ghost | ref
some sort of a modern AU because i wanted bucky in nice clothes
Tag: actually autistic
Be kind to yourself. Stop telling yourself that whatever you are struggling with “should” be easy. If something is hard for you, it is hard for you. There are probably Reasons, though those may just be how you are wired. Acknowledge these things. When you finish something hard, be proud! Celebrate a little.
And really, just stop saying “should” to yourself about your thoughts and feelings in any context. You feel how you feel. The things in your head are the things in your head. You can’t change either directly through sheer force of will. You can only change what you do. Stop beating yourself up for who and what you are right now–it isn’t productive. Focus on moving forward.
“Are You Angry With Me?”: Dating as an Autistic Woman
Honestly Cosmo, I came out to have a good time and I’m feeling so attacked right now.
One season is not enough for Cosmo. Mainline that caffeine and aim for two.
When disabled people, Autistic and non-autistic, say that they use identity-first language to refer to themselves, a common retort is “I don’t understand why you would define yourself by your disability.” To me, this doesn’t make sense. I call myself disabled because I don’t think my disability needs to be held at arm’s length, not because I believe that I’m autism on legs.
(As with my other traits, I refer to my disability with an adjective-noun construction which is common to the English language. I would also describe myself as a long-haired woman. So far no one has come forward to demand that I instead refer to myself as “an individual with long hair,” or accused me of “defining myself by my hair length.”)
I’m starting to think that when people say “defining yourself by your disability” they really mean “talking about yourself in a way that reflects the belief that your disability is not detachable.”
The Pseudo Logic of “Not Autistic Enough”
Recently, I was told by a parent of a child on the autism spectrum that I am “not significantly enough affected by autism to be able to understand real autism” and therefore should stop speaking out about autism. Some aspects of my personal history (Endow…
(Image description: A partial screenshot of a blog post. The title reads “How I reduced screaming and verbal stimming in my child with autism”, and below that is a colour photograph of a hand holding a rectangular plastic “clicker” device.)
[snip]
I don’t agree with everything this lady did, especially the correction of verbal stimming, but I think the basis of this is fairly good practice with any child. You reward good behaviors and correct unwanted behaviors, which can be done through time-outs, taking away something of value to the child, or simply ignoring them. People don’t like hearing about methods that sound like dog training, but, as a dog trainer, I’ve seen firsthand that the minds of dogs and children are pretty darn similar, and they can usually be taught in similar manners. In my child development class, we talked about how some speech therapists will utilize positive reinforcements to encourage speech in autistic children, basically training them to talk. They started out rewarding any noise, and then slowly specified to rewarding words, and then rewarding sentences. The clicker seems awful, but it’s actually a good tool to phase out food as a reward, while still giving a reward. This may have been a really old method, but it worked. I don’t think this is an attempt to “cure” a child, but to effectively teach them more appropriate behaviors, like communication. Personally, I would think it’s really important to teach effective communication, for the sake of the child. Obviously, the child needs something, they’re trying to communicate something, but can’t do so in a way that their caregivers can understand. Is it so wrong to teach children how to express themselves so that they can fulfill their wants and needs?
I’m going to go ahead and be blunt here.
Particular joys
As an autistic person with major anxiety issues, I do a lot of comfort watching (and watching, and rewatching). I like mysteries, and have a fond affection for Agatha Christie. David Suchet’s Poirot and Geraldine McEwan/Julia McKenzie’s Marple are series I can watch over and over and enjoy just as much every time.
And as a knitter, as someone who knits every day to help control my anxiety, keep my mind active and make a little pin money on the side, it’s a wonderful thing to watch the skill with which both Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie knit.
They’re not just mocking for camera – they’re both wonderfully accomplished knitters who can knit speedily, often without looking at their work, all while delivering a performance. How often is there something made for television or film these days that involves a character doing any kind of handcraft, let alone a fibre art? There are so many of us out there in the modern world who still knit for pleasure and for pasttime and for pocket money. It’s lovely looking at media and admiring characters wearing everything from a jumper to a hat to a woolly scarf, and guessing what might have been lovingly hand knit by someone in the costume department, but actually seeing it knit on screen – that’s a rare joy indeed.
Social skills: noticing when repetition is communication
So there’s this dynamic:
Autistic person: The door is open!
Other person: I *know* that. It’s hot in here.
Autistic person: The door is open!
Other person: I already explained to you that it’s hot in here!
Autistic person: The door is open!
Other person: Why do you have to repeat things all the time?!
Often when this happens, what’s really going on is that the autistic person is trying to communicate something, and they’re not being understood. The other person things that they are understanding and responding, and that the autistic person is just repeating the same thing over and over either for no reason or because they are being stubborn and inflexible and obnoxious and pushy.
When what’s really happening is that the autistic person is not being understood, and they are communicating using the words they have. There’s a NT social expectation that if people aren’t being understood, they should change their words and explain things differently. Sometimes autistic people aren’t capable of doing this without help.
So, if this is happening, assume it’s communication and try to figure out what’s being communicated. If you’re the one with more words, and you want the communication to happen in words, then you have to provide words that make communication possible. For example:
Other person: Do you want the door to be closed, or are you saying something else?
Autistic person: Something else
Other person: Do you want to show me something outside, or something else?
Autistic person: Something else
Other person: Are you worried about something that might happen, or something else?
Autistic person: Worried
Other person: Are you worried that something will come in, or that something will go out?
Autistic person: Baby
Other person: She’s in her crib, and the baby gate is up. Is that ok, or is there still a problem?
Autistic person: ok
Holy fuck.
This changes everything.
*leaves for reference*
knitting in the dark 
