I don’t have nostalgia. I don’t miss places. I may remember them vividly, and love something about them, and hold it dear in my heart, but when I leave - I don’t want to come back.
Actually, I feel rather bad if for some reason I have to. Because the place has already changed. Because I have already changed. Because we’re out of sync now(if we ever were). Because I don’t belong. And seeing that hurts actually way more than just not returning.
Maybe it has something to do with the lack of object permanence. Maybe it is more about that autistic refusal to accept the reality which differs from expectations. Inside, I feel like a kid having a meltdown in the middle of the shopping mall because the toy they got was not 100% what they imagined it was going to be. No place is what you remember when you return after leaving. Maybe that’s the reason.
Is it something other #neurodivergent people also experience often? Do you feel nostalgic often or refuse to get back?
You know what's great to learn at 38, right before bedtime one night, after a whole life time of struggle...
That your mother traumatized you with ADHD to the point where actually pushing myself against ADHD is a trigger... making it so no amount of coping skills can help me push myself for any real length of time...
I'd try and do something that requires a push, even a little one... and be crying... and I thought it was just the feeling of hitting my dopamine... but nooooo... now I'm unpacking that it was me getting triggered at the feeling of pushing my reserves at all...
That explains so damn much and makes me feel so damn hurt and angry...
I was forced to push myself so far so often as a kid and she didn't ever relent when I was critically over-extended on dopamine... usually around cleaning. I'm remembering so many times crying and sobbing on the floor because she demanded I clean to an extreme standard and I wasn't allowed to do anything else until I met her approval...
And I've been running my whole life fucking kneecapped by this... I thought I just had it worse than most (with ADHD) on my ability to push myself on tasks... but no... it's because I realize now I can't fucking push myself at all because my fucking brain just jumps straight to that extreme pain and trauma right away...
Now I'm fucking crying when I should be trying to sleep...
Speaking of joking.
When I was young, pretty often when I wanted to make a joke, I was too embarrassed to do that personally, so instead of joking directly, I’d add “as one of my friends says…”, or “as I’ve read recently…”(obviously, there were no friend and no book, it was just some snarky comment I came up with and desperately wanted to drop). I didn’t do that with serious things, it was just a way to slip in a joke - because doing it openly felt too daring for some reason.
When I got older, I used to do it less and less often, and now (almost?) don’t do that (probably?), but I still don’t quite understand why I was: what it was actually for, why did I need, what it was supposed to solve.
Is this also some #neurodivergent thing? Something related to RSD? Part of autistic masking? Or just my own weird thing? @actuallyautistic
Of all the avatars I’ve ever used, my favourite was made of a bit of MRI of my own brain.
Part of the satisfaction was to have long discussions with moderators saying the avatar is supposed to show the person - and arguing that the brain is actually what I am as a person, not my face.
I pretty often enjoy finding different ‘well, technically…’ loopholes, though mostly not for exploiting them, but for the sheer joy of pointing them to someone and chucking together over such a joke.
This, together with puns, together with all “imagine this and this, wouldn’t it technically be that?” type of jokes is basically my favourite genre of humor.
And my relationship with humor is kinda complicated: I love funny things, but I often don’t find pure comedies funny(while can have a good chuckle in some straight-face side jokes in some procedurals or adventures), and the main reason is I don’t find it funny when someone struggles, someone is getting hurt, someone is ridiculed or put in an awkward/cringy situation. Someone falling isn’t funny, someone failing isn’t funny, someone put in a situation when they are clearly experiencing fear, shame or disgust isn’t funny for me.
Maybe I just empathize too much: imagining myself in their place makes me want to run away, hide, stop existing, so I just can’t feel any fun there.
But give me a good chuckle with an unexpected pun, give me those “technically..” jokes, give me clever side remarks - that may be soo funny!
Basically, for me, in all the movies, books, shows:
Chuckle > laugh
Maybe it has something to so with RSD and fear to be laughed at(based on previous experiences)
Is it something common among #neurodivergent folks? I imagine it may have something to do with #autism and affective empathy?
What is your relationships with different kinds of humor?
I am doing a survey about yoga and neurodivergent folk and your boosts would be appreciated.
If you are neurodivergent (self-realized or Dx'd, it's all good here), and fall under the vast ND umbrella, I'd love to hear from you. Quick 6-7 question survey and you can remain anon if you want.
I’ve been reading about “stimming in autism”, which up until now was very confusing to me mostly because that’s the one point kept being repeated in the community being a must for an autistic individual. And I can’t relate to that at all.
Then I came across something that describes the purpose of ‘stimming’ is to deal with extra energy. Then it kinda hit me, I’ve never had the need to stim because I’m a low energy person in general.
I get overwhelmed with activities when they involve raising heart rates (yes, THAT too). I like quiet things, dead of night etc. Once at a time in my life, I was pretty sure I could hear flow of electricity.
So my question to the #ActuallyAutistic community: do you think stimming is a must for autistic people? Do you relate to it? Anyone know of any low energy stimming that gets overlooked?
Please stop with the euphemisms. We know what we are, we don't need it explained to us. It is patronising when people try and define our identity for us.
