I‘m rewatching #TheBigBangTheory, now 2 years after my #autism diagnosis. I dont know what people dislike about this show. Sheldon makes me feel very validated. his friends making fun of him both shows problems of modern society and boundaries we sometimes dont see (like speaking the truth when someone is already down).
@btaroli thats very interesting! Thanks. Can you elaborate on your findings? I havent seen young sheldon so I‘d need a short explanation what characters you mean and how they‘re subpar in your opinion.
@haui Well, Young Sheldon is just about Sheldon as a child, up until he started at Cal Tech. It’s not a bad show. But from an ND perspective the effort falls short.
One kid had a party this morning and the other wanted to go to ikea to look at desks for their computer.
Once we were all together again I mentioned that we were probably all overwhelmed and needed quiet time and they agreed. We are all on devices in separate bedrooms being silent.
Is this what a functional neurodivergent family looks like?
J'ai envie de faire 1 thread avec les persos fictifs (séries, films, dessins animés, livres, bd...) que perso je pense autistes (et y en a quelque uns que je pense tdah). #actuallyautistic#autism#AutistiquementVotre
Maud Pie, dans My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic.
Il s'agit de la sœur de Pinky Pie. Elle montre très peu ses émotions, ce qui fait qu'elle est tout d'abord totalement incomprise de Twilight et de ses amies. Elle a 1 intérêts spécifique pr la géologie, peut parler des pierres pendant des heures et a 1 caillou comme ami a qui elle a donné 1 nom. Elle aime énormément sa soeur malgré leurs grosses différences. (J'aime énormément ce perso) #AutistiquementVotre#PersoFictifAutistes #actuallyautistic
Poke @qana_sucre
#AskingAutistics I’m looking for testimonials/info regarding sensory compression clothing/vests. I’m wondering about the compression level and if the fabric is breathable.
Why? Because, I’m looking into the medical compression garments for an health issue, and there is no way that I’m going to bear one as it’s very sweat inducing. I’m wearing a compression bra for months and it’s a sensory nightmare because of the sweat. 😭 So, sensory clothing might be a solution.
I’ve been reading about “stimming in autism”, which up until now was very confusing to me mostly because that’s the one point kept being repeated in the community being a must for an autistic individual. And I can’t relate to that at all.
Then I came across something that describes the purpose of ‘stimming’ is to deal with extra energy. Then it kinda hit me, I’ve never had the need to stim because I’m a low energy person in general.
I get overwhelmed with activities when they involve raising heart rates (yes, THAT too). I like quiet things, dead of night etc. Once at a time in my life, I was pretty sure I could hear flow of electricity.
So my question to the #ActuallyAutistic community: do you think stimming is a must for autistic people? Do you relate to it? Anyone know of any low energy stimming that gets overlooked?
@farah@actuallyautistic Typing as I gently rock back and forth to the faint rhythm of the electricity in my walls…
I think recognizing stims in yourself is kinda hard when they’re not the obvious ones that people tell you to look for. But stims can be auditory or visual or internal, too. Listening to the same song over and over. Looking for patterns in things, subtle movements or vocalizations. Sometimes stims are purely mental for me.
My obvious ones are the rocking, repetitive leg movements, finger tapping, pen fidgeting, tongue clicking, and a couple other really specific vocalizations or phrases with nice mouthfeel. The less obvious ones are things like finding and following rhythms in random sounds with my internal “drummer,” (the electricity in my walls has a sliiiiiiight wobble to it that I very much do hear and will idly move my body to), playing guitar is really stimmy for me, as is working out with resistance bands, looking for patterns in a floor or wall or plant or whatever, or touching things with good textures. My headmates and I all have different sets of stims, too.
On the other hand I do think the amount and energy level of my stims is also related to ADHD.
"I was an Autistic psychiatric inpatient: Here’s what I would change in the mental health system "
Autistic people are exposed to inordinately high rates of trauma and mistreatment. It is unsurprising then that a large portion of us develop mental health struggles. Where there are concerns around mental health, there are also issues regarding inpatient treatment, both voluntary and involuntary, under the UK’s Mental Health Act.
Burnout is a bitch. I think all of us who have experienced it, or are experiencing it, will agree with that. But, how it presents and how long it maintains its hold over us, seems to be as variable as so much else about us.
I can now recognise the many times I have experienced burnout in my life. Each one marked by my constant refrain of, "I'm just tired" and with me doggedly plodding on with my life as best I could. Even now, in the deepest and longest burnout of my life, I am still doing the same.
Of course, I at least know to try and pace myself now. To let the unimportant things slide until their time comes and to spread out what has to be done, to the best of my ability. I know to dedicate time to self-care, to rest and recreation and to acknowledging my needs as an autistic person. This much, realising you are autistic can teach you. It can also help you to spot the signs of burning out sooner and hopefully mitigate its effects that way.
When that's possible, of course. For what caused my current burnout was unfortunately a series of overlapping events that I could not avoid, or do anything about. It was almost as if life chose to keep throwing things at me, each more intense and impossible to avoid, until I broke. But then life can be like that sometimes.
