✅ Are you an adult that suspects you have #autism spectrum disorder (#ASD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (#ADHD )?
✅ Are you still trying to identify your traits and describe your experiences to access support?
Once a week, I pull a lateral move and go for a walk without notice cancelling close-back headphones, and, when taken in in small doses, the sonic assault of the urban cacophony can be almost enjoyed for its complexity, like a pinball for mindfulness.
I put #AuDHD in my profile recently. Lightly touching the #autism spectrum and very definitely #ADHD, but self diagnosed because I can’t get assessed here (Fife, Scotland). Mental health services are stretched and people like me are subject to a post code lottery meaning services vary widely by region and my region is very limited. What services they provide have to go to people with way more difficulties than me. I would have to pay a significant fee to be tested and there’s no money to spare for that.
I started looking into it about a year ago and joining the fediverse, seeing what other people were posting about and doing some tests recommended by others which showed up my tendencies as not being neurotypical.
Have dyscalculia, misophonia, probably dysgraphia, sensory issues with certain textures (the feeling of foam rubber or sweeping brush bristles on concrete can make me curl up and wail hysterically 😂) Sound and smell, taste sensitivities as well. All of this was completely missed in my school years - ‘78-‘89.
At school, according to educators, I was a lazy dreamer. I exhibit most of the classic ADHD tendencies.
I’ve wrestled with saying these things out loud, because who gets diagnosed or just discovers/realises this in their 50s!? Looks around 👀 OH! Plenty of us it seems.
There are, sadly, plenty of doubters around, but they’re not worth listening to. I’m dropping that kind of negativity like a hot stone these days.
Re reading Katherine May's wonderful essay on #autism from the inside. She says:
'The DSM's descriptors [read like] a colonial narrative. They fail to grasp the challenging aspects of autistic experience, & pathologise the positive ones.' #OoohYeah
This essay is a great intro to our experience & how it's routinely misunderstood. Useful for giving to family & friends. Recommend. @actuallyautistics
Opinions on this YouTuber? I'm hearing a lot from him that feels very relevant to my recent #SelfDX as an #ActuallyAutistic person. This video is ringing bells for me too. There are things that I've always done, that are apparently #stimming ?
The Importance of Stimming for LATE Diagnosed Autistic People
Having one of those days when I wonder how different my life might have been had my #autism & #ADHD been diagnosed much (much) earlier...
It sometimes feels a bit like heaving myself breathless over a marathon finishing line long after others have completed it, only to find that I was shlepping an anvil behind me that could have so easily been offloaded, if only I'd known. @actuallyautistic#audhd
But I also wonder whether I might not have been held back by knowing I was dragging an anvil and others weren’t rather than just assuming dragging an anvil was what we all have to do and getting really good at anvil dragging.
Anyone familiar with the S.E.P. drive from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?
I think all this "social lubricant" allistics use is the social equivalent to that, and a lot of the social anxiety that we #ActuallyAutistc people feel is that we can actually see and feel this S.E.P. field (and through it).
We end up right about most of what we read and predict, but we're told we're wrong.
Constant gaslighting will make anyone feel what we feel.
Stability in recovery requires more than abstinence. It requires support in all domains of life.
Autistic people, in particular, are more likely to struggle with social deprivation, and for us to achieve recovery and/or sobriety, we need support that takes account of the unique challenges that we face.
Making new friends can be difficult. It can seem even more insurmountable when you are on the autistic spectrum. 11-year-old Alex knows one or two things about it. He really doesn’t like change. Change can be terrifying. Alex thinks that having a friend will greatly help him, but how will he meet someone before school begins ?
#AskingAutistics Does telling an allistic person you're #autisticever help improve communication? Over and over, I let people know I'm autistic in hopes it will help, but it never makes things better. It seems like no one wants to do the reading, or to make an effort to even meet me halfway. The main reactions I get when I disclose fall into these categories:
Ignore it entirely and just keep on like I'm not autistic.
