#working autistic

[nichyevosobachka]

"Oh I did so well with the past two weeks of work in the sub leading position and many more hours!" An hour later on the first off day: WHY AM I DIZZY WHY DO I WANT TO CRY WHY WORDS NOT COMING OUT OF MOUTH WHY IS BODY HEAVY LIKE SANDBAGS WHY INCREASED ANXIETY LEVEL

I mean I'm glad i function DURING, but the AFTER is...  😭  😭  and my body won't let me sleep later than 6am either regardless of how exhausted I am, what is thiiis

[bonnie-is-bumbling]

Hyper focus at work is great. Except for when it gets interrupted by a guest.

And of course, guest takes priority. I know that. I have no problem with that.

What I do have a problem with is my own brain feeling irrationally angry as if it can't go back to what I was doing after I finish with the guest.

Like, come on, brain. We are not a toddler. My masking on the outside is enough, but I feel like I'm babysitting myself.

Also, why do people feel the need to bring their whole family in to check into a hotel??

I could understand a single parent or something, but I had a whole family, mixture of adults and kids, all travelling in two vehicles, all having to get out and stand in the lobby.

I get the need to stretch your legs after a long drive. There's a lot of different people with a lot of different needs, wants, and motives. And sometimes all that motive is- is to get a stretch. But it makes it hard for me to do my job. And this might only be because I'm neurodivergent. Neurotypical hotel overnighters are probably scoffing and shaking their heads at me for this, but... I'm gonna say it anyway! I'm gonna get it off my chest.

The kids are running around, everyone is making the door open and close, the person checking both rooms in is in a super pushy hurry when talking to me, but wants to chat with everyone in their party. Not even about the hotel or room, or anything. But I mean. Leaving me hanging mid-answer-to-their-question. Party members asking me questions while I'm trying to listen to the person checking in. The motion sensitive doors are opening and closing, occasionally with other parties, other times, just from the movement.

The hotel computers take about 12 years to do much of anything as it is, and lucky me, they were running ULTRA SUPER FAST (<- Sarcasm. All the sarcasm.) And they were saving the second room when I told them to, and never once freezing up entirely! (<-someone bonk Bon for overuse of sarcasm .)

I might add that this big party has lots of people coughing without even turning away or covering their mouths... Not even the adults! So adding the repeated coughing, unattended kids going into the 'sweet shop' and out, interrupting to ask more questions. What could have been a one or two minute check in and giving of keys turned into about a 20 minute, overwhelming mess I was shaking during, trying so bloody hard to not go off in front of others.

I guess I may be a little insensitive. But in theory, if I had a big party with kids (not particularly little kids in this party's case,) I'd have people stretch out by the car while it's in the carport. Or maybe wait until I got checked in for that 24 hour pool. Not... Fill up the lobby and be loud and interrupt the person that's working with the front desk to get our rooms.

Perhaps there's stuff I just don't understand, no matter how hard I try. I do understand that nothing was done maliciously, and I don't have anything against big families or big parties. That's not my business.

My body and mind are frustrated and overstimulated, not angry at anyone, for anything.

[inkskinned]

please i love you i'm begging you bring back suspension of disbelief bring back trusting the audience like. i cannot handle any more dialogue that sounds like a legal document. "hello, i am here to talk to you about the incident from a few minutes ago, because i feel you might be unwell, and i am invested in your personal wellbeing." "thank you, i am unwell because the incident was hurtful to me due to my childhood, which was bad." I CANT!!!!

do you know how many people are mad that authors use "growled" as a word for "said"? it's just poetics! they do not literally mean "growled," it's just a common replacement for "said with force but in a low tone." it's normal! do you hear me!! help me i love you please let me out of here!!!

[dailydivergent]

There’s no such thing as work-life balance for neurodivergent & chronically ill people.

This is because everything in my life requires work:

maintaining friendships

keeping up with my hygiene

managing bills

making money

remembering my basic needs

sleeping regularly

outputting creatively

All requires some aspect of work for me.

And when everything in your life requires work, your balance goes out the window.

If you're neurodivergent and overwhelmed — I see you.

If you're chronically ill and overwhelmed — I see you.

You're not dysfunctional.

You're not incapable.

You're doing your best.

