#like she would think someone is weird for certain traits but if their autism “explains it” then she wouldn't LOL?

[skrimply]

friend being abnormal about autistic people in a way that comes off like shes being normal about autistic people

[n7punk]

i think adora being ahdh is semi-canon (since nd got tested and diagnosed for it after he was told that "the traits you say you share with adora sound like adhd"), but do you have any neurodivergent hcs for her, catra and any others?

yeah, ive said this before, i think there were neurodivergent people on crew and a number of the characters come across as nd-coded because the characters ended up displaying those traits from who wrote them since thats just the way they Know Existing To Be. i've talked about how i generally headcannon the cast before, but heres some deep-dive stuff with adora and catra (under a cut because its fucking LONG):

adora i could see adhd, ocd, and/or autism (its worth noting they have a lot of overlap and are often comorbid. for instance, i probably have all three lol). theres also the addition of things like her suicidal idealation and anxiety. most AUs i write with the intention of her being ADHD and maybe OCD (this is also how i generally write her in canon, and with the developmental damage of growing up in the fright zone), but some AUs i focus on autism instead (most notably OTOS where its a plot point and ASGNE where she and light hope are both autistic in a way that clashes and made their relationship difficult at first because Communication).

regardless of what she has, that girl stims. she doesn't do it a ton in the show (although animating someone fidgeting takes longer, and auditory stimming messes with the clarity of dialogue in a show), but all you need to do is look at the mystacor ep to see she's barely able to stand existing without stimulation. when laying on the beach she immediately starts fidgeting and vocal stimming because she is without stimulation and thus Dying. i've been there.

i often have her hum, fidget, bounce on her heels, etc. shes also "secretly" jealous of catra's purrs/growls/etc because they offer her stimulation just to hear and seem like they would feel nice to do (not that she's totally aware of all that). idk if there's a separate word for this or really how to explain it, but certain sounds are good to hear and can help with anxiety and the like. just hearing them is a form of stim. i heavily headcannon adora as getting instant satisfaction hearing catra purr, or even growl.

Adora also has some obsessive stuff going on. look at the princess prom planning episode for that. she needs to deconstruct everything, but at the same time, it looks like fucking chaos. i think she has a Clear System in her head, even if that system is piles. shes also probably obsessive about "weird things" that "dont matter" because, either by being told so in the fright zone or by internal logical leap trying to satisfy her superiors, she thinks it's really important that like, her bed is perfectly made or she always brushes her teeth at 6:15 or something and she gets distressed if she doesn't manage those things.

oh yeah her hyperfocus is something so obvious i feel like i dont even have to say it, but the way she gets obsessive tunnel vision, decides one thing is a solution and then keeps trying to work her way back to somewhere where that can still be the solution instead of, you know, coming up with a new solution that works with her current circumstance... yeah, she's got that single-minded focus you can see with adhd or autism. its not really a headcannon its just a factor when writing her.

this is already super long so im going to breeze through catra and stop, though i have less to say about her in general here. i dont consider her depression to be a headcannon, thats documented, but for catra, it does feel weird to kind of ascribe "disorders" or whatever to her because shes a Cat. like i know, technically, adora is an alien too, but catra is the one where you actually see behavioral results from it (Being A Cat) and biological differences, so i tend to think of a lot of things being different for her that aren't necessarily unusual for magicats, but might end up that way in general society.

in a way, all that is in-and-of-itself a metaphor for neurodivergency though, which leads me into my next thing, because catra's different experience operating in a society dominated by other races who are Physically Different, and likely mentally too, from her is a big reason i relate to her from a disability and neurodivergency standpoint.

i dont Technically headcannon her as autistic, but... i do relate to her from that perspective, with her unusual behaviors and senses. i've talked about that before and i dont have the energy to go into it again so go hunting if you want it XD ive seen a post about how "cats should be the poster child animal for autism" going into all the behaviors they have that are similar, and catra embodies an intersection of that for me.

anyway i drafted this a week ago thinking id "finish" it but. this is what i've got ive talked about this all before anyway and its too tiring

[minibagel7]

hihiihhuiiiii hello I’ve been wondering if I’m autistic since mid august and I wake up solely to consume knowledge about autism and I think that in itself is a sign because I believe this is a hyperfixation and I looooove psychology sm I’d consider it a special interest. I’m just rambling sorry- onto the list!!! 🤭

• SPECIAL INTERESTS: I absolutely have special interests specifically in psychology, ANY form of art (drawing, painting, movies, music, ETC.), nature, animals, and colors I guess?? That’s a new one but they’ve always fascinated me.

• sensory issues: ah yes, throwing a fit and crying because my church dress was too itchy. “It’s made of cotton???” I DONT CARE MOTHER, THE STITCHES ARE P A I N F U L. Strong smells and tastes/textures immediately overwhelm me, like head aches, gagging, flappy hands, body wiggle, sometimes crying. I seem to hear things that other people don’t ahahahhahahaha- I literally hate that blazing ball in the sky that we call the sun 👹 some days it’s burning my eye balls the next it’s not bright enough idk it’s weird

• echoing: I’m literally a human mocking bird. If you said something a certain way or someone on TV did then I am going to repeat it. It’s an uncontrollable action 💀

• stimming: I can and will break into song at any given moment, mostly physically but mentally if I have to (like in class). I will shake my leg, rock back & forth, chew the inside of my cheeks, flap my hands, aggressively wiggle my body, kick, compliment people or things if I feel like it. Bouncing and spinning too <33

• hyperfixations: I’ve had like a billion of these and they vary with how long they last. Could be hours, days, weeks, months, and years if I’m lucky. I will consume every thing I can about it and sacrifice my sleep for it. I love buying merchandise like FUNKO POPS!!!!!!!!! I only have one but I’m trying to expand my collection.

• social interactions: ARE FUCKING EXHAUSTING. When I first learned what masking was I had an identity crisis realizing that I have no real sense of self because I’m just MIRRORING PEOPLE. ALL THE TIME!!!!!!! I’ve always felt like everyone was better at socializing, and that I “missed that class” as if it really is a class. In elementary school it was awful, I was so obsessed with mine and other people’s behavior, and I was very sensitive and judgmental. I started doing that because when I tried to be myself I got bad reactions, so masking was kinda like a safety blanket, a very unhealthy and depressing safety blanket. However, thanks to the internet and probably a cartoon, I realized it’s better be myself so I started doing that…but only with people I’m close with. Which is two people (not including family members), another autistic person and the “quiet kid”. I still mimic other people, but now I’m just very passive and quiet to hopefully avoid social interaction as much as I can.

• eye contact: I can maintain it…I guess. When I think about doing it, it’s either very excessive or just “yikes eye contact im gonna look at their hands, the wall, or literally anything but their eyes” ahahahwhhsha

• social rules: I’ve never really understood these but I thought I would get in trouble or something if I didn’t do them.

• development stuff: according to my mother, I hit all of my milestones on time but I was a very quiet baby and I knew how to self soothe since birth, idk if that has anything to with autism but yeah. I sucked my thumb and used sippy cups until I was like 8-9. Apparently I was the only one that liked Frozen after age 7. Anyways

• rules: I was a snitch in elementary and people did NOT like that. I told my mom about it and she explained to me that “there’s just some things you don’t tell on people for” and it stuck with me for the rest of my life. Now that I’m a teenager I have trouble accepting that I can’t be in control of my own life 👹 I lie a lot with is normally not on autistic trait but I do it out of fear of punishment…pretty sure that’s normal.

• executive functioning: my executive functioning skills are such ass that I literally can’t function EXCEPT ORGANIZATION. I LOOOOOVEEEEE organizing and will GLADLY take time out of my day to organize things. When my mom is waiting in line for groceries, I’m happily sorting out the candy and making sure it looks nice and goes where it belongs. Ironically, my room usually ends up as an absolute mess but I like cleaning it.

• I don’t always understand sarcasm, it has to be a phrase I’m used to or said with an extremely obvious tone otherwise I won’t get it…I think.

• repetitive noises make my want to tear my brain in half…LOL!!

• I remember when I finally started being myself and suddenly I was “too much” for everyone. I had low empathy, no filter, very blunt, and SOOOOO much stimming.

OKAY I think im done, I’ll lost more about it later.

[mnemo-li]

Okay, so I did a test I saw on Tumblr just for the funsies and frankly, because a part of me wondered if I have a mild case of ADHD or something because my nanny / part-time nurse used to say that I behaved like a เด็กสมาธิสั้น (literally translates to having a “a child with a short attention span”).

And uhhh the results of the test surprised me, to say the least.

The screenshots are a bit weirdly cropped on Tumblr but to summarize:

The RAADS–R is a self-report instrument, a reliable instrument to assist the diagnosis of autistic adults. According to this paper in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorder, no neurotypical who took the test scored above the autism threshold. The threshold is 65.0 and I scored a 78. I also redid the test a day after and my score was still in the 70s.

I’m just pondering some things that other people have observed about me.

1. In high school, I had been quietly dragged aside in class and privately told by my English teacher that “I speak too softly”. He means well: he just wants to help me communicate. I remembered being so upset by this but when I asked another friend if this is true, she said yes— I tended to speak so quietly sometimes she has to strain to hear me. Apparently, trouble modulating vocal volume is an autistic trait.

2. My nanny noted that I had a habit of taking the baby hair around my face, twirling it around my ear, untwirling it, and then repeating that again and again. I only recalled doing it because it felt good. I also did this other thing where I used to repeatedly pull my eye bags and snap it back for that satisfying snap because it felt good (I stopped doing it because I didn’t wanna have ugly eye bags). To this day though, I have a habit of rubbing thumb against the nail of the other thumb repeatedly, using the nail like a worry stone. Apparently, according to my grandpa, it’s a genetic thing cos my dad does it too! I also have my favorite pillow where I would put my hand inside the pillow and rub my hand against it for the satisfying feelings it gave me. Now, the pillow is thrown away cos it’s too old but I still do the same thing with other pillows in order to sleep. I think this is a form of stimming??

3. I would walk around in literal circles in my rooms for half an hour at a time, daydreaming. Sometimes, when reading a book and the action gets too vivid, I have to start moving around physically, standing up or swinging my legs or walking around as well. Not sure if this is an actual thing though but it seems weird enough.

4. My high school maths tutor used to say that my speech is very disjointed in the sense that I sometimes jump from topic to topic and he would have trouble keeping up (this is regardless of what topic was being discussed). He ended up advising me to slow down whist talking, and to explain my thoughts in steps. I recall telling him my mum speaks like this too.

5. I am easily startled by noises and easily overwhelmed by loud and busy places. I thought this was just my social anxiety thing though but idk. It’s been that way since high school at least. I remember someone once said hi to me on the stairs, surprising me from behind, and damn I almost fell lol. And yeah, to this day I get a sensory overload if I go somewhere too busy or loud (but then, doesn’t everyone to a degree?)

6. Oh: routines. I do get upset if my routine is messed up (but then again, doesn’t everyone to a degree????). Sometimes it’s more intense though. Like, recently, I had news that I can’t do what I planned to do next week and I spent the whole day today just being upset over it. It’s currently almost 8pm and I haven’t eaten anything aside from a sushi roll since I woke up— that’s how upset I am.

7. And of course, an ex-friend of mine said to my face that I’m “lazy”, that I have potential but I don’t work hard. I disagree with that statement but looking back, I am negligent when it comes to certain responsibilities but I am extremely hard working on the things I am passionate (dare I say, hyper fixated) about. Like okay, I know I still can’t finish that goddamn fanfic I worked so long on, but I do have a passion for writing and I objectively literally am a published short story and non-fiction author and a published poet. I literally just signed another contract with an American publishing company last Monday. When it comes to the stuff I truly care about and obsess over, I am not lazy.

I don’t want to be one of those kids who diagnose themselves with every syndrome they read about on the internet, so I won’t conclude anything. However, I also do realize that I harbor some prejudice against autistic individuals that I am trying to unlearn, prejudices which influenced my unconscious desire to not want to be associated with people who society-at-large deem weird or annoying.

Idk. I just… I know I definitely have social anxiety (I once put off going to the supermarket for several weeks, to the point where I became hungry cos there wasn’t proper food left in my fridge, because I didn’t want to talk to the cashier or anyone I might bump into at Tescos) but the thought of me having ASD traits is just… idk what to think about it

idk what to say really.

I’m still in contact with my English teacher though. Lowkey wanna reach out to him and ask if he noticed any other “weird” traits about me.

