#instead of me simply having a neurodevelopmental difference

[macarons-and-poms]

Does realizing you're neurodivergent as an adult mean you realize you were gaslight into not believing yourself and your experiences *you're entire fucking life*

And then suddenly everything clicks into place and it becomes clear that no, you actually were right about your capabilities and experiences and your entire life you've been screaming for help so *how the fuck did it take nearly 30 years for anyone to notice*

[uncloseted]

Hii! i was wondering if you’d have any advice on my problem!

I’m worried that I can be a little dumb. I know ‘intelligence’ manifests itself in different areas and I think I’m quite creative and very imaginative, I’m also good when it comes to academia, understanding what the professors want to see and writing strong essays.

But I think my main thing is that I lack common sense, and I can come accross as very ditzy, airy fairy kinda thing. I can write decently but I struggle to express myself when speaking/ I’m also very emotionally driven so I feel like I’m terrible at any kind of debate or very intellectually stimulating conversation 😭

I feel like I physically cannot think before I speak and I always say the silliest things and it’s okay because my friends love me for it but I do feel a bit insecure about it all!

I feel like I’m that person who never gets the joke, who always gets lost and has no sense of direction, and I just overall lack common sense. Stuff that comes super naturally to others around me will simply not occur to me ever 😭 I also feel very easily confused and lost!

Also I’m a blonde girl and I’m soft spoken and have a high-pitched voice, and I feel like that adds more and more to the ditzy image (that’s a sexism problem and not a me problem, but it’s still a thing)

In conclusion I am confused and seeking ur advice! 🥰I hope you’re doing wonderful btw!

So, the first thing that comes to mind is, if you haven't already, it may be worth being evaluated for neurodevelopmental conditions or learning disabilities. The reason I mention this is because a lot of people (especially girls) grow up feeling dumb when in fact they're just struggling with something going on in their brain. Girls with ADHD often present as being "spacey" or "dreamy" or "ditzy", but that's actually due to difficulty with distractability and memory. People with ADHD in general often have difficulty in conversation because they have trouble with impulsivity and can't take a beat to let another person finish their thought or to think about what they want to say. People with dyslexia often also have a poor sense of direction, and people with autism often feel like they "don't get the joke" or that they lack common sense because they struggle to pick up on social cues. There are lots of different types of disorders that cause differences in how people understand and process information. Of course, that may not be the case for you, but I just wanted to bring it up because some people struggle with these types of issues their entire lives without knowing what they are.

In terms of what you can do to try and improve your intelligence and common sense, I think it's just about practicing those skills.

For becoming (or seeming) more traditionally intelligent:

Practice active listening: When you're having a conversation with someone else, try to make a conscious effort to listen carefully to what they're saying instead of waiting for your turn to talk. Before you respond, take a beat to process their words and think before responding. This will help you avoid saying something you wish you hadn't and give you time to figure out what the appropriate response would be.

Slow down when you talk: This kind of follows from the last piece of advice, but try to talk more slowly and give yourself time to process your thoughts as you're talking. It's okay to pause in the middle of an idea to make it clear to yourself before saying it out loud.

Start doing "intellectual things": Expose yourself to a wide range of topics and perspectives. Read books, listen to podcasts, and engage in discussions with people who are really good in this area. This will help you broaden your understanding, develop stronger critical thinking skills, and be able to be more present in conversations that are intellectually complicated.

Seek self-improvement: Take opportunities to learn and grow. Attend workshops, join clubs or organizations that align with your interests, and seek feedback on how you're doing in those environments. Putting effort into self-improvement can help you build confidence and expand your skills.

In terms of improving common sense:

Increase your general knowledge: This kind of goes along with what I was talking about before, but expanding the amount of stuff you know will give you a wider range of information to pick from when you're trying to make a decision or solve a problem. Often, what we think of as "common sense" is just someone knowing something that we don't.

Pay attention to your surroundings: Another big part of common sense is being observant and noticing environmental cues that point you in the right direction (literally or figuratively). People with "common sense" are good at noticing what the people around them are doing and making a guess on what's appropriate based on that, or noticing things like signs that are explicitly telling them what to do.

Observe and learn from others: Pay attention to the people around you who have strong common sense skills. Observe how they approach different situations, make decisions, and solve problems. Once you know how they act in certain situations, you can start to do the same in your own life.

Reflect on past experiences: Take the time to reflect on your past experiences and think about the decisions you made. Were there alternative paths that could have led to better results? This reflection can help you learn from your mistakes and make more informed choices in the future.

Engage in critical thinking: Develop your ability to analyze situations objectively. Ask yourself questions like "What are the possible consequences of this action?" or "What are the underlying causes of this problem?" Critical thinking helps you evaluate information, identify patterns, and make good judgments of the situations you're in.

Practice problem-solving: Engage in activities that require problem-solving skills, such as puzzles, riddles, or logic games. These exercises can strengthen your ability to think logically and find practical solutions.

All of that said, you don't have to be what people think of as intelligent and you don't have to have what people think of as common sense. Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses, and it's okay to just accept that there are some things we'll never be good at and to let those things go. You're creative and imaginative and good at academic writing, and your friends and family love you just the way you are. It's good to want to improve, but it's also okay to say, "this is just how I am and I accept that about myself."

[ppttherapyppt]

Physical Therapy Clinic in New York City

Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS) comprises a series of rare hereditary connective tissue diseases characterized by joint hypermobility, joint dislocation, hyperextensibility of the skin, and cardiovascular involvement. EDS is often associated with chronic widespread physical pain, which can lead to psychological distress. Poor awareness and limited diagnosis of EDS and related symptoms result in decreased self-esteem and confusion regarding physical sensation. Furthermore, EDS imposes a substantial psychological burden on patients due to exercise restriction, scars, keloids, and subcutaneous fat accumulation on the extremities, which leads to parental overprotection and bullying experiences from other children at school age. 

Recent large-scale studies have suggested that patients with EDS have a higher risk of mood disorders than the general population. Other cohort studies indicated a high prevalence of anorexia nervosa, addiction, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and anxiety disorder were found in patients with EDS. Case reports instead indicated that some psychiatric disorders were secondary symptoms due to physical problems from EDS. Therefore, psychiatrists must be more knowledgeable and proactive about EDS in their practice. 

We review the previous case reports and literature for patients with EDS, along with our complicated psychiatric problems, which are strongly related to early stressful situations through childhood and adolescence. This is to aid general psychiatrists in the discussion of appropriate medical management in such infrequent, yet challenging conditions.

Types of EDS

The Ehlers-Danlos syndromes are a group of genetic connective tissue disorders that are currently classified into a system of thirteen types. Despite this grouping and their common name, each type is a distinct condition caused by a different gene mutation. This means that a child cannot inherit a different type of EDS from the one their parent has. It also means that one type cannot later turn into another, and there is no increased risk of having another type just because you have one – they are simply not connected. It is also extremely unlikely that one person would have more than one type, given the rarity of most of these illnesses.