[victusinveritas]

[kuromiusagi]

“Don’t infantilize autism” should be used when people who aren’t autistic treat autistic adults like children.

It should not be said when people who are actually autistic have “childish” interests or stuffed animals and such. Autistic adults are allowed to find comfort and express their autism in ways that works for them (without causing harm), even other autistic people don’t get to tell them not to enjoy those things just because they dislike stereotypes or don’t want themselves to be infantilized.

You can’t tell someone else their life should be breaking a stereotype you dislike. That’s not up to you.

[technically-human]

He couldn't deal with all that rizz

[grison-in-space]

this reminds me to ask. Hey, folks who get stuck with executive dysfunction, specifically movement initiation (like when you're trying to get up to, idk, get the ice cream you want for dessert)?

Can you do me a favor? Next time you're stuck, try wiggling your toes and then trying to Get Up To Do The Thing and tell me whether or not it helps?

I have some half assed ideas about why this might work revolving around the possibility of being able to use smaller motions to build up the dopaminergic tone in the striatum of the brain. That's a major structure involved in both motivation and movement, both of which dopamine interact powerfully with. And it does seem to be useful for me, at least. But I can't figure out if that's some internal belief thing on my end or something more generally applicable, and I would love some help figuring out if this is useful for other people.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

best thing about batman is that he's a superficially grimdark character, gothic & brooding & angst ridden etc..........but then it turns out he has a million hobbies, regularly goes on adventures with his besties, and has a dozen adopted kids he's raising with his devoted foster dad. good for him

[bean-spring]

Hot take and not to be a killjoy or the shipping police but people treating Viktor or Jinx's aroace headcanons as if they were canon is not the revolutionary take people think it is.

Headcanons are always all right but we have to acknowledge that they are somehow damaging when they apply to stereotypes. It might not be the case for everyone but most of the time people unconsciously assume that disability/mental illness=asexuality. These headcanons erase the freedom of attraction from people who are already seen as unable to have sexual/romantic experiences/desires, when it's completely untrue and harmful.

You can headcanon Viktor and Jinx as aroace, but I have seen people changing their minds once Viktor is no longer disabled (s2 with all of his other forms) and Jinx is no longer as mentally ill (alternate universe Powder). And it speaks wonders of how people see these characters.

"I never thought about Jinx being able to feel romantic/sexual attraction until s2!" To believe she's actually only capable of that when she's not "damaged" is incredibly disturbing. Especially since Jinx has always had a bit of a flirty personality too.

"I've always seen Viktor as asexual, I don't know why!" That's fine. You can headcanon him as ace. But I believe there is a reason behind it, most of the time, if for some inexplicable reason the "vibes" of the disabled character are making you think he's ace.

I say all of this being aroaspec myself, by the way. Headcanon all you want but going to people's posts commenting how "it's weird for you that they have romantic/sexual plots when they're clearly aroace" is not a win at all. It's a headcanon, after all, and it should be treated as such, and that's fine. But it also is damaging to spread stereotypes like these.

Of course the disabled character is asexual. Of course the mentally ill character is aromantic. It's not as revolutionary as you might think, tbh.

Fandom is not activism and it's all right to have any headcanons you want BUT some of them are filled with damaging stuff and perhaps we should look into ourselves more before treating these assumptions as something canon.

[homkamiro]

*heavys voice* entire team is BABIES!!!!!

[blessedbenightwingsass]

Love how everyone says every bat gets a super but isn’t it really every super picks a bat? Like every single one of the bat fam is feral as all hell and every super is like “ah yes my emotional support gremlin” and then proceeds to wrangle them into a life long friendship.

[badolmen]

They don’t even attempt to assassinate US politicians anymore. You notice that? Not since the anthrax scare back for… who was it, Barack? And even that… pathetic. This new generation has no respect for an honest hitman. I’m not sure this new generation has any honest hitman - you see that shit with Boeing? Sloppy, fucking disgraceful - you kill the whistleblowers before they get halfway to a lawsuit. What kind of fucking amateur is doing faked suicides the night before testimony? Goddamn greenhorns. Back in my day someone tried to shoot Ronald Reagan in broad daylight. There used to be bomb threats to Congress. I took out a few union leaders in the utilities sector myself. Today’s generation? Won’t even threaten to throw a punch - not even over on that - what’s it now, ‘X’? They got no guts. None! And they don’t even have poor impulse control to boot! Too much of that - that panopticon anxiety bullshit. “Oh what if I get a called out post???” People used to send the president letters full of bioweapons. In the mail! Today’s generation? Not a chance. All because of woke.