IRL friends and online mutuals, feel free to share your thoughts if you wish, especially if you have experience with this ❤️🙏

[xcherry-popx]

if its not too weird to ask, could you write some posts abt rad + asd (either one or both/abt comorbidity)? cuz i wanna find more info abt them & i saw stuff saying asd/rad cmrbidity was impossible too & think i may have both. i have zero access to mental health help atm and will for a pretty long time so im just doing what i can as i wait, document my symptoms and stuff and try to cope, for now. (btw im saying this 2 clarify tht im not trying to be invasive or out of curiosty. sry its so long)

It's no problem! Honestly, I'm excited to hear about someone like me, with how uncommon it is. No need to worry about it being long, because my answer ended up long as well ^-^;;

I wrote this quicker than I expected, so please forgive any mistakes, and feel free to ask for clarification. 

I’m mostly going to use the term ‘RAD’ (reactive attachment disorder), but a lot of this information applies to DAD (disinhibited attachment disorder) as well. I was diagnosed when they were still grouped together as RAD.

If any information does not apply to both, I’ll specify the differences between them.

First off: there is no reason autism and RAD can’t be comorbid. Now, most psychologist insist that they cannot exist together, but this is outdated. Unfortunatly, because RAD is so uncommon, very little discussion occurs, and thus any progress in understanding the disorder takes a bit of time.

Fortunately, some discussion has begun. This study is one from 2017. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27895198/

As of now, it’s the only scholarly discussion, but hopefully that will change in time.

Essentially, autism is something you’re born with, while Reactive Attachment Disorder is the result of severe neglect or mistreatment.

The study found that several children diagnosed with RAD met the criteria for autism. The difference in children with autism and RAD vs children with only RAD can be distinguished by focusing on traits specific to autism.

That’s actually how I first suspected I had both: I looked through several diagnosis lists and checked whether I had symptoms exclusive to each list.

One of the current diagnostic criteria for RAD  and DAD is that the child cannot also be diagnosed with autism. This is because RAD, and later, DAD, were often used to explain ‘autistic-like behavior’ in children who either did not show signs of autism early on, or who experienced severe mistreatment.

The main reason this is outdated is because it relies on the belief that autistic individuals do not form attachments to caregivers, which many autistic people will tell you is false. That all relates back to the idea that because autistic people show affection differently, they do not feel it the way allistic people do, which is, again, false.

It’s often difficult to get an RAD diagnosis, much less one along with an autism diagnosis. However, it’s not impossible, although for me it involved two different diagnosises that my grandma and I realized made most sense together.

Under the cut, I’m going to talk more generally about RAD and DAD as well as about my experiences.

 You said you don't have much access to mental health help, but I felt I should include this next segment anyways. 

Attachment therapy, one of the most well-known treatments, is harmful. I would suggest avoiding it. It goes against attachment theory, the basis of RAD. I don’t say this to scare you, but it is coercive and has resulted in death in some cases. You can look into it yourself, but it is rather sickening for me, so please take care if you do so.

While most advice involves making sure the child has an emotionally available ‘attachment figure’, usually a caretaker, that assumes you would want someone to connect to that way.

As someone with inhibited type RAD, I always struggled when people asked if I wanted to be closer to my grandma. To me, we were like strangers, maybe coworkers. I didn't want to open up to her, and so I still don’t.

I believe that, while it’s nice to have a friendly relationship with caretakers, it’s not necessary. For me, it’s always been more important to have friends I can open up to.

Don’t feel pressured to form an emotionally intimate relationship if you don’t want to or feel ready for it. I still don’t think I’m close to my grandma, but we feel like acquaintances now, and that’s enough for me. You don’t have to force a relationship, but don’t be afraid if you want to start one.

Of course, you may have different experiences, or be in a different place with your caretakers, but since I've struggled with that aspect I wanted to talk about it.

Most treatment for RAD is under the assumption that the child is young, which I assume you are not. In general, I suggest finding people you can trust, if you don’t have them already. I don’t want to make too many assumptions here, so if you want more specific advice feel free to ask me.

While RAD is the result of mistreatment such as abuse or neglect, it’s rare even among those who have experienced such things. There’s some debate on why it occurs, and I believe many theories suggest disposition can make one susceptible? But I’m not entirely certain on that front. Also, I’d like to clarify one thing. While most criteria says the mistreatment must begun before age five, it’s not necessary. What happened to me was when I was 11, and it changed me enough that I gained a official diagnosis of RAD a few years later. What matters is how it affected you, not when it occurred.

Now, I’ve mentioned there’s a difference between RAD and DAD, but I haven’t specified what it is. I'll explain that, but to do so I need to talk about how they form.

The basis of RAD and DAD is what’s called attachment theory. This states that young children need strong bond with at least one caregiver to develop. The bonds with their caregivers dictate how their attachment style forms. However, RAD and DAD have their own types of attachment, referred to as inhibited attachment and disinhibited attachment.

They used to both be classified as RAD, separated under the categories ‘inhibited type’ and ‘disinhibited type’.

Many people with inhibited or disinhibited type will show signs of both, but can usually be classified as one or the other. I am inhibited type, but when I was younger I showed signs of disinhibited type in places such as school.

Inhibited attachment is what’s known as Reactive Attachment Disorder. It’s more common in mistreated children. This type is when a child avoids or ignores caregivers, often not showing affection unless convinced to.

Disinhibted attachment is what’s now known as Disinhibited Attachment Disorder. This is more common in children in institutions or group homes. This type shows affection to any and all adults. They are quick to trust strangers. When my grandma worked in foster care, she had some children who, after less than a day of meeting her, would cling to her leg and beg her to take them home.

In this case, inhibited types struggle to form attachments, while disinhibited types will form attachments quickly and easily, with no preference towards their caregivers.

I think that’s all for official information, so I'll talk a bit about my experiences with RAD.

Honestly, it’s isolating. It’s often seen as something that happens to children, and no one talked about adults with it. There’s numerous psychologists who’ll misdiagnose it in foster teens for not showing affection to adoptive parents ‘the way theyʻre supposed to’. Many people treat people with RAD or DAD as ‘psychopaths’, and there’s numerous times I’ve seen it listed as ‘terrifying’, even among the social workers that meet kids with it.

It's discouraging. But I want to tell you that you aren’t alone. I’d be happy to talk to you about your experiences, and share my own. I have hope that people will begin to recognize this disorder despite how uncommon it is, and see it for what it is.

In any case, I hope you are able to find the diagnosis you need, even if it doesn’t turn out to be this one. I wish you the best of luck!

[casual-eumetazoa]

on love, the autistic way

my grandfather died last year (very suddenly, from covid) and it has been enough time now that i am able to access my childhood memories of him without feeling overwhelmed with grief and sorrow, and all i find in those memories again and again is an astonishing amount of love

it was more than just the love of a grandparent for their grandchild - it was a special kind of love and care of two autistic people for each other that i don’t know whether neurotypical people can experience

my grandfather was never diagnosed with autism and i was only diagnosed at 18 years old so it’s not like we had labels for it when i was a kid, but it was quite obvious that both of us were distinctly different, and we were different in the same way. my parents both have their own packages of neurodivergent traits but they never operated in the neurotypical world as outsiders, they were never so different that they had a need to carve out a space for themselves because they’ve always felt at home with everyone else

me and my grandfather did not. we both lived and operated in the neurotypical world, but we were just different enough to be acutely aware of it, and we both knew this is a condition we shared. it became a running joke for us back when i was in preschool and my grandfather was the first person to bring up the world “Aspergers” after he read an article online - i was about 11 at the time - and told me, “hey, look, this is you, this is us”. and that fact, that condition of us being different enough, that was a huge source of love. that was a bond stronger than family and bloodties, that was unlike anything i’ve had with any other family members

neurotypical parents of autistic kids talk about their anguish of not having their children express love in the way they want them to, and i almost get it, except i don’t think they realize that it feels like that too for their kids. because autism and not-autism speak different languages, not just in a literal sense, but in a much broader way that covers every aspect of your existence. expressions of love do not look the same in autistic. they don’t always look like words and hugs and drawings. but they can look like:

sharing or just respecting each other’s routines. so many of my happy childhood memories are of detailed, particular routines i’ve had, either shared with or arranged around my grandfather’s routines. in the chaotic world that was not built for us, we carved out our own space that operated on our rules, and we intuitively understood those rules and lived, thrived in them. 

when we were spending summers in a tiny cottage far from Moscow, that secluded world was ours, it ticked how we wanted it to, and it was full of love. it was in those repeated actions we shared, in our customs and our order - and when the rest of our family came to visit it was bittersweet, because they came into our order and broke it. we were happy to see them but we were also happy in our own specially constructed universe;

partaking in each other’s passions. my grandfather had a phd in physics and worked as an electrical engineer, he was obsessed with sci-fi, he spent his entire life tinkering with electronics and making crafts and collecting stuff that looked like junk to everyone else. i soaked up his knowledge like a sponge. i grew up with a deep fascination and love for science, technology, and books. he taught me maths and science from preschool all through my undergrad degree and he was the person who gave me my first sci-fi novel

i was obsessed with many things as a child and he nurtured those passions no matter how strange they seemed. just like i would spend hours listening to him explain physics to me, he would spend hours listening to me explain obscure biology to him when i was nine. he is the reason i am a writer and a biologist now. these passions were strange to everyone else but we both understood how much a special interest can mean to you and we bonded tremendously over ours, even when they did not overlap at all;

understanding and respecting each other’s needs, even those that seemed ridiculous to everyone else. my grandfather was deeply preoccupied with order and clean environments. i learned very quickly as a child how things had to be arranged in his house and where they had to be returned every time you used them. he couldn’t stand even looking or smelling certain foods and i always knew what to check for when buying stuff or helping with cooking. he had a very particular way of bagging groceries that i myself still use. so many quirks and habits he had that i was either aware of or actually picked up myself

and he knew my habits and quirks too. he knew my sensory needs and he read my body language like no one else in my family could. he always knew when i was close to meltdown and would get me out of that environment just before it would happen. he meticulously removed tomatoes or mushrooms from my pizza slices and knew the exact right consistency of scrambled eggs that i preferred. all of my ridiculous needs and preferences were not at all ridiculous for him because he knew how it felt and it did not seem unreasonable for him, and i also understood why groceries had to be put into the bag in Just This Way because i needed things ordered too;

spending time together in just the right way. being comfortable with just co-existing around each other without interacting. i love my grandmother too, love her to bits, but being around her often exhausted me because she wanted to talk, she wanted hugs, she wanted to Spend Time Together. but me spending time with my granddad could mean just sitting in the same room and reading and only breaking the silence once in an hour to share a line from the book i liked and continue to co-exist in silence. we did not look each other in the eyes because we did not feel the need to and we understood how much personal space we both needed. it did not upset us or make us feel unloved. the love was in co-existing in harmony even if that meant not talking for an entire day or staying in our own rooms for a whole weekend 

*

all of this was love, and it was special, because it was in defiance of what society was expecting. it was a daily fight to keep and maintain a space for ourselves in the world that did not work for us. it was such a sharp contrast to school for me, where everything about me was weird and wrong and needed fixing. it was the kind of love that told me “you are perfect just the way you are, look, i’m like you and we are both fine just as we are”

i am the spitting image of my grandfather in so many ways, and a big part of that is the habits, the stims, the routines and special interests i have picked up from him. it is all the time i had spent with him, all the happy memories i’ve made. it was the radical acceptance, the total understanding we’ve had between ourselves. and it is the absence of this love that i feel so sharply now that he is gone. 

and this is the definition of love that has been imprinted on my brain, and spread out from just familial love to every kind of relationship i have. this is what i am now looking for in everything - friendship, romantic relationship... the love i am seeking everywhere comes from a place of acceptance, of shared routines and respect for each other’s needs and boundaries and bonding over each other’s passions. this is love as i understand it as an autistic person and it is not easy to do in a neurotypical world

i feel for the mothers that want their autistic kids to hug them and say “i love you mummy”. but i feel much stronger for the autistic child who never had someone like my grandfather, a child who wants someone to listen to them talk for hours about their current obsession or wants someone to recognize their patterns and routines and allow them to exist as their brains require them to. i know i will spend the rest of my life searching desperately for this kind of love and i cannot imagine what i would be like if i did not get to experience it

my grandfather is dead, but the love we had for each other is very much alive in me, and still, not a day goes by without me thinking about it

[thistangledbrain]

Day 19 & 20!

Day 19 - “I hate it when...”

As you’ve gleaned from prior posts, I hate it when you forget autism is a developmental disorder and not an intellectual one. We are so. Fucking. Tired. Of being treated as lesser, or like we don’t understand what you’re saying to us.

Outside of the reactions to others’ behavior, though, I have some personal “I hate it when”...I’ve let you into my mind and told you what I appreciate about how my brain works, but there are things I don’t like, for sure.

I hate that personal stressor things trigger a toddler-like need to SHUT DOWN. Like writing this blog, for example...the vulnerability I feel usually leads to a need to go to sleep for a long time, once I’m finished. Or after a long day socializing. I don’t want to talk to anyone, I don’t want to engage my brain anymore, I just need to shut all systems down and sleep. Especially if there’s been a meltdown (meltdown—->shutdown)...and oh boy do I hate meltdowns. They’re really rare, thank dog.

