Tag: actuallyautistic

alisso:

notemily:

rowanthesloth:

Adult ADHD: Grown-Up Problems – Jacquie Fuller – Medium

If you only read one article on adult ADHD, read this one. It does an excellent job of explaining how ADHD brains operate (or don’t) and the kinds of problems undiagnosed adults can run into.

I never thought I could have ADHD until my late 30s, because I thought I knew what ADHD was, and I wasn’t “like that”. It turns out I actually have most of the classic symptoms; I just didn’t know what they were, and there’s a good chance that, if you haven’t been diagnosed with ADHD, then neither do you.

This article is great, and funny. I love that it mentions Wellbutrin because stimulants for me were like a roller coaster of feeling good and then crashing hard, but when I got on Wellbutrin, it was like, clouds part, choir sings, sun beams down. It’s not perfect, it destroys my appetite and makes me slightly more likely to react to things with anger or violence (the first week I was taking it I was like I WANT TO PUNCH EVERYTHING). But it WORKS. I’m pretty much only able to work a solid 8 hour day because of this drug. Without it, I would be CONSTANTLY bored and distracted and inevitably get in trouble for doing things that are more interesting than work. (As it is I only feel that way some of the time.)

And the thing about long-term effects is SO important. My anxiety and depression are all tangled up with my ADHD. Everyone yelling at me to pay attention as a kid caused me to grow up with anxiety problems, because oh no, what important thing am I missing now? CONSTANT VIGILANCE!!

And thinking you’re a failure because you have executive functioning problems, well, that pretty logically leads to depression.

I also love this description: “We organize the way most people diet: a lifelong cycle of attempt and failure. For us, having our shit together is never a state of being, as much as an eternal state of becoming.”

I got partway through this article, to the bit about wellbutrin being the “amphetamine of antidepressants” and now I’m remembering how, every time I take psuedoephadrine based cold and flu medication, I’m super organised and focused and get things done and really, I’m yet to hear anything about adult ADHD that doesn’t make me think I should look into getting checked.

Except I don’t have the foggiest idea of where to start. (there’s a link at the end of the article, but it goes to a page not found, and when I found the actual page it was meant to link to, there were zero international listings, so…)

Ihave no idea how to get diagnosed, either, even though I’ve been certain I have ADHD too since about 2004.

How can we help people with disabilities? For example, autistic people who see the world differently.*

iamshadow21:

* This question was posted on another social media site. What follows is my answer.

1) Treat us as people, not as less. An adult or an older child being talked to in a baby voice is not on, regardless of how their disability presents. Talk to us at age appropriate level. If we’re interested in something, get excited about it with us, rather than telling us we’re boring. Sharing our interest is our way of trying to communicate. We love a thing. We’re opening up ourselves to you. It might not be how you’re used to doing a conversation, but it is meaningful communication, and it means we want to share that excitement with you. That’s a big deal. Recognise it.

2) Our diagnosis is none of your business, unless we feel comfortable talking to you about it. It’s really none of your business if we were diagnosed as a kid, an adult, self-diagnosed, or questioning. It’s none of your business if our autism has changed its presentation as we’ve aged. It’s really none of your business if you think you know what autism looks like, and we don’t match up with your preconceptions. And please, if we’re verbal, dressed appropriately, out in public and unattended, it’s not a compliment to tell us how well we’re doing. We’re just as autistic when we’re ‘passing’ as when we really aren’t. Passing for normal is not an achievement, it’s a monumental effort that most of us feel long term health effects from if we have to do it daily. Allowing natural autistic behaviours is something a lot of us have to relearn in adulthood to manage our anxiety. An adult flapping, pacing, tapping, or playing with a stim toy isn’t being babyish or playing at autism, they’re trying to take care of themselves. Don’t stare or tut or tell us we’re embarrassing you. (Telling us our Tangle is awesome and you want one is totally okay, though.)

3) Our sex life is none of your business, unless we’re in a sexual relationship with you. Just because we’re autistic doesn’t mean we can’t consent. That said, if there’s someone being weird and intimate with us when we’re a minor and they’re in a position of authority, make sure we’re okay. Compliance based therapies heavily used with autistic children (like ABA) make autistic children very vulnerable to sexual abuse, because they teach children to do things that are uncomfortable, painful or unnatural to them to please adults for rewards.

