I can tell when I need to lower the volume of something I'm listening to when I feel a kind of tightening in my ear muscles, and/or ringing in my ears, or a slight feeling of stress coming in from my environment.
I also just try to remember to always proactively lower the volume a couple ticks from what i first set it at, to prevent all those sensations.
What are the signs for you that things are a little too loud?
URGENT! please help Tasia with basic necessities like food and healthcare! she is disabled and has struggled with housing. she hasnt gotten any donations for a while and is losing hope. she needs your support. anything helps!
Went to a bar with a visiting scholar. The first three hours or so were fun. We had good food and nice whisky. Colleague was chatty and I enjoyed listening.
Then loud drunk people came in. I noticed I had hard time following my colleague's talk. The drunk people started to get on my nerves. I was also very conscious of my pinkish nails. Now that I've paid more attention to my bodily reactions, I noticed how anxious the change of the atmosphere made me.
Fortunately I had already checked my bus schedule and the colleague had said that I can just let him know whenever I have to leave. I said that it's getting loud, then explained I'm autistic and have auditory processing problems and that there would be a bus in 15 minutes. He said that we can leave right away. 💜 Once outside, it felt better again.
The older I get, the less I enjoy noisy bars. Or should I say the less I tolerate them. Never really liked them.
One time I tried to explain something to a family member that doing a specific thing was hard for me, and they said " Yes but Bob's nephews can do it so you should be able to do it too" . 🙄
PSA: If you've met one autistic person you've met one autistic person.
Yesterday I was wearing sunglasses when I went to the city centre as it was sunny. Oh my, what a difference it made to the sensory overdrive. As I mentioned earlier, I like to watch around but had finally noticed that I keep grounding myself by looking at ground due to all the visual input. Sunglasses took the edge off and it was way easier to look at things.
it sucks having an unpopular opinion on the internet because i just assume everyone would hate me if they know
unpopular as in, if there's some kind of controversial topic with two sides, my opinion would draw ire from each of those sides
this is a common thing for me to experience because i'm autistic and i think about things differently than most other people, including other autists (we're obviously not a monolith!)
i think this is a very social-media problem, even on fedi where controversial content isn't pushed by an algorithm, because i think clout-chasing and virtue-signaling still influence overall community attitudes. unfortunately, due to various factors, social-media is one of the few options available for me to socialize at all right now
it gets very, very lonely to see people i might otherwise want to get to know clearly indicating that i need to mask up and pretend to agree, otherwise they'll bite my head off
at first it feels like it's not worth sharing those opinions and risking the drama-- and then it feels like it's not worth getting to know people in the first place
I read about a new detailed map of the human brain. As expected, the "normal brains" were contrasted with "disordered" ones and how eventually they might learn "what's wrong" with them.
URGENT! please help Tasia with basic necessities like food and healthcare! she is disabled and has struggled with housing. she hasnt gotten any donations for a while and is losing hope. she needs your support. anything helps!
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.
Really enjoying the North East Autism Society’s online conference ‘Acceptance Matters’ :GoldInfinity:
I wasn’t going to watch the first talk, by Ruth Jenks, as I didn’t think I’d find a talk on communication as Autistic parents useful, but it was brilliantly clear and very relevant – she addressed a lot of things relevant to Autistic experience regardless of parenthood
Someone on FB unfriended me and they wanted me to know why. Ummm. So I said ok... think they wanted an apology for a comment I made on one of their posts instead of an ok 🤷🏻♀️ I do not want to be dragged into their drama. #socialMedia Is even more confusing for #ActuallyAutistic people 😳
URGENT! please help Tasia with basic necessities and healthcare! is disabled and has struggled with housing. she hasnt gotten any donations for a while and is losing hope. she needs your support.
Mentioned to a coworker that I'm getting some books, for example on autism, and as they showed interest in the topic, proceeded to lightly info dump. Did give some space so that it was a true conversation. However, it reminded me of a thing I've been pondering.
As I present male, I've always been overly cautious of not mansplaining -- or at least ever since I learned about the term. Now that I know I'm autistic, I understand it's entangled with having learned that NTs don't like infodumping.
Whatever the cause, I have a tendency to stay silent even if I know about the topic at hand but aren't 100% certain that it's appropriate to talk about it. Sometimes it makes me sad.
I saw a post somewhere not long ago that suggested a key component of mansplaining was not being sensitive to the fact that the recipient already knows about the topic.
I too often remain silent though I'm knowledgeable and have something to contribute. I think it comes from all the failed social interactions in my past, including unwanted infodumps.
Diary of an ASD Squirrel. Day 200 , Wednesday 15/05/2024
Up early again , breakfast, chores , whole 9 yards.
I’ve been referred to the local cardiology dept for my dizzy spells , phone appointment next month, I don’t hold out much hope that they will get anywhere, but never say never hey !
Octopus Energy , after an initially promising start, have totally failed to get our smart meter system working properly. Both meters appear to be transmitting so that at least is an improvement but the IHD is only showing electric readings. In the latest episode the help desk lass - ‘Edna’ gave me the instructions to set up a budget …. Despite me sending her a photo showing that the IHD is NOT seeing the gas meter at all!
I mean will setting a budget magically get the comms going between the gas meter & the IHD ? I think not !
Final Thoughts.
Why is it so hard to get seemingly simple things done in this world ?
Thank you to all those who are helping me on this journey, in a myriad different ways. I am thankful to each & every one of you! 🫂 🫶🐿️🖖
So I got a phone call the other day. She started out with "'I've been making so many calls thinking I am going to get an answering machine!" So I told her Yes, I was an answering machine and hung up. Don't try to be "cute" with an autistic. Be direct and to the point.
Someone came to my house and sat in my arm chair. Now it smells like their perfume. I am feeling really overwhelmed. And upset. I think it’s an #ActuallyAutistic thing. What do you think?