I’m fed up of fumbling in the dark regarding my suspected #autism so as someone still awaiting an assessment, I turn to my fellow #ActuallyAutistic folk for advice.
What’s the first place I should look to understand all of this? Is there a website or book that helped you as you started exploring your own condition? I regularly use the above hashtags but I feel like I’m stumbling around in the dark, not knowing what to look for. If your advice is UK-based, that would be perfect. Thanks! 🙏🏻
@benjamincox This is such a great question. I’m tagging the group tag @actuallyautistic so that your post (asking how autistic people explored their autism) gets seen by a few more people.
I’m in the UK and discovered I’m autistic in 2021. I stumbled across the idea that I’m autistic by joining a university webinar about neurodiversity, which I knew nothing about beforehand. (I thought it would be about neuroscience!) That webinar had staff and students from all around my uni talking about their first-person experiences of being autistic (and/or: ADHD, dyslexic, etc). That obviously worked well for me to start me off on this journey.
Might be worth considering what format you’d like to learn about (your) autism. Live webinars, videos, books, blogs, social media conversations, podcasts, in-person chats with other autistics… the options are endless. I could reel off a few ideas for each one, but there’s a lot!
I was initially drawn to learning from other autistics who shared a similar characteristic to me. For example, female and/or similar age and/or a university student, etc. Starting this way helped in the early days of learning about myself. For example, I enjoyed Katherine May’s autobiographical book, The Electricity of Every Living Thing. For tonnes of other books related to autism by autistic authors, have a browse through this amazing resource: https://autismbooksbyautisticauthors.com
I also enjoy listening to / watching interviews with autistic people talking about their general life experiences. Could be podcasts, YouTube videos, webinars, etc. Sometimes these have a tendency to oversimplify things, but I find it reassuring watching someone speak about it all.
Social media has been a massive resource for me too. I love following the hashtag #ActuallyAutistic - the group tag I used above works a bit better on Mastodon but does the same thing. (You need to follow the @actuallyautistic account and then you will see automatically boosted points that tag it). I followed people’s social media conversations and asked my own questions of the online community this way, too. I also followed people who post a lot about autism - especially autistic advocates of autism, authors, etc. There may be more of these on other social media networks like Instagram or LinkedIn now. The above hashtag is a great way to find them anywhere (but doesn’t work quite so well on Mastodon).
I also used my university account to download and read a lot of research papers on various aspects of autism. This worked for me because I’ve been studying an adjacent field with some overlaps, so I was putting what I learned in my degree to good use! I craved scientific knowledge and this really helped. It’s not for everyone, though.
For UK specific things: I love whatever Pete Wharmby shares. His books are great, and other things he shared too like posts on LinkedIn / elsewhere (sadly not on Mastodon), YouTube videos. I really relate to his way of describing things. Finding people with similar experiences to you can help unpack those experiences. After that, I recommend exploring and listening to input from the wider autistic community because you might realise we share something in common: that we’re all so unique that no one has the exact same experiences as any other. At first I found this fed my imposter syndrome, but now I want to celebrate it more and more.
For a compassion-filled view of autism by The World’s Friendliest and Loveliest Autistic Autism Researcher (ok, he PROBABLY is this, but there’s a bit of competition! Lots are friendly & lovely!), check out Dr Luke Beardon’s books. He is based at Sheffield Uni and runs a Masters course about autism, and has had lots of praise from autistic students who he has supervised. His words have helped me be kinder to my autistic self and understand myself better at the same time. Slim books in plain language.
If there’s a specific aspect of autism you’re wanting help understanding or a type of resource or anything else more specific, just let me know and I’ll see if I can suggest some things. 💗 Hope this helps, though.
yes, come join us over here on the Actually Autistic side of mastodon!! we have cake! 🍰 (or whatever your safe foods are! ) you don't have to be alone. welcome welcome!
Just because you send me malware after some text I wanted to read (in http response), don’t give you rights to force me to execute the malware.
Just because I have your book (or page) and look at part of it doesn’t give you the right to force me to read it in full or dictate how I’m reading it.
I have every right to reveal/read only part of the book/page. We didn’t sign any agreement, if you want me to first look at the part you want to or agree to some license nothing stopping you to do, stuff like paywall or subscription exists…
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@argumento please donate to me.. i cant afford hrt at all.. i can barely afford food.. i need urgent help.. please donate to me instead of harris.. i need money urgently.. i am disabled and i need urgent help now because the government and my family have failed me.. please help me.. i need urgent donations please..
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ok fullscreening on my linux mint install seems kinda buggy :| but at least i confirmed that steamworks/steam achievements are working for kitsune tails linux native
@eniko if you haven't done anything special to make it possible for the game to go in fullscreen, but it does work to an extent. it's often safe to assume it's a problem with the desktop environment. in which case it's probably not a problem on your end.
the only way to confirm that is by testing other desktop environments.
which is pretty easy to do.
installing multiple desktop environments on one system is usually not recommended because they all have their own file managers, image viewers, text editors, etc. so you'll end up with a lot of applications that serve the same purpose and default application settings (what file extension to open with which application) get messy. but in a case like this that doesn't really matter.
sudo apt install gnome-shell plasma-dekstop should install both Gnome and KDE Plasma.
They also have their own "display managers" (login screens), most distros will ask the user which they want to use. I don't think it matters which one you choose, they can both be used for both desktops. In GDM (gnome display manager) there will be a button with a gear icon in the corner of the screen before selecting your user. Clicking it will allow you to select the desktop environment you want to use. SDDM (simple desktop display manager) does something similar
some distros will show some desktops twice, once with x11 and once with wayland (unless you're using GDM with nvidia).
if you use an nvidia GPU, choose x11. if not, it doesn't matter which one you choose.
for as far as i'm aware, nvidia drivers for wayland aren't great. though that might have changed.
if i recall correctly, FNA uses SDL. SDL supports both x11 and wayland, so it's not something you need to worry about. if it works on one, it should work on the other
Maybe I should try Emacs, the problem is, it's made to be use with the gui client, and I like my terminal apps better, as they work over ssh and in a tty if I need them too, I know emacs has a tui version but that's not the main way to use it afaik
there is no main way to use it. the tui version is perfectly fine.
pretty sure the gui version is just some kind of wrapper around the tui version, many ui elements are just text
@Haijo7 Oh ? okay thanks for the explanation, I remember someone (i don't remember who) saying that it was mean to be used with the gui client, granted it was doom emacs