4) Make a conscious choice to be okay with difference, be it physical, intellectual, neurological, whatever. This might be harder than it sounds. Disability can come with mobility needs, sensory needs, dietary needs and routine based needs. It might require communication devices or sign language, or a picture-based communication system, even if to you, the person ‘seems’ verbal. It’s rare for an autistic person to have no difficulties with verbal communication, and if you’ve only ever seen them happy or relaxed, you might not know they need to use their phone to communicate when they’re upset or overwhelmed. Also, non verbal autistics might have a couple of words, scripted speech, or echolalic phrases they can use when conditions are right, even though they primarily use AAC or sign. Verbal ability isn’t a fixed thing. It fluctuates. Be patient if we’re struggling. It’s more frustrating for us than for you.

5) Everyone’s disability is unique. No two autistic people are the same. Likes, dislikes, sensitivities, strengths, difficulties. An autistic person might be sensory seeking, non verbal, highly intelligent, low anxiety, highly organised. They might be highly verbal, high anxiety, low executive function, mild intellectual disability, dyslexic, supertaster. They could have any combination of interests and personality traits, and come combined with a whole array of other disabilities. Don’t think because you know one autistic person, you know every autistic person. We’re individuals.

6) Listen to us, not to Autism Speaks or ‘autism moms’. Our experience is unique to us. It cannot be fully understood by a neurotypical bystander, regardless of how close that relationship is. Read books by autistic people (there are a lot). Donate to the Autistic Self Advocacy Network or Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network. Don’t light it up blue, put puzzle pieces on your car, or spread anti-vax rhetoric (which is fake science and basically hinges on the fact that a lot of people would rather have dead kids than autistic ones). Watch documentaries produced by autistic people about their experiences. Check out neurowonderful’s Youtube series Ask An Autistic.

7) Don’t assume we’re straight. Don’t assume we’re cisgender. Don’t assume we don’t understand the complexities of our multifaceted identities. Gender and sexuality variance is present in autistic people, just as it is in neurotypical people. In fact, there’s actually evidence there is a higher proportion of transgender, nonbinary and genderqueer people in the autistic community than in the genpop. Our experience of sexuality and gender is also viewed through our lens of autistic experience, and there are terms created specifically by autistic people to encapsulate this (like gendervague).

8) Don’t assume we can’t have relationships, friendships, and families outside of our parents and siblings. Don’t assume we can’t be awesome parents. Don’t assume we can’t make informed choices about our bodies and procreation. Autistic people have been here as long as people have been here. I’m from a multigenerational family myself, with both male and female autistic people, stretching back at least five generations, anecdotally (further than that, highly probably, but we don’t have the information).

9) Don’t think we’d be better off dead. This is why adults and children are murdered by parents and caregivers every year without legal repercussions. Our lives have value. The next time you see a news article where a parent cries about killing their child, don’t rationalise that ‘it must be so hard’ to be taking care of us. That’s essentially saying we’re responsible for our own murder, and that it was justifiable homicide. MURDER IS MURDER. If you want to campaign for better respite and support in your area, GREAT, but don’t give parents who murder their children a free pass. Parenting is hard, but people have a choice, and we must stop allowing people who make the choice to kill to get away with murder. Whenever it happens, someone else, somewhere, thinks murder is an appropriate solution to the problem of a disabled person needing care in their life, and another irreplaceable, unique person dies.

10) We have the right to exist in public spaces. Yes, that autistic person having a meltdown might be disrupting your shopping and hurting your ears. I can guarantee their life is harder than yours right then. Have some compassion (not pity) and give them some space. We have the right to be in restaurants, in theatres, in libraries and in schools. If you think a person with a disability being in those spaces is going to have a negative effect on your children, maybe you should think about your parenting, rather than about segregation.

