nina

nina , 9 months ago

@theautisticcoach @actuallyautistic if you're a woman, they also like calling you a bitch, if you're assertive.
Only abled neurotypical cis-het white males can be 'assertive' it seems.

nina , 10 months ago

@theautisticcoach @actuallyautistic oh yes.

Add to that the immense stress of transition, and the additional gatekeeping we experience when we try to transition, and you may understand why I've not been working in two years now.

I'm starting work again soon though. Hopefully my employer can accept that some things need to change, because if work starts where it left off, I'm going to burn out again within a few weeks to months.

nina , 10 months ago

@youronlyone @actuallyautistic @actuallyautistics @autistics I used to ride the bus accidentally paying childrens fare (up to 14y old), because I just stated my destination and payed, until I was about 20y old. Got carded for alcohol until my 30s, invited to a 'youth group' when I was 37y old.

So yep!

nina , 10 months ago

@MariaTheMartian @actuallyautistic @youronlyone @autistics hmm, I don't have EDS (although I only just don't fulfill all diagnostic criteria), but I definitely have connective tissue issues, my stomach and calves are striped with the sub surface scars of connective tissue failing.

I never got pregnant (not possible, unfortunately), and never gained weight very quickly. I used to be hypermobile as a child, and I'm still surprisingly flexible. So yep, maybe… …could be a factor.

nina , 10 months ago

@bike @youronlyone @actuallyautistic @actuallyautistics @autistics oh, if I forget to color my hair, ppl get pretty close to my real age, with fresh color guesses usually hit the late 20s now, whenthe body is in its early 40s.

None of us really feel anywhere this old.

nina , 10 months ago

@AutisticAdam @actuallyautistic oh I can make eye-contact all right. Most NTs usually regret complaining about eye-contact when I start staring them down.

I can do eye-contact, or participate in a conversation, doesn't work both ways. Also, I'm pretty good reading NT faces when I'm not part of the conversation, but when I participate in a conversation reading ppl's faces becomes too overwhelming, so I don't. I get most of my information from peoples voices anyways.

nina , 10 months ago

@AutisticAdam @actuallyautistic funnily enough the AQ-test is a good example for this.
When I was diagnosed, they commented how I wrote little comments to most of the questions, pointing out the ambiguity or missing options. They later told me that commenting on the test is a very common behavior for autistic ppl.

nina , 10 months ago

@AutisticAdam @actuallyautistic we do a lot of things to protect ourselves. Often these things make sense at the time and place where they form, but years later they can become problamatic.
It's also a trauma thing.

18+ nina , 10 months ago

@jackcole @autism101 @actuallyautistic autistic glider pilot here.
Yep, a landing is one of those moments where my brain just stops going all over the place, and just lands the plane.

Unfortunately I'm currently grounded, since I'm taking Lisdex for ADHD, and medical weed for PTSD.

18+ nina , 10 months ago

@jackcole @autism101 @actuallyautistic I fly gliders, coming in high, and using breaking flaps and slipping to get rid of altitude before landing is just a normal landing. ;)

nina , 10 months ago

@theautisticcoach @actuallyautistic that varies greatly.
Anything between 0h and 12h is kind of common.
On normal days I can get away with 6h, but 7h is better.
On bad days I can fall asleep early afternoon, sleep 4h, then go to bed at 11pm, and sleep until noon.
Some nights I just can't sleep.

nina , 10 months ago

@theautisticcoach @actuallyautistic finding fellow autistic ppl to build your found family is incredible.

Especially for us queer autistics, found family, the family that we choose, are very important.

The first time I realized I'm not broken, but that my communication is just different, was incredible.

It was a social meeting for autistic ppl in the town I studied in. It was after a self help group that I only attended once, but the social part, we had the whole building for ourselves, there was usually an NT, who was supposed to moderate, and between ten and twenty autistic people.

It quickly became clear that our moderators simply didn't notice many things, so three of us started doing that job instead, telling louder groups to go into one of the seperate rooms, to avoid others going into overload.

At one point I was asked by the moderator: "Why did you send them to one of the rooms?"
I answered: "Well, they were noisy, and this person here is close to overload already."
She replied: "How can you tell?"
I answered: "They are stimming."
She wondered: "But they also stim when they are happy."

For me, the stimming was cristal clear, this person was on the verge of overload. I've seen them stim when they are happy, and it looks completely different. After a few interactions like that she realized:
"Is that how you feel out there? Like things are going on, but you don't notice them, while they are obvious for everyone else?"

This was all years before the Double Empathy Theory was published.

nina , 10 months ago (edited 9 months ago)

@theautisticcoach @actuallyautistic that neurotypical ppl pathologize us.
That word is only used for autistic ppl, but when someone neurotypical has an interest with similar intensity, it's usually not used to pathologize.

It also means that I know I can get into a subject very quickly.
It means that I know I'll be able to analyze my own genome, because I know that I'll quickly learn whatever I'm still missing, to analyze my own genome.

It means I can usually talk down doctors, concerning my health conditions, calling out their bullshit, quoting treatment guidelines, and offering to mail them the relevant papers. Unfortunately this is often needed to get adequate medical treatment.

It means that I know that I can usually learn any programming language in a few days. I've done so countless times, and have programmed in over 20 languages, and can't even remember all the languages I know. I can usually read the source code of many languages I don't know, with a few exceptions.

nina , 10 months ago

@AutisticAdam @actuallyautistic
yep. It was a long process.
I thought I was mostly done, but still I've never really found anyone under the mask, just further masks.
That's until I finally accepted that I'm trans, and I allowed myself to peel away all the fake maskulinity, the performance, and I found a shy and fragile girl underneath.

Hormones changed everything, and now, 4y later, I've grown into a confident non-binary woman. I still mask here and there, it's very useful for first meeting someone, but I also actively refuse to adjust some my behavior if it is helping me. If my stimming is making me uncomfortable, you're just getting a fraction of what that room full of people you dragged me into is doing to me.

I am openly autistic, as well as trans. I don't make it a secret, but it's also not the first thing I talk about, but if you spend a couple of hours around me, I'll likely tell you. We're not quite so open about our plurality, most people seem to react in weird ways. Still, we don't really hide it either.

Masking, in a way, is also a firewall. What information do you let out? If you hide everything you're masking completely. If you don't mask at all, it's inappropriate for anyone but the closest friends.

I use some low effore masking strategies to make communication with NTs less 'bumpy', both for their benefit and mine. But usually I outright refuse to do some of the high effort masking strategies that some ppl like to insist on. Because they are a ton of work with little payoff. In relationships with NTs I like to get them used to me, so I slowly reduce my masking. I'll usually out myself as autistic, and as trans at some point. I start doing 80% of the compensation at first, I've got more experience than most NTs after all, but over time I try to get this down to at least two thirds.

Most NTs doubt I do that much work. What usually helps is asking them: "I'm different than you expected someone autistic to be, am I not?"
They usually agree, to which I tell them:
"That's all me, adjusting to you. It's a lot of work. I'd appreciate it if you could do some of that work as well."
It works surprisingly often, and when it does not, I usually avoid those ppl.