Autistic burnout is, of course, different from normal burnout, in what causes it and how it presents. It is, more often than not, a breakdown of our ability to cope with the demands being placed on us and not with how much we can carry. We are used to carrying insane loads and with having to work so much harder than most other people, just to keep putting one foot in front of the other through life. In fact, I know that I never really rest, not even now. My life is one long and continuous assessment and checking on whether the routines I have in place are being maintained. Whether I have done everything, on what needs to be done and finding new ways to blames myself for why it hasn't been done yet. There is no such thing as not working as far as my brain is concerned. And because I never stop, I don't know how to stop. How to heed the signals of tiredness and exhaustion and how to not knuckle down and continue anyway. It has been the story of my life. In work and everywhere else, always push, push, push.
And perhaps this is why autistic burnout is so common and possibly even inevitable. The sheer effort that life already is. The constant raggedy edge we walk just to get through a day and how in doing this day after day, all we end up doing is teaching ourselves to ignore the warning signs and that our needs are even important. And end up learning instead, that all that really matters is the next plodding step, no matter the load we are already carrying.
@pathfinder@actuallyautistic I was chatting with a friend earlier and during our conversation I realized that my most recent burnout started in 2017 - peaked in 2021 - and I am just beginning to emerge. It’s the longest but not the worst. Knowing what it is helps, for sure. Having a community, even when I’m mostly silent, also helps. 🌟
Unpacking the dishwasher and then making my bed with one hand.. because I'm holding a bag of oats in my other hand.
Why? Because I have adhd and got distracted before making breakfast, so I've been carrying oats around the house for the last 20 minutes without noticing.
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.
This could be the connection between Ehlers-Danlos and neurodivergence. (People with EDS, like me, are 7 times as likely to be autistic and 5 times as likely to have ADHD -- also like me.)
Why Not Circumcise Your Boy? A Potential Link to Autism
Even if culturally common in USA, parents should think twice.
By Darcia Navarez, PhD
"studies to date have not adequately evaluated the disparate male to female autism predominance because of inadequate study design -- failure to control for confounding of outcomes with circumcision (which should be part of any future well-controlled neuroimaging/epidemiologic/epigenetic studies of ASD / comorbidities)."
I've just finished watching the first series of "A kind of spark" on BBC iPlayer. Although, this is not about this excellent show. Rather, it's about the struggle I had with watching it and why it took me two attempts to get through it.
The fact is, that found it quite triggering. Now I know it's about, and probably made for, teenagers and the struggles they go through at school and especially being autistic and at school. And even though school was a very long time ago for me and in another age of man. I still couldn't help comparing it to my own experiences and not just in school, but throughout my life, and how much similarity I could see. Not, in the details, obviously, but in the way I would constantly run afoul of people, or somehow be on their wrong side of someone, even before we'd properly met. The sheer pettiness of some of it and the hurt it so often caused me, as much by my not understanding it, as by the unfairness of it. Of how many toes I'd stood on, without meaning to, or even knowing I'd done it and how much of my life I'd actually spent bewildered and upset by the situations I would find myself in and the actions I couldn't understand of the people around me.
Of course, no-one, least of all myself, knew that I was autistic back then, because that would probably have made it much worse. But knowing I am autistic now, at least gives me an understanding of why some people might have reacted this way. How, in some ways, at least, I've never really behaved in the ways that others might find appropriate, to their position, or status, or sense of worth. How socially blundering my way through life, of necessity, includes many toes I could step on and people who could be offended.
But, of course, understanding this now, doesn't really ease the memories. Neither of the pain I did cause, without meaning to, or the pain I received. It doesn't make the life I've had easier, only easier to understand.
And that, in a sense, is what this show made me have to face. That no matter how privileged my life has been. How much easier I've had it, compared to so, so, many others. It's never been easy. There have only been moments, brief and sometimes, admittedly, not so brief periods where my life seemed to make sense and I felt, if not entirely in control, at least in somewhat of a comfort zone. That I was OK and that I could just get on with doing things my way and just being myself. Not without cost, of course, normally in hard, unremitting, work and effort. In often struggling with feelings of guilt and shame about how selfish I was having to be. Because, that was what carving out my own world felt like. Not necessary, or even justified, but selfish and almost petty of me.
And then, of course, there would always be something that would intrude from the outside world. As often, as not, something petty and officious that would dump me back into the turmoil and uncertainty. Because, you can never really isolate yourself from the world, as much as some of us would love to. And so much of this world really isn't made for us. It will always be hard and there will always be those who delight in making it harder. Those who are truly petty and selfish, in the ways that we aren't, and others who will try to use that hate to benefit themselves. It's why carving out our safe spaces will always be difficult, but also, so very necessary.
@pathfinder@actuallyautistic thank you for sharing this perspective. I was on the fence about watching it (using a new app can be, all by itself, an overwhelming proposition) but I think I want to now.
the self reflection/auditing of my life with this new knowledge can be difficult. I dont want to "dwell on the past" but it's important for me to understand my own story, especially bc I spent so much of my life very intentionally pushing parts of myself and my own story way down
@seanwithwords@actuallyautistic
Yes. I think many of us became masters at suppressing and disassociating ourselves from the truths we knew, in order to fit in. Not exactly healthy and whilst the past is the past, it's the sort of thing that festers if it's not dealt with.