Recently some of the criteria used to diagnose the Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and some of the terminology describing them changed, in order to reflect scientific research from the past twenty years. The 2017 EDS International Classification recognizes thirteen types of EDS and defines for the first time some related conditions, hypermobility spectrum disorders (HSD) which have similar symptoms to hypermobile EDS (hEDS). The term joint hypermobility syndrome (JHS) is no longer used.

The most common type of EDS is thought to be the hypermobile type (formerly known as the hypermobility type or type 3) although the exact prevalence of this condition is not currently known. The medical literature states that it affects 1 in 5,000 people however this statistic is based on research that is out-of-date and hEDS/HSD frequently go undiagnosed or are misdiagnosed as other conditions. HSD and possibly hEDS are likely to be common. The classical and vascular types are rare, with other types being rarer still. It is probable that all the types are underdiagnosed to some degree.

Neurodevelopment Disorders and EDS

It seems like you're asking about the relationship between neurodevelopmental disorders and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS). Let me provide you with some information on this topic.

Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS) is a group of genetic connective tissue disorders that affect the body's ability to produce collagen, which is a protein that provides structure and strength to the skin, joints, blood vessels, and other tissues. There are several types of EDS, each with its own set of symptoms and characteristics.

Neurodevelopmental disorders, on the other hand, are a group of conditions that typically manifest early in a child's development and affect various aspects of neurological function, such as cognition, communication, social interaction, and behavior. Conditions like autism spectrum disorder (ASD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), intellectual disabilities, and specific learning disorders are examples of neurodevelopmental disorders

[gh0st-patr0l]

ADHD in DSMP

So about a week back, I made a post about Karl Jacobs (a bit of a passive aggressive one, I’ll admit, but I think it was justified), complaining that a lot of the ‘criticism’ I see about Karl is actually rather insensitive towards his ADHD. I got a lot of responses to that post, and the most common sources of confusion I saw were:

People not understanding what I was saying they should avoid being judgmental of, or-

People who didn’t know that Karl had ADHD or didn’t understand which behaviors were caused by it.

First of all, Karl has confirmed that he has ADHD.

(NOTE: Yes, I know he said ADD. ADD and ADHD used to be categorized as separate disorders, but in the most recent edition of the DSM, it was decided that they are both simply subtypes of the same disorder- ADHD is the correct technical term. ADD is still sometimes used as shorthand by some practitioners to diagnose primarily-inattentive ADHD, but it's a bit outdated.)

Secondly, that original post made me realize that a lot of people who may be well-meaning may genuinely not fully understand ADHD and its symptoms as well as they want to or think they might. If you aren’t aware, Karl isn’t the only one in the DSMP with ADHD- to my understanding, both Technoblade and Dream have confirmed that they have it as well. So, I thought it would be helpful to put together a comprehensive crash-course on ADHD symptoms and how they effect people’s behavior!

Now, before we go further, I want to address something- as I said earlier, I saw some people unsure of whether certain behaviors are ADHD or “just his personality”. I feel the need to point this out above the read more so people will see it. To answer this question, as someone with ADHD;

A lot of times, it’s both. ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder, meaning that it’s caused by the way your brain developed from birth. A lot of the symptoms and effects of ADHD are extremely influential towards the way we think, act, and behave, to the point where “symptoms” and “normal behavior” really don’t have a clean differentiation. This is why it’s technically classified as a ‘disorder’, instead of an illness. While certain aspects of it can require treatment, the condition itself as a whole is not something to be mitigated or eliminated- it’s a part of who we are as a person. This is also why sometimes, even if you don’t have ADHD, you’ll look at certain specific behaviors or experiences and go “Oh, but I do that too!”. A lot of ADHD ‘symptoms’ are just a bunch of normal traits or behaviors, but in combination with each other and some actually problematic aspects, form the appearance of the disorder.

So, what are you allowed to nitpick about it? Well, there’s no real ‘authority’ on this, and even if there was it certainly wouldn’t be me. But if you want my opinion? Nothing.

See, here’s the thing- what I was trying to say when I made that post was not that you can’t be critical of Karl. If you want to say something about his Actions, his Ideals, or the content he creates- sure, go for it, that’s fair. I will agree that there are some very valid and constructive points to be made. But when you post ‘criticism’ about the way he speaks, his interests or preoccupations, his personal behaviors? That’s not criticism. That’s just judging someone.

And you’re allowed to think that stuff! Nobody can control what annoys or bothers them. It doesn’t necessarily make you a bad person. But you don’t need to be vocal about it. You can keep your mean thoughts to yourself. And if you do make posts or communities or whatever about judging someone for things they can’t change about themselves, don’t call it “criticism” or try to morally justify it. It’s not productive or righteous, it’s just rude. Nothing else.

Anyway. Back to Education!

The following will be a descriptive list of visible ADHD behaviors, using Karl’s behavior as examples.

I feel the need to add a disclaimer here- I am not a mental health professional. However! I have ADHD myself, I have taken some psychology courses and done a Lot of research into this stuff, and I’m the daughter of a therapist with access to a DSM. While I’m not an expert, I’d like to think I’m fairly well versed and knowledgeable on at least ADHD. (That being said, if by chance anyone who Is a professional sees this post and notices mistakes, by all means let me know and I’ll fix it!!)

WHAT IS ADHD?

You’re here for the behaviors more than the science, so I’ll keep this short and sweet. ADHD is Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (Known in the past as Attention Deficit Disorder). Despite its name, the root problem of ADHD is not in the person’s ability to pay attention, but their brain’s capability to manage itself. In simple terms, people with ADHD have a lot less control over what their brain does and wants. This results in some behavioral differences along with some personal challenges, namely a difficulty with attentiveness and self-discipline.

Now, onto the symptoms!

ATTENTION

This is perhaps the most visible and pervasive of the ADHD symptoms, hence why it’s the namesake. Inattention is a lack of focus and an inability to stay present and occupied with certain tasks or thoughts.

Because ADHD impairs self-management of the brain, people with it have an extremely hard time directing themselves anywhere but where their brain instinctively wants to go. This results in inattentiveness and the easiness of distraction that is often mocked or stereotyped for people with ADHD.

Here are some examples of how Karl can sometimes display his inattentiveness;

When he has an idea that he seems passionate about, only to drop it or switch to something totally different without warning soon after (either forgetting or getting bored of his original idea).

When he sets out to do something like a build, works on it for a short amount of time, and then immediately gives up or gets someone else to do it.

When someone else is talking and he totally zones out. (NOTE: While I wont make a whole section for it because it’s not easily observable, maladaptive (constant and intrusive) daydreaming is a common ADHD symptom as well!)

It’s important to remember that the whole problem with ADHD is that we can’t control when or what we focus on. When someone with ADHD zones out during a conversation or activity, it doesn’t mean they’re doing it on purpose, and they likely don’t mean any offense! We often are trying our best to listen or participate, but our brain just wont cooperate.

However, inattention is not the only way ADHD effects our focus. There’s also what’s called hyperfocus or hyperfixation, which is when we are so absorbed into a single subject, task, or idea that it is extremely difficult to get us to think about or do anything else. This is usually because our brains have found something that is getting those satisfaction chemicals flowing, and it’s clinging to that with everything it’s got.