[deecotan]

anyway here's wavewave

[screambirdscreaming]

Something that peeves me whenever I see another post going around with some variation on "autistic people take things literally which means we are the only people who communicate Clearly and Directly" is that - for any given statement, there is not one singular, agreed on, universal Literal Interpretation. If there was, none of this would be a problem!

The nature of language is that there's always some degree of interpretability. Words have several different meanings, often overlapping, and there's nuance of context, cultural references, and so on.

Faced with a statement, most people will quickly come up with an interpretation that to them makes the most sense. But if you asked a roomful of people to explain in detail their interpretations, everyone's would probably be a little different, even for a pretty simple statement. Regardless of whether those people are autistic! Everyone conceptualizes the world a little differently, and everyone has a unique personal history of all the language they've encountered, and these things effect our interpretations.

In order for communication to be workable, given this slosh in interpretability, there's another couple of processes that go on. As conversation goes on, people reassess if their initial interpretation matches up with additional context. If it doesn't, they revise it, or ask clarifying questions. And on the flipside of this process, the other person in conversation is tracking if your reactions make sense with *their* understanding of what they're trying to convey to you, and offering context or rephrasing things if it seems you're out of alignment.

These processes are social skillsets that are, like most social skillsets, not ever directly articulated or explained. Many people are bad at one or both. Sometimes you encounter someone who is really, notably good at it - the vaunted "good listener", who puts in the effort to really understand what you're trying to say, or that really excellent teacher who engages with you back and forth until you really get it. But a lot of the time, it's a sort of passive social friction - people just not getting each other.

Sometimes, you encounter someone whose brain works so much like yours that talking to them feels almost effortless - you just get each other. But that's a pretty rare occurrence for anyone. More often, as you get to know someone, you start to understand the shape of the way they interpret things and learn to account for it, so over time it's easier to make sense to each other.

It's honestly not uncommon in society for people to aggregate in groups of people who interpret things similarly, and who are thus easier to talk to, rather than actually building the skills of communicating across interpretation gaps. Particularly egregious are those groups of men who talk about Women as an incomprehensible monolith, but it turns up to a greater or lesser degree on a lot of levels.

I suspect this is the root of a lot of parenting problems - people who have never built this communication skillset, and relied on choosing friends who make sense to them without a lot of effort, and who are then totally unprepared to interact with a child who interprets things in ways they don't expect.

Obviously I can't speak to The Universal Typical Experience, not least because it doesn't exist. But in general I would posit that:

Most people, give or take a few assholes, are not trying to say things that are confusing. Most people think they are communicating clearly, because the first interpretation *they* would come up with on hearing one of their own sentences is the correct interpretation.

Many people are not very good at accounting for different ways people could interpret things they're saying. However, it is normal and polite social behavior to be somewhat flexible about this and forgiving of misunderstandings. If people are being shitty to you about not understanding them, they are assholes. And I wouldn't assume that the rest of the communication they have with everyone else they know goes totally smoothly for them.

I suspect there is a bit of an unfortunate feedback loop, where people have bad experiences when someone gets mad at them for not getting something, and learn to hide when they're confused. Which then leads to larger, more complicated misunderstandings, which other different people get upset at them about, because those people think they should have asked for clarification in the first place.

Truly you can't win with everyone. No one can win with everyone. There is no monolith of "neurotypical communication" which resolves all these contradictions - all those people you're lumping in together under "neurotypical" have just as much trouble with each other.

[shadowpuppetteer]

This whole comic is a combination of two separate pep talks I got early on from a friend and my sister telling me the same thing. For every artist, voice actor, cosplay creator, writer, and creator, do not undersell yourself. Your skills and time are worth getting paid for. And for every person looking to commission a creator, if their prices are too high or you can't afford their art, that's ok. But there are many reasons why they charge for their work. Like everyone else, we gotta make a living. These lil turtles are just the cutest and I adore their familial relationship in the series 💚 So it was great to get to draw Donnie helping Mikey with a power point presentation/pep talk.