Feeling moldy today -- wow, that expression takes me back -- because I was snippy with my daughter and even though I explained it's a mental health issue and not her fault, it put her into "I must be a better daughter" mode. 💔
New custom made bracelets available of your cat. If you want to carry your feline friend wherever you go, buy a custom bracelet made to reflect your cat.
Who wants to spend Wednesdays in July with me and some fellow #ActuallyAutistic comrades about how to improve our lives, advocate for ourselves, and figure out this unmasking thing?
I've just added new dates for my summer life coaching group. Check it out!
Why do I over complicate things? I can recognise when I’m doing something the hard way but it’s like my brain can’t see how to do a task more efficiently until AFTER I go through extreme amount of struggle.
It says a lot about the state of neuronormative society that taking a shit on autistic people, erasing us, insulting us, harming us, and belittling us at every opportunity, from face to face interactions, to the news, to popular culture, is totally acceptable and applauded.
no-one: whatcha doing?
me: oh, you-know, just comparing generic drugs my insurance company is forcing me to choose between instead of the non-generic drug my dr prescribed. they're not the same thing at all, but they're approved for #ADHD too and much cheaper, and saving the insurance company money is what's really important here.
Don't fuck with an #actuallyautistic person. We have an atypically strong moral compass and a strong sense of justice. If you combine these two things it means you will fucking pay for your morally bankrupt bullshit.
It doesn't hurt that many of us are very smart, and very good at navigating legal/corporate bullshit when sufficiently motivated... like when you try and pull morally evil bullshit on us.
How are autistic, kinect (adhd) folks experience with driving?
I dislike driving, but I do it. I live in a rural area and having a car and being able to drive makes life much easier.
My tendency is to be a careful driver. To go within speed limits, to be very careful when overtaking other vehicles, asking for help when manouvering in tight spaces. These mean, being the slow car on the road (even if Im going at the max speed limit) with a big line of cars behind me. It means being behind a slow truck for long distances while on a road trip, because I dont feel its safe to overtake them. It means feeling like Im the stupid female (Im not a woman, but people read me that way) that confirms the stereotype that women don't know how to drive.
All those are characteristics Ive learned are associated with bad drivers. While driving I feel this pressure of behaving like "good drivers" do. Like going faster, overtaking other vehicles promptly, being able to maneuver the car without help.
I know this pressure is stupid. I fight it in my head. I know behaving like a good driver is not a good reason to do things I feel are unsafe for me and others on the road. But its hard. Sometimes, I cave in. I wonder am I such a careful driver because Im not confident in my abilities? Maybe I should be more confident. Maybe I should act like other drivers.
All the times I made mistakes while driving and caused accidents (never anything serious, usually accidents while manouvering the car slowly), were because I caved in to this pressure. I decided not ask for help when I felt I needed, or I did some manouver I was unsure about but insisted on it anyway. I was tired of fighting this pressure of behaving like a "good driver" I was tired of being careful, of being anxious and just wanted to get it done.
Im really afraid of the time I make a mistake like this and it leads to a serious accident.
So school admin and I finally had it out over their coveted BEHAVIOR REPORTS. It doesn’t highlight triggers so it’s not useful and creates #anxiety for me, which I share back to them. Doctor can’t make sense of them either.
So no more reports. 🎉We’ll share stuff in weekly family therapy sessions. The less I hear from #ableists the better. Detoxing now but much happier.
When you really need some help with stuff around the apartment due to chronic fatigue crap, but the whole process of asking friends for help and dealing with their tardiness, unpredictability, and unexpected vibes exhausts you due to neurodivergence crap - and then feeling guilty over your reaction exhausts you the rest of the way. 🙄
“The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these qualities have little to do with success as we have defined it.”
― David W. Orr, Ecological Literacy: Educating Our Children for a Sustainable World
I found a quote that agrees with my thoughts about Western capitalistic culture and concepts of success. We think all of this output, creativity, production, and accomplishing is the most important criteria of success, and we value people and give them status according to these metrics, but the fact is, this cultural value is killing the planet, and driving us to a point of becoming extinct from all of this "success".
As an an #IntenseWorld person, that is to say, #actuallyautistic, I find myself retreating and withdrawing from feeling alienated from the world of people and all of their expectations and judgements, so at the moment I'm not exactly flourishing.
Which is why I absolutely love this quote I found. It's often misattributed to the Dalai Lama.
Usually it hits me all at once, like a visceral gut punch. Instant shaking, dizziness, waves of nausea.
But sometimes it creeps up. This sick feeling of panic & anxiety slowly rising. Like I'm trapped in a confined space filling up w water.
What triggered it this time? Well, I've been going thru my Following list re-following people & it turns out over 2 dozen gardening folks I thought followed me...don't.
And hello RSD. Each unfollow I find triggers another wave of shame & embarrassment. I feel like such a fool for letting myself feel comfortable in the gardening community.
It's that "autistic kid who believed she had friends & thought she belonged only to overhear them making fun of her behind her back" feeling.
Not that anyone here has been unkind. It's just my brain's screwed up way of torturing me. A demon whispering my worst fears at me.
The advice to “fake it till you make it” works if you could succeed at a task but lack the confidence.
However, if you don't have the skills, it's a setup for failure and reinforces the idea that the problem is with you and not skill acquisition.
It can also be used by others as a way to get out of teaching you skills that they don't really know how to teach because they learned them intuitively.
Going about life with a high base level of stress is not only deeply unpleasant, but detrimental to our mental and physical health, and a contributing factor to why we melt and shut down; our stress reserves are so close to capacity that we have little room for unexpected stress.
Are you getting the support that you NEED? Join one of my upcoming #ActuallyAutistic groups. They are BUILT FOR autistic people - come as you are - no masking - no pressure - no bullshit. 5-weeks of digging into the real stuff. Let's talk.
Knowing I have to do spoon budgeting to cope with the world is really helpful, but also rather hard when I want to do multiple things on the same day and have to choose, or gamble on being able to cope with the multiple events...
Today two co-workers I have worked with for years have leaving events, which I want to go to, but even one such events is spoon-intensive...
Oh well. Will figure out what to do at some point. #ActuallyAutistic
Has it ever happened to you where someone used direct communication with you but were really mean and aggressive about it. Yes, autistic people like direct communication, but that doesn’t mean talking loudly or speaking slowly. We just need more words /alternative explanations.
I've designed a number of items for my #ActuallyAutistic comrades, including a number of t-shirts, badges, and mugs. I'd love to hear about what you guys think!