People with ADHD will often experience brief periods of hyperfocus. Think of how Karl talks about spending hours straight working on a build or project without eating or drinking, or how he’ll sit down to play a game with someone and end up going six hours without even noticing.

There are also hyperfixations, where someone with ADHD becomes extremely preoccupied with a certain subject, topic, etc. for a period of time. These can be short term- personally, my hyperfixation can sometimes change as quickly as a couple weeks at a time. However, it can also be long term. Karl has been obsessed with Survivor since the second grade- not to mention his memorabilia, rambling, and constant references to Kingdom Hearts.

HYPERACTIVITY/STIMMING

This is a BIG one for Karl. I should clarify; ‘stimming’ is not a technical term, and in professional situations these behaviors are just referred to as Hyperactivity. However, I personally like the term stimming much more and find it far more accurate to what the behaviors actually are, so I’ll be using that instead for this post.

If you’re not already familiar, ‘stimming’ (derived from ‘stimulation’) is an unofficial term used to describe consistent and abnormal patterns of physical and vocal behavior typically expressed by people with ADHD and ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder). This includes things that people usually call fidgets or tics.

(NOTE: There are differences in how people with those two disorders stim. This post will explain stimming specifically from an ADHD perspective! ASD stimming is caused by very different factors and presents itself in much different ways. Do your own research if you’re curious!) 

There are two major observable forms of stimming- physical and vocal. Karl expresses both VERY often! I’ll use examples for each type;

Physical Stims: Flapping his hands/arms, jumping up and down when he’s excited, twisting around into odd positions in his chair, throwing, hitting, or tapping things, standing up and pacing around when he’s hyped up or laughing, twisting his rings, etc.

Vocal Stims: When he gets excited and repeats a certain phrase incessantly (Think any variation of “I’m popping off”), making certain repetitive noises while he’s focused on something or bored (”la la la”, the meow-noises, the weird heart-beat noise, etc.), singing or humming, tongue clicking.

It should be noted here that it’s pretty common for people with ADHD to get “stuck” on certain phrases or noises, and be unable to stop repeating them (reminiscent of echolalia, a symptom of ASD, but not the same thing). Think of how Karl might sometimes keep making a weird noise for an extended period of time even though it’s not that funny, or that one time he was physically struggling to keep himself from singing the Bakugan theme. These repetitions are completely impulsive and trust me, we usually know how annoying it is while we’re doing it, but we physically cannot stop.

ADHD stims are caused by the fact that the barrier between our brain and body is much weaker than a normal person’s. Because of this, most ADHD stims are actually very positive expressions of joy, excitement, or enthusiasm! Y’know how when you get excited, you feel like you wanna jump or dance? The ‘hyperactivity’ of ADHD is basically just that, but we don’t have the self-control to Not do it.

Stims can be caused by negative feelings like overstimulation, but in ADHD this is not nearly as common. Usually, the most negative reason we’ll stim is when we’re bored- in that case, our brain isn’t getting the Constant Stimulation that it naturally wants, so stimming is a way to make our own.

Whatever the cause, stimming is natural and impulsive. While different people experience it to varying degrees, those who regularly stim typically have little to no control over it. Suppressing stims is very hard and very frustrating to do.

Besides that, like I said- ADHD stims are often an expression of joy, excitement, or enthusiasm. They’re a beautiful thing that shouldn’t be seen as shameful or annoying!

BEHAVIORAL DIFFICULTIES

ADHD is a disorder which causes a lack of self-control. Naturally, this means that people with ADHD are inherently reckless, impulsive, and struggle with a lack of self-discipline that they cannot fix.

Of course, people with ADHD do still have some level of self-control, and they are still responsible for conscious, long-term behavioral patterns and decisions. However, in regards to most things, they are much, much less capable of controlling themselves than an average neurotypical person is.

These are some examples of how this will often present itself in Karl;

Excessive rambling, dragging on a joke or conversation when it could and should probably have been dropped, etc.

Speaking over or interrupting other people (NOTE: As someone with ADHD- THIS IS ALMOST ALWAYS UNINTENTIONAL. I know it can seem rude or annoying but I promise, 90% of the time if someone with ADHD talks over you, they either didn’t realize or physically couldn’t help it. Please try to be patient!)

Lack of awareness towards social cues (NOTE: Unlike ASD, in which the person is incapable of/has problems fully understanding social cues, ADHD results in a lack of awareness. For whatever reason, we’re often just not paying close enough attention to pick up on things like body language, tone of speech, and facial expression as well as we would normally.)

Indecisiveness and overthinking

Bluntness, lack of subtlety

Unintentional dismissiveness, accidentally ignoring things/people (NOTE: Again, this behavior is purely accidental. In this case, it’s usually just the person genuinely not hearing or processing things.)

Making noises, speaking, joking, etc. at inappropriate times

There’s probably more, but I think you get the idea by now. A lot of the time, behavior which results from ADHD can be seen as rude, lazy, dismissive, or otherwise intentionally harmful. In reality, we just aren’t wired to navigate common social interaction with grace.

In Karl’s case, he’s clearly an incredibly sweet, empathetic, and kind-hearted person, if the various close friends who have talked about him are to be believed. Just because he talks over people or makes a poorly timed joke, that doesn’t mean he meant any harm. 

I think that’s about it for how much I wanted to point out! You can do more research if you’re curious, but I feel like this post should be enough to tell you what to keep in mind and be understanding about when talking about/making judgements on Karl, and other people with ADHD.

[spectrumed]

2. voice

As a child I could not pronounce the letter R. I once complained to my mother for being so careless as to give me a name that had two R’s in it. Fredrik. Or as I pronounced it back then, “Fledlik.” Cute, right? I was a cute child, all blonde and with big blue eyes. At one point, I got surrounded by a group of older girls who forced me to pronounce my name, even though I really couldn’t. They laughed and laughed, teasing me for my inability to pronounce even my own name correctly. If I ever had a reason to develop a fetish for femdom, I think this would have been it.

Like it or not, in speech, there is no room for individual quirks. No, we’ve all got to learn how to speak properly. Historically, that has led to some pretty heinous attitudes towards regional accents, any tongue that was the standard was seen by default as being less or developed and intelligent. Regional accents were seen as practically unhygienic, the worry being that if people just got to speak as they wished, they might end up potentially thinking dangerous thoughts. While I understand the importance of being understood, it’s clear that the stigma that exists around speech difficulties stems from a place of prejudice. If a person has a lisp, do you really struggle to understand them? And while stammering can be quite debilitating, it should be blatantly obvious that shaming people who stammer, suggesting that they are bereft of intelligence, is not the way to help them. Humans are social animals, and language may be the one thing that distinguishes us as a species, it is natural that proper elocution should be treasured. But some people do struggle with their speech, and that should not cost them any respect or kindness.

As a child, I didn’t speak nearly enough. As an adult I am speaking too much. That’s the problem with you, Fredrik, you’ve never understood that there is a middle ground between two extremes. There is a way you can speak that is neither too quiet, nor too loud. It is how normal people speak. Why can’t you be normal, Fredrik? Are you going to spend this whole blog post talking about how difficult it is for you to simply learn to be like everyone else? Self-pitying yourself, much? Back in my day people pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, if they had something they struggled with, they learned to sort it all out, and they didn’t start complaining about society being all mean to them. You’re just spending too much time inside your own head, go take a swim, take up a hobby that requires you to step outdoors, it will serve you well. Don’t be a freak, Fredrik. Be normal, for once.

