sal

olena , 8 days ago to actuallyautistic

Just noticed that at work I’m getting too close to the screen not in order to see better(in fact, my eyes don’t quite like being that close), but in order to subconsciously help me to focus on a needed thing. Like, the bigger percentage of my viewfield is occupied by the ‘correct’ thing - the higher the chance that I don’t get distracted, especially if the thing is kinda monotonous and the rest of the environment is changing.
I’ve always been scolded for that as a kid, always told that it’s going to impair my vision(which remains perfect), but only now I realized why I actually am doing that

Fellow #AuDHD and other #neurodivergent folk with #ExecutiveDisfunction, do you also do that? Does it help?

#ADHD
@actuallyautistic

sal , 7 days ago

@ratcatcher @independentpen @olena @actuallyautistic @pathfinder I love being psychotic in your walls while you cry for therapists to come stop me

olena , 13 days ago to actuallyautistic

About AuDHD social interactions and inability to stop

A colleague of mine complained that it’s impossible to find sour cream here. I said no, it’s everywhere, it’s just called differently here, check this and that supermarkets, look near the butter.
In the evening, I send them links to the online shop pages of all the varieties of sour cream in every local supermarket chain, and for those which don’t have the online shop, I google images of the varieties sold there and send them also.
Next day, when doing my daily shopping, I see sour cream, and I buy it, and then bring it to the colleague.
Only after seeing the confused expression on their face after giving them the thing, I realize that maybe I may be doing something wrong, and keep the two other varieties in the bag not telling them that I actually brought more.
And I have to tell you that I am actually kinda proud of myself that THIS TIME I was able to notice the expression and actually stop.
Usually I realize I have done something wrong only after they run away and start avoiding me

#AuDHD
#autistic
#neurodivergent
#ADHD
@actuallyautistic

sal , 13 days ago

@olena @actuallyautistic ...what do they call sour cream there??

aetherglow , 1 month ago to actuallyautistics

Happy Autistic Pride Day fellow Autistics! @actuallyautistics

Make this a day of relentless, unapologetic Autism!

:Aydan_happy_stim_anim: :AEON_glow: :Akiko_texture_stim: :7_music_stim: :Zeta_primitive_tech:

sal , 1 month ago

@winter @actuallyautistics @kranzkrone @aetherglow @Xiong_Shui I am

yawnbox , 2 months ago to actuallyautistic

can anyone recommend a book about intimacy that takes into account neurodiversity?

@actuallyautistic

#neurodiverse #adhd #autism

sal , 2 months ago

@yawnbox @actuallyautistic I'm mostly thinking of fiction examples like An Unkindness of Ghosts
"Hollow" by Mia Mingus and some of the other stories from Octavia's Brood
"Sick Woman Theory," implicitly more than explicitly.

autism101 , 2 months ago to actuallyautistic

I just finished watching the first season of Geek Girl by autistic creator Holly Smale. 💛

Harriet knows she is different, but doesn't yet know the reason why...but we do. 😉

Fingers crossed Netflix has the smarts to quickly green light a season 2.

#ActuallyAutistic #GeekGirl #HolySmale @actuallyautistic

sal , 2 months ago

@autism101 @actuallyautistic thats not a reason thats a description

they decide to call the difference a name and then say the name is an explanation

autism101 , 2 months ago to actuallyautistic

Do you have any clothing routines? I own eight gray plain t-shirts with no tags which I love. I often will just wear them over and over again.

#AskingAutistics #ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD @actuallyautistic

sal , 2 months ago

@purplewater @autism101 @actuallyautistic people can do an intervention on me if I try to buy any more maroon sweaters

russellmcormond , 3 months ago to actuallyautistic

I'm regularly confused why anyone, especially parents of Autistic children, would think ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis) is a good thing.

