickle fights were less violent than blowing up in others faces and the teachers thought I meant by tooth and nail and then gave me detentions. I even got blame for their wrong doings, even though they have cameras and such. But yeah a few times I had no other choice but to go for tooth and nail, cuz some random ass bitch who I didn’t even know, just grabbed me by the shirt and threw my ass on the ground. I got up crying like a fucking Deku, picking up my books and homework off the ground and guess what the funny shit is?! There was a goddamn teacher there, even though this shit was in the morning when we were getting ready to head inside the building. So, I basically fucking bit her dumb fucking ass, when she punched me for no reason! I let one the Bakugou within me, out! I didn’t swear though, but I fucking fought to the death, I was ready for anything and I mean it! I wanted to kill her so fucking badly, for being such an ugly bitch. Soon the teacher saw this and, gave me a detention for self defense. Until I told her what happened, she then gave that bitch one too, but then that bitch put on an act to blame me for no reason. She got off too fucking easy for no fucking reason!

But you know what the fuck what?! If you fucking hate my fucking Deku guts, then beat it! I will not be defeated yet again! I’m sick and tired of being fucking bullied about who I really am bitches! Shocked on how I got over my depression so fucking fast to the point that I’m super pissed? Well it’s because I swapped personalities! So don’t mess with me, unless you’d like to meet all of my personalities! Sure enough I talk to myself, but it’s due to me not having anybody to fucking talk to!!! I’m always by myself to the point, I become a furry throughout my years and then later on a brony once the first 2 episodes that My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic comes up! I tend to watch anime and MLPFIM for multiple reasons! So you can either love me or hate me, I don’t give a damn fuck anymore! If your ass wants to block me due to my weird ideas and shit, then go right ahead, you’re just going to be bit in the goddamn ass 100 times fold by karma bitch! What comes the fuck around, goes around! Because if you block me, then you’re really missing out on a really good, loving, kindhearted, funny, etc. person! Not to mention, I’m going to be tested for D.I.D. and/or B.P.D. and Autism! Because some of my family has Autism and possibly other health issues that I can relate!

[artpoint420]

Melvin and the Silent Diagnosis for a Brilliantly Broken Psyche

Hypothetical Diagnosis Insecurity masked with narcissistic tendencies characterized with compulsive obsessions driven by blatant autism, and no that is not an immature insult I test extremely highly for Asperger's myself Here's the Evidence: (I will state before hand that Melvin-borg is a completely separate character in my mind, and thus will not be included in this particular theory.  Melvin decided not to turn out like him, so they are canonically separate characters) He is obviously and frequently inspired by George and Harold, but his deeply embedded fear of rejection makes him dangerously bitter, and it doesn't help that everytime he breaks out of this protective shell, he is rejected or betrayed once again. It’s important to note that while he may be high-functioning (aka: Aspergers) he is still Autistic. That’s because Asperger’s is not a form of autism- it is autism. Period. And any kind of autism or mental attypicality left untreated can develop in to many, many other severe mental disorders, or, in general, make life a metric heck ton harder and complicated than it already is. I also need to confess that I test highly positively for autism myself as well as being an INTP female (Myers-Briggs Personality Test). Not to brag, but all that combined with my naturally creative nature makes me rare af, but it also means I can't communicate or handle stress #liketheothergirls, so that has lead me to being/feeling bullied and ostracized.  I also have anxiety and depression issue which run in my family, and mild insomnia, and may or may not be relapsing into an eating disorder. Paired with psychical problems like acid reflux and severe neck tension, health, whether psychical or mental is of uttermost importance to me.  It suffices to say, autism is not easy to deal with and if not taken care for properly a person, especially if not made at least aware of what autism truly is, it can truly ruin their life. Combined with the neglectful nature of his parents (at least in the books) I and many others in this fandom truly believe Melvin is at least autistically coded. Not only does this fit the archetype of his character but it also fits the theme of the books to a TEE. At its core, CU, of all things, is a children's book series, about living your best life despite not being “normal.” Even characters like the teachers or Mr Krupp who strive for “normality” are shown to actually have deeply repressed creativity, or, in some cases, deep trauma from their own childhoods. It suffices to say that I resonate deeply with Melvin. Say what you want about him or me, I was able to relate to him the second he spoke his first line in the second book. Sorry to turn this into a long vent, but I feel it is best to use myself to support this theory as well as harder evidence, even if it is mostly a means of self-therapy. To start, we both are obsessed with school even to a detrimental degree. Ever since head-start (Pre-K but a million times better), these "book-smarts" were the first thing I ever truly excelled at. When the other kids bullied (or as I now know as teasing) me, I would lose myself in a stack of homework or a book 2-3 grades past my grade level (this is before I drew or wrote as a main hobby). Similarly, Melvin is rarely seen without a book or gadget, just like me. We both over analyze things and hide our feelings. We both have intense crushes on others but are terrified to dare express them, or do but to nothing but awkwardness. We were both science kids, and fascinated by words and/or numbers alone (I still am just in a more artistic way). We both struggle to communicate and relate to others. We both have a unusual sense of humor and are highly observant of surroundings all the while missing what’s in front of our noses. We both have interests that quickly spiral into obsessions and dropping the obsession only when sick of it. We both practice similar forms of stimming. We both not only thrive but crave control and structure with the world around us, even to the point of being "control freaks" and creating odd habits, routines, and rituals regardless of whether they are necessary or make sense. We both have an intense fear of intimacy and rejection to the point of practicing self-isolation and in some cases self harm or other unhealthy coping methods (seen with Melvin over eating sweets or over working himself. For me it’s disordered eating or self flagellation, something I have all but completely dropped but still) We also both tend to see ourselves as inferior to others and attempt to mask those feelings with a superiority complex (I feel bad for my siblings but I didn’t know what I was doing, and no it was not abusive just sibling rivalry and I’m the oldest anyway, and we are country kids and understand “rough-housing” =/= using each other as a punching bag, but accidents happen I'm sorry) We both seem to become easily overstimulated and have explosive mental and emotional breakdowns when things just . . . become too much However the harsh divide between male and female and fictional and nonfictional means we both present certain traits differently. Whereas he presents a more linear line of thinking my mind is overwhelmingly sporadic. Also, I have over sensitivities to touch and light (and sometimes certain noises, but not anything not normal? Wfk.) But maybe he does have oversensitivity but I can't think of an example off the top of my head. Enough about me however. I know Melvin and autism has been done to death.  Hell, I just did it to death.  My actual theory is more on the inner mechanisms of his mind and predicting how he will develop should the series allow for full character development. Also, similar to my Krupp theory, I will be listing his crimes out and give him a proper sentence for his age and maturity level (which will be light as I am sympathetic to his plight).   This is already getting too long, so Imma try to finally get to the point.  Characters with autism are honestly a mixed bag, sometimes there as standardized as my mystery Daddy Sherlock Holmes and other times they are as subtle as Pearl or Peridot from Steven Universe (has Rebbaca Sugar confirmed this? sorry). Honestly, it does distress me that autism is almost always used to have an evil genius character or some weird side character for brownie/ diversity points. (this makes me a bit hypocritical I guess, considering my own stories. I guess tropes are tropes for a reason) And while Dav Pilky May not be subtle with his scholastic politics or humor his one spectacular tool in his writing books has always been, when it comes to his characters, showing instead of telling. This is something I latched on to even as a kid, and I was already thinking up theories on the characters before I even knew character theories were a thing.  Like what happened to Harold's Dad (hint, hint).  Why was Harold's sister rarely used?  Does Mr Krupp actually like their comics (a now accepted theory, but not just min? And many many others I'm probably never gonna write.  It took until how long in the books to reveal George and Harold have ADHD? Before that they were simply described as being as smart as Melvin but just in different ways. Personally I feel that autism is inverted ADHD. This is an opinion I’ve recently formed so if I’m wrong bloody attack me in the comments. Anyway, Melvin presenting autism makes him the perfect foil to George and Harolds’ more sporadic antics. The only true difference between autistic folks and ADHD folks is that those with autism tend to crave a structured environment full of rules, and set goals to achieve, while such an environment is HELL to children with ADHD (aka:George and Harold). (Even though if with adults they can trust, children with ADHD thrive in structured environments if they are surrounded by adults or authority figures they can trust.)  I know some will tell me ADHD is on the spectrum, but I just learned this like actually the other day and don’t fully understand it.  My prediction is that Melvin will eventually and naturally mellow out if just because staying so high strung all the time is a huge waste of mental energy.  I know good as hell I had to.  Also, he mellowed our in the books and went from a screeching revenge exacting lil narcissistic white boi prick to a person who simply wants to pursue his interests and even helping George and Harold (selfishly, but help nonetheless). He even went from enjoying the fame and attention of hero-ing to realizing it did not fufill him. Indeed quite the opposite.  His true passion lay in solving world problems through science, and I don't think the ending for him in the books could have been any more perfect considering his character.   In the Netflix show, similar to how I think Krupp's personalities are merging, I believe that Melvin will eventually become more like his Broski alter ego (which I calmly demand more of).  Overall, given that this show needs to go back to the status quo more often than not, I don't think his core character will ever change, and it doesn't need to.  Multiple times throughout the series he's been shown to crave friendship from George and Harold, despite audibly hating him . Textbook Tsundere, I know.  He will form a friendly rivalry with George and Harold, I have almost no doubt about that, taking the season 1 finale, season 2 finale, season 3 first episode, and halloween special into consideration. (Yeah, if someone will send me clips I will give them my eternal gratefulness) To conclude, because by god this is long, Melvin is, SHOCKER, just a little kid.  A little kid who likes muffins and dolls and has big hopes and dreams.  A little kid whose love for science and unrecognized creativity is channeled into making inventions that are even more impressive than those of Professor P (sorry P).  But he is a little kid with his own needs and stuggles which at this point remain unmet.  His parents are canonically neglectful, I cannot repeat that enough times.  The effects of neglect are a hell-hole of its own regardless of growing up with undiagnosed autism.  But that's just a theory- Alright, that was a banger, I guess next up is Melvin-borg since writing this has given me some interesting ideas for him.  Let’s see how long this hyperfocus train will go!

