#these neurodivergence’s are really kicking my

[hyliagirl42]

Okay, genuinely, literally, this mindset was the ONLY reason i graduated college.

It was the ONLY REASON.

I struggled to motivate myself to do my homework, regardless of deadline, regardless of how important it was to my grade, without someone in the room with me checking in occasionally to say "are you still working or are you on tumblr?"

I convinced one of my (similarly neurodivergent) roommates at the time to make me come do homework with her every evening, regardless of whether i wanted to at the time or not. I gave her permission to drag me out to the living room kicking and screaming if necessary. And then we sat on the couch, often with other roommates also doing homework, and we would all work. And after i was done, and showed her that it had been turned in and nothing else was due the next day, she would give me a popsicle that she kept in a mini fridge in her room, so i would only get them as a reqard for doing homework.

She did not propose any of that to me. I was the one who proposed that plan to her, because I know what Im like. If i dont wanna do a thing, i will hole up in my room and not come out. Even if i come out to do work, and yes having people in the room does help a lot even if they arent checking in with me, i can still occasionally have days where i say "i dont feel like doing xyz specific assignment today" and then i wont do it, so proving i had everything done to an unbiased outsider helped with that. And i would eat the popsicles till i had no rewards left for myself if it was left in the regular shared freezer we used

To neurotypicals, the above probably sounds really bad. It would sound lazy, it would sound like i have no desire to actually finish school. But i did! I really really desperately wanted to succeed in school. I just knew from experience that my own brain would be fighting me the entire way. So i decided i would no longer try to fight myself on it, and got help. And i succeeded! Im graduated now! I have a degree! Do what you need to do in order to succeed!!

The most valuable thing I learned doing a Masters degree with depression, anxiety and ADHD was to change my “things I’m bad at” list to “things I can’t do on my own.” Stop thinking of them as things I could do if I tried hard enough, and accept that I can’t accomplish them by effort and willpower alone; they’re genuine neurocognitive deficits, and if I need to do the thing, then just like a blind person reading or a mobility impaired person going up a storey in a building, I need to find a different method.

I’m “bad at” working on long-term projects without an imminent deadline or someone breathing down my neck? Okay, let’s change that: I can’t work on long-term projects without an imminent deadline and someone breathing down my neck. So let’s create an imminent deadline and recruit neck-breathers. Find a sympathetic prof who will agree that 3 weeks before the due date they expect me to show them my preliminary notes and bibliography. Get a friend I trust to block off an hour to sit with me and keep asking, “Are you working on your project?” Write a blog post about my progress. Arrange to trade papers and proofread them with another student.

Accept your limitations and learn to leverage them, instead of buying the neurotypical fairytale that they’ll go away if you just try hard enough.

[rain-is-neurodivergent]

Tonight I’m gonna watch a movie and eat my comfort safe food as a coping mechanism. Love and light.

[headfullofdolls]

"Oh, wait, is it my line??" Drama Audition Drama – Season 2, Episode 5

aka Poppy seeing the new soft reboot

F in the chat for our favorite DJ

[evilfloralfoolery]

Y'all can laugh at this real world shit.

[la-galaxie-langblr]

what is going on w my brain

[elkkiel]

ummm.....hi.

i just wanted to come and say that i think youre really cool, and that i have bit of a crush on you, but im too shy to do anything off anon. so this is me saying something. i'd like to get to know you better, if youre ok with that...?

-shy anon

ajshdjedi good fucking gravy anon, you've got me blushing like an idiot right as I'm trying to go to bed smh /lh /pos

I don't bite! my DMs are open if/when you feel comfortable talking 🩷

[mocacheezy]

I am slowly starting to realise that were it not for the fact I lived in a dorm during my education, which meant I had a chance and was able to make good friends, I literally, no joke, 100% serious, would not be doing half as well as I am doing right now.

The fact it was in an acting school program, makes this even better, because I can now explain what my day to day life with strangers/people not aware of my situation is like;

The world is a stage and everyone has their micro plays happening. They have certain scripts that work no matter what play is being played. Everyone knows they have their lines and what they are, and when the cue is supposed to drop.

They've been on the rehearsals and readings to get their pronounciations and mannerisms right waaaaay before they stepped on stage. Everyone knows the script!

After spending years being congratulated for being a spectator/background dressing, I get shoved onto the stage, in the middle of a play, and am supposed to improv. BUT! None of the other actors are supposed to know I'm doing improv.

"Everyone has the script, everyone has learned their lines!".

Slip ups halt the play, resulting in grumbling behind smiles and harsh whispers and hissing backstage.

And the play never truly stops, if anything, the stage changes. So a new set of actors walks on the stage. I am still doing improv, while attempting to discreetly get back to being background dressing. But the set pieces also changed for this different play!

So it really does become a game of "How to improv my way out of this one, while not changing the genre of the play, or getting myself irrevocably tied into the antagonistic role of the plot with these actors I may be seeing again after the intermission?"

Aaaand that's how I would describe being autistic, but passing as a neurotypical.

Those friends I made in the dorms and acting school? They are the few people who not only GIVE ME THE SCRIPT, but also do improv with me on the stage!! I made friends because of those FRIENDS!

But other people? Yeah no, the fuck am I still doing on their stage, they dropped like 10 cues for my exit to the right, and the honey pot is clearly a sign I am to be pursued by a bear.

