holyramenempire

poloniousmonk, 6 months ago to actuallyautistic

@actuallyautistic

Does anyone else drink a lot? Not booze, just fluids. For someone who barely feels hunger or discomfort, I'm always drinking and pissing. I've always assumed it was something medical and undiagnosed, but maybe it's an autist thing. Thoughts?

sahat, 6 months ago to actuallyautistic

dear fellow neurodivergents
I am a bit troubled by all the anxiety- laden posts from people, who fear the holidays as a time, where their boundaries will be overstepped, resulting in stress with all kinds of negative mental emotional and physical consequences.
Do enforce your healthy boundaries. It's self love as well as survival. If your family and friends don't support you doing this, run for the hills.

If we don't take our human rights as neurodifferent people seriously , then who will? If we don't know what is good for us, then who will? If we don't create social inclusion, than who will?
Just saying. I'm the mum of one such person who is able to suffer a lot, wanting to be included and is learning how to accommodate himself and his nervous system, understanding that boudnaries are a matter of survival for the hyperempath. And I am one such person myself. So I have two different angles on it. Don't allow tradition or want for closeness to crash your boundaries.The double bind of being alone while keeping them intact or being "included" while suffering, must be broken. By us.
I would like for there to be many proud and self- caring autistics that show the world the exact and true profile of what inclusion really looks like and where it begins.
I know it's most difficult with family. But it's also extremely rewarding, to at least tackle this. Just bear with me, I couldn't suppress the mother-duck instinct. There was pain seeping out of the posts I have been reading. Don't accept anything that puts you into such a state.
Just don't. It's not necessary. Question it. If you do this, you will also help the whole social unit progress in their understanding.
@actuallyautistic

magicalgrrrl, 6 months ago to random

#ActuallyAutistic community!

How do I make friends as an adult? I'm new to my area and don't have any local friends or community. Have been struggling with loneliness a lot lately.

holyramenempire, 7 months ago to actuallyautistic

This is kind of a half-baked thought, but one of the reasons children of abusive or neglectful parents have such a hard time having self-worth is that when other people treat you like something is wrong with you, by withholding care, you start to believe it. You're a logical, sensible person, so everyone else must also have reasons for what they do, therefore withholding care from you has to have a reason. No one's telling you the reason, so it must be something REALLY bad.

But for #ActuallyAutistic folks, aren't most of us treated like that by the whole of society, not just our parents? We are fundamentally not supported, even by the most well-meaning non-autistic people. We are treated like a problem to be solved. To me, it amounts to a withholding of care that signals to us "You're not wanted." No wonder so many of us are sick and suicidal, you know?

@actuallyautistic

theautisticcoach, 7 months ago to actuallyautistic

What’s been the most important thing you’ve learned about yourself during your #ActuallyAutistic journey?

#AskingAutistics @actuallyautistic

theautisticcoach, 7 months ago to actuallyautistic

What does autistic liberation look like to you?

#ActuallyAutistic #AskingAutistics @actuallyautistic

masukomi, 7 months ago to actuallyautistic

A nice little TickTok about finding joy in someone else's Special Interest, even if it's really not your thing.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8Sqeq92/

I think this is something most #ActuallyAutistic folks "just get" but that Allistic people constantly struggle with. The end result being Austistic people can frequently only talk about the thing they're passionate about with other autistics, or other people with the same Special Interest.

1/2

@actuallyautistic

Sci_Fi_FanGirl, 7 months ago to actuallyautistic German

Can anyone relate?

Usually, I'm very self-conscious. But it happens from time to time, that I'm in a state of (work) flow and feel rather good about myself. Then, I'm more likely to engage in various conversations. Because I feel good, I might overshare, give advice, over-estimate my abilities or be silly. Consequently, I feel ashamed about my "outburst" and wish to never see any of them ever again. (Repeat cycle)

@actuallyautistic

holyramenempire, 7 months ago to random

I love this study. It emphasizes how vital written communication is to autistic people. (If your business or service requires a phone call or an in-person interaction, it's not accessible to us.)

Also, it's the kind of research we need more of: not about how to "fix" us, but about what we want, and who we are. There are still people out there who think that we can't even have our own opinions, that we're just parroting what we've been told. There are still people out there who believe autism is a learning disability or a disease!

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/13623613211014995

theautisticcoach, 8 months ago to actuallyautistic

How did my #ActuallyAutistic comrades understand that they're autistic?

How old were you?

@actuallyautistic

CynAq, 9 months ago to actuallyautistic

My biggest disagreement with life in general, and I now believe this is the fundamental difference between how my brain operates and how the average NT brain does, is how things are prioritized.

In my brain, things are prioritized per their material utility. If something has immediate utility, a visible benefit to someone, or if it's solving a pressing problem, they are on top of the importance list. It may sound like a callous way to put it but health related, life saving action is categorized in the "high material utility" bin for my brain.

In addition to this prioritization, I also tend to equate difficulty of a task with its perceived importance. "If something is very important, then the stakes must be high also" my brain says. On the flipside, if I know something is trivial to accomplish physically, it's not "important" in my brain.

In the life made by NTs for NTs, most "very important" things are trivial to the extreme. Bureaucratic paperwork, deadlines, remembering birthdays, most jobs are just mindless busywork to me, with no perceived importance whatsoever, but somehow they seem potent enough to stop the world in its tracks for the majority of people.

This creates enormous stress for me, and is responsible for most of my burnouts in my 50 year life. The dichotomy between my sense of priority and that of the world around me.

When I was still in my PhD program, the work I did, the information I and my team uncovered were the priority for me. The integrity of the work was paramount. Increasingly, through the feedback I received from my advisor, I started feeling like something was wrong and the real thing to focus on should have been how I marketed my research and my efforts rather than the work and the results themselves. This led to my burnout and me leaving before I defended my dissertation.

I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts on this topic. Do you also think your version of what's important is fundamentally different than the world's?

#ActuallyAutistic @actuallyautistic