Sure, it might make your child compliant at moments when you want to do show-and-tell with your "friends", but you will be generating lifelong trauma.

https://neurodivergentrebel.substack.com/p/neurodivergent-rebels-neurodivergent

@actuallyautistic

#ActuallyAutistc #AutismAcceptance
#BanABA #ABA

sal , 3 months ago

@pawsplay @russellmcormond @actuallyautistic So does he have the means to give / withdraw consent to this? Or express whether or not he finds it to be a 'support' at all? Through AAC if not through verbal speech?

sal , 3 months ago

@pawsplay @actuallyautistic @actuallyaudhd @russellmcormond Does he have the means to give or withdraw his consent to this particular therapist / program - Through AAC if not through verbal speech?

sal , 3 months ago

@pawsplay @actuallyaudhd @actuallyautistic @russellmcormond (AAC Means Augmentative and Alternative Communication.)
https://www.assistiveware.com/blog/how-to-talk-about-aac

sal , 3 months ago

@pawsplay @russellmcormond @actuallyautistic
As you're posting this to Autistic groups which tend to be full of experts-by-survival on these programs, I must ask:
Does he have the means to give or withdraw his consent to working with this particular therapist / program - Through AAC if not through verbal speech?

(We tend to be literal communicaters as you know, so if the answer was 'implied' somewhere it wasn't clear.)

sal , 3 months ago to actuallyautistic

ok @actuallyautistic and #plural folks be aware this is going on ☢️
I'll add alttext in a minute I'm busy right now

image/png

sal OP , 3 months ago

@actuallyautistic #plural
Text is:
A user called Lightning Bjornsson (alts Melanie Bjornsdottir and Malik, admin of umbrellix) writing:

"I successfully made a perfectly good person hate themself (specifically, to say “I’m sorry, whatever i’ve done, I’m stupid. I understand that you don’t want to talk to me any more, I just don’t know why, apart from that I was lewd, and disrespectful, and just a bad fox. I know i’m a bad friend. I’m just sorry, for everything” by the same through-block messaging mechanic I used to insult them, see later in the message) by abruptly blocking them everywhere and then coldly telling them in email that their nickserv account was a source of abuse on our irc network which was why we couldn’t drop it."

"update on hate friend: i think they self-harmed (they mention visiting the hospital) and I'm now acting in email like we've never spoken.
I'm committed to the bit, pretending we have zero record of ever having spoken to them and that they're banned for common abuse of NickServ registrations. If I come clean, I doubt they'd want to, even as they give this song and dance of wanting to reconcile."

sal OP , 3 months ago

@actuallyautistic #plural

Image: Another post from user called Lightning Bjornsson (alts Melanie Bjornsdottir and Malik, admin of umbrellix) reading:
"So, after teaching them how to make sourdough bread, I've decided to play a practical joke. When this person emails me, they'll get a fake bounce. I'll still see their message, but it will look like my mailserver bounced it."

They then wrote:
"update: because of the email prank's effects on them, they are now taking their sedative they take PRN for anxiety, in context of a higher dose of their antidepressant
i have told them to call 999."

eo , 3 months ago to actuallyautistic

"high functioning autism" is basically bulimia for executive functioning.
What do you think about this analogy, @actuallyautistic?

sal , 3 months ago

@Selena @melindrea @filmfreak75 @eo @actuallyautistic so do I have this right that u want to base your inclusion and 'opportunities' on distancing ur self from 'slower' ppl?
I mean please lmk if you mean something else

bananamangodog , 4 months ago to actuallyautistic

Can anyone point me in the direction of #disabled persons pursuing self-sufficient lifestyles? The #disability could be mental, physical, or other and the self-sufficiency could be from a #Permaculture, #Prepping or #Sustainability perspective.

Looking for social media accounts, books, blogs, youtube or people doing this kind of thing outside of modern socials that would be happy to have a conversation about it.

@permacultre @mecfs @actuallyautistic

sal , 3 months ago

@KitMuse @bananamangodog @permacultre @mecfs @actuallyautistic Vandwllers Forum is a good space for this!