On a side note, “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps” is meant to be understood as an impossible feat. You can’t possibly pull yourself up by your bootstraps, it’s ludicrous to even suggest that such a thing may be feasible. While, yes, there are many things you can do to help yourself, ultimately, you can’t profoundly escape from a sorry situation you’ve found yourself in without some outside help. There is no shame in requiring help. To guilt someone into thinking that if they can’t do it alone, they are weak, is frankly sociopathic. Humans need each other, we take care of each other, we are there for each other. Self-sufficiency is great, but let’s not take it to levels of absurdity by suggesting that needing help from others is anything but normal. No-one succeeds in life without others there to prop them up. Instead of telling someone to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, you might as well tell them to go and swallow the sun, which is clearly another impossible task.

Most people will never in their lives experience what it is like to go through a neuropsychological evaluation. Turns out that it is not always such a pleasant experience. Though, considering the popularity of pseudo-scientific nonsense like the Myers-Briggs test, I am sure some folks would lie and pretend to love it. Certainly, there is a charm to being there and talking about yourself for several hours near-uninterrupted, but the exhaustion that you will feel at the end of it cannot be understated. Naturally, it does vary between who does it, and why they’re doing it. But if the stated goal is to find out whether you’ve had a neurodevelopmental disorder since you were but a young babe, then of course, there are going to be some pretty long conversations happening about those early days. Lots of stuff you may not have considered or thought about in a very long time will suddenly become very relevant to your current situation. And at the end of it all, you get some papers detailing your fashionable new diagnosis. Your entire life, all written down. Can make you feel rather wistful. And there’s really quite a surprising amount of typos included in the text, and barely any jokes.

Still, as part of my official diagnosis, there is a reference to my speech at being at times “stilted.” Though, the diagnosis does take very good care to mention that I appear intelligent and thoughtful, exhibiting a wide vocabulary and a good sense of the right words to use at the right moment. It’s flattering, for the most part. Yet, it does irk me that I could be perceived as being stilted. I know that at this point, I am being petty, because who cares if I sometimes come across as maybe a little robotic. I’ve got Asperger’s. Of course I am a robot. The closest role model we folks with Asperger’s ever had for the longest time was Star Trek: The Next Generation’s android named Data. God forbid anyone like me ever turned out to be the protagonist of a series, we’re all doomed to play the part of the robot, the alien, or the socially awkward geek. I should just be delighted that I am high-functioning. I know how much worse some have it. I should be grateful and pleased that I come across as mostly normal, mostly neurotypical. But… I really just don’t want anyone to think my speech is stilted. I don’t want to be Data. I want to be Riker.

It is never enough, you’ll never be good enough. If you fake it, they’ll see through it. If you struggle and if you work honestly to appear more normal, they won’t recognise it. As soon as they get an inkling you may be an imposter, looking like them, but having a neurologically deviant brain, they’ll single you out. For you, normalcy is an illusion. To attempt to be normal is to remake yourself only to receive nothing. Sure, you can be disingenuous, pretend you're not yourself, but it’ll never fool them. In the end, you’ll only lose yourself. Maybe I should just own the fact that my speech sometimes comes across as being stilted. Maybe I should own it. Be proud of who I am. But… sometimes I just don’t want to be me.

I want to be ignored. Sometimes, not always. But that goes for everyone. But most of all, I’d like to be able to go unseen whenever I’m not trying to impress anyone. When I’m just off to buy some milk. When I’m sitting on the bus. When I’m walking through the park. I know it is partly paranoia, but I can’t help but feel like I stick out. It’s always been like that with my friends growing up. The metaphor I used with my therapist is that I felt like a thumb. That they, my friends, were the fingers and I was the thumb. Sure, we’re similar. In many ways we’re the same. You could even say that I was crucial to making the social dynamics work. Who doesn’t like the thumb? What would you do without your thumb? But still, I was different. Some people would do anything to be different like that, to feel special. Some folks feel all invisible and forgotten in the crowd, and I’d lie if I told them that I didn’t envy them sometimes. The ability to go all invisible? That seems swell! There’s this question people like to ask as a sort of personality test. If you could choose a superpower, would you rather be able to fly, or would you rather be able to go invisible? The answer is obvious, as far as I’m concerned. Of course I’d love to be able to go invisible. To be able to exist without anyone seeing me. Without anyone judging me. Without ever having to worry if someone is going to treat me as different. For a moment to feel what it is like not to be some big, dumb, stupid, thumb.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not too anguished. Nowadays, I feel like I am in a relatively good place. But I would be lying if I told you that I still don’t get frustrated at the plethora of difficulties I face just trying to blend in. Even with family members, people who are supposed to know you the best, even then I have to go out of my way to behave a certain way, to exist a certain way, because fundamentally, they just don’t seem to get you. Not in that way. They have an image of you that you need to try and match. It doesn’t matter how many times I tell them that sometimes you need to be more direct in your communication to truly reach me, I don’t pick up on the many smaller little social cues they may throw my way, it’s still just me being silly and looking for excuses for why I didn’t understand them the first time around. And I am deathly afraid of hurting anyone’s feelings. A very prevalent misconception about autistic individuals is that we don’t care if we’re being rude. That if we are rude, our rudeness can simply be overlooked because, y’know, we’re autistic. While this sort of thing is commonly represented in media that is supposed to depict autistic characters, in real life, things don't quite work like this. Believe it or not, readers, being autistic is not a free pass to act like a dick. Autistic individuals still very much have to modulate our behaviour if we wish to fit in and be accepted. No-one will ever excuse you for being autistic. To be autistic is living with extra hurdles in your way, thinking that it’s anything but a social handicap is romanticising a diagnosis you clearly know very little about.

When I was a kid, I didn’t speak much. As far as I was concerned, I merely spoke whenever I needed to speak. It took until adulthood for me to learn that my parents and teachers were actually concerned about that. I was made to see a specialist, under the guise of learning elocution, but I’ve later come to realise that those meetings were about more than just learning to pronounce the letter R. Like, what does testing my memory have to do with diction? Yes, her job was partly to help my speech develop more in line with the other kids, but she was also there to evaluate whether or not I was intellectually disabled. I have come to learn that I had teachers at the time that were adamant about me going to a different school, more equipped to handle kids like me, but my mother vehemently defended my right to stay in the school I was in. After all, I did have friends, and to anyone who really knew me, they knew that I was a bright child. Sure, I wasn’t as communicative as the other children, but I clearly had no issues processing information, and it’s not like I was disruptive in some other way. But that was also part of the problem. The teachers that thought that I may need specialist schooling were concerned about the fact that I was too placid and too agreeable. They wanted me to express frustration at my lacking pronunciation, to see me get mad at others for not fully understanding me. That amazes me, if anything. The fact that I was a happy kid they took as some indication that I wasn’t quite right.

