Sorry I can’t come to the phone right now. I’m autistic and simply not good at calls. Please call back literally never. Texts and emails exist for a reason.
The autistic urge to spend hours deciding which music to listen to for a particular event or situation, because any music you listen to must fit your mood, the vibe, the pace, the weather and the season.
@AutisticAdam@actuallyautistic I miss Spotify for this, I had folders of playlists so that it didn’t take too much time to find something that fit my mood. I also had sort of random playlists.
Autistic people are often stereotyped as treating people like objects, but what if - for many of us - it is actually the other way around: we love and appreciate our objects so much that we treat them like they’re people?
Autistic hyperfocus can be a blessing for me that enables me to catch-up whenever I veer off track because of delayed processing, sensory overload and/or shutdowns. It is the calm in every storm and allows me to be simultaneously mindfully lost and intensely present.
It helps me to be told exactly when instructions and processes apply (and I’ll often ask if this is not volunteered), because without this info I’ll either never follow them again or follow them every single time, and usually neither of these are the intended or optimal path.
Policing the normativity of another persons body movements is not psychologically healthy. Stop telling us to move less or more. Stop doubting my autism just because I'm not like somebody else. I can pace, fidget, stare, quote my favorite quotes, stumble with words, and yet none of it measures my sanity or heart.
@AutisticAdam@actuallyautistic Exactly! Furthermore, stop trying to be an armchair doctor when you're wholly unqualified to even give an opinion, much less weigh in on whether or not I am autistic.
Don't tell me everyone is a 'little bit autistic' until you're able to demonstrate what it feels like to feel completely wiped put by a simple task that plays against all of your needs. No, it's not everyone is a little averse to change. It's a complete unravelling of my reality.
You are NOT a burden. Just because your brain is telling you so doesn't make it true. Your brain is lying to you. Your existence is not burdensome... and you. are. deserving.
It's important to remember that your worth is not determined by how someone else perceives you aswell.
You are deserving of love and support. You matter.
Over-explain things to avoid any potential miscommunication because you’ve felt misunderstood your entire life. It’s important to you that everyone knows exactly where you’re coming from at all times.
Repeating yourself and got to the point a long time ago but you can’t help but reiterate it all. You’ve had many bad past experiences that you will do whatever your brain deems necessary to avoid the possibility of someone misinterpreting what you were saying.
@AutisticAdam@actuallyautistic I definitely do this. Feels like if I don’t give every little detail and as accurate as possible then I’m not telling the full truth and don’t want to accidentally lie. Since I was a kid if I was quoting something I heard or that someone said to me, I had to say it verbatim or I thought I would be lying.
I didn’t know what a lie was until I was 10 years old, so I got a little extra worried I would accidentally not tell the whole truth if I wasn’t exact.
A big part of being autistic for me is being very intentional with my word choices in order to say what I mean and mean what I say.
To follow that up I then start having a bunch of people claim I said something I absolutely did not because they chose to add additional meanings they made up themselves.
@me@actuallyautistic@AutisticAdam@halfbit_ And that.... sounds like the Socratic method. It helps you not make bold statements that polarize the room, and you get to have the joy of leading others to see the (possible) contradictions or faults in their reasoning. With the side benefit of you getting to understand where they get their ideas from.
When an autistic person is overwhelmed by something, it could be because they don’t understand it, but it could also be because they understand the matter very well but feel overwhelmed by the amount of executive function, energy, time and focus that the task requires.
Finding out that I have spent my life scripting things to say just to make other people happy and make social interactions go "smoothly" at the cost of my own mental health, personal integrity, and self-identity is an masked Autistic experience.
@exme@AutisticAdam@actuallyautistic I think an “I’m not very good at small talk. Can we talk about …” might work better. The initial “you” would come across as an attack.
@exme@bike@hamlin81@AutisticAdam@actuallyautistic Oh dear. I forget the names of a friend’s friends, with whom I have little in common. They’ll greet me with a “hello Susan”, & I’m thinking, which one are you again?
When people hear “autistic people don’t like change” they think we mean cancelled events or moving house.
Both true - but it’s much wider. Friendship changes. Loss. Sometimes it’s other things, like being disconcerted by objects being moved. Even changing of seasons.
@AutisticAdam@actuallyautistic I find it very hard when I lose trees from my close neigbourhood. They are not my trees, so I can't decide not to log them down. But it takes me years to get over any trees that are suddenly lost.
@AutisticAdam@actuallyautistic or in my case-
Extended family:- you are rude and Weird…
Me:- I am ADHD and autistic. Different not wrong.
Them:- stop interrupting me
Me:- Sorry, I am ADHD
Them:- you are so rude
Me:- Info dumping
Them:- Shut up about x
Me:- Sorry, I am autistic it is how I communicate
Them:- you are so rude. Continues talking about sport.
Me:-
Me:-
Me:-
Them:- why are you ignoring me. You are so rude
Me:- 😟