I would appreciate any tips on how to use Mastodon without it causing overwhelm/getting lost in it.
🧠My blend of #neurodivergence has a REAL hard time with this kind of platform (never got Twitter either), but I’m drawn to the community & connection here.
I’m like instantly a confounded 105-year-old when it comes to Mastodon/Twitter 🙃
On learning more about #ADHD, it feels like these traits have become much more prominent than my autism. Lots of forgetfulness, lack of focus, emotional dysregulation etc.
Q: Do lower dopamine levels ‘bring out’ traits?
I’ve shown ADHD traits forever but didn’t realise. @actuallyautistic
I really struggle with binary thinking. It seems so limiting & simplistic to me. And I realise that this is why I get irritated by the “us versus them” critiques of NTs, & the idea that NTs automatically fit everywhere they go in society while we are the differently shaped pegs trying to fit in round holes.
I’ve worked in retail, completed multiple in-person courses & been a teacher. In my first year of teaching, I regularly taught 300 students (and learned nearly all of their names.)
What I’m getting at is that I have had a lot of contact with a lot of people, and while I can’t know what proportion were NT, statistically it makes sense that most were.
Not all people fit perfectly within the societies.
Societies have been created for and by a certain subset of people, who will be NT, but have so many other things in common - race, class, gender, sexuality, values & attitudes… Even within this privileged group of power brokers there will be outliers, people who mask their sexuality, their real gender, or even their neurodivergence. (Yes, many LGBTIQ people are also autistic, but I’m guessing there are some who are NT.) There might even be a few who have managed to gain access in spite of their race, even as they struggle with the discriminatory norms.
And then there’s the rest of society who thrive to varying degrees or not at all depending on how much they differ from those norms… and how useful they might or might not be to the privileged group. Some struggle hard in an attempt to fit in, some reject those norms altogether & live on the edges of society, & I’m guessing that most exist somewhere in the middle, constantly negotiating the conflicts between society’s demands & their own needs & wants.
The extent to which people struggle &/or are rejected by mainstream society will depend on the degree to which a person varies from those norms & the degree to which they are seen as adding value to society.
An NT physically disabled woman of colour in a largely white society will struggle hard. A brilliant autistic white male whose insights are highly valued within his own field if not more widely might do okay, or better than okay. Yes he’ll still have his personal struggles, but society is less likely to make this struggles worse, or to a lesser degree, than for the disabled woman of colour.
Our struggles as neurodivergent people are real, challenging & exhausting. Our physical & mental health are affected as a result. Such struggles are aggravated
for many of us by intersectional issues around gender, sexuality, race, religion etc.
Maybe we are square pegs, or triangular. And maybe many NTs are oval shaped, or simply not quite round. But I suspect that only a small, select proportion of people are perfectly round & of the perfect size to comfortably fit in those round holes. @actuallyautistic#ActuallyAutistic#ADHD#AuADHD
Call for papers - ‘Intersectional and Critical #ADHD Thought: ADHDers Think Back’, for a special issue of the Canadian Journal of Disability Studies. [ETA: The abstract deadline has been EXTENDED till 25th Feb 2024.] The editors are seeking critical intersectional papers that “‘think back’, explicitly or implicitly, against medical and denialist models of ADHD.”
“At this point, it is fair to conclude that ADHD Studies is an acritical and non intersectional field, produced by non-ADHDers. What we need is critical and intersectional ADHD knowledge produced by ADHDers themselves.”
Submissions are welcomed from academics, PhD students and activists. See the CfP for a great list of topics, from “Trans-ing while ADHD-ing: questions for intersectional justice,” to critical approaches to ADHD and religious faith.
Am I the only person to notice that CBS News showed an advertisement for Autism Speaks today, during national news at 4PM PT? I live in SF Bay Area, and I’m not sure if this was just from local KPIX. I do certainly plan to reach out and raise their attention to the harm this group causes.
🧵 1/7 I’ve been here so many times before. Super excited and engaged on a task or event, particularly one that is coming in the future. I plan. I organize. I prepare. But somewhere along the way, perhaps right up to the moment of it actually happening, I run out of steam …
🧵 1/5 As I introspect on my Autism and how it’s impacted my life, I am forced to consider my sexual explorations starting around age 10 and the social awkwardness that’s always been present. Before, I concluded that it was a function of my introversion and being closeted.
I am working on a revised cover for Late-Identified AuDHD: A Beginner's Workbook (retitled 2nd edition). I've been repeatedly advised that using a dyslexic-friendly font in my work is unprofessional. Well, I am a professional with dyslexia... and the use of dyslexia-friendly fonts is a professional choice. Hard line.