I hate that my executive function is an absolute bag of ass. This is probably the biggest thing I would change. It got infinitely worse when my disability got bad (EDS), for some reason. And it drives me up the damn wall.

I hate my low function days/moments. It’s like my brain just won’t kick into gear, or the gears and wheels are rusty and grinding, & it’s rather anxiety inducing. I usually “hide” on my low days, sometimes in my darkened bedroom, and watch favorite shows or movies, or get lost in a good book - if I can. On low days I find myself re-reading crap constantly because it’s not making any sense, so I’ll even avoid complicated recipes...I have no idea why these days/moments happen, but boy do they piss me off/make me anxious (that’s kind of the same thing for me. My anxiety nearly always manifests as anger). On my low days, you’ll see (if you were a fly on the wall, because I suppress this even around my own family), me walking in tight, anxious figure 8’s and flapping my hands in a distressed way, as I anxiously try to mentally kick my brain into gear. (It doesn’t work, but it IS a little soothing. And my dogs are SO sweet...they gather around me tightly and just seem to know I need them.)

🤷🏻‍♀️ There’s probably more I could expound on that I don’t like, but writing this one has been pretty distasteful. I try not to dwell on things I hate anymore, so I’ve put this entry down multiple times and come back to it when I’m in a decent frame of mind. I think I’m tired of talking about it now, so I’m gonna just stop talking.....

Which is a good segue into Day 20 -

————————————-

“Communication”

Ahh communication. This entry will be long, because I have a lot to communicate LOL....

Personally, I write far more coherently and eloquently than I speak. My brain goes too fast...I often trip over words; my brain’s three steps ahead of what’s coming out of my mouth and I get scrambled sometimes. I can also take the time to think about what I want to say/HOW I want to say it. Like many autistics, I’m a blurter. LOL...I am constantly trying to remind myself, just because I think it, doesn’t mean I have to say it. This gets a LOT of us in trouble...one of my most memorable examples is, I *loudly* blurted “that’s BULLSHIT!!” in a church one time. (I was speaking on how my devout Methodist grandmother, who regularly takes communion at her church, was not permitted to receive communion in a Catholic church, merely because she isn’t Catholic, despite the fact that this woman is all about some Jesus & a devoted churchgoer - not just on Easter and Christmas.) In my defense, it WAS (IS) bullshit. I just didn’t need to practically yell that in church. As you can imagine, it was like a needle scratching across a record & everyone turned to stare. (My poor husband rescued me.) 🤦🏻‍♀️ Sigh. It’s a good idea to keep me out of most church services.

I am rather famous (infamous?) for calling bullshit straight to someone’s face, BLUNTLY. It’s out of my mouth before my brain’s “tact gatekeeper” I’ve spent over a decade trying to train is even half awake at his post (it’s a him because my husband is the one who taught me how to use tact in the first place. And it’s a him because said “gatekeeper” is lazy and falls asleep on the job all the time 😆). Have you ever just blurted your honest thoughts and heard shocked gasps or someone just busts out laughing? Yeah. That happens to me regularly. Or uncomfortable chuckles and someone will blink a few times and say, “oohhhkay, well, you could said that a different way.” (My old response to that was, I’m not responsible for what your reaction is to what I say...you’re in charge of your own feelings. I *understand* now how irresponsible and unfeeling that is, and I try to keep that in the front of my mind, even when I’m frustrated and nearly burning up with the desire to speak my thoughts in their raw form, but this is routinely an area I struggle to adapt to...and I am very sorry when I hurt someone I care about.)

On the other side of this same coin though, this is a trait my friends respect deeply, because I’m not cruel hearted or anything. You always know where you stand with me, and I’m the last person to try and lie to you. I SUUUUUCK at lying. And on the rare times when I do, I usually end up eventually telling on myself (this drove my older stepsister NUTS when we were kids, because she liked to do lots of sneaky things, and I don’t have an inherently sneaky nature LOL...so “DO NOT tell momma” was a *serious* risk for her, if she let me tag along 😂). Lying to someone just feels disgusting. Oily. Shameful. I hate lying. Plus, my short term memory is a grabasstic bag of CRAP, so there’s a good chance I won’t remember the lie and get caught anyway. 🤷🏻‍♀️ My boys also suck at lying or hiding stuff, and generally prefer not to...but I also give them a safe forum to be honest. (I’m sure there’s LOTS of crap I don’t know, but you’d be surprised how much they DO tell me.)

Another thing with me personally is that I go mute sometimes. I’m not being deliberately obstinate. I’m not REFUSING to speak in those moments...sometimes I literally can’t, and the effort of doing so will make me gag, or even projectile vomit. Sounds very dramatic, doesn’t it? It is. (And it annoys the SHIT out of me.) There’s not a fucking thing i can do about it. The movement of my tongue in my mouth will literally begin to trigger my gag reflex, and if I try to power through it, I’m rewarded with my lunch returning to the surface anyway, regardless of my desires, and sometimes rather unexpectedly & violently. USUALLY this happens when I’m uber stressed, but sometimes it seems kind of out of the blue & catches even me off guard. If this happens but I still have something to say, I start texting instead, and explain. Most people - especially my hubby - are very kind when this happens. (I don’t want your pity, I just want you to switch to written communication for a minute until I can figuratively kick the fuck out of the engine in my “speaking center” and get it to work again.) Other times, I will literally get tired of talking. Like my mouth and tongue - and somehow, the “word forming” part of my brain feels physically exhausted (weird, I know, but I also spend the vast majority of my life silent - I am home alone all day, hate talking on the phone, and simply don’t speak much, by choice. So maybe it is actual “mouth fatigue” 😂😂😂 - I’ve stopped eating before because I just got tired of chewing, too, even though I’m still somewhat hungry. 🙄) I am usually *perfectly* happy to keep listening! And I’ll stay engaged in the conversation usually. I am just...done audibly talking. I’ll literally say “my mouth is tired of making the sounds now, but please keep going”...but I think my husband is the only one who doesn’t find this unusual, and rolls with it. It usually happens after a long, animated conversation...instead of winding down, though, it just..stops. If I try to keep going, cue the gagging. I can stay engaged in the conversation if you let me start writing/typing instead of speaking, for my responses. So that’s a “fun” little trait of mine that many neurotypicals find unsettling. Please don’t take it personally. My mouth just doesn’t want to make the words anymore - and I’m probably mostly done adding what I needed to add to the conversation anyway. I’m a great listener when this happens, though. 😆

Communication is a really interesting thing with all of us, because it’s a struggle on one level or another. I will tell you, it’s a frequent topic in my groups. “WHY CAN’T NEUROTYPICALS JUST SAY WHAT THE FUCK THEY MEAN?!?! 😩😩😩” I’m dead serious - you might think, because we’re sensitive (generally), we can’t “handle” it? You’d be so very wrong. What we can’t handle is when you dance around a subject or we have to try and translate what you just said to us (which most of us are not that good at). Just fucking say it! Nine times out of ten, you’ll just get a look of dawning realization and a “oh, shit, okay” response. We can handle it. Just. Say. It. We’ll respect you a lot more in the morning, LOL 😆

I think every autistic has some sort of beef with neurotypicals when it comes to communication (as I’m sure you have yours with us, obviously).

You guys operate under some weird ass rules that we simply don’t understand - especially if you don’t tell us those rules & just expect us to know. Like, if my husband hadn’t patiently taken years to show/teach me how the way I said certain things were hurtful, I would still be in the “yeah she’s cool but she’s kind of an asshole” territory. (I still struggle to grasp this, or at least it still frustrates me....truth is truth, whether it’s an ironclad general fact or your own personal truth - and yes sometimes the truth hurts, but like...I don’t pin any responsibly for that on the truth teller, if that makes sense?)

Working in rescue also helped hone my ability to speak “neurotypically” to others - I work with a LOT of women, and boy do a lot of them NOT appreciate when you bluntly tell them what you think. Men on the other hand....

I know *lots* of autistic women who prefer friendships with men, largely centering around this communication thing. We hurt men’s feelings a little less regularly than other women’s. I know I was like that, until I got a little more used to how I have to modify my communication with most women (but that annoys me, I’m gonna be honest - it annoys my Autie friends, too). The only time I am as starkly blunt as I used to be, is when speaking to my female Autie friends (because they can handle it), or most of the dudes I’m friends with. But if my message is getting “lost in the sauce” and you’re not getting my point, I usually give a frustrated sigh, WARN you that I’m about to tell you flatly what I need to say, because we aren’t getting anywhere, and just say it.

Yes I am the friend who, when you gush on and on about your new back yard bred puppy, talking all about how you’re gonna breed him when he grows up, is gonna flatly say “he’s not breeding quality”, if they’re not. Then I’m gonna ask you why you want to do such a thing, given that you’re aware of the massive load of rescue dogs (PARTICULARLY Great Danes and Cane Corsos) - and probably beat your argument down every step of the way. That doesn’t always go badly though - one of my closest friends was considering breeding their dog, and while it was a beautiful dog, it was not one that should reproduce (from an “improve the breed” perspective). We barely knew each other, but I gained a reputation for being kind but starkly honest...and I knew what I was talking about...and now I have this person’s deep respect, and they have mine (because they listened and did the research I asked them to - and did not add to the breed population). So it’s not *always* a trainwreck, because the people who end up respecting how I communicate, usually end up VERY close friends. AND I WANT THAT IN RETURN, which is refreshing for a LOT of people. I want your dead honesty in return - PLEASE. It’s so much easier for me to process and accept. For example, my house is almost constantly in some sort of disarray. I have one friend who will come in and go, “girl. I almost can’t breathe in here - this clutter is too much”(and then she offers to help me tackle it!!).

Or, fairly recently, “oh my god those curtains are so horrible, I hope you’re getting rid of those when you redo this room.”

“But I MADE those curtains! I love that print!”

“Ugh. No. They’re terrible. Get rid of them.”

My feelings were not hurt in the LEAST (I of course had a flash of “you bitch, I was so excited to find that print and I MADE THOSE, ya jerk” 😂). At first I said, “well you’re just gonna have to suck it up and deal with my shitty curtains, because I like them” 😂, but then as I was redoing the room, I took them down...and it DID look a lot better, so I left them down 😂😂😂....

So I guess my point with all this is: every autie I know deeply wishes you’d just fucking spit it out. We WILL often miss or misinterpret the point if you “fluff” it too much (around my neck of the woods, we call it putting too much gild on the lily, though I’ve never understood that one. Idk if a “gilded lily” is/was ever a thing, why anyone would gild a lily in the first place...LOTS of us struggle with colloquialisms that don’t make literal sense. 😆 Recently a friend was baffled over “shit in one hand and wish in the other and see which fills up faster”, and fully half of the respondents to her post were people baffled by why anyone would shit in their hand - I and a couple others had to explain, and it just ended with them going “well that’s a fucking stupid saying anyway, and wishes aren’t things you can put in your hands, either” 😂😂😂...but I’m from the south, and these things are just part of our vocab. MOST of them are easy to grasp for me, like “nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs”, because I immediately picture it and can grasp the meaning. But others I don’t get - the gilded lily is one LOL)...

We are LITERAL AS FUCK. It’s why we ruin lots of jokes, too. My poor husband is the dad joke king - and I ruin fully 1/3 or more of his jokes by being too literal (which he also finds amusing, so that’s good). Sometimes we realize we’re ruining the joke but we don’t care, because it’s dumb, or we just .... can’t....HELP IT. 😩😂

Jeez, I could almost write all day about autistics and communication LOL!!

But to summarize (and not succinctly, sorry), I guess, for me and many many others...we are often blunt, direct, almost painfully honest, and very, very literal. Your unspoken rules of communication absolutely go over our heads, unless you - yannow - *communicate* and explain them. We’ll probably tell you those rules are stupid and exhausting, but we will TRY and stick to it as best we can. But see, we literally have to think about every single word that comes out of our mouths, because we communicate far more directly than you weird fuckers do. And it is literally actually exhausting. It’s not an easily natural thing for us to adapt to, your weird way of saying things but not saying what you really mean. You’re wasting a LOT of words there, sir, and we are now getting obsessively confused over why you would do such a thing. 😂 It’s also why I keep getting banned from Facebook. My recent one was because I said - in one of my Autie “safe” groups, where I should be able to just say what I mean - that I tend to punch or want to punch people who deliberately startle the shit out of me. We were talking about how stupid April Fool’s Day was, and how we hate pranks. Three of us got banned for 30 days for just...well. Facebook called it “incitement of violence”. 🙄🥺🖕🏼🖕🏼🖕🏼🖕🏼🖕🏼🖕🏼🖕🏼🖕🏼

But I haven’t met - yet, maybe? - an autistic person who is cruel natured - not one of us gets any joy from being a bully type. WE feel everything on a higher level, so we kind of assume you do, too...you might think, “then why are you such an asshole?!”, but it’s simply that we - or every Autie I know, anyway - struggle to grasp how directly communicating your feelings is so fuckin hard or hurtful for y’all. I think anyone struggles to grasp something they themselves don’t experience. All you have to do is explain, though, and keep guiding us towards communicating in ways that we both find acceptable. I mean we’re champs at accepting all manner of different human - regardless of race, sexuality, and so on - but the communication is one area that frustrates the ever loving SHIT out of most of us, because it makes so little logical sense why anyone would say a bunch of useless words that muddy up their intent.