My mother delights in a memory of me as a kid once slamming my fist on the table and declaring that “now, I am speaking!” May I remind you that I was a cute kid. Sure, it is the sort of behaviour that parents of the old times would have spanked their kids for. Kids in the past were supposed to be quiet. To be seen, but not heard. I wonder if there’d be any kind of hubbub about my early development if I lived back then. I’d probably be seen as the ideal child, all pretty and docile and never too loud. Still, it was a moment my mother cherished, because for once, I really proved that I did have the capacity to speak. Though, I still couldn’t pronounce my R’s. But it was time for Fledlik to speak.

[roadtohappy]

Maybe the answer is right there in front of me, I just need a different approach?

I think that my laid back "it is what it is so just go with the flow"-attitude has been of major help to me while I've been processing these new developments regarding my gender identity and expression. I've been purposely avoiding the "what could've been / what if I hadn't.. "-rabbit hole and focused on the positives and solutions instead. I think going off T and leaning more into my female side probably looks like detransitioning, which is why I started thinking about it in the first place, but I'm fairly certain that that's just what it looks like on the surface and there's actually much more to it. I believe my autism plays a big role in how I think and how I experience things. There's undoubtedly a link between autism and gender identity, and I think that's what prompted me to reevaluate things. It is, from what I've read so far, not uncommon for autistic people to have gender dysphoria or androgynous tendencies. Does that invalidate or de-legitimize my experience as a trans person? Absolutely not. It just means that there might be neurodevelopmental factor playing some sort of role in how I identify and perceive myself as a person, and I should consider things very carefully, and with extra caution when proceeding with the next steps in my journey.

I got what I wanted from being on Testosterone, it did its job which means that I can now go off it and resume my transition toward something I find more fitting: androgyny.

I don't think wanting some of my natural attributes back means I'm undoing or reversing my transition at all. What I've learned from this is that my cold, scientific and mathematical approach to things simply isn't useful when I'm faced with a complex emotional "riddle" like this. I think this is in part rooted in my autistic way of thinking; the ever-present need to dissect, analyze and understand everything, to pinpoint a specific cause and effect, or predicting the most probable outcome through observing patterns of events and behaviors - sometimes I just need to let go of my rigid, systematic thinking for a second and allow the free flow of thoughts and emotions to sweep me away from shore, and guide me to whatever it is that I'm looking for. I also have to accept that there is no perfect answer when it comes to the human psyche; the mind is not a calculator, there are no absolute answers as to why I think or feel the way I do. If what I'm doing feels right, then that is the only real indicator that I am doing what's best for me.

And at the moment, I feel like I am doing the right thing, that's all that matters.

This has been another disorganised ramble by me, can't wait to read through my blog two years from now and think "wow, what was I even worried about lol".

Side note: I probably could've articulated some things better, but I'm just letting my mind run as I'm typing - I am only speaking for myself and my own experience, this is not at all supposed to reflect the experiences of other trans people on the autism spectrum.

[xopheliasunflowerx]

So my confession, I didn’t want to hold it back so yeet (long as)

This shit is long, it explains my disorder, some personal symptoms and stories and explains the disorder. You probably won’t read it all, I wouldn’t either but that’s me, I tried not to offend anyone and not everyone does the same thing! Please be respectful if you have a problem PM me

So I have ADHD, and it’s hard to live with. ADHD stands for Attention-Decfict/Hyperactivity Disorder, it’s an attention difficulty with hyperactivity and impulsiveness. ADHD is a ‘neurodevelopmental’ disorder, meaning it’s the brain function. The symptoms can be different in everyone but I’ll name the common ones (I’ll also explain my personal symptoms too)

The Behaviour side: aggression, excitability, fidgeting, hyperactivity, impulsivity, irritability, lack of restraint, repetitive or words/actions.

Cognitive side (memory): absent-mindedness, trouble focusing, forgetfulness, problem paying attention, short attention span.

Mood: anger, anxiety, boredom, excitement and mood swings

It’s also common to have a learning disability with it (which I do) meaning you have to explain things more clearly than already. And depression, meaning you can have depression without having a reason, or you just over think the negatives and think it’s true. As I am diagnosed with ADHD I can easily be depressed just by a simple thing really, for you it may sound dumb but it’s true. I wouldn’t call us ‘attention seekers’ but we sort of are I guess as I want attention but not in a way that we want it. I don’t really know how to explain it but we want attention but we draw attention to ourselves and create a huge mess, well I’m not sure with others but I do.

So these are some of the symptoms explained and some of my personal ones.

You can be distracted easily and absent-minded, which I do. And it’s hard because I have to learn stuff but sometimes it doesn’t make sense and I always ask to be explained to me again and they get frustrated when I don’t get it which is explainable but it makes me feel really upset about it. Like for example I’ll play a game, I had difficulty with Batman: Arkham Knight Riddler race tracks, there was one where you had to glide to click a button but I never understood how. I would get angry and frustrated then finally give up. I did eventually did it and now it’s easy but even the simple things can be difficult to do. I can’t pronounce some words (mainly because something caused that which I won’t explain) and it’s very hard. Math is hard, as it can be for others but I could never do it I would have teachers and students explain to me but I’ll be there like what? I had a tough time with my 3 time tables back in year 5 (fifth grade) and now I’m 18 and I just learnt them (simply because of work) and I’m pretty proud.

I have difficulty in focusing on what needs to be done like writing for an example, I read that people with ADHD can be into something like obsessed then only focus on that (which is me writing for certain people) then we suddenly get bored of it and move on to something else. I get bored very easily that’s why I don’t write as much because I’m bored of writing the same character with some what similar scenarios that’s why I’ve been less writing. It sucks, because I really do wanna write but I can’t be bothered to do or so. Also it can be very hard on focusing on something else rather than the task at hand, we would get distracted by anything, a window, door, pen anything. So I would leave my task unfinished because I have no interest in finishing (a lot of imagines are unfinished because I just can’t be bothered to finish them) and when I do finish they are rushed and unorganised (as having ADHD we are very unorganised and messy my room for an example is a mess).

We would also avoid task that we don’t want to do, like a simple chore or homework. I never did my homework never I never studied either like I never knew how to study and it just bored me, and I would get distracted easily. I would get distracted by the colours of my highlighters and just draw instead. You might be wondering how did you not get a detention? You’re probably not but I’ll tell you anyway, I would say I forgot it or I would never go to detention and I would always hide.

I happen to forget a lot, it’s terrible really I also happen to lose things very easily. So when I mis place something I get frustrated easily because I remember putting something somewhere else. Like example, when painting I happen to put my rubber (eraser) somewhere say it’s next to me for an example then when I’m looking for it I can’t find it and I get annoyed. Then I find it and I go back to what I’m doing. That happens A LOT! I did it last night with lip cream I put it on my bed and I went for a shower then suddenly it’s gone, I can’t remember where I put it. Memory isn’t my friend. It’s hard having a memory of a literal gold-fish because we need to remember stuff especially if it involves something important or family/friends, like I keep forgetting how old my parents are and when my dad’s birthday is which is terrible.