@rebekka_m The 1st ed of the Late-Identified #AuDHD workbook is available right now! I released it in early 2023 for adults with a late identification or late diagnosis of #autism & #ADHD —place to start putting the pieces together. Available at most online booksellers:
On Christmas eve, I started dating someone on the spectrum. I think it's the first time I date an autistic woman. And it's so much easier than dating NTs! No subtext, no guessing, no masking. Everything is told to the other in a straightforward manner and it's so simple!
There are some quirks to be addressed as we don't have the same specific needs and some are in conflict, but overall, it's the easiest relationship I've ever been in! @actuallyautistic
Thought. I have always run warm. I do feel the cold, but not as much as most people. I hate (detest?) overheated department stores. This got worse with the onset of perimenopause, & I was unable to wear jumpers for years, because I couldn’t get them off quickly enough during hot flushes, which threatened spontaneous combustion. This settled somewhat after finally going on HRT.
I’ve noticed a change since going on ADHD meds. I now wear winter pjs on a “cool” summers night, & a nightie on warmer ones & am more likely to don a jacket of an evening.
Hello #UK#ADHD peoples....
My GP has given me an Adult "ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS-v1.1) Symptom Checklist" as part of trying to get medication prescribed.
Some questions ask about social interactions, but my answers will be impacted by my ASC1 ( #Aspergers ) traits (Questions 15, 17 and 18 just seem like they would be too rude to do.)
Is that likely to impact my NHS diagnosis? #ActuallyAutistic#Autism @actuallyadhd @actuallyautistic
The phrase "burnt out former gifted kid" has always given me the ick, but there are unique challenges/issues/traumas related to that experience that tend to come up in #autistic discussions and I've never encountered a good description.
Proposal for a slightly less icky alternative:
✨ burnt out former high achiever ✨
In the recent months I had a really strong hyperfixation on #autism and posting a lot to the @actuallyautistic and consuming every toot. The recent days I got catched up by an older hf, because I stumbled over the adventofcode and now I am diving in learning rust. Although that is quite occupying my mind, I guess it is a good sign that I am quite settled with the autism topic.
Another sign for it is how I dealt with my recent experience of joining a online meeting of a local autism group.
@actuallyautistic
I am also not that stressed about the problems that come with official ASD diagnosis and the bad reputation my local autism ambulance has. I will check out alternatives, but it's not that urgent anymore. At least I will be officially evaluated for #ADHD in some weeks by my psychotherapist. So at least one part of the process is set up, which is nice.
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?
@poloniousmonk@actuallyautistic I have ADHD and I cannot deal with life if I don’t have a bottle of water (refilled glass not plastic filled with water purchased at the store) on me at all times.
I sought medical attention a few years ago when I realized I couldn’t work out in the morning because I had to stop to pee like six times every hour. I was totally freaked out when my doctor told me that urinating every two hours is normal. I go so many more times than that.
For me, I eventually determined that it was my ADHD medication. It’s not a side effect from the medication I think what is happening is that the additional dopamine in my body is stimulating my kidneys, so in addition to the water that I sip off of all day long, I think that’s the problem. I even tested it by skipping medication and noting that once the morning coffee drinking is over I don’t have the urgency and frequency that I do when I take Adderall.
It’s really annoying because the days I take my medication are the days that I have to do some thing that requires focus and attention, or enough energy to drive my car for a couple hours, and those are exactly the times I don’t want to stop to use the bathroom every 15 minutes.
There’s a medication that they give to old people in nursing homes, it starts with an H. It REALLY works, but it made my bladder HURT so badly I can’t even take a half dose. (Hyoscyamine I think) but, if I remember correctly, that doesn’t solve the constantly drinking issue. But I’m not really looking to solve that problem. I actually like that I drink water all day long. I just wish it didn’t rush out of me like it does.
#SafeFood#samefoods
I just learned in a ND FB group that runny egg sandwiches are a common consumable.
I am fascinated AND my toes are curling to hide from extra sensory information.
I love a hot over easy egg to dip my butter diagonally cut toast into… and isn’t this basically a disassembled sandwich? 😶 My toes, which aren’t even involved, disagree. @actuallyautistic@Adhdinos#actuallyautistic#adhd#audhd
I've been thinking about gamifying the process of making new friends in my city. Kind of like a #LARP but your character is just yourself, and you earn points for showing up to small group events. Extra points for helping organize gatherings and coming up with creative ideas for people to get to know each other better.
...I've been thinking about this for over a year, maybe someday I'll have enough energy to actually start it.
Still trying to figure out who in my family is neurodivergent and how.
Seems like there is a pattern emerging: If both parents are neurodivergent, chances for the kids to be is at almost 100%. If only one parent is, chances seem to be about 50/50.
Anyone know if there are actual studies on that or is there just not enough data from past generations?
@looneybyron@pathfinder This gets me to wondering though… if indeed #neurodivergence is inherited and not recessive, then won’t it quickly become the new normative expectation? Seems like #evolution to me… 😁