My closing advice? Help Your Pet Autie ™️ (this is absolutely a tongue in cheek term btw) understand how you’d like to be communicated with, and guide us. BE SPECIFIC for fucks sake - we suck at guessing what you might want, and it’s so frustrating that we’ll often just stop communicating at all. Instead of saying “it hurts me when you say this”, try saying “the WAY you said this hurt my feelings because of ____. Maybe you could put it like this instead” (or, “you know, you should really just keep shit like that to yourself”) and *give examples*. Don’t expect us to come up with different ways of saying shit, because we don’t understand what it is specifically you want, and it’s not very logical, therefore it’s not “natural” for us. Plus, everyone is different. I can’t talk to one of my sons the same way I can talk to the other, without certain negative reactions. Give us a chance to know your needs - we DO CARE!!! - but be CLEAR. I know in your world, tact is a big deal, but MOST of us will miss the fucking point if you’re too tactful (and when we misinterpret, we always err on the side of worst case scenario, and make the issue wayyyyy bigger than it should be. Being clear is soooo important).

And hey. Maybe it’ll help clear up some communication in other areas of your life. Being clear isn’t a license to be a fucking asshole; nobody’s giving you a license to unleash on everyone about how much you can’t stand humans...if WE hafta be quiet about that, so do you lmao...fair’s fair. 😆 But quit hedging and hinting and hoping we will pick up on the whatever your grievance is - because we won’t. We’ll just know you’re unhappy, and start panicking over guessing what we did wrong, and just shut down, because we have no idea.

Just. Fucking. Say it. 😘

[rasp-passion-two]

Hello, sorry if this is annoying but can you explain how Himiko is neurodivirgent, I don't mean to come off as rude or anything, I just don't know much about the topic and am curious? Sorry to cause any trouble.

It’s absolutely not any trouble!! I love talking about how Himiko shows signs of being neurodivergent. It hits close to home specifically since not only is she one of my favorite characters, but I relate to her a lot. Okay, this might be a bit long, so sorry about that lol:

So in case you don’t know exactly what it is, neurodiversity is when mentally your brain is wired differently than normal, or “neurotypical”, peoples brains. Especially with considerably easy functions like socialising, thinking, learning, developing or ageing, and many others. Many disorders can fall under the neurodiversity spectrum. ADHD, BPD, autism spectrum disorder, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, dyslexia, and many others.

Personally, I think Himiko would fall into the category of being autistic, which has a lot going into it, but can be summed up as a developmental disorder that involves delays in communication, thinking, social situations, and basic human understanding.

Though there is a thread on Twitter that does a good job covering certain criterias that I won’t end up covering (her lack of understanding of social cues, development delays, the reason why she’s depressed, etc.) and it’s really good!!

Below, I’ll list the traits that, in my opinion, Himiko possesses that are common in ND people. Not all of them will be listed, just the bigger ones:

Talking in a slow, almost “emotionless” way

Himiko talks a certain way throughout the whole of the game, rarely ever changing even when she’s expressing very strong emotions. From the very first line she speaks, Himiko talks about something exciting to her, but still sounds very flat and unenthused. Most ND people will always speak in the same tone of voice no matter what. Sometimes, it's very flat and monotone, like Himikos. Sometimes they'll speak slowly either to gather together what they want to say next, or that's just how they were wired to speak. (Almost exactly like Jataro from DR:AE who speaks in a similar way. Who also has a few neurodivergent traits. But that's just a theory c:)

Childish behavior

This usually ranges, but Himiko has a few traits that neurodivergent people have that others consider “too childish”. She’s extremely naive in how she perceives the world, people around her, and their intentions with interacting with her. Like when Kaito asked her to bring her a crossbow of all things and it takes little for her to be convinced to assist him. Or when Kokichi makes fun of her, and she doesn't always gets it. She's sometimes able to understand, but mostly she doesn't understand that he's just taking advantage of her innocence to treat her how he does with others. She takes things everyone says at face value and believes them easily. Her peers consider her to be a bit slow in many areas, almost in a childlike way. She almost has a child-level understanding of vocabulary (i.e. pronounces words the way children do like how the way she says magic almost sounds like “myagic”, her vocabulary is pretty limited, and she usually starts using certain words that she hears others use). When having her Master brought up with the possibility that he left her selfishly and that she was better than him, she always denies it, keeping an innocent mentality so she won’t feel too bad. After being motivated to move forward, she’s seen a lot to want to be helpful to the group and do something useful, and in return they, in my opinion, view that behavior how older people view a child wanting to be helpful to them. The thread above goes more into detail (her bathroom issues, having a unique way of remembering and referring to objects), but these are only some of the examples for Himiko's maturity.

Being a “gifted child” when she was young

This is entirely my speculation since this is never addressed in canon, but Himiko strikes me as a former “gifted child” which most NDs go through. Her “gift” was discovered at a young age and she was really skilled at it. She was known for it by huge masses of people and praised for it. She even had to save the person who saw the talent in her and taught her everything she knows about it when he made a mistake. She gets invited to all types of events because of it. Lot’s of ND kids who were thought of as “gifted'' may have gone through the same thing. It would also explain why she’s so depressed and unmotivated through most of the game, as a result of what’s called “gifted child syndrome”. Having so much praise and expectations set on her so young. Getting older and not having the same energy for it as you had before. Technically all the DR kids are former gifted children, since they're the product of a company exploiting their "gifts", which is a factor in how the world ended in the way it was. But Himiko has more, you could say "traditional" symptoms and after-effects of growing up as a gifted child (depressed, lack of motivation, lack of motivation in her subject, etc.).

Being viewed as lazy

Even though she takes what she's passionate about seriously, less than when she was younger or not, Himiko doesn't always take action with magic, and even everyday tasks. ND people usually lack any sort of drive, sometimes having an “I’ll come back to it later” mentality, excited about it or not. Himiko lacks any drive and motivation throughout the game, even at the idea of being killed, or put in the line of suspicion for someone's killer. She’ll always make excuses on why she can’t act on things, the most common being “she doesn’t have enough MP”. Which goes back to her talent as a magician, which she is especially sluggish in.

Bottling in her emotions and not wanting them to show. But when she does, it results in an on-going meltdown

We all saw it in its prime during the end of the third trial after all, right? Himiko was sort of always closed in, but it wasn't extreme since she hadn't hit her lowest yet. When she did though, (being the prime suspect of Ryoma dying, her closest friends Tenko and Angie dying, being one of the suspects of one of their murders, etc.) She still attempted to hold it all in, which ND people do for a variety of reasons (not knowing how to process extreme emotions, not wanting too much attention by expressing them, or choosing unhealthy ways to process your feelings, amongst others). But once Kokichi called her out for the second time? Not only was everything practically gushing out of her face, but she literally passed out from crying for so long. I don't know whether to laugh or cry at that myself, ha. 

The same thing happened in the last trial kind of. Once the truth of the killing game and their identities is revealed, she seems to have a meltdown. It could be from the overwhelmingness of the situation. It could be the amount of "change" of the situation, which she doesn't even remember. It could also be overstimulating tones with the change in environment, the info dumping, and how everyone jumped from topic to topic etc. Meltdowns are normal for ND people, especially since they usually hold in their feelings. Himiko got better at expressing herself, but meltdowns will still happen once something overwhelming occurs (it's a great way to let out steam!!)

Stimming

Stimming is when someone, ND or not, self-stimulates themselves by repeatedly moving in some way either by speaking, moving either themselves or something else, or watching someone else do it. Most of the time, you can see Himiko fidgeting with her fingers or with her hat. Doing something with her hands, which is a form of stimming

Despite that, Himiko most noticeably stims by speaking, as she sometimes repeats stuff others say, sometimes repeats a word in order to comfort herself and her beliefs (saying “it’s magic” over and over, either in retaliation or in general), and has a go-to word that she’ll always use almost every sentence when she doesn’t know what to say, is caught off guard/by surprise, or just when she starts and ends her sentences (y’know like, “nyeh”?).

“Odd” facial features/expressions

This one presents itself a lot in the game and through her design as well. Her lip stays tucked out all the time, her eyes don’t always stay open, and her face often keeps the same expression (tired and kind of bored). Just like when she speaks, even when she's expressing intense emotions, she'll keep a mellow expression. She lifts her hat into the air and not much changes expression-wise. She'll be accusatory to someone and not much changes expression-wise. To certain people she interacts with, they think her face is "weird" since it'll pull in ways it usually doesn't for NT people. It could be because she's trying to force the look on herself so it's more easier for people to read (which is shown to be the case for most people), but it's also possible that it's just how she looks. Since she's older, she has more freedom to make more strategies to have more natural expressions, but it's still off-putting to some of her peers.

The infamous saying, “she comes off as annoying”

Many people know this one well, and Himiko is no different, especially in the earlier chapters. Almost everything stated above is a factor that plays in people's disdain for Himiko, in the game and the fandom. Characters like Shuichi, Kaede, Tenko, and even Angie are one of the only few people who try to understand and adjust to Himiko's behavior in their own method, while everyone else either ignores her, doesn’t take her seriously, or even end up bullying her because of it, not willing to adjust themselves for her specific brand of behavior. Being an obvious target, coming off as weird, being too blunt and coming off as rude (which even caused her having strained relationships with K1-B0, Miu, etc.), sometimes hyperfixating too hard on magic (her “special interest”), all seem to be a reason for people thinking she’s too high maintenance.

,,,this ask sure is a month old isn’t it? retrdfyugihhuyt I am EXTREMELY sorry I answered this so late, but I haven’t been online lately because of moving, but at least I managed to finish this in less than a day lol. It’s long, but I love Himiko, and love all the quirks that make her who she is, and am happy to explain it to others!! I hope this answered your questions either way (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

[raederle-phoenix]

Mom sent me a video called “Could it be Aspergers?”

Raederle: I've been learning a lot about autism recently. Btw, It's no longer trendy to call anything on the spectrum Asperger's, apparently.

Mom: It may not be trendy, but while I'm comfortable saying, “I have Asperger's,” I am not comfortable saying I have mild Autism.

Raederle: Many people have the opposite feeling because of the guy Asperger's was named after.

I'm watching the video now. It's good thus far. I was the “Italian driver” as a kid, as he put it. I didn't read the signs in social situations. lol

Lytenian has noooo tolerance for people shouting. (9 minutes into the video now.) 

Lytenian also can't wear a mask without having a panic attack. Every time we go grocery shopping I have to pause and hug him regularly while he hyperventilates.

Accountants are shown to be really likely to have aspy kids, lol. (Looking at you.) [Mom has always had a passion for accounting.]

He tells the story around minute fourteen of the kid who ends up studying psychology . . . And points out he has been studying people since he was three because it was the only way to cope. Man do I relate to that. And so does Dad, I'm sure. [Dad studied psychology in college and went on to continue to study it for life. He’s the one who introduced me to transactional analysis and NLP.]

OMG. Minute 20. Aspy girl observes the popular girl. “What does she wear? Pink. I'll wear pink-pink-pink. What does she like? Barbies. I'll get 100 Barbies!” I don't recall deciding to do that due to any particular girls I knew, but perhaps I used TV as a model.

OMG #2. Minute 22. Sometimes the aspy girl can't find acceptance so she gives up copying the others and turns to things like promiscuity, so at least she can get acceptance that way.

Did Dad watch this with you? LOL. 

Yoga and meditation. “Tell aspies to do it because it makes them smarter. Explain that being upset makes their IQ drop 30 points. Yes, it will drop into the normal range.” LOL. 

Wow. He even mentioned narcissism toward the end.

Mom: The video is SO on point – for you, me, Dale, Carlos – I didn't know about Lytenian.

Raederle: Ah, of course Carlos. And obviously Michael. [My nephew.] I think our family is actually a magnet for aspy people. [I named other friends of the family.]  

[The next day] Raederle: I'm now questioning whether Greg has a touch of it after all. The man in the video did say that a percentage of people were subclinical . . . I really want to know all about the genetics of it. How many different genes are we dealing with? Three? Fifteen?