Say I'm nothing like their 10 year old nephew who has #autism.
Assume that since we're friends it doesn't matter, because friendship is magic and will enable me to "overcome my autism" with them if I am just motivated enough, and if they aren't special enough for me to do that then I don't really value them as a friend.
Give advice on how I can mask better for their comfort and convenience, like I haven't spent my whole life becoming expert on that.
Try to be accommodating without taking the time to learn what is helpful and what is just going to make things worse.
Infantilize me and treat me like a child or an intellectually disabled person.
Give up on me because autistic people are too hard to deal with.
No reaction, because most people don't know anything about autism. They don't even understand that I'm doing all the work to bridge the communication gap, or that they could do anything to help, or even cut me some slack when I fail.
I do have a couple allistic friends who accommodate me enough to maintain a decent relationship, but they are rare and special. And we had somehow worked that out before I knew I was #ActuallyAutistic even, so telling them still didn't change much.
Has anyone had communication improve by telling someone you're autistic? Or is that just a fantasy?
@joshsusser No, I haven’t found telling people I’m #autistic improves communication due to a poor general public understanding of #autism —or the breadth of what the term encompasses. Instead, if I need to have this conversation, I will focus it around my specific communication needs or traits. #AuDHD @actuallyautistic#actuallyautistic
Late-Identified #AuDHD A Starter Workbook—beginner's tool for adults—has been out for 6 months! Check it out, & if you already have, consider leaving a review. Thank you!
✅ Do you suspect you have #autism spectrum disorder (#ASD) & attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (#adhd )
✅ Are you still trying to identify your traits & describe your experiences to access support?
Conclusive "proof" that #Autism & #ADHD are significant disabilities, from an unlikely source.
If you wanted to play an average #AudHD character in GURPS you'd have to take the following Disadvantages: "Absent-indedness", "Partial Amnesia", "Confused", "Gullibility", "Honesty", "Light Sleeper", "Klutz", "Social Stigma" and optionally "No Sense of Humor", and / or "Cannot Speak"
On the upside, you'll get 70-115 points to spent on Advantages!
I don't like folks making money off my autism. And I don't enjoy transactional social relationships... especially those masquerading as some noble purpose.
I usually just block. But I'm getting sick of it.
This morning's DM finally brought this response from me.
"Honestly I don't try freemium apps that don't outline features for trial, paid, and free versions.
"I understand the value to you of any user's trial... marketing, user data, beta testing.
"I need to understand the value to me.
"That said, it sounds like a valuable app. Wish you luck."
And removed our connection.
Have some sensitivity when marketing to disabled folks, shall we?
Btw, no answer from neurodiverse huckster. Probably busy posting hundreds of DMs to y'all.
@actuallyautistic @audhd @adhd #Ptsd and #autism / #adhd
Often getting mixed up, indiscernible sometimes even to ourselves.
I don't believe that we are any less resilient compared to NT. I believe that we have to deal with two things, not one, without the support that NTpeople may feel.
I believe we have to get to the bottom of the things that trouble us, in order to feel healed. We feel compelled to be creating a maelstrom in our mindbodyconciousness, that draws in every part of the world we know, everything we are, until we have everything questioned, taken apart, because we feel that everything is affected, everything must change in order to heal the wound of whatever trauma we may have experienced. That's a lot of work. We tend to be bad at containing it, leaving all the other aspects of out life's experience where they are. I believe it's related to sensitivity and hyperconnected brain. And to the outsider view of ND people.
If I hold in one hand the effort of what we are trying to do, in order to heal , and in the other the symptoms of suffering and stress that we display, I believe they are evenly matched. Not every NT will see this picture and we may have trouble understanding ourselves . We may find it hard to create the necessary self- love without this understanding being reflected onto us.
I am actually finding us to be remarkably resilient. Going and going, until we have digested all of that huge vortex, changed our whole consciousness and created a whole different reality.👍 :bd243: