Please stop with the euphemisms. We know what we are, we don't need it explained to us. It is patronising when people try and define our identity for us.
Feeling burnt out today #autistic. Helping everyone else, but not getting the recipe of what I need. Fully masking all joy now and going through the motions. Sad ss the weeekend has done the opposite of what I needed and back to work tomorrow. Need a rock to go hide under :octo_sad: :ir: @actuallyautistic
I'm so used to mainstream media reporting about #autistic people being terrible inspiration porn that I almost didn't watch this one, but I was pleasantly surprised that it was actually pretty good. The best thing is it mostly centered the autistic person and her experience. It's also kind of amazing to see a non-speaking person given an opportunity to speak for herself with AAC. There's still some ableism and centering the allistic perspective, like when the interviewer talks about how he's a parent of an autistic child, but it's still so much better than anything else I've seen on a mainstream show. More of this, please.
I'm so used to mainstream media reporting about #autistic people being terrible inspiration porn that I almost didn't watch this one, but I was pleasantly surprised that it was actually pretty good. The best thing is it mostly centered the autistic person and her experience. It's also kind of amazing to see a non-speaking person given an opportunity to speak for herself with AAC. There's still some ableism and centering the allistic perspective, like when the interviewer talks about how he's a parent of an autistic child, but it's still so much better than anything else I've seen on a mainstream show. More of this, please.
3 hours silent work in #Library was bliss. Then decided to treat myself to a cappucino so popped into shopping centre next door. Holy moly the assault on my #Senses was immediate and intense.
Thank goodness I had my #Loops or I would now be a dysregulated mess. @actuallyautistic #Autistic
I watch a lot of #YouTube and I'm #ActuallyAutistic, so I end up watching a lot of videos about #autism or by #autistic advocates. Since YouTube recommendations are notoriously unhelpful, I've been keeping a list of channels.
All of these channels are made by autistic people, and they all talk about being autistic. I intentionally exclude channels by allistic folk, autism parents that show off autistic children, or allistic-run autism organizations. I also left out channels that just repost stuff from other platforms like TikTok.
I don't necessarily like or even watch all these channels, so don't take inclusion on this list as an endorsement. But I know my tastes aren't universal and others might appreciate videos I don't, so I'm including channels that seem decent even if I don't usually watch them myself.
Am I missing any good autistic channels? Do you have any favorite YouTube channels about autism by autistic folk? Channels by autistics about #neurodiversity or related psychology are good too. I have a separate list of channels by autistic folk that are not about autism or psychology, so not asking for those right now.
Hi! I'm hoping for help with an art project exploring autism and 'barriers' (sensory, social, structural) that lead to overwhelm, shutdown, meltdown, exclusion... (Either via masking or directly). I'm starting by compiling a list of things - my own include stuff like being interrupted whilst focussed on a thing, crisp bag rustling, body spray, unnecessary 'chit chat' group emails, arbitrary changes... Any more that any of you would like to share would be much appreciated. Each 'barrier' will be written out within the artwork #actuallyautistic#actuallyaudhd@actuallyautistic@actuallyaudhd
@krafty@gri@actuallyautistic@actuallyaudhd Some of that's sensory processing disorder (lights, hot/stuffy rooms, itchy tags, loudness and very #autistic...however, some's traffic, and I bet that's a universal PITA to everybody ND or NT.
We've been sent a huge questionnaire from our daughter's psychologist about her childhood and we are meeting with them in a few weeks time for an in depth interview.
There's some suggestion that she may be #autistic and this has played a major role in her troubles over recent years.
I'm suspending judgement because I don't know enough about the subject and Internet research on #autism in adult females isn't particularly helpful. I'm leaving this one to the professionals
One always returns to one's symbols. Even though I get bored and usually change my profile picture and text, I always come back to this character. I read that autistic people have and wear masks, usually to hide or adapt. But also that sometimes we use a character (or a doll in the case of children) through which we can express ourselves better and be authentically ourselves.
Years ago I was fascinated by Salem, from the Sabrina series, because she said and did things just the way I thought them. Until I am an adult, I generally fail to be able to express myself and say and do what I really think and want. Salem allows me, he is not a character to hide from me but quite the opposite. Intelligence, sarcasm, rough sincerity, a certain amount of childish evil and clumsiness when trying to be "bad" are some things that I was able to bring out of myself with this character.
Obviously, I am not and do not think I am Salem, but that attitude of watching and listening to everything, filing your nails as if you care little or nothing about what you are hearing, or with a hint of disdain and silent annoyance, is totally my silent attitude in many situations. of socialization, whether in person or virtual on social networks.
My family knows me that way and that serves them well and helps them but they are also afraid of what I might say. I am unpredictable to myself.
Over the years, Salem has been almost a therapy that has allowed me to be authentically myself as I am, something that autistic people have very difficult times, or always.
I didn't think that at 61 I would be discovering and learning to be myself without masks, because the masks and characters that I have used as an autistic person have come to hijack my personality. Just like actors, sometimes one ends up losing the border between the character and the "self."