[stimsensory]

For the Teachers

I have 4 aunts, 3 of which are teachers (one retired). At least one of them has asked if I have any suggestions for classroom related stimming.

First of all, if someone is not harming themselves, others, or property, then there is no need to stop them stimming.

Try to see this from the child’s perspective.

We take in too much information throughout the day and often need a bit longer to process it and respond:

Stimming can help us cope with this excess of information. If I’m having a stressful day, then adding more stress in the form of a classroom is going to be anxiety-inducing. But I deal with it, because I don’t really have a choice. One method of dealing is stimming.

The next video shows the sensory overload of a supermarket. A classroom is rife with similar overwhelming sensory inputs. The overly bright fluorescent lights, the clock ticking in the corner, the ‘naughty’ kids chatting away, the ‘class clown’ making people laugh until your head throbs, the fake fruity smell of deodorant or perfume, the noises of kids in other classrooms or the hallways, the birdsong from outside…

School is sensory hell.

Imagine being in the sensory hell of the above video. Then imagine being there for 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, with one hour for lunch (which is even worse!). Then try doing work on top of that. Frankly, you would struggle.

This is everyday life for many people. And the ways they use to cope can lead to intense bullying (most autistic people have been bullied) and severe mental health problems (autistic kids are 28x as likely to experience suicidal ideation, and anxiety and depression is common amongst autistic people).

Honestly, rather than trying to encourage the child to stim in ‘less annoying’ ways, I would suggest finding ways to reduce their sensory overload. Fight bullying, don’t tell the kids the same things they’ve heard from mean kids already (that they are acting ‘weird’ and should stop, that they are ‘stupid’ or worse words, or that they are ‘annoying’ others). Trust me, we have heard it already. And we see it every time autism is in the media. Teachers can make an enormous difference to a confused, isolated kid. Don’t encourage them to mask (it can lead to intense anxiety, even depression). Don’t tell them off for stimming.

I get that stimming can be ‘disruptive’. But all of the non-autistic kids are fidgeting in ways that are annoying me, and aren’t getting told off. Yet when I do it, I have to stop because they are ‘struggling to focus’.

Figure out why a kid is stimming in a disruptive manner.

Are they humming loudly? Maybe the room is too loud and they need to block out the background noise.

Are they tapping the table? Maybe those kids chatting in the back are saying cruel things that they want to ignore.

Are they chewing on their clothes? Maybe they are experiencing high levels of anxiety because they are perfectionists, and the chewing comforts them.

Before you try to change the child, try changing the environment.

Look at the environment from an autistic perspective. Or bring an autistic person in to evaluate your classroom.

Maybe your clock ticks. I would suggest replacing it, but due to the non-existent budget for teachers it may be better to simply remove in and ensure you have a digital time display available like the laptop. If a child asks for the time, tell them (not knowing is very anxiety inducing in my experience).

Maybe you leave your windows open. Maybe you have radiators on. An autistic person may struggle with the fluctuating temperature, so allow them to pick a spot away from either of these things, and try to avoid using these methods unless necessary.

School clothes are incredibly uncomfortable! I would want to rip mine off by the end of the day, because the jumper was loose and kept brushing against my skin lightly, which was physically painful for me. Try bringing this up with the head teacher so they can consider this the next time they change a school uniform. Maybe children with an Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis could be allowed more lax uniform rules (for example, just ensuring they have a white top rather than a white polo). Maybe they could wear something comfortable underneath, and just wear a school jacket or jumper over the top. Also, it’s really annoying when you have to wear a dress and have no choice. School dresses hurt because they kept brushing against me. Encourage your head teacher to have gender neutral clothing!

Let the kid go somewhere quiet, like the bathroom or an empty room. If they are older or more responsible, let them have headphones in class. If they aren’t, make sure they have access to ear defenders.

Give kids somewhere other than the canteen to go for lunch. It’s really loud! People sometimes throw food. The floor has messy, slippery bits. It’s a social nightmare if you don’t have friends.

TALK TO THE INDIVIDUAL. Maybe send the child’s parents an email asking how to make your classroom more autism friendly. Maybe talk to the child after class is over (make it clear they are not in trouble though!). Also, instead of expecting answers the first time you ask, encourage them to write down things during class if they annoy, frustrate, or overwhelm them, and give them to you at the end of class. Asking them once with no time to think back on it means you will miss a lot of stuff.

Once you’re completely sure you’ve done everything you reasonably can to help the child, then MAYBE consider working with them (with their consent!) on replacing ‘disruptive’ stims (whilst always allowing them to say ‘no’ and reject your ideas and just leave this extra work). If they are verbally stimming, try asking them why. If you can’t figure it out, you could buy a cheap karaoke set, or just get them to go into a separate room for 10 minutes in the middle of a lesson when they get restless, to sing and hum to their hearts content. If they are stimming with their body or seeking tactile input (EG tapping, clicking, etc), try finding silent, tactile stim toys for them to use instead. Maybe something to do with a special interest. Work with the child, not in opposition to them.

Also, don’t stop kids from rocking. It doesn’t affect anyone. It doesn’t make noise, it doesn’t involve destruction, it doesn’t affect anyone else in any way other than making them feel ‘uncomfortable’ with the ‘weird’ behaviour. It is very good for decreasing stress and coping with the sensory environment.

