@Susan60@actuallyautistic I don’t get the text messages, but I get lots of spam calls every day. My phone used to never ring, but then my business changed to an LLC and now I get so many sales calls and scam calls I had to set it to silence unknown callers.
@eo@actuallyautistic Many people have thought I’m stuck up and/or have something wrong with me because I’m silent in groups of people. I go mute and don’t talk. Especially in large groups of allistics.
I've no plans for today, and I'll be alone. My roommate is going to a friend's for Thanksgiving. Don't worry, my #ActuallyAutistic self is perfectly happy alone, and honestly I prefer to avoid holiday celebrations.
I hope you have a grand day no matter your plans, or lack thereof.
@janetlogan@actuallyautistic I’m by myself today too. I put up Christmas decorations and now I’m making very non-thanksgiving foods. I hope you have a pleasant holiday!
Hello @ActuallyAutisic community! This is my first post here. I'm exploring my possible neurodivergence late in life (my awareness of this has been raised via my psychotherapy training).
I've always known that I like routine. But this week, I am aware that because my routine is very disrupted on two days, I cannot focus, I'm feeling extremely anxious, I forgot the changes/implications of the changes and messed up my schedule. I am generally very strict about putting things in my diary and somehow I let that slip and my life has become a mess! :bd08: . Anyone identify?
@helenstlouis@actuallyautistic I am incredibly rigid with my routines. It helps me live in a well-made and well-structured bubble where I thrive instead of struggle. I can’t handle when any part of my routine changes. I barely leave my apartment and see no one, but I like it that way. No one is welcome in my apartment lol. Allows me to live in a well controlled bubble. Although my extreme version of rigid routine is partly the overcontrolled coping. Makes me good at being an entrepreneur though
Loves books but does not have the mental stamina to sit and read a book from start to finish for hours on end. So instead consumes short-form content online for hours and hours.
@AutisticAdam@actuallyautistic I consume about half the book and then it feels agonizing trying to finish the remainder of the book. My kindle is full of half-read books.
When people invite you to dinner/movie.. the chances are the activity is just an excuse to meet up and the real objective is to socialise. I find this endearing, for years I didn’t know this.
I used to automatically assume that the suggested activity was the main purpose of a meet-up. I thought an invitation to dinner meant that the predominant point of focus was the FOOD, or an invitation to watch a movie meant the MOVIE was the centrepiece of the night.
@AutisticAdam@actuallyautistic I thought it was about the food or movie or whatever activity is going on. If I invited someone to go with me somewhere it’s because I want to do the thing and I think they might also enjoy the thing, but it never occurred to me they see it as a socializing.
It's a tough truth to face up to, but not every Autstic/neurodivergent person is a good person. Many of us find out the hard way that there are members of our own community who will do harm to us collectively and individually.
It's important that we acknowledge the truth that we can always do better as a community. We don't have to be perfect. We just have to do a little better each day.
@DivergentDumpsterPhoenix@actuallyautistic@autisticadvocacy@audhd I had to learn all this the hard way. Ex-girlfriend is autistic and it was like seeing the dark side of autism with her. I had nightmares about her for weeks. The people in the past who demonized me and made me a public enemy and were determined to make my store go out of business were fellow autistics. We are all humans and some people have good hearts and some don’t, autistic or not.
Autistic people can be excluded from so many places and abandoned by so many people and then be criticised for spending so much time alone and doing things (by) themselves.
It’s giving “I don’t want to help you, and I don’t want you to help yourself either” energy.
@AutisticAdam@actuallyautistic Story of my life and current reality. I don’t really want to hang out with the people I know in real life anyways. No sense hanging out with unsupportive people. I have 3 friends in real life (+ my dad) and they all live in other states, so it’s always just me and my cats.
@JeremyMallin@actuallyautistic I always had problems at being great at interviews by masking my way through it, then they hire me and I can’t keep up masking for more than 15 min, so after starting the job I’d revert back to my real self and get fired for being different than the person they thought they hired. I wasn’t lying about my experience I was just bubbly and extroverted seeming. Made me good at sales though.
Once you realized you were autistic, did you encounter overwhelming and overloading situations that you remembered "dealing" with much better before you learned you were autistic? Like learning you were autistic somehow changed how you processed these kinds of situations?
I'd love to (and frankly, need to) hear your stories. Please share if you're comfortable 💚🙏
@dave@actuallyautistic I found out I’m autistic when I was 35. My aunt told my dad and then he told me. She’s qualified to say so. It was a big world of wow I make sense now the more I learned about autistic-ness. Despite being physically disabled, I’m fortunate I was able to create my perfect sensory environment where I could thrive. It’s quiet where I live. Little in person human interaction. Work for myself. I couldn’t survive in job situations. I thrive with autonomy though.
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.
@var@actuallyautistic Mine started with an idea. I was very lost in life before I started my business. Just kind of figured things out as I went along. Ran my autistic store on the side as an effort of love. It took me 2 years of running my store before I figured out what I want to do with my life. Now I’ve grown such a love for e-commerce that next I want to have 5 stores and structured my business so I can have as many stores as I want. Took me 2 years to get to that.
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.
I spent that thanksgiving with my loops earplugs in, and also hiding. Then I ate all my food in 4 separate quadrants on my plate and baffled at how they could eat a pile of food on their plates like that.