greenemeralds-goldenpower said: I only object to the first point’s “ If we’re interested in something, get excited about it with us, rather than telling us we’re boring.” While I think it IS rude to just tell someone they’re boring because you aren’t interested in their stuff, telling someone to fake being interested about the same thing one is still troublesome because now you are invalidating the other person’s feelings and likes. (1)

greenemeralds-goldenpower said: Not everyone is gonna like something we do, so forcing them to act as if they do seems to me as asking them to lie about this. I wouldn’t want them to act as if they absolutely adore it when they don’t. That being, said, the other extreme is also harmful: we have the right to communicate our likes, and if someone finds it boring, we shouldn’t stop talking about it forever. (2)

greenemeralds-goldenpower said: I think there needs to be a balance: not dismissing someone else’s likes but also not forcing them to act excited if they aren’t. Just to listen the other person and accept that one’s likes may not be the same as other people’s. This doesn’t make the interest less important or valid; we’re just diverse folk who like different things. Hope you understand my point. (3)

Okay, I understand what you’re saying, let me explain better what I meant.

You can be excited with someone in an honest and communal way without sharing their interest.

For example: Your friend gets a gift for their birthday. IT IS EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANTED. They might scream a little. They might cry. They are probably going to thank the person who gave it to them, and then they might tell everyone watching why they love it and why it’s important to them.

Do you share the same interest in the item? Probably not. People love different things. But what you can do is open yourself up to the excitement and joy your friend is expressing. You can let yourself get carried along in that wave, and respond to their explanations with warmth and reflect the joy they’re feeling, because you love your friend and love that they love that thing.

But when autistic people try and express their joy and interest, very, very often, neurotypical people around us think it’s their job to shut us down. Roll their eyes, sigh loudly, tell us ‘NO ONE CARES!’. This happens from early childhood. A six year old might want to infodump about their favourite show. THAT’S WHAT KIDS DO. But people will smile and affirm and let a neurotypical kid talk, but firmly tell an autistic six-year-old that no one wants to hear it, and why doesn’t he talk about something everyone likes instead?

It’s a double standard that conditions autistic people to think that no one cares about them, their interests, or their feelings. It makes kids give up on social interactions, because why even try when they’re relentlessly suppressed? The thing is, a lot of these kids get to their teens and adulthood and discover fandoms and discover conventions and discover fan clubs through the internet. Suddenly, a world opens that is full of other people, NT and autistic, who are passionate about what they are. They thought they were alone. And it’s upsetting, to realise they spent so many years being scorned by those closest to them, when they weren’t that weird after all.

Communication, for autistic people, begins with talking about interests. How are we meant to learn the intricacies if every attempt is rebuffed? It’s bullying under the banner of social skills, and it needs to stop. You don’t have to share the interest, just the excitement, and not be such a Mean Girl about an autistic person liking a thing. It lights them up. Let them be happy. Be happy that they’re happy. It’s part of friendship, and if you really care about them, you’ll want that for them.

jabberwockypie:

Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck this hurts. This hurts so much and I want to scream, but that would be impolite.

Positive or fluffy or nice distractions welcome!

Bob Ross on Youtube

Due South Full Length Pilot on Youtube
Due South Season One on Youtube

Weightless by Marconi Union (anti-anxiety ambient music – I use this a lot)

Miracle Modus stimming fractal app by and for autistic people

If you can afford them, Emma recommends The Room series of games, Bejeweled Classic, and Machinarium (though I’d have a walkthrough on hand for the last one, to avoid frustration if you can’t find a solution to a room quickly).

I love Alphabear, Candy Crush, 2048, Cut The Rope, Monument Valley, Contre Jour and Blendoku. Drawn and Chocolatier are good, solid series of games, too, but they’re older. Both are available through Big Fish Games. Sorry, most of this list aren’t free, but they’re ones I go back to when I’m stressed and overwhelmed. I also have a Mah Jong app and a bunch of other puzzle style games.

JABTalk is a free android app for communication. It’s programmable for your needs, and might help if you find the stress and pain are making basic speech harder than usual.

How can we help people with disabilities? For example, autistic people who see the world differently.*

* This question was posted on another social media site. What follows is my answer.

1) Treat us as people, not as less. An adult or an older child being talked to in a baby voice is not on, regardless of how their disability presents. Talk to us at age appropriate level. If we’re interested in something, get excited about it with us, rather than telling us we’re boring. Sharing our interest is our way of trying to communicate. We love a thing. We’re opening up ourselves to you. It might not be how you’re used to doing a conversation, but it is meaningful communication, and it means we want to share that excitement with you. That’s a big deal. Recognise it.