I happen to fidget a lot, it’s annoying for most people but it’s something for me to be distracted by. No fidget spinners are not something I fidget with, they’re not right for me anyway. I usually fidget with my hair (I twirl my fingers with it) a pen or I drum my fingers against something. People mistake that I’m nervous when really I’m not, I even got threaten by my teacher that she’ll cut my hair if I continued twirling my hair (which I actually don’t remember that). But you can tell when someone with ADHD is nervous, reading facial expressions and if they’re shaking like if they’re playing with their fingers watch carefully are they shaking, sweaty, also if it’s sort of faster than usual. I would drum my fingers against my thighs in a fast pace when I’m nervous. Also usual symptoms for nervousness, lip biting, no eye contact, looking around the room, is common too (well as I do it). I was having a very bad anxiety when I saw well... I wouldn’t call him my boyfriend because we’re not dating so uh significant other maybe coming into my friends car as we were picking him up. I was nervous as hell, because well I didn’t shower, didn’t brush my hair or teeth (because I was sleeping over at a friends house unexpectedly) and I usually get nervous around him. I tapped my fingers against my thighs to calm myself, I looked around then stared at the window. He then grabbed my hand and squeezed it to comfort me, I then played with his fingers to distract myself once again.

Now this one really pisses people off, I repeat what I say only because I don’t remember telling people before. I would tell a story to a friend and then they’ll say yeah you already told me that. I get all awkward and embarrassed about it feeling super dumb for repeating it, I only recently found out that’s a symptom for having ADHD and I’m actually surprised because I thought it was just me. But I understand that it’s clearly annoying for others to hear the same thing over and over again. I don’t mean to repeat myself, and I feel so dumb when I do but my memory just likes to leave a lot. Forgetfulness is horrible when you’re in a relationship too, like I told him (significant other) my middle name and I never knew I did until I actually found the messages and I told him again like three weeks after I felt really stupid, but he didn’t say anything and he just stared at me weirdly.

So being ADHD is a mess, we can’t organise for shit. I probably already explained this but there’s a symptom of me having ADHD. I would be ready and organised for writing then suddenly it turns out something way worse than I imagined it to be which is why I take SOOOOO LONG writing. I have some friends with OCD and I find it hilarious just to annoy the shit outta them, they won’t come to my house anymore because of my room. So when I find out someone has OCD I’m a bully to them, but I only move things around imperfectly and then I stop for awhile then I do it again. I only do it for fun not just to be mean, they get back at me in their own ways. Like a guy at work who is 6’3 teases me about my height 5’2 which I don’t really care, because i then pull out the mustard packet and put it into the ketchup packets which annoys him, he gets me back by saying how forgetful I am.

So when talking to me in person is a difficult task, I would see your lips move but I won’t hear anything as I just space out, I try to pay attention but I just can’t. I would ask them to repeat it for me and then I would listen sometimes. This is annoying to me and everyone, someone would ask me to grab something and I would ask them to repeat themselves like three times until I finally understood what they wanted. Happened yesterday someone wanted pancake lids but I heard pancakes so I thought they wanted me to wrap them up or get more until he told me again which I felt so stupid about it and I finally got them. I apologised but they’re already frustrated with me and customers so yeah. It’s hard, it’s not a hearing thing we just zone out. We try to listen we do, it’s not our fault. It’s harder in relationships but I don’t think I’ve been in a longer relationship to experience that, I also don’t tell them my disorder until i’m comfortable or I need to.

So about that forgetfulness, we also forget to do stuff daily. I forget to eat because I’d be so distracted in something my hunger just jumps out the window. And recently it’s been happening a lot and it’s been worrying some of my close friends and my significant other. But I do feed myself, sometimes it’s motivation to get up and eat and I don’t cook so that’s another reason I don’t eat much. I sound stubborn but it’s true, I do eventually eat when I remember and I eat then I forget later. I don’t have a eating disorder it’s just remembering to eat as we’re distracted. Also I don’t know if this happens to other people with ADHD but when I’m off medication I usually eat a lot and when I’m on it I rarely eat (but I eat). That happened when I was younger now I either eat or don’t when I’m off medication.

Lack of sleep is a big one, I thought I had insomnia but I found it it’s just my ADHD again, there’s no surprise there. Reason we rarely sleep because of that hyper is still kicked in, for me it gets worse at night as I tend to be more active and hyper at night. The mind keeps going as we’re trying to sleep and random thoughts like to come up so we’re always on the internet searching the most random things. So we’re lucky to have five hours of sleep, the most. I did have sleeping medication but they would usually take awhile to kick in and I just barely took them because there’s no point. They would knock out anyone else as my mum took them but they would just work on me.

We would talk more than usual, yes that’s a thing. We talk a lot, we can also change the subject randomly without a warning. So saying we’re talking about dogs then suddenly we change the subject to how does ovens work. We also interrupt others when speaking but we don’t mean to, I would immediately apologise for the intrusion and then go back to being quiet. We can be quiet at points, which could scare some people but we’re just thinking or being distracted by a squirrel or something. We talk a lot when we’re excited about something, when I’m obsessed with something I want to talk to someone about it but they don’t as I’ve already spoken to them about it a lot. Having an obsession is hard because you want to talk to someone about it but when you do you don’t want to talk about that obsession anymore. Yes we easily change obsessions a lot, like last year I was obsessed with Gotham and Teen Wolf And Riverdale, I lost interest in Riverdale there was too much and the first season was better in my opinion. I then got into Detroit Become Human and I loved it, then I got into Harry Potter. Now I’m currently into Spider-Man and the Avengers because WHY NOT!

So I’m gonna list some smaller symptoms that you probably didn’t know but meh. So there’s no such thing as sugar rush or having a hyper mode when you have coffee or staying up late because of it, it doesn’t exist. Because we’re already hyper and active that sugar and caffeine doesn’t effect us at all, but we would get a rush on something else mine was Red Doritos, I would get hyper when I ate those, I don’t now which is good. I forgot my other one which sucks I’ll probably edit it later and add it on. AH YES MOODSWINGS, we have bad mood swings. We’ll be happy then the next thing we’re upset. I think it’s because we’re always day dreaming and absent-minded we can think of the negative things which I do a lot. I end up going through a break down thinking of how much I hate myself, no one loves me, my friends are using me. Dreams also doesn’t help, I had a dream where my significant other asked out my friend which hurt me so much, I didn’t confront him about it because he’s in a different country and the service there is terrible and I don’t want to annoy him with my problems. When in a relationship I always doubt them because of my negative thinking, like why are they dating me, are they using me, are they cheating on me, what hurts most is that they’re not yours and you’re questioning if you can trust them. I told him I have ADHD, but I don’t think he knows what it means, which I will be asking when I see him again (as texting could make it worse) and I want to explain to him. I don’t like to talk seriously with him as we’re only seeing each other but I feel like we need to talk about it, and yes I avoid it and he can always tell that there’s something wrong so I do explain it but I feel like we’re not dealing with it permanently. It also doesn’t help that we’re distant, because it makes it worse and my questioning more severe. I feel like I’m taking it too much and drawing attention to myself simply because of that consent worrying and we’re not dating but he has his reasons and I have mine. Now I’m going off topic about ADHD, but that’s what our negative thinking can turn into. With that it’s harder to make friends and fit in, I couldn’t have just one friend, because I get annoyed with one person for awhile and I try to distant myself from them without explaining and I feel guilty afterwards, It sounds horrible yes but we get bored and want to hang around with others. I haven’t done it in a long time which I’m proud but we do want to hang out with others or just to be alone, we want a new adventure. We do appreciate our alone times, as we’re always day dreaming and just need that peace to relax. But yes we get bored easily of it.