[bookalicent]

ik it's been said but being medicated is just such a wild feeling. like i have adhd and just got recently put on adderall and being able to sense the difference of my thoughts is such a weird feeling. like ik when it hits and i can tell when it's wearing off. but also it just really reminds me of the fact i do have a mental disorder that actually affects me and isn't just "laziness and forgetfulness"

[onceuponaweirdo]

Who else gonna be spending these next few weeks apathetic asf bc they're too overstimulated and got numbed hard? No one else? Just me? Well, fuck...

[dootznbootz]

There's something really special when you don't have to worry about your stims bothering others because you're with people who don't mind your stims or bother you about it! 🥹

Shout out to people who let others stim freely and don't make a big deal about it. You have no idea how much that means!

[chalkeater]

not wanting to switch bc i like my discord icon too much. smh 😔

[kalashtars]

love those moments in academia where you're like "oh. i'm so fucked."

[palominodragon]

I have a bizarrely long history of being kicked out of online groups/roleplaying games and then weaseling my way back in. It's a whole thing.

But I was just thinking about it in terms of how autistic people are more likely to ignore rules that seem unnecessary/illogical, and while that hasn't been the reason for all my escapades, it's definitely played a part.

And I guess even when it's not the direct reason, there's still the mindset of "well, I was kicked out for a stupid, unjust reason, so I'm just gonna refuse to accept that."

I can be a real brat about it.

I once hid my identity and continued playing in a game for years after I'd been told I couldn't play the character I wanted to. Did play her. I was just impressively sneaky about it. They only found out after I got bored and started testing how much I could hint before I got caught.

And no, their reason for not letting me play that character never became an issue.

[rubberbandballqueen]

i wish there were more weird little girls at work. i keep telling my coworkers "oh yeah i was just like them when i was little hahaha" in regards to excitable boys with impulse issues, but when the other day i was thinking "oh yeah there's Always going to be that one girl hanging out with the guys instead of other girls" i surveyed the room and realized we have never had any such thing, at least while i've been working here. which, granted, has only been two years, but it's still kind of surprising to me

[thefunniestguy]

how the fuck do you make friends in college AHHGHGHHGH . send tweet

[genderqueerdykes]

as someone who has been scarred for life by experiences at gay bars, i need people to understand it's beyond tacky to mock people who want queer spaces beyond queer bars- it's dangerous.

let me explain. i went to 2 of my local queer bars a lot last year, as much as i was able to despite being poor. i witnessed a fist fight that was so bloody that ended up with a transmisogynistic drag queen getting hit in the head with a metal baton. the sight caused me to uncontrollably throw up in the bathroom of the club because of how gruesome it was. they had to close down the club and forard people out the back door because of how out of hand this person got- he was screaming transmisogynstic slurs and phrases at the bouncers were were transfem.

i was also sexually assaulted at these places, i was repeatedly groped by several people who i was not interacting with in the first place who found me attractive and decided physically grabbing me on numerous occasions was the way to get my attention. being femme in a queer bar is dangerous even if the people groping you are gay men.

i am also a recovering addict who dealt with alcohol issues in the past and could be considered a recovering alcoholic. i don't want to be around alcohol. i don't want to smell it. it triggers awful memories and also sometimes makes me consider getting a drink, but i can't have one, because the medications i take will cause a fatal reaction- i don't want to be tempted to drink, because it will kill me.

it's not right to mock someone or call them childish or whatever for not wanting to go to a club. whenever alcohol is involved, people's inhibitions are gone and they will do whatever. this includes fighting. i witnessed several other fights. just because it's a queer bar doesn't mean there won't be fights. and it especialyl doesn't m ean that you won't get groped or assaulted because, like i said, since alcohol is involved and it's a bar, there's a high chance this can and will happen.

queer people are not inherently safe angels to be around by virtue of being queer. there are still transphobes in queer bars. tranny chasers come to these bars. homophobic lesbians show up and lesbophobic gay men show up. drag queens and performers bring their cishet friends and family to support their shows. these are not perfect havens. they are not safe. we should not force other queers to interact with inherently dangerous spaces if these are supposed to be our safe spaces.

also these spaces are not friendly to people with disabilities; wheelchair users have nowhere to go especially when it's very crowded. other mobility aids get kicked and knocked over. neurodivergent people can get overstimulated by the deafening music very quickly. photosensitive people can have seizures due to the strobing lights. people with emetophobia like me run the risk of running into those types of triggers. people who are overstimulated by intoxicated people have no choice but to deal with it. dancing is one of the only activities to do other than drink and not many disabled (or even abled) people can dance for extended periods of time comfortably.

not to mention these spaces are not geared toward aromantic or asexual people at all, either. there is a long list of reasons why bars should not be our primary venues of interaction with one another. they serve a specific purpose- for people who want to cruise- but for the rest of us, it's really crucial that we have spaces that provide meaningful interactions with other queers on other levels of our identities.

some people just want to hang out with other queers in a quiet environment and craft, or shop, or drink coffee, or read books together, or just about any other activity on planet earth, and that's not "lame" or "cringy" or bad in any way- these are extremely normal and necessary parts of human interaction that we all require and crave and it's normal to want to do healthy, domestic things with other queers. we need this in our lives.

please take it seriously when people attempt to create queer spaces that don't involve alcohol and bars. it's necessary for our survival and well being as a community.