I have just watched the 1st episode of A Kind of Spark thanks to @PetitPas
It’s a Irish British American Canadian series. In Canada I’m watching it on CBC Gem, in the UK it seems to be on the CBBC channel, for the others countries I don’t know.
I like it because the 3 autistic sisters are played by autistic actors, use of the words autistic, masking, meltdown. etc. Shows sensory overload, etc., ignorance and bias.
If you have an autistic loved one, please watch the show mentioned in the first toot if you can.
If you are autistic, please tell me what you think of it. I know that it won’t talk to all of us, but I’m seeing so much of myself in the series even I have learned only at 49 that I was autistic.
I know that the show is not perfect but for me it’s the first time that I’ve seen such an accurate representation of our experiences and suffering.
Book review #27 for 2024 is Steve Silberman's Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity. A helpful and informative book on the unfolding journey of and...battles with/for, regarding people who interact with their world differently. I found this book to be helpful in understanding the rise of what we today call neurodiversity. ☕☕☕☕1/2 review. @stevesilberman@books@bookstodon@bookstodon#autism#neurodiversity#books#books2024 #
I once wrote about how it was not unrealistic, to think that there was no such thing as an un-traumatised autistic. About how so many of us have known bullying and persecution simply for being different. Not even always for what we may have said or done, but often for simply standing out; in all the ways that we didn't even know we were. How just simply being, was so often an excuse to be attacked or punished. That our very existence, even as hard as we tried to mask, whether we knew that was what we were doing or not, was the cause of so much pain.
All the scars we carry from misreading situations. Or from believing in something, or someone, and being burnt as a consequence. All the times we've tried to stand up for ourselves, or as often as not for others, and been dismissed and ridiculed. All the misjudgements and disbelieve and times when our intent and purpose have been seen in the ways that were never, ever, meant. The sheer inability for others to see us as we are, or to judge us accordingly. But, always to seem to want to see the worst and to base everything else on that.
But the more I learn and understand about being autistic. The more I realise that so much of my trauma and the scars that were left, came not just from this overt pain, but from the covert well-meaning of others as well. From my parents and relatives, from friends and teachers. From all the advice and instruction I have received over the years that was meant to shape me in the right way. As a child, to teach me how to grow up, how to behave and act. What was expected and what wasn't. And then, as an adult, how I was supposed to be and how a successful life, with me in it, was supposed to look. All the rules I was supposed to learn, all the codes I was supposed to follow. How to act, how to speak, what to feel, when to feel it. What I was supposed to do and how I was supposed to be.
Not in any unusual way. Not in any way that you weren't supposed to raise a child, well a normal child anyway. That's what makes this so covert. If you were trying to do this to a child knowing that they were autistic, then it's overt abuse. It is ABA, it is infantilising and punishing a child for always failing to become something, that they had no more chance of becoming than a cat has of becoming a dog. But for those of us who didn't know we were autistic. It was simply the constant hammering of the world trying, without even realising it, to fit a round peg into a square hole and all the pain and disappointment that came from their failure to come even close.
For me, what made this worse, was that it wasn't as if I didn't know that I was different, not in my heart, but that I thought that I shouldn't be. That I should be able to learn what I was being taught, that I should be able to follow the guidance. That I wasn't any different really from anyone else and so if I failed to act in the right way, or react the way I should, for that matter, then it was my fault. All the patient sighs and familiar looks, simply became just another reinforcement of my failure. Even being told off for the simplest things, became a reminder that something that I should have been able to do, was beyond me and always for the only reason that ever made any sense; that I was broken, that it was my fault somehow.
Is it any wonder that so much of my life has been about trying to justify myself in the light of this, of trying to become that "good dog". Of judging myself against an impossible standard. A constant lurching from one bad to choice to another, and always because I thought they were the right ones. And for each new failure and inability to even come close, another scar, another reminder of what I wasn't. Further proof that my self-esteem was right to be so low. Of how I was such a failure and a bad person. That I was never going to be a proper son or brother or friend. Because I couldn't even be what I was supposed to be, let alone what I should become.
Looking back, I can't help thinking about how much of my life I spent living this way; of trying not to repeat the sins of my past. Of not repeating the actions or behaviour that led to those past failures and trauma. Of, in fact, all the effort I put in to not being myself. Because that, I realise now, was what I was trying to do. I was that round peg and trying to hammer myself into the square hole. Because everything I had learnt had taught me to think that this was how I had to be. That this was how you grew. And in so many ways, I can't help feeling angry about this. About the wasted years, about the scars I carry that were never my fault. About the way I was brought up, even though none of it was ever meant, but only ever well-meant.