The good parts of having ADHD, there are some good parts, we’re very creative as we’re always day dreaming we create ideas and so on. I find it weird because my star sign is Pisces and I find it weird that having ADHD, and as Pisces are extremely creative and I am but they also day dream a lot which I do. I don’t know I found it weird that Pisces and ADHD are some what similar but aren’t. We see things differently, we look at a plan wall and wonder what would it look like if we threw colours or sparkles on it. We make the simple things into art, and it’s actually easier to write in detail as we can just imagine it. Writing isn’t an issue when you have an idea it’s actually really fun, it just motivation to finish it. Some people can’t think when they’re listening to music, well I can I can think clearly with the sound blasting through my ears, I imagine a scenario sometimes with the song, just depends on the song and who with.

So living with ADHD can be difficult in daily life, but is also useful. It sucks yes, but I’m glad I have it I wouldn’t change it. I wouldn’t say I’m proud of having it but it does help me, well sometimes I guess. I do find the things where I mis place, I do get over my overthinking, and I do eventually remember things. I wish people would do research before judging an ADHD person, we’re not just hyper as everyone thinks we are there’s more to it. If you notice the little things we do you would actually begin to recognise a pattern and connect a dot that those are our symptoms and beware of those in the future. I probably didn’t add a lot of other symptoms but you can research those, I did because I wanted to know. Having ADHD isn’t just an excuse either, it’s a explanation of why we can’t do certain things, I hope some of you understand that. And yes we can be frustrating a lot but take your time with us, we can be patient and if you tell us that we’re making you frustrated and please explain why, we might get angry or upset but that’s us we can’t help it. We will slowly get there, and if we fall we always pick ourselves back up because that’s they way we are taught. I’m sorry for rambling lol just needed to get this off my chest ya know.

[themachineinspace]

metapianycist

yeah, it's not girl symptoms as much as autism symptoms that people just assume are neurotypical girl behavior. i wish that were emphasized more in those posts, and also i wish those posts didn't make it seem like there aren't women whose symptoms look to NTs like not-NT-girl-behavior

@metapianycist

yeah, that’s not what i meant. i’ll try to explain more clearly though!

those symptoms we’re talking about aren’t neurotypical girl behavior.  e.g. a special interest isn’t defined as an interest in a stereo-typically male-dominated area of science or a sports-type hobby. they’re fixated interests that are abnormally intense / obsessive.

none of that is using any kind of language that indicates special interests are boy symptoms.

the issue with boys getting diagnosed more than girls isn’t one of ‘the symptoms are written to only fit male autistic people’ it’s that they’re interpreted as ‘male symptoms’ by a whole lot of doctors and sadly by a whole lot of people on here too. which makes sense, since boys get associated with things like ‘rigid, analytical, asocial genius, disciplined’ more often than girls. these same four things get translated for girl as being too ‘bossy, fussy, disliked by boys because they spend all day reading, obnoxiously polite‘. i.e. if we used a model of ‘symptoms-only’ girls would get diagnosed just as often as boys nowadays, but we don’t. we use an ‘interpretation of symptoms by the person who applies them to the patient’ instead, and that leaves room for faults that have their basis in doctor history, instead of patient history, and errors in doctor’s way of thinking. and guess what- a lot of psychiatrists are old, making them even more prone to these issues. misogyny- for lack of a better word -plays a massive part here.

at the same time the entire ‘neurotypical behavior’ thing doesn’t sound right to me because both autistic and neurotypical people will display neurotypical behavior. autistic people aren’t a different species or the opposite of neurotypicals or what neurotypicals would’ve been if they hadn’t been neurotypicals? neurodevelopmental disorders affect a whole lot, but we aren’t alien. it doesn’t affect personality nearly as much as some people on here would like to claim. e.g. autistic people can be shy and love nature without nature being a special interest or shy being completely due to bad communication skills. neurotypicals can be obsessed with stamp collecting and be introverts without being autistic.

there’s a bunch more i’d like to say, but this is already getting long, so i’ll try to finish here.

anyway, back to those posts i was complaining about. most of them are so highly personal, that a lot of stuff simply isn’t said. making them only useful to talk about a select type of autistic girls, namely the writer, and that’s it. there’s a reason the autism spectrum criteria are so broad and use that kind of language- it’s to include all autistic-presenting people and not just a select group, as these ‘new’ online-written ‘girl’ criteria do. and for some reason everyone on here loves to label any new criteria they come up with as ‘atypical autism’. which isn’t what atypical autism means but hey.

i think there’s a huge difference between helping someone figure out if they fit the criteria or not by finding them examples that they can relate to of symptoms and just coming up with new symptoms that are ill-defined like ‘shyness’ or ‘likes horses’. symptoms that are highly personal are useless when you try to apply them in general.

(and this goes both ways- i’ve got a friend who got wrongly diagnosed as autistic because he was a bit of a quirky loner and spent quite a few years using the wrong kinds of coping mechanisms before he figured out he had a social anxiety disorder and dyslexia.)

[ratusalim]

What is Autism?

