#public autistic meltdown

[funky-brainedwhaletransgender]

cw: ableism against neurodivergent folks, discussion of police violence, contains a personal story about a negative interaction with security officers

Most of the time I exist in a strange middle ground where I pass as neurotypical to some, albeit a weird one while some people just assume I’m autistic. Part of the reason why I want to get a diagnosis is because while yes, people who assume I’m autistic sometimes treat me like a child, I rarely encounter outright hostility with them when I can’t hide my autistic traits. Neurotypicals seem to need to have a diagnosis disclosed to them before they’re willing to tolerate perceived strangeness. It’s that thing where it’s okay to bully someone for autistic traits, but it magically becomes discrimination when the person discloses a diagnosis. I see people talking about this a lot, but I want to emphasize the potential danger of not being able to prove your autism.

In meltdown, I have had campus security called on me. Fair enough. I couldn’t stop screaming. I can see how that might scare someone. They wouldn’t believe me that I wasn’t high. I had to give them way more personal information than I should have had to to convince them that I was not, in fact, taking drugs I wasn’t prescribed. I had to tell them what medications I was on, convince them that I was taking them, tell who my psychiatrist was, and that I was on a wait list for a therapist before they would stop trying to convince me to admit I was high. Before they would treat me like a person and not a threat. I essentially had to prove that I was an acceptable mentally ill to them.

First I say, so what if I had been high? So what if I wasn’t being "appropriately managed?" Even in those cases, it is not helpful and potentially dangerous for the person in crisis to treat them like they’re a threat. That’s ableist. Requiring people to convince you that they are receiving or pursuing certain treatments or otherwise meet specific standards of respectability before you treat them like a person is ableist.

What if I had been having a verbal shut down that day? I was barely able to talk at all in that moment. Speaking felt physically painful and I was struggling to form complete sentences. I was lucky I was able to communicate the necessary details to earn safety from them. What if I hadn’t been able to? What if they had been real cops? What if I hadn’t been able to say "no touch" or communicate other basic needs and the situation escalated?

What if I had had an autism card? That situation would have been much less terrifying. I would feel safer going out in public knowing that if I get upset and can’t communicate, I have a diagnosis other people are likely to believe to back me up. I can make my own warning card with instructions on how to help me, but ultimately, people don’t listen to disabled people, they listen to their doctors. If I say I’m autistic to an authority figure and later on I can’t prove it, I will be in trouble.

The same way I hope people in my classes assume I’m autistic so they are willing to be tolerant of my autistic traits, I hope people who can genuinely hurt me assume in my worst moments that I am autistic so they won’t fucking tase me.

If I, a white person, a housed person, am worried about being hurt because I can’t be clear about my autism, imagine what it’s like for people from other demographics that are already more vulnerable to police violence. People who are also less likely to receive an official diagnosis.

I am willing to discuss this and would love to hear other people’s perspectives, but I will not be debating people about my choice to self-diagnose.

[my-autism-adhd-blog]

An Autistic Meltdown…

Is NOT a temper tantrum

Does NOT have a goal

Can happen with or without people around

Makes an autistic person vulnerable

Does NOT want to hurt anyone

Is NOT intentional

Is the result of some sort of overload

Lil Penguin Studios/Autism Happy Place

[nightcolorz]

hey can u guys send me asks or cool stuff about Armand I have had a rlly bad day lol and I’m trying and failing to not freak out about it

[eddieangel]

Being on the lower side of msn feel so horrible cus i'm not lsn enough to live normally but i'm also not hsn to be seen as needkng help.

I can barely cross the road alone and the only time i managed to have a good walk ""alone""(i had a friend with me) to somewhere far away was last year. I'M AN ADULT and i still have to be taken everywhere i go and i'm not allowed leave the place until someone comes to keep me company.

But i can talk well enough (i can't. I can't articulate my thoughts well and i have frequent verbal shutdowns/verbal loss) and i make half-decent eye contact so i don't look autistic!!!

It's crazy how you can struggle with everything including hygiene and independency but we can still be called not autistic just because you can talk and look at people. Actually insane.

[neuroticboyfriend]

i'm about to start using the phrase medium masking in combination with medium-high support needs, because while i do mask/function in certain areas enough for people to call me "high functioning"... well let's just say i was still very much a "has meltdowns in public" kid and... the last time i was called "high functioning" was right after i got out of the psych ward and was put into special education.

like i definitely am not low masking and i don't want to claim an experience that isn't mine. but i also see high masking people talk about their experiences and im like. we are. we are not the same. so yeah if any other neurodivergents wanna use the phrase medium masking here is your sign to do so.

[shu-of-the-wind]

every time i talk to my mother i walk a tightrope of slipping up and saying i've been formally diagnosed with adhd while also trying to educate her about what adhd actually is so that if and when i DO finally slip up she doesn't come back automatically with "you're not neurodivergent you're just gifted"

[pixlmonkeys]

I say this with the deepest sense of hatred imaginable, fuck this article

[passerinesoncaffeine]

hullo sensory issue people that know how to cope with this better than me: anyone have good noise-canceling headphones you’d recommend?? Preferably something less noticeable (or somewhat stylish), but anything effective is fine.

[jesuschristt-thatsaprettyface]

when you’re spoonless and so overstimulated that you have no ability to mask and all the stims come out ://

[perenlop]

convinced that most people on this site either ignore or hate high support needs autistic people. i feel like if most activists on here interacted with like a 24 year old autistic person who grunts and jumps to stim and needed a caretaker and spoke exclusively in echolalia and was carried around sesame street dolls and had a learning disability and isn't comprehensive enough to advocate for themself without someone to help, they would have a stroke on the spot.

[jjkyaoi]

btw intrusive thoughts aren’t funny. just so we’re clear . like what is the punchline there what’s the bit. my intrusive thoughts have had me spiral for weeks thinking i’m a terrible person and i deserve to die because my brain convinces me i am/believe or think awful things. it’s all fun and games what if i dyed my hair at three am #intrusivethought until somebody says something that their brain intrusively, uncontrollably tells them that can’t be made into this manic pixie dream bit that u fuckers have conjured and then it’s disgusting and psychotic you guys suck

[domesticated-whores]

a really did it this time, loves :( i took a figurative phrase literally and embarrassed myself :( autism won today :(

[cosmic-latt3]

It’s cruel to put autistic people into situations where they are having meltdowns frequently. Meltdowns are extremely traumatic. No one should have to go through that on a weekly or even daily basis. For some autistic people some amount of meltdowns are inevitable living in our NT-oriented world, but frequent meltdowns are a sign something is very wrong and the person’s environment needs to be changed.

[lesbianslovebts]

You tell people that it's kinda rude to watch tiktoks in public without headphones or earphones, and suddenly their God-given ✝️ American 🇺🇸 RIGHT ➡️ to be a noisy little bitch has been infringed upon.

[helmarok]

the running gag where jessie can't pronounce words, mixes them up, or doesn't know what they mean is one of my favorite things not just cuz its funny and cute that she says the wrong thing in full confidence, but how it reflects the difference between her and james' upbringing. of course jessie fails to understand basic words while james is a walking dictionary who speaks like a privileged nerd- jessie grew up poor with very little and shitty schooling while james had private tutors and probably an entire library 😭

[alaskan-wallflower]

watching grown ass adults dig for clout on tiktok will never not be funny to me.