Something very interesting I accidentally came across while investigating what neurotransmitters are involved in an orgasm (turns out to be basically all of them, but oxytocin and vasopressin are specific to sex, love and friendship):
Demanding professional references from people with neurodivergent brains that make it difficult to maintain contact with former colleagues is ableist.
We are professionals who do good work and work great with people but please don't ask us to maintain social relationships which aren't meaningful to us beyond a reference.
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
The way the autistic "narrow interests" part of my #AuDHD manifest itself is not in the learning department. It's in the motivational department. I have broad lexical knowledge but a narrow ability to perform, especially if sustained effort is needed.
I sound like an encyclopaedia but I need help in everyday life, which I have only started receiving a little bit of in the past year or so. It's just really hard for me to take care of myself, even if the consequences are very bad.
It's a challenge to find a viable career when you're so picky. I worked as a software developer for over a decade, but with repeated burnouts. They kept giving me projects that were too boring to stay motivated. I tried out ADHD drugs to compensate, but they made me unstable, so I had to quit those, and the industry itself.
I can pretend to function like a normal human for a few months while I'm still excited by the novelty of the situation (such as starting school or landing a new job), but once everyday life settles in, things start to get difficult due to the motivational issues.
It has taken me two years to change my bio from "Neurodivergent, apparently" to just "Neurodivergent". Despite being open about my #ASD and #ADHD, the 'apparently' must have been a subconscious way of distancing myself from the diagnosis somehow.
No matter how well I learnt to mask, no matter how well I learnt to get on with people, if not in any deep and meaningful way, at least superficially. There has always been one skill that I have never mastered and that is simply the ability to not upset people and especially without having the slightest idea how.
Or that I didn't for a long time, anyway. It was only when I realised that I was autistic and that the way I looked at the world was in some ways substantively different from the way many allistics looked at the world, that I began to understand something. Allistics tend to find validation externally, through feedback from the group or the part of society that they identify with, whereas autistics tend to find it within themselves, in their own reason and sense of worth and value.
Now I must stress that in many respects this is a generalisation and obviously there will be a lot of variation and degree in how true this is. But in its more extreme forms, it could very well explain many of the experiences and difficulties that I've had.
Because if someone's self-worth, the value they see in their life and actions, is almost entirely based on their interactions with the dynamics of the group they identify with, or the society they live within and not from their own judgement, then this could lead to certain choices and reactions that are quite frankly alien to someone like me and that I could easily end up in conflict with and all without really trying to.
For example, if the value of a child reflects back on its parents. Then in the extreme case the values and behaviour expected from that child, are not those of the child, but of the parents in terms of the group the child is meant to be representing them in and how well it is doing that. So any sense of divergence from that or criticism of that child, no matter how slight that might be, could easily be seen as an attack on the parents and reacted to accordingly, irrespective of how reasonable or just it was.
Equally, of course, worth, praise, or rewards, can also become divorced from any sense of reality. All that matters is that you, whether that's through your children or not, are being valued, not whether there is any justice to it. Because the truth or validity of it, is not based on how you see yourself, but only on how others see you. And in the extreme case, it doesn't even matter how they came to this view, as long as they have it. So worth can become something to be manipulated and played for and how you really are and how you actually feel about yourself becomes almost irrelevant to this process.
That people could even be this way, that everything could become how you're being perceived and anything that effects that negatively can be something to be attacked, is still something that I struggle to understand. It is so foreign to my nature. But, it certainly explains so many of the times that I've upset people, because I wasn't playing this game, or seeing the world the way I should and didn't even realise it.
#Autism#ADHD#AuDHD#ActuallyAutistic
How does everyone know how, when and how much they're masking?
As a late-diagnosed #AuDHD, I struggle to differentiate between "me but masking" and "me but in a diff situation".
Now that I know I'm autistic, I even miss the person I used to be in some situations before I knew.
I used to call myself a "social chameleon" - I just changed automatically to suit the circumstances.
But who actually am I and what is just a mask? @actuallyautistic @actuallyadhd
I tried being kind to myself and allowing myself to be half an hour late to work, as I was tired and still overwhelmed from yesterday. It didn't work out though as just as I arrived at work I had a big migraine and had to come home. Migraines are so strongly linked to overwhelm. It's like they're just another release valve for not coping with sensory input.
As we approach the end of Autism Acceptance Month, here is a reminder that countries like New Zealand will prohibit you from immigrating there if you are autistic.
Psychiatry and other forms of bigotry go hand in hand.