Mom: Good question.  And I also wonder about that. But I don't think that genetics has the final say about it. I think a lot of it is things like mercury poisoning. Early trauma that affects the brain.

Raederle: I used to think it was more about things like mercury poisoning, but after learning about how the dynamics of HSPs [Highly Sensitive People] work, and that hundreds of other species have HSPs, and that they serve an important role in society, I now think aspy people serve a nature-intended role. 

I think the enhanced awareness and diagnosis of people with autism could actually be due to our society becoming more dysfunctional. When the diet everyone ate was healthy, and when communities were more supportive and close-knit, aspy people would have had a strong support system that accepted them as they were. The healthy food and healthy relationships would keep their anxiety down and their strengths would shine through. 

With the way society is structured now, it is too hard to cope as an aspy, so the ones in the latest generation are becoming spokespeople.

Mom: Certainly a valid argument.  And certainly aspies serve valid functions, just as do homosexuality and other 'aberrations'. 

But I think the trigger is always early trauma.

Consider that the very things that cause violence and narcissism are violence and narcissism.

And in societies where those are rampant, they are considered good traits.

Raederle: Hmm. But violence and narcissism are behavioral patterns. Autism impacts the neural pathway structure itself, and even how many hormones are released in conjunction to certain stimuli . . . Then again, I suppose behavior works that way too. Our brains develop neural superhighways based on whatever we do a child while we are using dendrites rapidly in our brain to make connections.

I still think there is something different going on with things like autism and being an HSP, however. When someone does a lot of shadow work, they can find themselves increasingly healed from a need to have a narcissistic relational style, but their brain set-up (being good at pattern recognition, or being more focused on incoming sensory stimuli, as examples) actually gets better at what it was already doing; it doesn't change to suddenly become neuro-typical if it wasn't previously.

Mom: Also good points, but the premise, logic, and brain power are getting beyond me. My brain doesn't do things it used to. [Mom is over seventy now. She had me when she was forty-two, and I’m thirty-one now.]

Raederle: *sad*

Mom: Yeah I know.  Such is life.

Raederle: I brag to people all the time that in college you had a 4.0 in calculus. :)

Mom: I brag to myself about it.  But I went back once to audit a class, and couldn’t follow it.

Raederle: I've started re-learning all the math I knew in high school from Greg. And he's going to teach me calculus after I'm caught up. From there, Scott might teach me more.

Mom: That would be cool! Bear in mind that my first calculus teacher (they taught it over three semesters) was extremely good.

Raederle: I'm sure. It helps that I get to have one-on-one tutoring. While I learn a lot from books now, I still learn a board game better from a good teacher than from a manual. The idea of learning math from a book scares the daylights out of me. I never learned a thing about math from a book.

It seems more natural to learn about people and psychology from books, and yet learn about math from people.

Okay, that is a weird thing . . . lol.

[nope-body]

I talked to my therapist about my sensory issues and how it fits into sensory processing disorder pretty much perfectly and I know that we’re trying to work through a whole lot of things right now but it feels like she’s not actually listening to me on it? She sent me an article on sensory processing sensitivity, which isn’t what I was talking about and the article itself came off as sort of... weird? Something about it seemed off and I usually trust my instincts when it comes to that stuff because they’re never wrong. It also just. Didn’t fit what I was describing to her. Here’s what they say about someone with sensory processing sensitivity:

“A highly sensitive person — whether child or adult — processes sensory stimuli and information more strongly and deeply than do others. Individuals with SPS express these characteristics:

Deeper cognitive processing

More attention to subtleties

Greater emotional reactivity

Pausing before acting

Greater awareness of environmental and social stimuli, including the moods and emotions of others”

And half of those are the exact opposite of what I experience! I don’t even know what “more attention to subtleties” even means, but I don’t pick up on things that everyone else does, much less pick up on more things. I don’t pause before acting; I realize I’m doing something halfway through the task! Others moods and emotions? No clue! None whatsoever! I’ve only learned to identify when someone might be upset because of my parents- if they were having a bad day or were angry or frustrated or tired or anything negative, I have to be able to pick up on that or I will end up getting yelled at. Some of the identifiers I use for them can be generalized to others, but not always. And usually I think someone is irritated when they aren’t, so if anything, I’m less aware of “the moods and emotions of others”, not more.

And the stuff that does fit me? Can all be explained by other things. Deeper cognitive processing? Possibly adhd, possibly just genetics; I can’t say for sure because the wording is so vague that it could mean almost anything. Greater emotional reactivity? I’m traumatized! What do you want from me? And yeah, I have “greater awareness of environmental stimuli”- again, vaguely worded and can be clearly explained by my adhd- adhd brains don’t filter out the stimuli that neurotypical brains would deem unnecessary and filter out. I’m aware of everything happening and every sound and touch and bright light because my adhd doesn’t let me ignore them.

And my issue isn’t that I’m overwhelmed because my brain isn’t filtering stuff out. The issue is that I have so much difficulty processing any sensory input, which is made worse when I’m trying to process everything with no filter, and when it gets to be too much, it is physically painful to me, something that no one seems to get.

I don’t understand what people are saying half the time! Not because I can’t hear them or because they’re talking about things I don’t know about. I don’t understand them because the sounds they’re making, the sounds that everyone else seems to understand perfectly, sound like garbled gibberish to me. And when my brain gets tired from trying to process something (or everything)? The stuff it can’t process just becomes painful to me. The lights? Not even as bright as outside, just regular lights you’d see in a school or a building or wherever, they are too much for my brain to process. They are too bright and they hurt my eyes and to be honest, light in general hurts my eyes. When I’m in the shower and I think I got soap in my eyes, and I close them and rinse them off? I have to cover my eyes when I open them or else I won’t be able to tell whether the pain I’m feeling is soap or just the light.

And I looked at the Wikipedia article (as a base point) for sensory processing sensitivity, and it seems to be almost entirely based off of the research of one psychologist, Elaine Aron, and it started with a book she wrote, which seems to be the origin of the term “sensory processing sensitivity” and “highly sensitive person”, and only after the book was published did they formally establish the terms in any scientific context. Despite asserting that sensory processing sensitivity was a trait, and highly implying that it was a personality trait (she published an article connecting it to Carl Jung, who is a widely known psychologist who studied personality, in an academic journal), previous research 20 years earlier connected high sensory sensitivity to a lower stimulus threshold in the thalamus.

In non psychological terms, Elain Aron says that her sensory processing sensitivity is a personality trait, but other research shows that high sensory sensitivity is because the thalamus, the part of the brain that all sensory information passes through before it’s essentially “sorted” to the other parts of the brain, lets in more sensory information. The extra information that it lets in is what would be filtered out by a thalamus that belongs to someone without sensory sensitivity.

Elain Aron seems to be the driving force behind the term and concept of sensory processing sensitivity, based on her many books on the topic and her research articles, which, when looking up “sensory processing sensitivity” on scholarly google, seems to be the only articles cited on sensory processing sensitivity when it’s then used to look at how it impacts businesses people and technology use and pretty much anything. When sorted by relevance, she is an author of half of the “most relevant” articles on it (5/10), and almost everything else is taking her research and adding onto it through their own lens. Her first article using sensory processing sensitivity in a scientific context (as I said above, published a year after her book on the topic was published) has been cited by almost 800 other articles according to google.

She seems to be the only primary source of information on “sensory processing sensitivity”, and some of her conclusions, primarily the ones about “highly sensitive people” having a greater awareness of others’ moods and emotions, seem to be a bit. questionable. She has an article where they did MRIs on “highly sensitive people” and found that they all activated the same areas of the brain when looking at happy pictures, but I haven’t seen anything comparing the awareness of others’ moods and emotions between highly sensitive people and not highly sensitive people. And since she was also the one who created the questionnaire that establishes whether or not you’re a highly sensitive person, I’m starting to question things a bit.

I think that “sensory processing sensitivity” is simply not a thing, at least not in the way Elaine Aron defines it. I definitely believe that sensory sensitivity impacts people, some more strongly than others, and I think that being aware of others’ moods and emotions is a trait that can be present more strongly in some than others, but I don’t agree with how they are seemingly lumped together into “sensory processing sensitivity”, and the subtle wording around it that makes those with it, so called “highly sensitive people”, seem better and special and different, in a good way.

Sensory processing disorder, on the other hand, fits my experiences. The symptoms aren’t very clear cut, since it is not an official diagnosis in the DSM-V (though the symptoms of it are listed as possible symptoms of those with autism spectrum disorder), but from what I have gathered, it can be simply listed as

Hyper-responsive or over-responsive to sensory stimuli

Hypo-responsive or under-responsive to sensory stimuli

Sensory stimulation seeking

It seems like basically your brain processes sensory stuff weird and wants a certain level of input from each sense, beyond which that sense’s input ranges from mildly irritating to excruciatingly painful, and under which your brain almost ignores it completely. To get the correct level of input for each sense, your brain creates drives to seek out that correct level of input, and those drives can be distracting if there isn’t enough input or painful if there’s too much. So you then would take an action in response to that drive- whether it’s fidgeting with something (adding touch input), listening to music (adding sound input), turning off the lights (decreasing visual input), pacing (adding proprioception input, or your sense of your body in space), or something else.

Additionally, sometimes your brain just doesn’t process something right, like not understanding a word being said, not recognizing what’s in a picture, not recognizing the taste of something you’re eating, even if you’ve had it hundreds of times before, or something else. I think this may fall under hypo-responsive to sensory stimuli, but that symptom is more of a reaction to the actual symptom of your brain not processing a sense. If it’s not processed correctly, how can you be expected to respond the way you would otherwise?

This is what I’ve sorta concluded based on what turned up in my searches, because they were either unreliable, unhelpful, or both, so this is my understanding of sensory processing disorder. I might be wrong, but what information I’ve gathered on it makes sense for me, and fits my experiences. “Sensory processing sensitivity”, on the other hand, doesn’t, and I’m not even completely convinced it’s a “personality trait” that makes sense.

[mcrmadness]

I was writing elsewhere about why I don’t relate to he most common Asperger’s traits and why do I think I have a logic explanation to everything they think makes me an asperger, and the text got so long I might as well just copypaste some of that on here:

It's also so hard to find any good list of Asperger’s symptoms because almost every list says "may or may not be like this", and I definitely am missing the core symptoms of Asperger's and autism. I only relate to those symptoms that are present in both, Asperger's/autism AND adhd, and then to symptoms found in ADD but not only in Asperger's/autism.

I also lack anything from childhood that makes a kid a typical autistic kid. And many things that I share with autistic people I can already explain with other things like my personality, e.g.:

I don't like people because I'm an introvert, not because I'm not neurotypical; and I'm aroace which is why my interests are more important to me than human relationships.

I don't look people in the eye because I am highly sensitive person and an introvert. I also have lots of traumas from other people which makes me act like that because I still basically expect people to start shouting at me or something out of blue, so I'm sometimes acting the same way as a dog that has been beaten too many times and can no longer trust humans.

And this can be easily seen as weird and antisocial when I'm looking at the walls and ceiling and everything else but the person I'm talking to, it just helps me concentrate when I can stare at something that gives my eyes things to do. I'd probably be counting people's nose hair and get distracted by that if I stared at them.

Being stared at overall makes me highly uncomfortable because of being an introvert and HSP.

And me being sensitive to things is also a HSP thing + migraine.

The overstimulation and sensory overload I feel because of HSP is different to those with autism. I have a filter, I can stand that into certain levels but the filters fills up faster than non-HS people’s and then I just start seeing and hearing everything. I’ve understood that people with autism don’t have this kind of filter and when they go to places with lots of stimuli happening all around, they can’t take it the second it happens. In my case I can stand it even when the filter is full but if I don’t get peace soon, I usually get irritated and eventually end up with a headache.

I just wish they would give me an opportunity to explain why I think what I think and didn't just suggest medications for this and that. I mean this psychiatrist already was talking about meds and how he could suggest me a anxiety medication and how "some medications do cause the feelings to go numb, unfortunately". Me on my ANTIDEPRESSANTS was like having depression without melancholy. I couldn’t focus even that little I now can.

How did I end up with an Asperger’s diagnosis, then? I think it’s all just a misunderstanding and professionals understanding my words the wrong way and focusing too much on how I’m on the outside rather than actually paying attention on what I say is happening inside my head. So far I've got social anxiety and generalized anxiety disorder on paper. With the latter I've been living since early childhood and I got the diagnosis when I was 28. And when I went to a psychiatrist last time with this anxiety shit (I was 22), I was desperately looking for a diagnosis with anxiety and what did I get? I got told I can't get therapy if I don't eat medications because "it does not work without meds and we don't have any resources for that", and only when I actually was so mad I finally stood up for myself and said "I'm not going to put any kind of pill into my mouth ever again so f this is all about medications, I guess we're done here." and was already ready to leave and that's when the doctor was a bit baffled and I swear she sounded a bit annoyed when she asked what would have I wanted from therapy, then.