Because of Salem, who is also a cat, perhaps the animal that I love and admire the most, I say that I am an autistic cat pretending to be a human.
Taking today to recover from social exhaustion. This includes: Audiobooks, physical rest, some writing work, staying at home, cups of tea in garden between rain showers.
A day well spent after a busy weekend of social exposure and engagement at a local annual book festival.
This account of a teenager & his family is heartbreaking 💔.
Families raising kids who have violent meltdowns struggle to find support. Kids like this are acutely vulnerable to the influence of anyone who is kind to them & any group in which they find acceptance. For those of us who experience meltdowns, learning to understand & manage our overwhelm & the eruptions it leads to is a lifelong journey. For most of us it’s full of failure & shame. Where & how can we find acceptance & love? How can we learn to be gentle with ourselves?
I think many #autistic folk, especially those of us who grew up undiagnosed & unsupported then raised similarly undx, distressed, overwhelmed & volatile autistic kids while unable to find help, would shudder with recognition at elements of this tragic story.
Just started watching A Kind of Spark. So far it seems to have everything I need - autism, witches and Ben Willbond 😂
I'm only two episodes in but it seems like good representation so far - the depiction of masking, the teacher who on the surface means well but is incredibly ableist, the discussion about what it means to "be yourself", parents who are supportive of special interests until it's inconvenient...yep, I think this might be a good one.
@NightlyBye I love this show and the books! Elle Mc Nicholl is a fantastic #Autistic author. All neurodivergent characters by played by neurodivergent actors which makes it even better. @actuallyautistic
Psychology loves to talk about #autistic traits as deficits, instead of adaptations to an environment that no longer exists in our NT-centric society. One of those deficits they name "delayed processing". That's when it takes us a while to process sensory or cognitive input before we can understand what it means or know how to react to it.
How could delayed processing not be a deficit? Well, let me tell you about computer databases. A database is a big pile of information, organized for efficient access. But even if it's very well organized, when the databse gets big, it gets slow to access the information you want. It's like trying to find a particular book in a vast library - it can take a while to find the shelf it's on, then find where the volume is on that shelf.
So there's a trick to make finding things in a database faster. Just like a library has a card catalog that makes it faster to locate your book, databases use indexes to locate information efficiently. If you know the name of the record you want, you can find where that record is by name quickly - as long as there is a name index.
But putting the right info in an index to make searching faster isn't free. It takes some work, because you're essentially doing the search work in advance, then remembering it as a shortcut for later. Programmers describe this trade-off as "slow writes, fast reads".
And the flip side is "fast writes, slow reads". Sometimes you care more about inserting info quickly, and finding it quickly is not that important. Think about a step counter - you add steps all the time so you want that to be fast and easy, but you only look at the count now and then, so it's not bad if it takes a moment because it doesn't happen often.
Back to autism. So we have this delayed processing. We're also notorious for being able to see connections others cannot, and to recall specific information in great detail nearly instantaneously. This feels like a "slow write, fast read" situation to me. Which makes me think, maybe this delayed processing is something like an indexing phase. Maybe we're doing more work up front to build all those associations and connections, to integrate new information deeply into our web of knowledge. It's not that we're slow to do the same thing allistics do. It's that they are skipping the expensive indexing our brains do, so they can have those fast writes. But where they miss out is the fast reads, and all the deep connections.
(As a tangent: I wonder how this relates to autistic sleep issues. Brains do a lot of work while we sleep to integrate new information into long-term memory. Does our extra indexing work affect our sleep cycles?)
The more I learn about neurodiversity, the more I see autism as a healthy adaptation to a world we no longer get to live in. I've never seen that world, but I miss it deeply.
You’re not walking around consciously choosing what to pick up. You don’t choose. You don’t decide. It sticks like a crumb you accidentally stepped onto. Like cat’s hair. Good luck trying to get rid of it: while cleaning one, you get three more. Sometimes some dry out and fall off. You don’t choose which either.
Phrase here, intonation there, a bit of smile from that one, a funny move from another…
I wonder, if someone who has known you some time ago, meets you again in some years, and then meets some people from the same circles - how long does it take to tell those you’ve been interacting with most during those years by how they’ve grown into you, by spotting in them all those new things you’ve become.
When a mimic is put into a safe environment where it doesn’t have to mimic anymore to survive - what shape does it have?
For some reason, it seems to me, it won’t be neither any established form nor an amorphous blob, but rather some chaotic combination, multidimensional exquisite corpse, of various elements flickering between each and every form it has ever taken or observed
And to demand it to show its true form is to take it out of the safe environment
@bookstodon@bookwyrm
If you read large print or dyslexic font paperback books do you prefer this to be indicated on the cover (say on a banner at the top) to help you identify the accommodation?
I compiled a quick poll based on different perspectives I've read.
➡️ Please consider sharing to help me reach more readers.
@bookstodon many months ago I received feedback that some readers disliked how I labeled my large-font edition of Late Identified #AuDHD workbook. So I could do better, I asked.
The majority that participated reported they wanted the accommodation labeled on their paperback in a visible way.