2) Our diagnosis is none of your business, unless we feel comfortable talking to you about it. It’s really none of your business if we were diagnosed as a kid, an adult, self-diagnosed, or questioning. It’s none of your business if our autism has changed its presentation as we’ve aged. It’s really none of your business if you think you know what autism looks like, and we don’t match up with your preconceptions. And please, if we’re verbal, dressed appropriately, out in public and unattended, it’s not a compliment to tell us how well we’re doing. We’re just as autistic when we’re ‘passing’ as when we really aren’t. Passing for normal is not an achievement, it’s a monumental effort that most of us feel long term health effects from if we have to do it daily. Allowing natural autistic behaviours is something a lot of us have to relearn in adulthood to manage our anxiety. An adult flapping, pacing, tapping, or playing with a stim toy isn’t being babyish or playing at autism, they’re trying to take care of themselves. Don’t stare or tut or tell us we’re embarrassing you. (Telling us our Tangle is awesome and you want one is totally okay, though.)

3) Our sex life is none of your business, unless we’re in a sexual relationship with you. Just because we’re autistic doesn’t mean we can’t consent. That said, if there’s someone being weird and intimate with us when we’re a minor and they’re in a position of authority, make sure we’re okay. Compliance based therapies heavily used with autistic children (like ABA) make autistic children very vulnerable to sexual abuse, because they teach children to do things that are uncomfortable, painful or unnatural to them to please adults for rewards.

4) Make a conscious choice to be okay with difference, be it physical, intellectual, neurological, whatever. This might be harder than it sounds. Disability can come with mobility needs, sensory needs, dietary needs and routine based needs. It might require communication devices or sign language, or a picture-based communication system, even if to you, the person ‘seems’ verbal. It’s rare for an autistic person to have no difficulties with verbal communication, and if you’ve only ever seen them happy or relaxed, you might not know they need to use their phone to communicate when they’re upset or overwhelmed. Also, non verbal autistics might have a couple of words, scripted speech, or echolalic phrases they can use when conditions are right, even though they primarily use AAC or sign. Verbal ability isn’t a fixed thing. It fluctuates. Be patient if we’re struggling. It’s more frustrating for us than for you.

5) Everyone’s disability is unique. No two autistic people are the same. Likes, dislikes, sensitivities, strengths, difficulties. An autistic person might be sensory seeking, non verbal, highly intelligent, low anxiety, highly organised. They might be highly verbal, high anxiety, low executive function, mild intellectual disability, dyslexic, supertaster. They could have any combination of interests and personality traits, and come combined with a whole array of other disabilities. Don’t think because you know one autistic person, you know every autistic person. We’re individuals.

6) Listen to us, not to Autism Speaks or ‘autism moms’. Our experience is unique to us. It cannot be fully understood by a neurotypical bystander, regardless of how close that relationship is. Read books by autistic people (there are a lot). Donate to the Autistic Self Advocacy Network or Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network. Don’t light it up blue, put puzzle pieces on your car, or spread anti-vax rhetoric (which is fake science and basically hinges on the fact that a lot of people would rather have dead kids than autistic ones). Watch documentaries produced by autistic people about their experiences. Check out neurowonderful’s Youtube series Ask An Autistic.

7) Don’t assume we’re straight. Don’t assume we’re cisgender. Don’t assume we don’t understand the complexities of our multifaceted identities. Gender and sexuality variance is present in autistic people, just as it is in neurotypical people. In fact, there’s actually evidence there is a higher proportion of transgender, nonbinary and genderqueer people in the autistic community than in the genpop. Our experience of sexuality and gender is also viewed through our lens of autistic experience, and there are terms created specifically by autistic people to encapsulate this (like gendervague).

8) Don’t assume we can’t have relationships, friendships, and families outside of our parents and siblings. Don’t assume we can’t be awesome parents. Don’t assume we can’t make informed choices about our bodies and procreation. Autistic people have been here as long as people have been here. I’m from a multigenerational family myself, with both male and female autistic people, stretching back at least five generations, anecdotally (further than that, highly probably, but we don’t have the information).