Depending upon the age and maturity of the kids, they could be taught about autism and about stimming. I’ve heard kids nowadays may be kinder towards kids with disorders, disabilities, and special needs (obviously not all kids, there is more than enough evidence that many kids are still cruel). So maybe explaining why a child is stimming would help them not get annoyed by it. Because people seem to get annoyed by things they don’t understand even if it doesn’t affect them (such as rocking). This won’t help with ‘disruptive’ stims but it may help increase understanding and acceptance, which is vital.

https://www.stimsensory.co.uk/blog/2019/4/2/for-the-teachers

[yee-haw-my-beets]

i got diagnosed with autism and adhd in july this year. i’m 15. my mother has suspected my autism since i was three, but chose not to have me assessed because ‘you only need a diagnosis if you need treatment/you’re struggling’.

 throughout my life, told that i need to stop doing things because it was weird. i have stayed friends with people who took out their pain on me and i let them because i never understood that i didn’t have to. i have had friends stop talking to me for reasons i didnt understand or reasons they neglected to explain. i’ve been accused of and punished for things i didn’t do because everyone assumed my lack of eye contact meant i was lying. i have felt like i wasn’t enough because i couldn’t mask. i have struggled to learn in the chaos of a school environment. i have been bullied, told that i am worthless and that the world would be better off without me.

I cant help but wonder what my life could have been like if i had been diagnosed earlier. could i have kept my friends, or made different ones who loved me? could i have gotten the help i needed in the classroom? could i have had people on my side, who knew i wasn’t lying, who knew the real reason i was fidgeting and speaking ‘weirdly’? could i have loved myself enough to know i never needed the people who were kind and validation one minute, cruel and vindictive the next?

what if i hadnt been diagnosed? what if i continued to live my life, constantly trying to prove my worth and live up to others standards of who i was allowed to be for praise and validation? i’m working on all of it now. i’m learning what’s healthy for me. i refuse to let people manipulate me. i am my own person.

(she/her)

Autistic women aren't as rare as you think

Did you know that women are a lot less likely to be diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder? And no, this isn't necessarily because autism in women is just a lot less common. It's because autism in women usually presents itself very differently than autism in men. Autistic women often get misdiagnosed with anxiety disorders and/or Borderline Personality Disorder. And to be fair, anxiety disorders, BPD and ASD all have quite a lot of similarities.

The damage of being diagnosed with ASD later in life is bigger than you might think. I know this too well. For as long as I can remember, I have felt different in comparison to my peers. I could never put my finger on it, but something about me felt different. Not even just different, no, I felt wrong. There had to be something wrong with me.

I remember a conversation I once had with my mum, although I doubt she remembers this. I think I was about 9 or 10 years old. She had just picked me up from school and we were sitting in the car, when I said to her "I'm special, aren't I?" My mum of course responded by saying how special I was because of how kind and funny and smart I was, because my mum has always been my biggest fan. And I remember I quickly stopped her and said "no not like that, I'm weird."

Weird. It's something I've been called a lot in my life. Most times, it was told jokingly by my friends and family. Other times I was being called weird by bullies or by teachers who should've never started working with children in the first place. I've always known I was weird. So when my friends called me weird for taking something a bit too literally, I honestly didn't mind. As a child I liked being weird. Being weird meant I was being true to myself. As I got older, I noticed that being weird wasn't all that it was cracked up to be. Before I knew it, people thinking I was weird became a subconscious fear of mine. Being weird meant I was myself, yes. But it also meant I didn't belong. Being weird confirmed that I was different, special. That I was wrong.

I was about 9 years old when autism was first suspected. I was making repetitive movements all day long. The movements looked a lot like stimming, something that a lot of autistics do. I don't really remember the test they did. All I remember was that I really liked my psychologist, Sarah. We were always in a room with lots of toys. I remember that my mum once explained to me what autism was, and why they thought I might be autistic. She said "autistic people don't see the big picture, they see a bunch of small things." As an example, she said that autistic people don't see a house, they see windows, a door, walls, etc. I told her I wasn't autistic, because I always see a house. In hindsight, it is pretty ironic to see how literally I took that explanation. Taking things 'too' literally, another sign of autism.

A few weeks after that, Sarah told me that she didn't know if I was autistic or not. In her words, 50% of me was autistic and 50% of me wasn't. They ended up not diagnosing me, and referred me to a hospital to see if it wasn't actually epilepsy.

No, I don't have epilepsy. We later found out I have something called Stereotypic Movement Disorder. Which I will elaborate on in a later post.

For years to come, that would be the closest I'd ever come to an ASD diagnosis. I was also tested for ADHD a few times as a teenager, but to no avail. As I grew older, the feeling of not belonging grew stronger. I was always wondering why I felt like such an outsider, maybe it was just all in my head? I was diagnosed with generalised and social anxiety when I was 16, which I thought could explain the feeling of being an outsider. But if that feeling was caused by anxiety, why did I have that feeling all my life?

When I was about 19 years old, I started suspecting I might be autistic after all. I asked my mum what the reasoning was of my psychologist all those years ago to not diagnose me. Apparently, I met all the diagnostic criteria. But because I had empathy and a lot of fantasy, I was not diagnosed. Since then, I have been fighting for an official diagnosis. I wanted to see on paper that I was diagnosed with ASD.

This was insanely hard to do. I tried talking about it to my psychologist, who dismissed me by saying I didn't need another diagnosis. Whenever I tried to tell someone about my struggle with getting diagnosed, I'd often hear "but you don't seem autistic". I'd get asked why I thought I could be autistic. I'd give my reasons and as a response I'd hear "well you might be on the autism spectrum but not enough to be considered autistic."

I was begging people to do a diagnostic test. I needed to prove that I was right about this, and how much it would help me. Even if we did the testing and it turned out I wasn't autistic at all, I could at least let that idea go and go on with my life. It was so frustrating that nobody believed me. My mum and my partner were the only people who actually believed I was autistic when I told them my reasoning.

And then, an angel in the form of a psychiatrist turned up. After only a few minutes of telling her about myself, she asked me if I was ever diagnosed with ASD. This resulted in enthusiastic rambling on my part. I told her everything, how I felt out of place, how I was almost diagnosed, about the repetitive movements, etc. She is the one who ended up setting up a diagnostic exam for me. And this year in August, I was finally officially diagnosed with ASD. The psychologist who did the diagnostic test told me this was one of the most obvious cases of autism he had ever seen.

You have no idea how relieved I was to finally, FINALLY be diagnosed. That feeling of being different, being wrong. No, there's nothing wrong with me. I'm autistic, that's it. My psychologist, who kept dismissing my suspicions, later told me she didn't want to see if I was autistic because she thought I was looking down on myself. Never once have I seen being autistic as a bad thing. It's just who I am, that's it.

Now I live through life, knowing that I am autistic. That feeling of being out of place, something I've had all my life, is gone. I cannot even describe how liberating it is to have that burden to be lifted from my shoulders. A part of me is angry though. I have been begging for years for help with this. And time and time again, I was ignored or dismissed. Often just being told it was some type of anxiety. I also wish that my psychologist all those years ago didn't refuse to diagnose me. I met all the diagnostic criteria, that should've been enough. Imagine if I was told I was autistic when I was 9. What that meant for me, why I felt like I was different, that there was nothing wrong with me.

Please, believe women when they say they think they're autistic. You have no idea how much you'd be helping us.

[reggyjester]

Self-diagnosis means taking yourself apart and building yourself together, piece by piece

Trigger warning: ableism, abuse, bullying

Generally speaking, self-diagnosing myself with autism meant first and foremost a reality check: comparing the persona I created, who I want to be or at least how I want to be perceived with what I actually am like.