"Autism��� , the Developmental physician said with a sigh, when delivering her unwavering diagnosis for my sons lack of verbal speech and interest in everything else in the room besides her, after spending all of 40 minutes with him. I look at her and the blood drains from my face as soon as I see it in her eyes, Pity. Of course, this meant something bad. I’m not sure what exactly it meant, but the trained doctor human is telling me that it is not good, what reason would I have not to believe her? For weeks and months following, I was in constant flight or fight mode, momma bear mode my friends call it. Looking for the best schools, looking for possible medication, how do we cure this Autism thing, how do we fix him? There is a small window for change they all said, and if you treat it ASAP your child will be “better”. Just pay this huge bill quickly, and leave your child in this room that looks clinical and unfriendly with all of our staff dressed in nurse scrubs – we know what we’re doing here, we have been doing this for years. No one ever was selling happiness, they were all selling a cure. I am ashamed to admit this was our lives for the better part of a year, we were scared, worried and uninformed, and all the placed we tried to get information from, counted on that. After months seeing my sons happiness slowly decline, I stopped, and asked myself a question – Actually, what IS autism? All the information I have gathered up until that point was all over the place, every child different, people talking about high functioning and low functioning and this little word that keeps being emphasized – SPECTRUM. Basically, you can have a little bit of autism or a lot, results may vary from person to person. WHAT?! This is what I condensed the answer down to, emphasis on the word CONDENSED. “Autism is a communication and social disorder, which is coupled with exacerbated sensory needs that need to be understood and managed if the person so desires– results will vary from person to person” When I settled on that answer, I realized and through to myself – “Is that it?” , He thinks a little to the left, he sucks at communicating, and he feels bigger in his body with all his senses. Of course this is something we can figure out. Together he can teach us what the best way is for him to communicate, and then he can let us know when the outside is getting too much and what he needs to do to feel in control in that moment. Why is that something that needs to be cured? I then went in search of autistics who love who they are. My son needs to learn to love who he is , and learn to be the best version of himself, and that includes being surrounded by people that encourage him to optimize his autism, not cure it. I am part of a group called – “Ask me, I’m autistic”, and posed this question. Here are some of the incredible answers I got from other autistic members. “Tania Melnyczuk  – Stimming is part of my autism. Sensory overload is as much part of my autism as dysmenorrhea is part some other women’s femaleness. I haven’t had sensory overload for several years now. It was very bad for some years. “ “Tania Melnyczuk – My definition? OK, lemme try… This is a bit more than a definition, and I will probably have to edit this.  Autism is an umbrella term for a number of neurodevelopmental phenomena. (In layman’s terms, “neurodevelopmental” has to do with “how your nervous system is designed” or “the way you’ve been wired”.) Autistic people have ways of responding to information that differ from those of average people. They may be particularly good at seeing the detail (literally), or seeing the big picture (figuratively). There are numerous other characteristics which autistic people may have. Not all autistic people have the same autistic characteristics. Whether autism is beneficial or detrimental depends largely on the way in which other people view autism, because the environment within which autistic people exist is largely created by non-autistic people. Just like some strengths and vulnerabilities are more common amongst people of a specific gender, age, or skin colour, so autistic people have particular potential strengths and vulnerabilities. For example, autistic people and their non-autistic relatives are more likely to have connective tissue disorders, channelopathies or mitochondrial disorders than the rest of the population do. It is unclear whether some difficulties exist exclusively in autistic people. (For example, the “mind-body disconnect” described by non-speaking autistic writers such as Emma Zurcher-Long perhaps does not occur in non-autistic people.) Likewise, there may be strengths which occur in a some autistics that do not occur in the rest of the population. When autistic people get sick or upset, they sometimes behave in ways which average people do not recognize as a reasonable response to an internal or external problem. People may then try to “treat the autism” instead of addressing the problem. Some people find autistic ways of thinking, autistic ways of expressing joy, autistic ways of coping with difficulties, autistic ways of exploring the world or autistic ways of having fun too different from their own. They try to destroy these differences by trying to make autistic people behave in ways which they believe are more appropriate. Working hard to help autistics appear more normal is called “normative violence”, and is perpetrated by people who regard their own neurotype as superior. As sociologist Anne McGuire explains, normative violence against autistic people is not just driven by overtly nasty people, but also by many powerful autism charities that describe autism in negative ways and endorse harming autistic people “for their own good”. Professionals (such as educators and therapists) who harm autistic people become part of the cycle of abuse, and the abuse is then praised by society as a whole. Autistic people are also vulnerable to bullying and discrimination from others in society. The dynamics of neurological elitism and ableism towards autistic people work in similar ways to the dynamics of racism or sexism. As a result of this, some autistic people may learn to view themselves through the eyes of those who define them in negative ways. When disabled people adopt ableist views, it’s called “internalized ableism”. If a person is valued “in spite of their autism”, it is not helpful, because autistic people are not separate from their autism. Autism can be optimized (made to work well) if autistic people and those around them recognize the value of diversity. ”  ” Tania Melnyczuk –  Autism does define me, though. So do my gender, certain aspects of my culture, and choices I have made in my life. Autism is defining part of who I am, because my autism drives many aspects of the way I think and respond to the world. *Credit to Nick Walker* “ “Beth Smith Âû  – A different operating system, such as Linux, which itself has many different flavors and furthermore differences between installations in each system. Many used to a windows or Mac world would think of such systems as faulty versions of what they’re used to, but we are just different and better at different things, for example Linux may not always have “ease of use” for the unaware, but makes a wonderful server to those who know such things. ”  “Richard Higgs – From my perspective: Autism is a way of experiencing the world that appears to be different from the way most of the population experience it. On a sensory level, things get pretty intense and it is hard to filter out any of the constant barrage of stuff that comes at you from all your senses, all the time. That often makes it difficult to communicate, because our brains are so “full” (there are other reasons for the communication issues, too. More on that later). When there is too much of all of that we lose control of our already tenuous filters and have meltdowns. NTs don’t seem to share our “thoughts and feels” thing: every thought, image, idea, feeling, concept, is networked with everything else, at the same time, so for us to see the “whole picture” of something, we need to take all of those things into account simultaneously, and this is really, really hard to put into words. In those cases it is easier to just shut up than try to put that 3-dimensional network into a linear narrative. With all this overload, it helps to have something concrete to hold on to, some repetitive, automatic action that takes up a part of the reptile brain so that we don’t get completely sucked into an abyss of thoughts about thoughts about thoughts, and this is why we stim. We like to be precise, so we often come across as pedantic, but sometimes we also just get quiet, because there are no words that accurately express the complexity of what we are thinking or feeling. Empathy is a tough one: intuitively we get very involved in how you must be feeling. Very, very involved. Problem is that our already overloaded brains have trouble processing all of that, and you are so damn COMPLEX. It is hard for us to simply acknowledge that you are sad, when we know that you are 37% sad, 8% relieved, 23% angry, 1% blissful, etc.: what I said earlier about being precise. Change: Now imagine you have managed to gain some sort of control over how you are in a situation. You have those filters sort-of in place, you have your stims set up, you have planned to be nice and say a whole lot of meaningless stuff to people about how you like their hair and when they last washed their car, and then all of a sudden the universe throws you a curve-ball. All your careful preparation for survival goes our the window when something doesn’t go according to that plan. The noise gets louder, the lights get brighter, the label in your t-shirt get scratchier, the crease in your sock digs into your ankle, that woman’s perfume smells like a gazillion jasmine trees, that gherkin on the canape gets 800% more sour and salty… Meltdown time. Then there are the weird rules about what is socially appropriate. Those rules don’t make sense to us because they have nothing to do with physical survival or how people are really feeling (what is “Fine, thank you” anyway?), or what they are passionate about or interested in. We have lots of interests, and those get pretty intense, too. We would like to share our enthusiasm about trains, pre-colonial Maori art, the Fibonacci series… because you don’t seem to be all that enthusiastic about anything. Anything that matters, anyway. “ This is what I have learnt so far: Autism is different for every autist to varying degrees. Autistics communicate differently, the world is bigger, louder, and the lights brighter Autism IS NOT a scary thing that we need to cure.                                                             Autistic is something that you ARE, not something that you HAVE or GET. It is part of what makes you, you. Yes, it can be daunting, lonely, difficult, challenging and isolating, because of communication challenges. Sensory matters are complicated, because they are different for everyone, they are highlighted in autistic people, but can be managed if we learn what THAT person needs and what they DON’T. Together, figure out new ways to communicate. Talk to other Autists. Get to know them, they will show you a world you have never seen, heard or felt before And let me tell you… It IS incredible.