9) Don’t think we’d be better off dead. This is why adults and children are murdered by parents and caregivers every year without legal repercussions. Our lives have value. The next time you see a news article where a parent cries about killing their child, don’t rationalise that ‘it must be so hard’ to be taking care of us. That’s essentially saying we’re responsible for our own murder, and that it was justifiable homicide. MURDER IS MURDER. If you want to campaign for better respite and support in your area, GREAT, but don’t give parents who murder their children a free pass. Parenting is hard, but people have a choice, and we must stop allowing people who make the choice to kill to get away with murder. Whenever it happens, someone else, somewhere, thinks murder is an appropriate solution to the problem of a disabled person needing care in their life, and another irreplaceable, unique person dies.

10) We have the right to exist in public spaces. Yes, that autistic person having a meltdown might be disrupting your shopping and hurting your ears. I can guarantee their life is harder than yours right then. Have some compassion (not pity) and give them some space. We have the right to be in restaurants, in theatres, in libraries and in schools. If you think a person with a disability being in those spaces is going to have a negative effect on your children, maybe you should think about your parenting, rather than about segregation.

hellenhighwater:

shinelikethunder:

cupofcoffin:

Hot adulting tip: make a “responsibilitysona” and roleplay them when you have chores to do

#this is Neurotypical Karen and she enjoys having good sleep hygeine & returning phone calls (via @deadpanwalking)

I find that if I’m wearing Real Adult Business Clothes my worksona can do things like call people and check my inbox, whereas pajamas hellen mostly wants to shovel hamburgers into her face and set things on fire. 

The problem I have with this is while pyjamas Ruth has to work hard to focus at all and feels bad when she doesn’t get shit done and occasionally has to take a valium, gets-shit-done Ruth is a five alarm fire of anxiety that can’t sit down.

sweetandsavageautistic:

This makes me so happy, to be honest. The woman who played the character herself acknowledging it’s okay for us to relate to Luna, especially if it helps us feel at peace with our oddness, gives me hope.

Ableists, DO NOT TOUCH THIS POST.

This is great, and Evanna is a fantastic ally, but how’s about a link to the article? Here it is.

How Luna Lovegood in Harry Potter Helped Me Accept Being Autistic by Arianna Nyswonger.

jhscdood:

brain hole

noun. The several-hour-long state of (typically ADHD-induced) hyperfocus, in which it feels like no time is passing but suddenly it’s 10pm and you haven’t made dinner yet.

Example, “Its 7pm. We should decide what time we want to do dinner before we fall down another…. brain hole.”

Some days suck

Anxiety is super bad today, so I had to take a valium. Between the Valium and the anxiety, I can barely focus to read, which is REALLY ANNOYING because my book is really awesome right now (Trickster’s Queen- Tamora Pierce) and I have only read it once before, over ten years ago, and I don’t remember the story enough to skim it. Also don’t have focus to knit, and am chewing my nails down to the quick, so I’ve got my Tangle Jr. Hairy and I’m hoping that will be enough to stop me chewing may hands so bad.

Ugh.

theconcealedweapon:

aphobic-soundwave:

aphobic-soundwave:

“if somebody becomes panicked when you accuse them of lying theyre obviously not telling the truth” shut up ugly im a survivor who got punished for shit i never did all the time of fucking course im gonna panic when im blamed for something i didnt do

since this post is actually getting attention rn i really want to emphasize this-

many of the “tells” of lying are traits commonly found in abuse survivors and mentally ill/disabled people.

stuttering, averting eye contact, panicking, raising your volume, fidgeting, and other similar traits are actions performed commonly by these groups, especially in situations of heavy stress- such as being accused of doing something we didnt do, especially if we are afraid of being punished for doing nothing.

im honestly begging people to think critically when accusing somebody of lying for small traits like these.

And some people are expert manipulators who can easily lie with a straight face.

So assuming that body language can detect lying causes you to wrongly accuse people of lying while also not protecting yourself from being lied to.

Just stop.

This is a thing that, though I love police procedurals and mysteries, as an abuse survivor and neurodivergent person I wish this trope would fuck off and die, because whenever it surfaces, it reinforces that I am a ‘liar’ in the eyes of anyone watching. It makes me fear what would happen if I ever had to deal with the police, even though I never do anything remotely sketchy.