This is exactly why coming to terms with the fact I might be autistic took me so long. A couple of years ago, I used to look into diagnostic criteria for autism and brush them all aside: "Nah, that can't be me! I'm so *extroverted* and *spontaneus* and *good with people*" ... Wishful thinking much?

So diagnosing myself meant acknowledging and accepting my true personality, my needs and limitations. This was really hard since my carefully hand-crafted mask of an neurotypical person has been worn for so long it almost fused with my true face.

Plus, since early childhood I've learned repressing many autistic traits the hard way: through abusive, ableist parents who would punish not only neurodivergent behavior, but any behavior that rubbed them the wrong way. And through being bullied by classmates throughout my whole time at school for being the weird kid.

I never understood why I was being bullied. I tried so hard to fit in, to be nice and polite and friendly to the other kids, yet they always found something about me that didn't fit into their innate concept of how a peer should look, talk, behave. So through a lot of pain and tears, kid-me concluded that there must be something inherently wrong about me, that I am doomed to be different.

I  remember how one of my bullies in elementary school used to threaten to beat me up after school. I couldn't wrap my little 9-year-old head around why he was so aggressive and I asked him desperately: "Why? Why would you do this? What have I ever done to you?" His response was as short as it was cruel: "You're weird, and that's annoying." Another bully told me: "You're an alien, you're out of this world."

The fact that I used to move around a lot as a kid (I have lived in three different countries all across the globe before the age of 10) didn't make it easier to understand which problems were due to a lack of social skills common in autistic kids and which ones were simple cultural misunderstandings. But honestly ... since I've never fit in, no matter the culture or the language (which I learn extremely fast by the way, it's my only talent), I suspect that my problems with peers were really due to a lack of social skills I have a hard time admitting.

And in adult me, this lack of social skills is really hard to spot - you have to know what you are looking for to look past my bubbly, extraverted persona. Being bullied and lonely made me obsessed with fitting in, with being popular. So I studied human behavior meticulously and adapted traits from different people I deemed cool. (Yet again, since I am autistic, how the hell do I know if neurotypical folks might also find the same traits to be cool?)

I worked really hard to become approachable and to appear confident. And I have succeeded: Nowadays, I make friends really easily and many people tell me I am an really cool and unique person and a great listener. Everyone thinks I am that confident person who can chat up anyone, which is the reason why my employer loves making me go to networking events. If only all these people knew the cost at which my social skills come ...

All these experiences are the reasons why I have a hard time discerning autistic traits I had since birth from trauma reactions or learned behavior. It's like trying to untie a knot, or solve a Rubic's cube.

This is why I am planning to write a series of posts about my individual autistic traits. As an orientation, I will look into diagnostic criteria and write a blog post in which wayy they fit me. So stay tuned, my lovely followers! In the mean time, you can read how my self-diagnosis affected my life.

[neurodivergentrebel]

I come from a creative family. My grandparents were part of the local theatre group in our small town when I was growing up. When I was little my mom would help backstage, styling hair and wigs at lightning speed during set changes.

We saw many shows at the small local theatre. Sometimes, on special occasions, we would drive to Austin. Musicals, comedies, Shakespeare, and even puppet shows. When we saw Grease (I was in elementary school), I nearly fell out of my chair laughing uncontrollably, and loudly, when the mooners interrupted the prom with their bare bottoms.

For a long time being on stage wasn’t my passion. I enjoyed being backstage, behind the scenes, helping out with set changes and running errands for the crew and cast, wearing all black, sneaking around quietly and quickly, blending into the background.

The actors fascinated me. It was magical when they got into character because, as I had learned growing up backstage, often the actors were nothing like the characters they played on stage in real life. They were playing a role, working from a script.

It would be a few years before my own self-confidence would grow enough for me to move from backstage to onstage. At age eleven, I tried out for, and landed a role in, my first play with a local theatre group. It was a small speaking role. I learned my lines by reciting them repeatedly while listening to a cassette recording of the play on repeat. By show’s debut, I had not only memorized my lines but also all of the lines for each of the roles in every scene I appeared in. It almost killed me.

Learning my lines, attending rehearsals, and pushing through stage fright every day began to wear on me and my health took a dip. Backstage and at home bouts of nausea, vertigo, pain, and disorientation were hitting more frequently.

It is an unknown sickness that often appears in times of change or stress. I’ve battled off and on throughout my life. I’ve had doctors call it many things – IBS, anxiety, a way to skip class. The autistic community would call it burnout.

Burnouts tend to be caused by stressors in the autistic person’s environment. The stressors can be mental or physical. Burnout, for me, has always come when I was taking on or doing “too much” or from putting myself into situations that are stressful too frequently. There are things that can burn me out quickly and there are things that will burn me out more slowly, like masking – the silent killer.

I’m a chameleon, an expert masker. I can be fun and playful, or serious and attentive. I can sit still, with proper posture, and give the impression of eye contact. There are many masks, many characters that all require varying skill levels to pull off. Some costumes are more elaborate than others.

The Businesswoman is the most work. She dresses professionally, uses proper speech and grammar, makes great “eye contact”, and is confident. She knows how to act professional and polished. The Businesswoman is just a character but she a part of me and she is me. Her costume is the heaviest of all because it has the most pieces, rules, and requires the most energy and effort to pull off. I can’t wear her every day. She’s so heavy.

Masking can be hard on your self-esteem. Things you do naturally seem to irritate or be strange to other people. You learn to become whoever the person in front of you expects you to be. When an autistic person picks up the mask it is often a way to blend in, survive, or avoid abuse and bullying. Shaming comments like “That was weird!” “What’s wrong with you?” and “Are you okay?” become cues not to do whatever it was you were doing just before the comment. So you put it away – not now, not here, not in public. Wait till you’re home alone.

The brain is a power hungry organ. Masking is tiring. An autistic person who is focusing all their energy on not stimming, not making noises, not making the wrong face, trying to figure out when to talk, thinking about their posture and wondering if it is correct, trying to figure out facial expressions, trying to while filter out background noise and follow a conversation, is burning up lots of mental energy. Masking from time to time probably won’t hurt most people but continued masking, without rest, day after day, continually draining extra energy adds up.

I’ve hit the burnout phase more than once in my life, but hitting it in adulthood has really been eye-opening (partially because it led me to my autism diagnosis). My most recent burnout has helped me to realize the value and necessity for self-care and forced me to look at myself with more self-compassion. I made my mental and physical health a priority and stopped spending time with people who need me to be the masked version of myself.

For the first time in a long time, I’m starting to feel at ease in my own skin.

Small child with dark hear and hands clasped around eyes making a tunnel.

An Autistic Perspective #TakeTheMaskOff - Masking, Mental Health, & Burnout - How does masking impact mental health? What is burnout, how does it relate to masking? #TakeTheMaskOff I come from a creative family. My grandparents were part of the local theatre group in our small town when I was growing up.

[growingupautie]

Q: 23yo f. I've been questioning if I could have autism for about a year. I'm an early childhood educator and have been to a few training sessions on autism. My brother has a diagnosis of aspie and I read a lot of things that I can relate to listed as symptoms or on blogs. Throughout my life, people have called me weird as statements about me. I have always had a different sort of perspective. I have done a bit of research on what a diagnosis entails where I live but I don't want to do it all and then not get answers to why I am how I am. There's also a fraction of a chance that my anxieties were caused by my upbringing as it was unstable in its entirety. I'm not sure. .. it's a hard decision to make if at my age it would be worthwhile going through the process if there's a chance I will walk away still with the same question of "why?" Just need advice maybe...

A: Well, a lot of that resonates with me. My childhood was extremely unstable. I've been treated like everything from a robot to an infectious zombie by the people around me. I know many people who get diagnosed as adults, and it can be difficult, especially as a female because science/medicine still seems to believe we are allergic to change, and adaption when in reality we often adapt better than our counterparts even though it may take us longer to do so. (females take less time as they tend to pick up on the need to adaption earlier on.)