They did not take me seriously, they saw just the social phobia that I told millions of times not being the problem. Me not leaving the house because I was so afraid of accidentally having low blood sugar was not social phobia. I wasn't afraid of people stealing my blood sugar you know??? But they thought I needed group therapy and it was the only solution and there I could also get therapy, even tho I told them I don't like forced socializing and I don't want to go there. They still booked me an appointment with people from that group therapy thing and I legit felt like we'd have sat in that meeting room for days until I'd say "okay I will try it". It literally was just them trying to talk me over to try it. And I went to this thing a couple of times until I messaged them that it's not my thing, I'm not coming there anymore and that's why they cut contact with me because I didn't accept the offered therapy method. And afterwards I went to see my information on the website with medical information and nearly fell of the chair because it said I had been diagnosed with Asperger's. With my mom we actually came to the conclusion it’s because they needed some kind of diagnosis to be done in order to get in that group therapy but I am still stuck with this stupid diagnosis that no doctor now is willing to take away! I'm sure my stubborn behaviour and "I don't like people in places like these" was what made the psychiatrist think it must be Asperger's. They were and still are only worried about people not being able to be a part of the society and an individual has to change instead of trying to make the society better place to live for everyone.

The previous doctor I had for 5 years (ages 17-22), at that time my dad was going to Asperger tests a few times and we all were certain that he has Asperger's too but nope, he doesn't. And at that time we all were also interested in knowing if I have Asperger's and I asked about it from that doctor and he immediately said nope, he doesn't think I have that at all. I also was to neuropsychiatric tests when I was 22 and there were some things, mainly about social skills and emotions and feelings and my "obsessive-compulsive" behaviour they thought supported the Asperger's. My explanations again: Social anxiety. I have problems with emotions because my dad has anger issues and I only lately realized I'm afraid to let all the feels come out because I'm afraid of losing control and accidentally hurting myself, someone else or breaking something. And I don't want that, I need to be in control of myself at all times. I also find it hard to cry because I feel like I can't cry hard enough, I should literally cry my eyes out for it to be efficient. When I thik about anger, I think I just see in my head how my dad reacts to it and I don't want to be like that. So I keep it all in and only way to let it out is by channeling it into something else, like writing, drawing or playing video games. (This is a HSP thing but could also be ADHD thing.) I have the results of the and everything they say about me understanding social cues wrong... I think that's it, they think I don't understand them when it's just because of the heavy bullying that made me unable to trust anything other people do or say. I'm actually good at reading people, I don't have trouble understanding people's facial expressions. I myself don't really use facial expressions because it's a self-defense mechanism, I'm not "allowed" to let people see how I feel. Also social anxiety made me really think i was the center of the world and everyone who laughed, was laughing at me, and combined with bullying, I felt like everyone was talking about behind my back and I just felt so hated because it WAS the truth, but I also was sure that also people who don't know me, do that. So me misunderstanding social cues and those were not typical Asperger's but just caused by bullying and being hated by everyone, and excessive loneliness which sometimes felt like I was going crazy and started having voices in my head because I just needed to have a conversation. I still sometimes think friendships work like they did when I was a teenager because that was the last time I've had an actual friend group or even actual friends. I mean friends who I can actually meet with. Only one of those people is still in my life and we live about 2km from each other but still we meet like 1-2 times a year because we always keep talking about how we need to meet and then don't meet. Rest of my friends I know through internet and I’d so much want to meet but can’t and I can only try and guess how I’d work in situation where I’d be in the same room with them because I no longer remember how that even works. That’s how lonely I am because I can’t get to use social skills outside of the internet that much like, ever. I also had to do lots of learning with social situations when I got over the worst parts of social anxiety, it prevented me from learning things you learn as a teenager because I'd enter panic mode when someone talked to me and then spent the rest of the day analyzing it and wishing I was in control and did something differently. Same thing happened with the antidepressants, 5 years of my life without emotions and feelings. They were taken away when I was 17 and then I got them back when I quit the meds and was 22 and suddenly I should have needed to know how to deal with adult emotions.

So, long story short, bullying left me with inability to read other people CORRECTLY but that does not mean I wouldn’t be able to read people. Nowadays I don’t do the mistakes that much anymore, I sense people’s emotions very easily and I mirror people. I might be weird but it’s not because I would act weird or use weird, inapproprite facial expressions. I enjoy being weird so when I do that, it’s usually because of my sense of humour just not matching with other people’s. But there’s still people who DO understand it, it’s they usually just are not neurotypical.

[stimsensory]

Getting Diagnosed: 2

After I had been referred for assessment, I was apparently seen in school by a Community Paediatrician. I don’t actually remember any of this, but apparently the meeting was fairly short and, according to my parents, I asked some rather blunt, inappropriate questions, such as asking whether the doctor (who I assume had an accent) was speaking English. Now, I can get how embarrassing and rude that must’ve been, but at the time I probably only asked because I was struggling to understand them (I still struggle with strong accents sometimes, or even no accents when overwhelmed, but I wouldn’t ask that now!).

The paediatrician basically summarised that whilst I showed quite a lot of traits of Asperger’s Syndrome, they wanted to wait and get more information before coming to a conclusion, which is fair enough. The appointment was fairly short, and it can be very difficult to get a full view of someone’s development after only a single, short, meeting.

At this point, my parents started looking into private options. For readers outside of the UK: most British people don’t use private healthcare, as we rely upon the NHS for many, if not all, of our medical needs. It is not common for people to buy private healthcare. It tends to allow you to essentially jump from a long queue to a shorter queue, and can mean longer appointments. Nowadays, the NHS still provides amazing physical healthcare. However, it’s mental healthcare has long waiting lines. Once you finish waiting, the care can be great. But many are forced to wait for months, if not years, for assessments for disorders like ASD.

Luckily for us, my dad had private healthcare from his employers (again, not a very common occurrence as far as I know) so we were able to seek private help. I saw a Child Neuropsychologist for around an hour a week for 6 weeks (as far as I remember). This allowed her to get to know me better and see me for longer. Rather than just seeing me once, she saw me across a longer timeline and therefore had a better understanding of my problems.

From what I remember, essentially I went to a lady’s house every week, and sat with her in the kitchen whilst my parents waited in a little room with a sofa. I remember we would do a variety of tests, that I actually enjoyed because they seemed like puzzles. For example, I remember I had to read a paragraph and recall some of it (not really interesting), and decode some symbols (way more fun). So I thought that was pretty cool, even if I didn’t actually really know what was going on or why. To be honest, I don’t remember caring that much. Maybe I thought it was tutoring, or some kind of test for school.

I did not realise my social skills were also being assessed, which is actually very good as it meant I would not have been tempted to camouflage any ‘odd’ things I did. At that point, I wasn’t really aware of which of my behaviours were considered ‘weird’, or which of my social skills were lacking. All I really knew was that I did not understand people and most of them did not understand me. I would much rather read than socialise, because other people were confusing and stressful. I had no clue why every other child could easily make friends, but rejected me almost instantly. Even according to my diagnosis, most of my classmates apparently found me annoying, whilst a few ‘tolerated’ me. So overall, I understood that I was not behaving ‘normally’, but I had no clue how to figure out what I was doing ‘wrong’ or how to change it.

Anyway, one specific aspect of the social evaluation always stood out to me. I remember at one point the Neuropsychologist told me I could bring in toys if I wanted. I took this to mean that I ought to bring some toys in, and therefore took some Sylvanian families toys in to the next meeting. From my own perspective, she never brought the toys up during the session, which confused me. I assumed I was meant to play with them, because why else would she have told me I could bring them? So I just stopped a task and played with them, because I wanted to and because I thought that was what I was supposed to do. Now, according to my assessment, “[I] would suddenly break away from a task we were in the midst of to take out a toy to play with”. Which, whilst technically true from the view of an observer, does not really fully explain my behaviour. As a side note, that is one of the main problems I find in many aspects of autism research. Many researchers make assumptions from their own, non-autistic perspective, and often assume that is the only possible reason for engaging in a certain behaviour. They often also use autism theories to explain them, which again may rely upon inferences. If the Neuropsychologist had asked why I brought the toy out I could have told her (which is not possible for many non-verbal autistic people).

Other than the above though, the Neuropsychologist noted a lot of my autistic traits. She reported after around 20 minutes I started to get fidgety in my chair (something still true today!) and was very observant of visual details. I did not engage in conversation without prompting, and made variable, occasionally inappropriate eye contact. I apparently lacked a ‘Theory of Mind’. I agree that at that point, I did not really have a well developed ToM, but now I do believe I have a fairly good ability to understand and empathise with other people, if I can figure out what they are feeling and why. I think this ToM developed in secondary school, when I essentially realised and reluctantly accepted that others did things for reasons I did not know, and would not tell me. I did not understand why others did seemingly inexplicable things, and kind of took too long to realise they don’t automatically know what I mean or experience.

When she did IQ tests, she found I had an uneven skill-set. I won’t say what my exact IQ scores were, because many people (myself included, some of the time, unless it is specifically asked) find it pretentious. But basically I did very well on the ‘Perceptual Reasoning Index’ which had stuff like visualising 3D objects I think, and a lot lower on my ‘Working Memory’, ‘Verbal Comprehension’, and ‘Processing Speed Index’. I also had a very low executive skill score, along with a low visual-motor skill score. That is the reason I was allotted extra time in exams; my processing speed is far slower than would be expected from the other scores.

At the end of all of this, I was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. In more recent documents, this is usually referred to as ‘High Functioning Autism’ of ‘Autism Spectrum Disorder’, as Asperger’s is no longer diagnosed in the DSM-5. My parents told me about the diagnosis a few months after I got it. I remember reading a few notes that suggested they were told to wait until I was around 15-16 to tell me. I am very glad they told me earlier, as it meant I no longer felt like I was just failing at socialising whilst everyone else was passing without even trying. I do not exactly remember how they told me, but I think my reaction was a little anti-climactic, as I had never really heard of autism or Asperger’s before that, which is probably good as I did not have to deal with all of the fear mongering in the media. I had no previous assumptions about autism, other than ‘huh, that’s a thing that I have that explains why I struggle with social stuff’. Once I started researching autism, it was amazing to read other people’s accounts and just think ‘hey! I do that!’ and feel like you weren’t the odd one out any more.

My actual diagnostic assessment had a lot more in it (it’s a fairly long document), but I’ve kept it brief because it’s quite personal, and because this post is already pretty long.

From what I’ve read and seen, diagnostic assessments have changed a lot over the past few years. It can apparently take months, even years, for that fairly short initial appointment. I was also lucky to have a Neuropsychologist who was aware of the differences in how autism often presents in females vs males. Nowadays, there is more attention being paid to autistic females who may have gone undiagnosed, which is hopefully a step in the right direction.

[trans-l-lawliet]

Can you headcanon L and Matsuda being both autistic and/or with ADHD and kinda understanding each other eventual needs please?? And with the reaction/opinions of others (Light, Soichiro, Aizawa, Misa and Mogi)

Hi there! So, my ADHD had me in a pretty intense BNHA lock down (here is my sideblog shameless self promo lmao), and tbh I’m answering this ask first just because of the hilarious irony of it. 

I tried to answer both the premise and how the other characters react, and I’m still in the process of shifting back into Death Note mode, so bear with my dumbass ass

L and Matsuda were peak autism/ADHD solidarity, and they bonded pretty fast over it.

L already knew about Touta because he investigated the police very thoroughly, but Matsuda realised quite fast that Ryuzaki shared certain traits with him.

Both of them loved to sit down “weird”, and would be found discussing the case in the strangest of postures. Once Aizawa walked to Matsuda hanging his legs mid air as he laid down on the couch, while Ryuzaki was sitting on one of the armchairs, face pressed against the arm, his voice muffled as he recited the deaths’ data from the previous week.

“Ryuzaki, I literally can’t take any more information in today, I want to talk about Detective Conan” “Sure, but only if we can talk about my list of sweets after” “Deal. Which country today?” “I’m feeling Italy” “Nice. So, I’m on volume 42 and-”

L wasn’t much of a fan of having to repeat himself, or being interrupted mid sentence, but once Touta explained that it was because of his auditory processing issues, he started to give Matsuda five to ten seconds to reply, and would repeat what he last said if asked, two-three times if needed.

When they became closer and seemed to actually start developing something like friendship, the unstoppable force of Matsuda’s Labrador energy clashed with the immovable object of L’s rejection of physical touch. He tried to learn how to read Ryuzaki’s body language so he could take some steps back if needed, to which L was grateful for.

Once Touta learnt about what flavours L loved, and the right texture he could tolerate for his food, he started bringing snacks to share with him that catered to his needs. Except for eclairs, those were for Ryuzaki alone. The simply thought of eating one made Matsu’s skin crawl.