I don't have the spoons to explain why I feel my neurodivergence is making this worse, but I need feedback or insight from other ND people on a unique experience. This will be a long thread (added in replies) but I'm hopeful there will be a few kind readers who either relate or have something supportive to share.
Here goes:
1/ @actuallyautistic@actuallyaudhd #recoveringfromreligion #LateDiagnosedAutism #actuallyautistic#neurodivergent
Not sure how to describe it, but I'm feeling frustrated that despite the fact that my faith deconstruction began in 2015, and I officially left the religion in 2016; I still miss the closeness and belonging I once had. I'm Hella triggered by organized retreats or post religion gatherings... it seems to have the same flavor as church.. I get that people are wanting connection. Obviously so do I..
2/
but so far, online spaces seem to feel the safest. I think being in a high demand religion with insta-friends masked some of my limits in socializing or maintaining friendships. Literally 4 to 5 in person 'friend groups' I attempted to engage in over the post faith years, all imploded 1-2 yrs later. I'm starting to fear I'll never have connections that survive beyond that now
3/
but so far, online spaces seem to feel the safest. I think being in a high demand religion with insta-friends masked some of my limits in socializing or maintaining friendships. Literally 4 to 5 in person 'friend groups' I attempted to engage in over the post faith years, all imploded 1-2 yrs later. I'm starting to fear I'll never have connections that survive beyond that now
3/
(despite having 15-20 yr friendships before leaving.)
When you lose your entire support system, and you see red flags of manipulation or non-reciprocation miles away.... somedays it feels like I just have to accept that freedom of mind has to be enough, cuz trusting relationships was the price...
4/
but here I am, trying to have spaces to find connection and ASD or post religion spaces seems to be the safest 🤔 (every time I decide to leave exreligious spaces from deconstruction topic burnout, I find my way back because its the place I find like minded people) I guess I'm just here to vent about how f*cking terribly cruel shunning is.
5/
I know people with estrogen have said their ADHD gets worse during perimenopause/menopause, but I'm wondering if people with testosterone 50+ also notice their Autism/ADHD symptoms getting worse. Especially more "inattentive"/stuck in their thoughts.
I feel like we really need more research on all of this.
Diving into the concept of jivanmukta (living liberation) for my first Coop Dharma newsletter (reader supported, sliding scale at https://chickenyogi.com/coop-dharma ) Looking forward to diving into this topic and seeing how it applies to neurodivergence.
I have just watched the 1st episode of A Kind of Spark thanks to @PetitPas
It’s a Irish British American Canadian series. In Canada I’m watching it on CBC Gem, in the UK it seems to be on the CBBC channel, for the others countries I don’t know.
I like it because the 3 autistic sisters are played by autistic actors, use of the words autistic, masking, meltdown. etc. Shows sensory overload, etc., ignorance and bias.
Is it something with the weather? Is it the pollen? I'm having a mare of a week for concentration. I can't focus on anything, flitting from one thing to another, forgetting things I should be doing. Coffee is not helping like it usually does. It doesn't help that I can't sit for a long time without stiffening up (still post op hip rep, but getting there). Also, the maddening tongue on tooth rubbing stim is back. Open to suggestions @actuallyadhd#ActuallyADHD#ADHD#neurodivergent
What some people don’t seem to be able to understand is that for the ones with executive disfunction number of steps matters a lot.
I just put away all my dried laundry aside of duvet cover.
Why? Because for all the other things it’s easy one-step task: grab all the knickers and shove them into the drawer, get the home clothes and put it into home clothes cube box(that cubed Ikea shelf is such a helper for people like me, I just have a cube for every thing).
But the linen shelf is at the top of the bathroom closet, and it’s almost full. So I need a stepladder to be able to put the duvet cover there(I can try to shove it there without, I kinda reach the shelf itself, but in its current state the cover is likely to fall from there, and probably with some other things, so that would upset me which I am not ready to deal with now).
But the stepladder is now occupied by my winter shoes which were drying there before I put them away for summer.
But to put them away I need to get two big boxes from under my bed, empty one by putting everything that is there into the other one, put all the shoes there, put the boxes back under the bad, ensure all the boxes there are arranged in a way that is allowing my cat to play in that labyrinth, and probably clean up after that as I suppose there’s going to be a few dust bunnies.
Gosh, I got tired by just typing all that.
Going through all those steps may bot take too much time(if I don’t get distracted by something, including the urge to sort everything perfectly), but the very thought of going through all those steps just discourages me so much that I can’t find energy to start. “It’s just one duvet cover!” - they say. “It’s a shitton of steps!” - I answer.
Well, the cover is drying in a way that obscures a view from my bed which irritates me enough to maybe develop enough anger to put it away in the weekend.
No place is perfect. But I’ve yet to meet a higher concentration of truly caring & superbly talented folks. Staff and residents alike.
PS. For my #neurodivergent peeps: They have therapists who are #autisitc, #ADHD, & #AuDHD. They made intake changes based on my feedback re: “the intake process for someone with sensory sensitivities”.