As such, many of us go into these diagnoses as "Evolved Autistics" able to mimic Neurotypicals and pass as one with the unfortunate side-effect that we are then undiagnosable as Autistic. I myself was diagnosed as a kid, but when I had to get rediagnosed as an adult they almost refused to accept it because of how much I was able to adapt. It wasn't until I explained how I used to be as a child that they finally realized I was telling the truth. My inability to understand wordplay, lies, etc. My "gullibility," my social issues, the bullying, and other issues.

A diagnosis can go a long way into helping you realize yourself. It can be a cathartic feeling to realize that your issues stemmed from trying to be something you aren't and allow you to accept who you really are. It's a little like finding out you are left-handed, and suddenly understanding why you were so bad at everything with your right hand. So, it can definitely be worth it. If you choose to go get one, I would focus more on your past experiences, and the struggles getting to this point, and less on your present adapted self. I hope that helps.

-Nathan

[bat-ly]

Back To School

Characters: Dick Grayson, Cassandra Cain, Bruce Wayne

Summary: Cassandra finally convinces Bruce to let her go to school and is really excited to start her first day at Gotham Academy. However, she's about to find out that even if you're not directly bullied you can still be hurt.

A/N: Long time no see guys!         

Anyway, this is something I've been working on for a while and I'm really proud of it. I believe my writing has improved a lot from when I started this AU and I think this is my best work yet.

It is also something that's deeply personal to me. This is sort of a vent fic and me projecting my struggles on to Cassandra and Dick, that said almost all of the scenes in this story are loosely based on my own experiences as an undiagnosed person who possibly has ADD or Autism (still not sure, to be honest.)

Fair warning for anyone reading: THIS STORY CONTAINS ABLEIST LANGUAGE INCLUDING THE R SLUR AND OTHER ABLEIST BEHAVIOURS IF THIS UPSETS YOU THEN DON'T READ.

Also for anyone interested there is more stuff in this AU that I would like to upload onto Tumblr at some point but for now, you can find it here.

"Are you sure you want to this sweetheart?" Bruce asks for what is probably the hundredth time already. A look of concern is painted on his face as he helps Cassandra pack all her new school things into her new school bag. "it's not going to be easy."   

Cassandra raises an eyebrow up at him before signing "When has anything in my life ever been easy?" She turns back to what she was doing, far too excited to be upset over Bruce's overprotectiveness.   

She is finally going to school! A real school! After months of begging and pleading and proving herself ready for the experience over and over again, Bruce finally caved and enrolled her at Gotham Academy, the same place all her siblings had gone!  

 "I know but this is going to be an entirely different set of skills." Cassandra sighs having heard this argument already. "Ones that you haven't had as much experience in." He pauses what he was doing to reach over and place his hands on Cassandra's cheeks, bringing them up to look him in the eye. "I know I keep saying the safe stuff over and over but I just can't help but worry, this will be a big change for both of us."   

Cassandra puts her hands to his and allows her face to ease into a soft smile. "I know you worry. We will survive this." She is well aware her speaking grammar still isn't perfect but as long as her point makes it through then she doesn't really mind too much. Gently pulling away from Bruce she puts the final item in her backpack before zipping it up and placing it on her back in a triumphant looking pose.   

Bruce looks at her almost wistfully. "Yes, I believe we will." He takes a moment to collect himself. "You look amazing, dear."    

Cassandra beams up at him, grabbing him by the wrist in order to drag him out to the driveway where Alfred was already waiting with the car. There's a bounce in her step as she makes her way down, dragging her reluctant father with her. It was small moments like these when she felt they could almost be like a normal family.  

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~   

After arriving at the school it took forever to get Bruce to let her go and finally enter the school, she could have sworn he was almost on the verge of tears. Well, at least he was putting on a very convincing fatherly act. Just like she managed to convince him she wasn't overwhelmed by the amount of people. 

Cassandra would be lying if she said that being completely packed in by so many people didn't make her nervous, it was ingrained into her very being to be cautious in possibly problematic situations.  However today was not for being an assassin or vigilante, today was for being a student.   

The first class is… odd, or at least it feels odd to Cassandra. As soon as she enters the room people are looking and noticing her presence. Then the teacher, a greying but in denial about it woman, comes up to her with a smile that might've actually been faker then Bruce at a gala.   

"Hello," she says far too loudly, "you must be Cassandra, welcome to Gotham Academy." The sickly sweet tone of her voice and slow way of stretching each word made it seem like she was trying to communicate with a 3-year-old. The way she bent down to Cassandra's level didn't help either.   "

Uh, h-hello?" The teacher's body language is throwing her off. Surely this is considered weird by society standards?   

"We are so excited to have you here." The teacher moves to pat one of the nearby desks. "We've already set up a nice spot at the front for you to sit, is that okay? Cassandra finds it annoying how long it is taking just for this woman to finish a sentence but figures it'd be rude to say something.  

Not really knowing how exactly to respond to the teachers' obvious lies Cassandra just nods her head and walks over to her new assigned desk. Weird teacher aside she's excited to find that the classroom looks a lot like the ones in the movies.   

The walls are relatively bland and plain, the only decoration being a variety of different informational posters relating back to the room's main subject. The desks are all set up in neat, uniform lines with the only other thing on the floor being the students' bags.  Cassandra's desk is covered in all sorts of different scribbles and scrawl, most of it inappropriate she believes.   

Once Cassandra has sat down the teacher crouches in front of her desk and gives her that borderline terrifying smile. "Now sweetie, if you're struggling with anything you just ask, okay?" She's still talking in that annoyingly slow way and gives an exaggerated nod on almost every word.   

Cassandra still didn't know how she was supposed to react to this so again she chose to just nod her agreement. Finally, the teacher leaves her to unpack her things and continues on with the lesson. Fortunately, the rest of the period goes ahead in fairly ordinary manner.  

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~   

Recess! Finally, it was recess! Bruce was actually right in saying that Cassandra would already know the majority of the regular school curriculum, but she still found the experience educational in its own way. However, after being cramped up in those small desks for over two hours, she was still glad to be getting a break.  

 Cassandra joins the flowing river students as they make their ways down the hall and outside. The weather was fair and warm, which was relatively rare for Gotham, so everyone wanted to make the best of it. Once out in the school break area, Cassandra is confronted with a large selection of possible sitting areas.   

Of course, Cassandra knew that this was possibly going to be a difficult situation considering she wasn't the greatest at making new friends but she figured the best she can do is just find somewhere to sit and let things naturally take their course from there.   She finds a nice bench in the sun near a large group of kids who all seemed to be fairly decent. They're talking very loudly and Cassandra can't help but listen to their conversation.   

"Hey! Did you hear about the shit Raz pulled in Maths today?" a tall, dark-haired boy calls out to one of the others.   

"Aw yeah, I swear he must be retarded or something!" Cassandra instantly goes completely still as soon as she hears this.  

 That's a bad word. Dick told her that's a bad word. A bad word used to describe people like him and her, what was the official name he called it? An ableist slur, she thinks it was. Cassandra tunes back in to hear all of the other kids in the group laughing like it was nothing.  

 Deciding that perhaps these kids just weren't as good as they first appeared Cassandra thinks that maybe it's best if she just ignores them and tries to focus on just eating her lunch and enjoying the nice weather.   

However, Cassandra could not ignore it when she hears the group start making jokes specifically about Autism. Not quite hearing the whole original exchange, she looks over and listens intently only to find that the kids are mocking each other by calling each other Autistic.  

 Cassandra feels such strong, sick feeling of disgust in her stomach that she just has to get up and leave the area. It was horrible! How could they make a joke out of an entire group of people like that!? And everyone was just okay with it?   

Cassandra moves herself to a nice, quiet tree away from any major groups of kids, where she can do her best just to put those awful kids out of her mind. She chooses not to finish her sandwich out of fear that the sick feeling in her stomach would just make her puke it up. 

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~   

The sick feeling that Cassandra had felt during the first break only got worse throughout the rest of the day as she realized that those were not just a particularly bad group. Now that she had heard it once Cassandra couldn't help but notice that everyone showed the same behavior.   

Worse was that she couldn't seem to find anyone who seemed to care or think that this behavior was wrong. No one seemed to exhibit any bodily behavior that indicated they were uncomfortable with this. Apparently mocking people who have no choice in how that act is completely normal and accepted in school.   

She sees kids making fun of how some people stim, waving their arms around exaggeratedly and laughing about it. She hears many more kids like the ones in the first break who feel the need to use Autism as a way to insult their friends. Most upsetting was the fact that almost every kid in all of her classes felt the need to say… The R word.   

As the day goes on Cassandra continuously shrinks further and further into herself. After having someone as amazing and confident as Dick to guide her through the ups and downs of having Autism she never thought she would say that she was ashamed to be Autistic, ashamed to be different.   

She refuses to interact with anyone just in case someone makes fun of her for her speaking difficulties or her use of sign language. She never puts her hand up to read for the class, noticing how everyone groans and rolls their eyes whenever a slow reader is picked.   

And whenever she feels the urge to stim or flap, she resists. It's torture to not be able to let out her pent up emotions like that but for the first time in her life, Cassandra feels like these differences she has mean something is deeply wrong with her.  

 What Cassandra is not ashamed to say is that by the time that school ends she's ready to just go home and cry. This whole time the biggest thing her and Bruce had been worried about was the possibility of bullying, yet no one said a bad thing to her and she still feels like running home in tears.   

She makes her way out to the car that Alfred is sitting in the front of, opens the door before throwing her bag, and herself, into the seat. Unfortunately for her, Bruce is sitting on the opposite side, surely waiting to hear all about her first day at school.  

"Sooo… how was it?" Cassandra could see the tension in his body, waiting for the verdict. She knows that if she says a single bad thing out loud Bruce would start a campaign to get her out of school, which she isn't ready to give up on yet, but she doesn't know if she has it in her to fake a good day.   

"Fine. It was fine." School has made her painfully aware that she is failing in the speech department so she does her best to talk with proper grammar. She knows it won't be enough to fool him, but she hopes it's enough to convince of her need for some privacy.   

It works, at least for now, Cassandra senses Bruce's withdrawal but also his heavy concern. This will not be the last they speak of this. But until then Bruce is willing to respect Cassandra's privacy and leave her alone until she's ready to talk. They spend the rest of the drive in silence, the tension thick in the air. 

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~   

Instead of taking her usual patrol route that night Cassandra starts the journey to Bludhaven instead. She knows Bruce will be willing to cover for her with the others should they question her absence and right now she just really needs to talk with someone.   

Hopefully, he'll be home tonight. It'll make things a lot more difficult if Cassandra has to go running all around Bludhaven just to find him. She makes her way to his apartment, keeping to the shadows so none of the late night crowd would notice her.   

Once she reaches the window there's music playing from inside accompanied by a carefree voice. Hoping that he doesn't have any guests over, Cassandra approaches the window and gives it a loud tap. The singing stops and, after face appears in the window, so does the music.   

"To what do I owe the pleasure of your company, Princess?" Dick grins as he opens the window. Just the sound of his voice calling her that personal nickname makes her feel instantly more at ease. He waves her inside before closing the window and turning to give her a hug.   

She knows he notices how she squeezes him a little tighter than usual because he leads her over to his worn, second-hand couch and sits her down.   

"Is something wrong? I heard you started school today," the concern is obvious on his face and she's just ready to spill her guts to him.   

"Why am I wrong?" she whispers. She doesn't know any way else to tell him, why is she wrong? Why can't she be like the other kids? Why is it so normal to hate people like them, who have no choice or control over how they act?   

A look of pure shock passes over Dick's face, "What?" Cassandra hates that look, it makes her want to break down in tears, to just let him see every exposed and vulnerable part of her so he can kiss it better. Just like he always does as an inside joke whenever one of them gets hurt.   

"The other kids… at school.." saying it is just too hard for her right now so she switches to ASL, "None of them seem to know… they treat our disorders like a joke."

Dick's expression falls into one of dismay. "Cass… Princess that doesn't make you wrong," He looks away and sighs, "It seems like since forever people have always just… never known how to react to something they perceive as different"   He turns back to Cassandra and gives her a soft smile, "If anything it's them who's in the wrong, for refusing to even try to understand."  

Cassandra feels her lip quiver and knows that her eyes must be swelling up as well, "But I feel like such a failure of a human."

  Dick thinks for a moment, shifting his position on the couch, "Do you want to know what someone told me when I was feeling this way?" Cassandra looks at him with curiosity and nods. "Well, they reminded me of something very important."   

Dick moves to cup Cassandra's face in his hands, looking her directly in the eye, "They reminded me that we are not broken or failures, we're just different."   

This opens the floodgates as tears start to run down Cassandra's face and don't seem to stop. She breaks Dick's hold and moves in to hold him as tightly as she can. A reassuring hand reaches to rub soothingly on her back as she finally gets the chance to just let it all out.   

They stay there for what seems like hours, just Cassandra sobbing in Dick's arms until she simply runs dry, then they stay together a bit longer. Until Cassandra is asleep and Dick tucks her into bed before hopping in beside her, still not quite ready to let go yet.

[queerpyracy]

@walkinredinstead april challenge - day 10 - how and when you found out you’re autistic

self-dx: a self-love story

some things my mother said a lot, throughout my childhood, and still does:

“marilyn’s just shy”

“[my sister] never knew a stranger and marilyn never knew a friend”

“you’re an old soul”

“my strange and wonderful child”

I figured out pretty early on that I was different--not because I could tell at first, but because everyone else could. I wasn’t different “enough” to be consistently bullied for it, but it was evident to other kids that I was weird, and I spent a lot of grade school with exactly One Friend, who I think just decided we were friends in kindergarten, and stayed my friend all the way up into high school. (We later fell out of touch after she moved a few times.)

By middle school I had figured out that I was weird, and had learned to identify and mask a lot of my “weird” behaviors. I didn’t talk a lot about my interests, I became a constant monitor of everything I said or did, and I developed a crushing fear of humiliation and social rejection.

I got more friends as I learned to mold myself into whatever person the situation required me to be. I did and said things I wasn’t comfortable with, and laughed it off because I needed, more than anything, to know that I fit in. I needed somebody--anybody--to like me and tell me that I belonged.

One event, that I wouldn’t think about again until years later, happened with the pastor at my church, who out-of-the-blue loaned me a Temple Grandin book. I couldn’t figure out why on earth she would have handed it to me, and a few weeks later, I returned it unread. I haven’t been in touch with her since I remembered this, but now I want to ask her what she noticed, and if she suspected.

I had heard of autism but it wasn’t until around the time I was in middle school/freshmen year of high school that I actually heard people talking about it. Shortly after I learned that one of my uncles is, in my mother’s words, “borderline autistic” (whatever that means), I learned that it commonly runs in families.

I hesitated. I thought--am I autistic? But when I mentioned it to my friends, they laughed it off like I was worrying about nothing, so I did too.

Shortly after my English class read a particular book--the one with a long title involving a dog--that one that I know now doesn’t accurately portray anything--and I didn’t relate to the protagonist at all, so I thought, well, I’m not autistic after all.

I’m still just... weird.

I took my high school’s psychology class. I did some casual reading on my own. I told myself that because I hadn’t grown up around any other kids besides my sister (who’s four years younger than me) that I must have missed some critical early socialization window, and that my social difficulties were all because I hadn’t gone to preschool or have any neighborhood kids to play with.

In the later years of high school and my first year of college, I just started to assume that I was broken, or fucked up in some way. Not in so many words, but I had internalized the belief that there was something wrong with me, and I’d have to keep pretending that there wasn’t if I wanted to have a life and friends.

Sometime in 2014 I followed an autistic blogger on tumblr. I had followed them for lgbtq content, but the more I read their posts about being autistic, the more things started to sound... familiar....

I started doing some digging. A friend linked me to a self-dx masterpost, an the more I read, the more self-assessments I did that all came up with the same results, the more I realized that this thing I’ve been struggling with has had a name all along.

There’s a reason why I’ve never been able to look anybody in the eye without being massively uncomfortable. There’s a reason why it seemed like I always said or did the wrong thing, why my body language was “weird.” Why things that were obvious to everyone else had to be explained to me.

I wasn’t just “shy” or “anxious”--I was fucking autistic.

It wasn’t the biggest relief, at first. All I knew about was the symptoms, I didn’t know anything about neurodiversity, or autistic history, or that knowing I was disabled didn’t change anything about who I had been before.

It took time, but the last two and a half years have transformed me. I’m not ashamed of who I am, anymore. I still struggle with my anxieties about embarrassment and rejection, but I know where they come from, now, and the monster you can name and identify is a lot less scary than the one you can’t.

October 2017 will be the three year anniversary of my discovery. I’m still figuring out how to talk about it with the people in my family, because I’m good enough at masking that I don’t fit their idea of what autism “should” look like. One of my cousins has an autistic son who’s nonverbal, and I’m always a little anxious that she’s going to come after me for “not really” being autistic.

Still, I’ve changed a lot in two and a half years--and I am so, so glad that I know I’m not broken.

[nedafeedinghope]

I Have an Eating Disorder Because I’m Autistic

By Carrie Beckwith-Fellows--People often say that an eating disorder is about control and not about weight. They say it is about anxiety, not body image. I don’t know what my eating disorder is about. It’s about so many things and nothing at the same time. I do not have anorexia or bulimia, I have autism.

At the age of 35, I received my autism diagnosis. Finally, my life made sense and I was able to see why I had struggled so much with sensory issues, emotions, and relationships. However, there was one relationship that I had struggled with the most and knowing autism was the reason behind it made me feel relief. That relationship was with food.

Trigger warning: Mentions of eating disordered behavior, self-harm, and suicide.

How autism causes or affects eating disorders, I do not know. But for me, it is a way to cope with a world that scares me. It is a way to keep connected to my body when sensory issues make me want to tear my skin off. Autistic people can become fixated on certain facts, numbers, and patterns. I am fixated on a specific weight and every day begins either happy because I am below it, or miserable and full of anxiety because I am over it. Black-and-white thinking makes food good or bad and dress sizes acceptable or not acceptable.

I’ve always fought with food. As a toddler, I had extreme intolerance to any texture other than completely smooth and this continued throughout childhood. When I did get past my sensory issues with texture, I only tolerated a diet that was so restrictive that I went months eating the same food.

In addition to issues with food, I had, and still have, a tumultuous relationship with my body. I was fixated on my belly when I was seven years old and asked my mother what diet would make it go away. Due to a connective tissue disorder, I developed stretch marks and cellulite in my pre-teens despite being petite and slightly-built. I know now they were caused by my faulty collagen, but back then I was obsessed with getting rid of them. Developing acne at the age of 11 was the final straw that led me to completely despise myself and how I looked.

Being bullied throughout my entire school life was hard enough, but everything that I was bullied for was appearance-related. I was spotty, wore glasses, and had naturally-frizzy hair. So when the bullies started calling me “fat,” despite being tiny, I became fixated on doing anything I could to control my body and how it looked. I believed that people liked me or hated me based on how I looked in a pair of jeans because I was told so by my school bully. Nevertheless, sensory issues often left me unable to wear anything other than the one piece of clothing I disliked.

I was already hiding self-harm, so it was easy to keep my developing eating disorder secret. Calorie counting, hours of exercising, and eventual purging became part of my daily routine. At 18, I was so overwhelmed that I suffered a massive breakdown. I spent months in a psychiatric ward after attempting suicide, and my eating disorder was brought to light. However, treatment only focused on the depression and emotional symptoms. I received no help with my eating disorder, and so my complicated relationship with food continued.

Due to my connective tissue disorder, my digestive system has completely failed. This has led me to be dependent on feeding tubes, and I’m now being fed directly into my bloodstream via a method called TPN (total parenteral nutrition). I no longer have control over how many calories my body receives each day. Chronic pain and severe fatigue prevent me from exercising. I struggle daily with loss of control, but in a weird kind of way, losing my digestive system has been a blessing, because even though I still live with the eating disorder in my mind, I can’t physically act on it. My condition is life-limiting and complex and I’ve started therapy to help me cope with this. My therapist and I will be exploring my eating disorder and autism together and I’m hopeful that it will help me understand how they interact better.

I’m still learning what it means to be autistic and it will take time to understand why my autism causes the difficulties with body image and food. But one thing is for sure: knowing my eating disorder is part of my autism means I can take a step back when I am really struggling and know that it’s OK. My autism diagnosis allows me to take a breath and tell myself that my eating disorder is really my autistic brain obsessing about numbers, patterns, and sensations. Knowing this is helping me to develop a better relationship, not only with food, but with myself.

Carrie Beckwith-Fellows is a 36-year-old freelance writer and blogger from rural Northumberland, UK. She has struggled with an eating disorder since childhood due to autism. Her hobbies include stationery, creative Bible journaling, and playing computer games. She is currently writing two books, and vlogs about living with a life-limiting condition in the remotest village in England. You can watch Carrie’s vlog at RuralTeacake.com and follow her on Facebook.

[scriptautistic]

Hi! I'd like to know if it would be possible for a character/their surrounding family/friends to not notice/suspect that they might be autistic until adulthood? (I start writing when she is around 20 and I want her to start questioning this about herself as part of her journey) Is this feasible? Is it actually possible someone could be autistic without picking up on it/others picking up on it until this age? And what sort of things could she pick up on/question now to give her the idea? Thanks!

Absolutely. No one suspected I was autistic until I was 24, even though I showed many very obvious autistic traits throughout my life. I did well in school and was obviously very intelligent, so no one considered something that they thought of as a disability for me. I was bullied for being weird, had no friends, and constantly punished for being rude and not having “common sense”. The assumption was, since I was intelligent, that I understood very well what I was doing wrong and it was therefore intentional. I was also always very androgynous and preferred boys’ clothes because they were looser - girls’ clothes were painful for me to wear. Instead of noting the sensory issue, I was just labeled a “tomboy” and told I needed to learn to be “more ladylike”. It is especially common for girls to not be diagnosed until adulthood, since we tend to have an easier time mimicking others and blending in, and may hide meltdowns, etc. 

One thing that is very common for girls is that another girl will take them under their wing during childhood or adolescence. Sometimes an allistic girl will see, for example, a socially awkward girl with no “fashion sense” and take it upon herself to teach her how to put on makeup, dress, talk to others, etc. This is far from universal (certainly didn’t happen to me), but common enough to mention. When this happens, it is often much less obvious to others that the girl is autistic.