Ryuzaki completely dropped any form of degradation towards Matsuda after a particular night when he lashed out at him in frustration with the case, and Touta had a panic attack triggered by his RSD. If he ever expressed anything akin to an insult, L always made sure it was clear he was joking, in his own way.

Executive dysfunction had always been a pain to deal with, and Matsuda was no stranger to it, but he grew to be so grateful to have Watari around, he once cried about it.

The man was used to L's own version of it, and to have someone to actually help Matsu out by giving him pointers and tips, as well as a helping hand, it made his heart ache in a good way.

The other members of the Task Force didn’t know how to react at first, because Matsuda restrained a lot when he worked back in the police. They considered him clumsy and a bit of an airhead, but little did they know that the limits he pushed onto himself were to blame for that. 

Being in such a small team, plus being in company of someone who understood his needs better than any other coworker would’ve been able to made him feel more free to just be himself and behave in ways that actually helped him work better.

Like stimming. He didn’t know how much he missed it on a work environment until he was able to bring his favourite pen in and click clack it away while working through reports. Or bouncing his left leg as his right was tucked under himself on the chair.

Mogi had always been one to roll with the punches, and when he found both men in a deep conversation about home decor at three in the morning, he simply sat down with the reports he had brought and started working through them.

Aizawa started being slightly more considerate towards Touta, and tried to reduce his complaining about his attitude, as he caught on the fact that Matsuda had been simply restrained by societal expectations. It wasn’t at the same level, but he could relate to those feelings of inadequacy. This, in turn, softened his attitude towards L as well.

Soichiro, the always diligent leader, noticed how much more productive and eager to work Matsuda was, and tried to silently learn through observation. If he could make it easier for Touta once they had to return to the police, he would.

Light always had these feelings of slight irritation towards Matsuda, that he never put a name of and simply branded as thinking of him as stupid. But L saw right through Light in a lot of aspects, including this one. And He Did Not Like It At All.

When Ryuzaki handcuffed himself to Light, he made sure to invite Matsuda over to indulge in ranting about their interests even more than it was already usual for them. If Light ever complained about how much they were talking, Ryuzaki would tell him that surely Japan’s Top Student could push through and concentrate in whatever he’s doing, no matter if there’s a conversation going on around him.

Misa loved her manager Matsui. And Matsuda was very fond of Misa as well, even if he couldn’t admit it because she was still suspect of being involved in the Kira case, with so much evidence against her… But she was sweet and full of life, and he couldn’t help but admire her.

He never told her, but he was pretty certain the girl had a touch of ADHD herself. They settled in a fun friendship dynamic right from the start, and when they discovered they had the same tastes in music, random karaoke nights in her room were on. He even got Ryuzaki and Light to join once, even if neither of them actually sang a single song.

Touta explained to Misa a bit in regards of how to act around Ryuzaki, because she was Very Loud and even more physical than Matsuda, and he didn’t want his friend to have a meltdown because she just went slightly overboard with her natural excitement. 

Ryuzaki didn’t learn about this until he was reviewing the footage for Misa’s bedroom one night, and he wouldn’t admit it, but it was touching to see someone actually try to be accommodating instead of dismissive.

[mxsinistir]

*renewed and less angry* Opinion on the Ryuzaki Persona Theory

Disclaimer) Okay, reading my old journal entry about this topic. . . I was apparently just really angry about something when I wrote it?? And I honestly think that's hilarious bc yeah, I was mad about the theory but I just had no chill whenever I was writing it as a coping method. So this is my new level-headed, experienced-DN-theorist opinion on it. 

Also, I don’t have a Death Note blog so this is going on my Sherlock blog / Fandom blog instead of one-shots that I need to actually be writing. Deal with it. 

So, the RPT is basically the theory that whenever L introduces himself as “Ryuzaki” to the Task Force, he is not acting like himself at all, and he actually just stole the entire Ryuzaki personality from Beyond Birthday after solving his case in the same way he allegedly stole the identities of detectives Coil and Deneuve. 

So, I agree with most of this, and I’ll explain further later. This part never really bothered me, but the disagreement comes whenever the fandom tries and debates what the Real L (Or First!L) is actually like. 

A lot of the theory fandom that I saw at the time basically said that L was nothing like Ryuzaki. British, suave, completely healthy...? Lmao, what? 

So, might as well get this started by answering the main question.

Q) Do I think Ryuzaki is a persona?

A) Yes, to an extent. 

I don’t think Ryuzaki is vastly different from L. But, L has a pattern of stealing the identities (Particularly names, which is really fitting considering that Names are given a lot of power in the Death Note fandom.) So, I don’t think it’s unlikely that he took the Ryuzaki persona from Beyond Birthday. 

And I’d have no trouble subscribing to this part of the theory 100% if it weren't’ for the fact that it is said in LABB that BB took the persona from L first as an attempt to imitate him. 

So, my guess is that BB took traits from L to create Ryuzaki, confirming that L is at least similar to Ryuzaki, and Beyond was probably exaggerating a couple of the iconic Ryuzaki traits.  And then after being beaten, the persona was returned to L. But by then, my guess was that it had been modified by Beyond, even if he hadn’t noticed it. 

Basically what I’m saying is that while the theory is usually about saying that someone stole a persona from somebody else, my point of view is that basically the Ryuzaki Persona was passed back and forth like some weird game of telephone where it got slightly edited each time. 

So, because I don’t know how else to organize this, I’m going to list the traits I think belong to First L and which ones are just Ryuzaki.

L

1. Intelligence) This goes without saying, right? L is incredibly intelligent, and so is Ryuzaki.

2. Weird Mannerisms) Now, this is part of where the theory gets unclear because a lot of “First!L” theories disagree on what belongs to L and what belongs to the Ryuzaki persona. And basically, I think L did inherit some of his weird mannerisms from Beyond’s version of Ryuzaki, I don’t think he’s entirely normal underneath the person he presents. Especially since his weirdness continues into his Ryuga persona and basically throughout all we’ve seen of him in the show. Not to mention that literally every Wammy Kid is shown to have quirks that resemble the ones that L / B / Ryuzaki have. I don’t know what mannerisms came from who

3. Accent / speaking) For some reason there’s a theory that First!L actually has a British accent due to being raised in the UK. Accept his voice is literally consistent throughout the show, and none of the other Wammy Kids are shown to have an accent. I also don’t think that his manner of speaking would drastically change because of the persona. 

Ryuzaki) 

1. Autism / Aspergers) So it’s nothing new that there’s a fandom discourse about whether or not L actually is on the spectrum. At the time of my original post, I assumed that he was not faking it. But after conversing with LuckyKitty some more about this topic, she has convinced me that this is actually a part of the Ryuzaki persona. I don’t know if he’s purposely faking it or if his mannerisms just cause the appearance of Aspergers, but either way, I don’t think L or any of his personas actually find themselves on any part of the spectrum. 

2. Strawberries) This is a weird one, but hear me out. He acquired this from Beyond’s part of the persona because I promise you strawberries are not that sweet and L’s food love is for sweet stuff and the fact that he doesn’t just throw the strawberries off of his food is Ryuzaki’s doing, not L’s. 

Final thoughts

Would I say I subscribe to the Ryuzaki Persona theory? No, not really. Frankly, I actually dislike a lot of things about the theory itself. I think it feels like a fandom trying to make a character “Normal” and more “likeable” while taking them completely out of character out of the process. I think a lot of theories about “First L” take away huge chunks of L / Ryuzaki’s complex character. 

I think my overall thoughts about this are basically that Ryuzaki and L are still the same people. Ryuzaki is a name given to the Task Force, and it brings along with some amplified traits of L’s real personality. Maybe the name was a way to pay respect to Beyond’s death, which I believe happened right before L started on the Kira Investigation? (It would be really interesting if that’s actually what drove him to investigate Kira but that’s a discussion for a different time).

Basically, because I’m garbage at summarizing my thoughts, I’m going to use a quote from Irene Adler in Sherlock. “Every disguise, no matter how hard you try, is a self-portrait.” Honestly, I think that’s what Ryuzaki is. A way that Ryuzaki acts around certain people. Are you telling me you don’t act differently around different people?

So yes, I think Ryuzaki can be a considered a persona, and it was traded between B and L. But I don’t think there’s some hard difference between L and Ryuzaki’s personality. Ryuzaki, in my opinion, was an extension of L, as was Ryuga, Coil, and all of L’s other personas or identities or whatever you want to call them. So I can’t know L” ends and “Ryuzaki” begins or whatever. The best I can do is a Sherlock quote, apparently.

Yeah, so that’s my calmer analysis of this theory. I think my problem isn’t so much with the “Ryuzaki Persona” theory but rather with the “First!L” theory. 

I hope this makes more sense than the last opinion I posted on this. And I really hope to god it comes across calmer because I’m really laughing out loud for not remembering what I was so mad at in real life for me to sound that angry while trying to write. 

So yeah, that’s my TedTalk. 

[creacherkeeper]

jemma autism checklist

[fitz post here]

someone: jemma’s not autistic 

me: *pulls receipts* 

okay here we go! here is a very detailed post explaining why jem is totes autistic 

to sum, she shows a lot of traits of atypical autism (which is more often how autism manifests in girls) and displays a lot of traits necessary for a diagnosis. she is awkward and blunt in her social interaction (needing to be reminded at times how to act “appropriately”), has a deep passion for her specific interests, is literal minded, stims, was probably hyperlexic, has trouble lying and improvising language, and shows signs of alexithymia

(big thank you to @unlessimwrongwhichyouknowimnot for helping with this, as well as the anons who sent in suggestions!) 

this and more under the cut! lots of gifs ahead, image descriptions added for accessibility 

allistics feel free to interact with this! 

Deeply focused thinking and passionate interests in specific subjects.

jemma is deeply passionate about biology and chemistry, to the point where she had a PhD in both by the time she was 16 years old. she knows a lot of specific facts about animals 

[x] [Jemma saying, “Yeah, and close to 200 species of snakes. The shushupe has a fascinating venom.”] 

[x] [Jemma talking to Fitz, saying, “Did I give you an antivenin pack? The Caucasus have a plethora of highly endemic spider species.”] 

[x] [Jemma talked to Fitz, saying, “Did you know that there are over a thousand species of fish in the Seychelles? I cannot wait.”] 

Need for consistency, routine, and order

[x] [Two gifs of Jemma saying, “A tidy lab is a happy lab.”] 

[x] [Jemma saying, “Clear? Well, B is for blue is for biological.”] 

3x03 

About Jemma’s desk 

Fitz: Just as you left it. Made sure not even a post-it note was moved. ‘Cause I know how particular you can be about it. 

3x05

Jemma: Planets have ecosystems with definable patterns and rules that can be understood after enough--

Difficulties in understanding and expressing typical social interaction 

[x] [Two gifs of Jemma saying, about Randolph, “A thousand years. Maybe more. If we could just cut him open a little bit, get some tissue samples, maybe some bodily fluids, we could find out.”] 

[x] [Jemma saying, “You mean once we have sex?”] 

[x] [Jemma saying, to someone in the Framework, “So incredibly lifelike.”] 

[x] [Daisy says, “Don’t spiral. Just say something. Anything.” Jemma says to Agent Sitwell in an attempt to flirt with him, “You certainly have a gorgeous head, don’t you?”] 

jemma is blunt, awkward, and doesn’t seem to understand what’s the “normal” thing to say in any given situation. there’s a bunch more examples of this (like her calling herself “nubile” like what) but here are some good ones. even in the framework example - compare jemma’s creepy serial killer thing going on here with how daisy reacted, even almost blowing her cover to help a random inhuman npc. 

Has trouble “reading between the lines” 

1x07

Daisy: “I need answers. And I know just the person who has them.” 

Jemma: “Who?” 

Daisy: “Coulson. I was obviously talking about Coulson. 

1x06 

After reprimanding her, Coulson sits down and starts doing something on his desk 

Jemma: Oh, does that mean we’re to leave now? 

2x03

Couson: Have you made friends? 

Jemma: Oh, sir, you don’t need to worry. I mean it’s been a tad lonely, true, but ... (pause) You weren’t asking out of concern for my feelings, were you? 

[x] [May hands Jemma a gun, saying, “If it makes sense here,” while motioning to Jemma’s gut. Jemma responds, “Sorry. I’m not sure where you’re pointing.”] 

it takes her a bit to catch up to what people mean when they aren’t direct with their speech or actions

Has to be reminded to act in situation-appropriate ways 

[x] [Two gifs. The first one has Jemma saying, “Now they can create super-soliders with no fear of explosion.” Her eyes are wide with excitement. In the second gif Fitz says to her, “Maybe don’t get so excited about it.”] 