Also have you seen https://howtogeton.wordpress.com/ ?

pathfinder , 4 months ago to actuallyautistic

@actuallyautistic

I once wrote about how it was not unrealistic, to think that there was no such thing as an un-traumatised autistic. About how so many of us have known bullying and persecution simply for being different. Not even always for what we may have said or done, but often for simply standing out; in all the ways that we didn't even know we were. How just simply being, was so often an excuse to be attacked or punished. That our very existence, even as hard as we tried to mask, whether we knew that was what we were doing or not, was the cause of so much pain.

All the scars we carry from misreading situations. Or from believing in something, or someone, and being burnt as a consequence. All the times we've tried to stand up for ourselves, or as often as not for others, and been dismissed and ridiculed. All the misjudgements and disbelieve and times when our intent and purpose have been seen in the ways that were never, ever, meant. The sheer inability for others to see us as we are, or to judge us accordingly. But, always to seem to want to see the worst and to base everything else on that.

But the more I learn and understand about being autistic. The more I realise that so much of my trauma and the scars that were left, came not just from this overt pain, but from the covert well-meaning of others as well. From my parents and relatives, from friends and teachers. From all the advice and instruction I have received over the years that was meant to shape me in the right way. As a child, to teach me how to grow up, how to behave and act. What was expected and what wasn't. And then, as an adult, how I was supposed to be and how a successful life, with me in it, was supposed to look. All the rules I was supposed to learn, all the codes I was supposed to follow. How to act, how to speak, what to feel, when to feel it. What I was supposed to do and how I was supposed to be.

Not in any unusual way. Not in any way that you weren't supposed to raise a child, well a normal child anyway. That's what makes this so covert. If you were trying to do this to a child knowing that they were autistic, then it's overt abuse. It is ABA, it is infantilising and punishing a child for always failing to become something, that they had no more chance of becoming than a cat has of becoming a dog. But for those of us who didn't know we were autistic. It was simply the constant hammering of the world trying, without even realising it, to fit a round peg into a square hole and all the pain and disappointment that came from their failure to come even close.

For me, what made this worse, was that it wasn't as if I didn't know that I was different, not in my heart, but that I thought that I shouldn't be. That I should be able to learn what I was being taught, that I should be able to follow the guidance. That I wasn't any different really from anyone else and so if I failed to act in the right way, or react the way I should, for that matter, then it was my fault. All the patient sighs and familiar looks, simply became just another reinforcement of my failure. Even being told off for the simplest things, became a reminder that something that I should have been able to do, was beyond me and always for the only reason that ever made any sense; that I was broken, that it was my fault somehow.

Is it any wonder that so much of my life has been about trying to justify myself in the light of this, of trying to become that "good dog". Of judging myself against an impossible standard. A constant lurching from one bad to choice to another, and always because I thought they were the right ones. And for each new failure and inability to even come close, another scar, another reminder of what I wasn't. Further proof that my self-esteem was right to be so low. Of how I was such a failure and a bad person. That I was never going to be a proper son or brother or friend. Because I couldn't even be what I was supposed to be, let alone what I should become.

Looking back, I can't help thinking about how much of my life I spent living this way; of trying not to repeat the sins of my past. Of not repeating the actions or behaviour that led to those past failures and trauma. Of, in fact, all the effort I put in to not being myself. Because that, I realise now, was what I was trying to do. I was that round peg and trying to hammer myself into the square hole. Because everything I had learnt had taught me to think that this was how I had to be. That this was how you grew. And in so many ways, I can't help feeling angry about this. About the wasted years, about the scars I carry that were never my fault. About the way I was brought up, even though none of it was ever meant, but only ever well-meant.

#Autism
#Actuallyautistic

sal , 4 months ago

@pathfinder @glen @Tooden @actuallyautistic Neither 'explains' anything, they're subjective descriptors of observed behavior (as filtered through the medical profession's values and biases) not explanations of causes. There's no Platonic Ideal 'right answer' to find.