Boys (and genderfluid and nonbinary people as well) can also “fly under the radar” until adulthood. It is very common. Many autistic people don’t realize they’re autistic until they learn about it later in life and realize it describes them. The public perception is that autistic people are very disabled, can’t communicate properly, or are extremely rude, and that makes them easy to identify, but that is far from always the case. It is also common for someone to be obviously autistic, but for others to try to excuse away the traits, because they see autism as such a tragic thing they want to avoid the word as much as possible. Such an example exists in my own family: my 6-year-old niece is obviously autistic and has shown EVERY obvious trait from the time she was 6 months old, but because at one point she got burned by a cup of tea that got knocked over, the doctors immediately said that she was simply traumatized and would return to “normal” eventually. She can speak now and goes to a normal school, so my sister insists that she is not autistic, even though she very obviously is.

As for what could bring up the idea of your character being autistic, I can only offer my own experience. At age 24 I moved to a different country and my boss/mentor where I was working noticed immediately that I had difficulty with social skills and odd body language. She had previous experience with autistic people. She started probing me with questions about having friends as a child, how I felt when people laughed at me, etc. She was the first person to see my social problems as something unintentional, even something I was unaware of, rather than something intentional, and decided to gently help me. She was the first person in my life to say the words “you talk too much”. When I thought I was being maliciously made fun of, she took the time to explain to me that they weren’t trying to hurt me, they were trying to bond with me playfully, and that it wasn’t intended to be taken literally. I told her I didn’t see any difference, and she offered to point out whenever she saw me taking things the wrong way, so I could slowly learn the difference. (I still have trouble with this but it’s better than it was). Then she started lending me books written by autistic people. I was astounded - they were describing ME. Finally, the idea entered my head that I could be autistic. It was upsetting at first, since I thought at the time that autism was a terrible disability. It meant that no matter how hard I tried, I would never be normal. I started doing research on my own, and the more I read, the more certain it was that this was me. I was autistic. I asked my mentor about it and she confirmed that she was certain I was autistic. Eventually I talked to a psychologist about it (one who specialized in autism) and it was officially confirmed. After that, it was a slow process of becoming an expert on it, learning how I was different and why, and discovering that it’s not a horrible disability at all. I now consider it simply a different but perfectly healthy type of brain which has always been a part of the human race, and without which we would not have the society we have today. 

I hope this is helpful. Your proposed character sounds very realistic to me. Good luck!

-Mod Aira

I agree with Aira, it is absolutely possible. In addition to what she said about reasons someone might not get diagnosed, I would like to add that even in the official diagnostic criteria of the DSM (which one may or may not agree with, but which is still a good point of reference), it is written “The onset of the symptoms is in the early developmental period (but deficits may not become fully manifest until social communication demands exceed limited capacities).” This means that while someone is born autistic, their neurodivergence may not be noticed as a child because their environment is “easy enough” that they don’t show obvious “"deficits”“ in social skills and communications and such, which is what people tend to look for when they’re wondering if someone may be autistic.

I would moreover like to add my own experience of someone who realized they were autistic in adulthood (well, more late adolescence) because I’ve been told it was a typical one.

While I’ve shown autistic traits for as long as I can remember, no one noticed because I did very well in school, had a few friends (all of which had been found for me by a handy adult) and was just considered “quirky”.

When I was about 13 social rules changed from that of childhood to that of adolescence. Friendships were formed more by affinity and design than by whoever was around at the time, and rules to maintain these friendships became more and more complex.

I started being very isolated, until when i was 15 my only friends were online friends who lived hundreds of miles away. That plus bullying and some family problems (also caused by miscommunication due to my being autistic and no one being aware of it) led me to a depression of which I’m just now beginning to get out of.

While I hid my mental health issue to my parents as long as I could, they finally caught on, and I began seeing a whole series of mental health professionals.

Now, this is the stage at which some people get diagnosed. The professionals I saw were not well educated about autism and failed to notice anything. They also failed to do anything useful for me, but that’s another story.

I ended up by pure chance making an online friend who was autistic and very open about it. After a while of getting to know each other, he told me he saw a lot of autistic traits in me. That’s the point when I started learning about it obsessively, eventually self-diagnosing.

I talked about it with the therapist I was seeing at the time, she agreed with me, told me to go see a specialist psychologist, who also said I was probably autistic. I’ve not yet undertaken an official, medical diagnosis, though it is a project of mine.

I’m sorry this got so lengthy, and I hope you can find anything useful buried in there.

-Mod Cat

[amylistens-blog]

celebrating autism - awareness without acceptance is pointless

when i was 3 years old, i was diagnosed with asperger’s syndrome (now labeled ASD) and rediagnosed a few years later. although i am one of the lucky few who were able to be diagnosed so young, it was still mentally and physically draining for both family and friends. back then, autism was only starting to come to people’s attention and from personal experience, not a lot of people knew what to do when i had meltdowns* or when i would constantly stim** or become overwhelmed, which lead to ridicule. i used to be so ashamed; if you asked me in my pre-teen years what i could change about myself, i would reply ‘i wish i wasn’t autistic.’ this lead to years of constant battling with myself, low self-esteem and locking myself away in my room for weeks on end because i couldn’t accept myself for who i am. i would let it be a barrier for the majority of my developmental years and i punished myself relentlessly. now, i wouldn’t change a single thing about me. i am so proud to be autistic.

if you are unaware, autism is a lifelong, developmental disability that affects how a person communicates with and relates to other people, and how they experience the world around them. as it is also a spectrum disorder, this means that no two autistic people are the same and can affect everyone from any background. 

my personal journey with autism has been weird, to say the least. throughout my life i’ve heard and been subjected to ridiculous ‘cures’, for example, no gluten in your diet, the infamous belief that vaccines cause autism and even one mother putting bleach into her daughter’s drinks to ‘cure’ her autism. none of this works, obviously, but i wish i had the support and acceptance rather than people trying to ‘fix’ me. we are human beings just like everyone else, i wanted to be celebrated for being different rather than bullied. this is probably why i have such a strong love for social media, it was the first place where i was ever accepted for who i was. i met one of my best friends since 2012, anthony, through social media and our mutual diagnosis. even that is severely barely touching the surface; i have met hundreds and thousands of people online who supported me unconditionally. this attitude needs to be prevalent everywhere, however.

so how can you support someone who is autistic? well, that question is impossible to answer as, although we share the same difficulties, no two people are the same. however, here are some main things that are generally agreed upon:

do NOT support autism speaks. autism speaks are an awful organisation who try to find a ‘cure’ for autism rather than focusing on acceptance. they perpetuate that autistic people are horrible people who should be hidden away and do not listen to the needs of autistic people. this video explains wonderfully why they are not to be supported.

do NOT ‘light it up blue’ or use puzzle pieces as a way of celebrating autism. the ‘light it up blue’ campaign was created by autism speaks and autistic people generally do not like using a puzzle piece as a symbol to represent them as it comes off as being a missing piece or something that needs to be completed. go red instead! use infinity signs, not puzzle pieces!

be patient. new experiences are difficult for us. we may need some time out when a situation becomes overwhelming. encourage safe stimming when we do become overwhelmed and make sure to communicate effectively to us. since many autistic people find it hard to read others and process things a lot more slowly, this works wonders. 

use the right language. there is a really handy study that was conducted on autistic people, parents of autistic children and professionals on how to describe us. however, this differentiates between people so if you’re not sure, just ask!

over the last few years i’ve managed to go on an amazing road of discovery and acceptance in myself. autism is an integral part of who i am and i no longer believe in the stigma surrounded by it. however, without acceptance, awareness is pointless. having people who accept you for who you are makes all the difference. autism does not embody completely who i am, but a part of myself that i am so undeniably proud of. a better world for people on the autistic spectrum is a better world for us all.

*meltdowns are an intense response to overwhelming situations. it happens when someone becomes completely overwhelmed by their current situation and temporarily loses behavioural control.  **stimming is short for self-stimulatory behavior and is sometimes also called "stereotypic" behaviour and can be anything that is considered appealing. examples include (but are not limited to) hand flapping, rocking and repetition of certain words and phrases.