[x] [Three gifs. Jemma and Fitz are examining Lucio’s dead body. Jemma says, “Fascinating.” To which Fitz replies, “No, not fascinating. Quarantine.” Jemma nods, looking abashed. “Quarantine,” she repeats.] 

jem: *says something fucking weird* 

fitz: jem. there are neurotypicals around you need to stop

Literal minded 

[x] [Two gifs. In the first Jemma says to Fitz, “I’m gonna do something with you on that island that will take your breath away.” In the second she says, “Snorkeling.”] 

3x05

Will: This whole godforsaken planet is evil. 

Jemma: Planets can’t be evil. 

3x08

Fitz: The bloody cosmos wants us to be apart. 

Jemma: The cosmos doesn’t want anything. 

okay you could interpret the snorkeling one as a joke but then it would go under the “inappropriate” category because jesus jem, not a joke to make to a guy who almost drowned for you 

Sensory seeking (includes stimming) 

[x] [Three gifs, from two different scenes. In each Jemma twiddles her fingers, rubbing them together and rubbing her thumb over her fingers.] 

[x] [Jemma twitches her fingers and rubs them over each other.] 

[x] [Two gifs of Jemma pressing her hands against her face and neck.] 

she also does the forehead thing but i couldn’t find gifs of that. jem’s always got little fidgety hands going on, especially when she’s nervous. she rubs her thumbs over her fingers to sooth herself, which counts as stimming, and i’d argue that the neck and forehead thing count as pressure/grounding stims 

Talents in any pattern recognition  

[x] [Two gifs of Jemma saying, “I’m not an engineer. I hope I can re-create what you did there.”] 

pattern recognition is a part of jemma’s job, but i think this is the clearest moment of it. she recreates a coding sequence from memory after seeing it years ago 

Uses control as a stress management technique; rules, discipline, rigid in certain habits, which will contradict their seeming unconventionality.

[x] [Jemma saying to Daisy, “I like following the rules and doing what’s expected of me.”] 

2x03 - Shows her following a strict routine every morning/each day while she’s at Hydra 

jem is a pretty eccentric person but she definitely uses control of herself and her surroundings to sooth her anxiety. i’d argue she even uses the way she dresses as a method of control, controlling her appearance is one way to influence how people regard her 

Hyperlexic as a child 

not canon, technically, but it wouldn’t be surprising. i mean she has a very advanced vocabulary and had two PhDs by 16  

Anxiety and fear are predominant emotions

this one is just. a jemma simmons callout. and like yes, okay, you could argue that this is just ptsd, but it’s been proposed that autistic people are more likely to develop ptsd anyway so 

Talks out loud to herself 

3x05

Pretty much the whole episode. Sometimes she is talking to Fitz, sometimes not. She even does this after she’s with Will. 

Jemma: You should make him dinner tonight. Yes, that seems like a good idea. (sighs) Then you should stop talking to yourself. 

4x17

Jemma: This isn’t real, Jemma. 

Hates injustice 

[Jemma saying to May, “No, I just let a known murderer loose to save my own skin. Traded all those ... those lives for mine.”] 

[x] [Jemma saying about Trip’s death, “Well, and I feel responsible.”] 

[x] [Jemma saying to Coulson, “But I also have a duty as a SHIELD scientist to pursue this, to save lives!”] 

do i even need to explain this one. jemma to a T 

Is very outspoken at times, may get very fired up when talking about passions / special interests / obsessions

[x] [Two gifs of Jemma saying to May, “Did you hear what I said? Peggy Carter, founder, happens to be British, held this in her hands.”] 

[x] [Jemma says to Coulson about the Chitauri virus, “It’s like nothing we’ve ever seen on Earth. I didn’t think it possible a virus could alter its host’s molecular density and polarity.” There is a big smile on her face as she talks.] 

and basically every other time she’s talking about science or something she’s interested in. she gets excited about her interests even when it would be more appropriate not to say anything 

Will not have many close friends

it was pretty heavily implied, if not stated, that fitz was her first good friend, and that was when she was already 16. even then, it was hard for her to tell if they were even friends or not or if she was just annoying him (though she followed him around despite that) 

Finds it very difficult to/had to teach herself how to lie 

[x] [Fitz saying to Jemma, “You’re a terrible liar.”] 

[x] [Daisy saying about Jemma, “I love her but her trying to lie, it is a horror show.”] 

this is said a lot, obv. kind of a plot point 

Can’t improvise well 

[x] [Three gifs. Jemma telling Coulson, “Past events, like that unfortunate incident at the Hub, have shown me that I’m not good at improvisation. However, I excel at preparation.”] 

jemma simmons, Bad At Improv. she doesn’t really know what to do/say if it’s not expected or she hasn’t prepared for it. could imply that she falls back on scripts 

Alexithymia 

[x] [Jemma saying to Fitz, “I’m sorry. I can’t do this. Excuse me.”] 

1x08

Ward yells at them after picking up the berserker staff 

Jemma: That was just a biochemical reaction. He didn’t mean all that 

so alexithymia can be defined as difficulty understanding and identifying emotions in the self, and difficulty describing feelings to other people. jemma definitely fits that bill. she has a really hard time dealing with her own emotional state, and gets easily overwhelmed by emotional situations (like the “maybe there is” scene). she attributes emotions to their scientific explanations instead of valuing them as feelings. she often seems at a loss when people tell her it’s okay for her to be emotional or feeling a certain way (like daisy telling her it’s okay to be angry at ward and miss fitz). she’s a very emotional person, but she doesn’t seem to know what to do with that. even when daisy got shot, she became very cold and cut off until she got overwhelmed and broke down 

in conclusion: 

jem is super autistic. the end 

[autistickitten]

Long post (we added spaces and a readmore)

Hello! I didn’t know if i could submit asks or whatever this is, and i checked and it seems like this is okay! It’s a little long winded, i apologize greatly, my thoughts are just everywhere right now and i needed to get this out, thank you in advance!

When i was younger i had all the stereotypical signs of asd, i rocked, i lined toys up along with everything else in the house, i had meltdowns over seemingly innocuous things, i had sensory issues, i’d cry when i had my teeth brushed, i couldn’t eat certain foods, i cried as though it hurt when i got my nails clipped and i had to have the same cream colored pillow and fluffy white blanket with me to go to sleep.

At one point i needed nemo to be playing on my mom’s laptop, one night i woke up and it wasn’t playing. It wasn’t as though i was gonna watch it but it shook me to the core. I cried and screamed so bad i puked all over myself. My mom says she doesn’t remember that, she was there, i do.

I had similar issues growing up but they became more social. I was bullied. I’d cry. People would make fun of me and i didn’t understand. I was very different. I thought i was stupid but everyone else seemed to disagree as well. I couldn’t understand.

At the age of 7 i was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, a chronic genetic disorder that at the time was somewhat of a death sentence. My mom was told my life span was 20 years old, it was a miracle i was alive to this point without doctors knowing. I was very sick as a child as well. A common cold meant pneumonia and occasional seizures at some point.

My whole life begun to revolve around my cystic fibrosis. So many things i couldn’t do. That’s not the point though. The point is there was no room for other diagnoses. My mom wasn’t going to look into her suspicions for various reasons, my behavior wasn’t stereotypical enough i suppose, and i was already sick enough. So we focused on that instead. I wasn’t diagnosed and i continued to grow up weird and different.

By 5th grade i was put into homeschooling. This wasn’t because of the asd, but instead because my sister had finally told my mom that our step father and been abusing her ( and me unbeknownst to her yet ) , both sexually, physically, emotionally, etc. for four years since he came into our lives.

The court dates and other things such as having to deal with all the weight of it all got to me, i couldn’t go to public school anymore. I was homeschooled for 4 years. I was so terribly behind. I felt so stupid. Things i knew i should know were mysteries to me. I cried over homework almost every time. I hit myself and broke pencils and ripped paper because i was so stupid. I just didn’t know what went wrong, i was so smart. I just couldn’t understand the things i was being taught.

I’m rambling… i went into public school again before those four years, for 6th grade. I was only there for a few months before i broke down in front of my mom crying. I couldn’t handle it all. I was bullied there too. I know that wasn’t the only reason.

Skip forward and when i was around 11 years old i was talking to my mom and she mentioned the fact that she had suspected i had autism when i was younger. I asked why and she explained all my strange behaviors to me. I asked if she got me tested, she didn’t.

What i’d known of autism then was based on my cousin, whose only reason for being diagnosed i know now, being that she was nonverbal. When i was younger i had heard somewhere and reasoned that she had been dropped on a skateboard as a child and that’s why she was the way she was. This was based on the way other people described her autism near me. They weren’t kind. I thought this was strange, that my mom considered this. I brushed it under the rug. She would later deny to a specialist that she ever suspected it.

A year or more later and i started noticing my weird behavior more. I did research into autism. I may not have mentioned but i’m very good at research. As a child i’d organize alphabetically all the species of big cats and hummingbirds and different kinds of littlest pet shop. I mailed a little to the company even after writing down a list of all the animals they never made yet (a list i made after going over the dictionary so many times) and sent it them.

I did research and found i fit the bill quite perfectly. I even spoke in a monotone voice and overly formally. I had a hard time expressing emotions and my social skills were absolutely terrible. But no one could tell very well because i was very interested in human behavior and i mimicked them well. This would be a downfall later on.

I brought this up to my sister and she said it made sense. I knew shed see it that way. My mom, completely disagreed. I stayed quiet. Didn’t bring it up for quite a while. I went through many psychs. I finally asked one about a possible aspergers or asd diagnosis. She said i’m too high functioning to benefit from it and that she can tell i don’t have it just by looking at me. She said everyone is a little autistic. I stayed quite longer.

I finally asked another one years or so later. She recommended me a specialist. I was so happy. Finally i’d be validated for my struggles. I was worried of how i should act. I figured shed be able to see through my neurotypical mask. I was wrong.

My mom thought it was ridiculous that i had asked for a specialist. She asked if i’m just doing it for fun. I was very worried. I acted different and didn’t share the whole truth with the specialist and my mom definitely lied during the screening. I asked her later about all the things i thought was evidence for a diagnosis. She denied a lot of it. When asked if i ever hurt myself during these “tantrums” she said no. i specified if i ever hit or scratched myself because i vividly remember doing that and even do it today, she said “every kid does that when they have tantrums.” at one point the specialist said that schizophrenia was on the autism spectrum, this took me aback, such old beliefs i couldn’t understand how this was coming from a 20 or 30 some year old.

I still don’t know why she still thinks that. The specialist said she always worried she would pass someone autistic by as neurotypical and that they would go without a diagnosis and without help. She said she didn’t worry about that with me cause i didn’t give off that “vibe.” during the screening my mom mentioned the trauma and it’s like a switch flipped in the specialists brain, all of this was the traumas fault, i just needed to continue my depression and anxiety therapy for a few months and i’d probably be better.

I hate this all. I understand it has an effect but my trauma isn’t the root of all my causes and i hate having my real issues be passed off using that as a reason. The shit i went through doesn’t explain every bit of evidence that was present before the matter, of course she never really addressed that. i was devastated. I hated myself. I thought i’d lost my last chance at a diagnosis and it was all my fault. I went home and had a meltdown.

I questioned myself and all of my research. I talked to my counselor about this and she said i should ask for a reevaluation. I did eventually. I will be having a call with the specialist soon and i’m scared. I’m scared because she is the only specialist in my area and i will sound like i’m shopping for a diagnosis to her. I’m so scared.

I’m sorry this was so long winded, i just needed to get this out here. If possible, could someone give me some advice please? It doesn’t matter what, just any? Thank you so very much. I hope you all have a wonderful day.

This is the Sad Kitty submission. I forgot to put that I am afab and that it doesn’t seem like the specialist had any experience in diagnosing and identifying “female traits” of autism. Sorry to bother

Will the reevaluation be with the same person ? That specialist seems to hold quite a few outdated beliefs, but still, it can’t hurt to try ! Here’s a few suggestions:

We always advise to print out the DSM criteria, which you can find a bit below in our posts, and annotate it with the traits you show, with specific exemples if you can. Writing out a bit about your life can also be helpful. (Or even just printing this ask out would work !) If your mom isn’t cooperative, maybe bring your sister instead ?

And just answer the questions truthfully, without exaggerating or underplaying your traits.

It’s possible that you aren’t autistic, but a person that goes for an autism diagnosis is never neurotypical, so I hope if it’s not autism (or if you have something in addition to autism, like me) the specialist figures out what it is so you can get the proper supports ! :)

Good luck !

- Sister Cat

And if you get an answer you weren’t expecting, whether that’s no diagnosis or a different diagnosis, demand an explanation and demand help! Remember, a psych’s job doesn’t end at diagnosis, it starts there, so no matter what answers you get, make sure they’re doing their job and giving you the help you need.

-Brother Cat