i think there is something about people who were abused/neglected as kids that makes us embrace things that others consider monstrous. i dont think its a coincidence most of us like “creepy” animals like rats and crows. i dont think its a coincidence that we are the first to jump to the defense of “worthless” plants like dandelions. its why we get so attached to old toys and broken things. when you spend your whole life believing you’re not wanted, it turns you into a defender of the other unwanted things in the world. and you’re not just protecting them - you’re protecting the part of yourself that still believes you deserve to exist. just like they do. just like we all do.
can we stop fucking interpreting freezing as inaction and start seeing it as a trauma response? idk why but i just came across a tik tok of a person explaining that claims that freezing = putting the pressure on everyone else and downplayed it by equating being triggered with being “uncomfortable.”
no. if action needs to be done, let them unfreeze and process the situation and then have them do their part. if you are overwhelmed and feel like all the responsibility is on your shoulders, leave the room and get some rest. there are other ways around this that doesn’t involve downplaying or making assumptions about other people’s trauma response.
fucking do better. i should not have to see ableist nonsense like that in my goddamn spare time.
Any other nd people remember just intensely identifying with creep by radiohead in middle school? Just that feeling of alienation and feeling like I didn’t belong really hit home with me
I tend to assume everyone is the same as me. Like if I’m sitting next to someone and a spot opens up next to me, my first instinct is to move a seat down from the person to give them space, since I would appreciate that in their place. Often, this would be viewed as offensive since it would seem to them that I don’t like them. Is it an autistic thing to have a hard time grasping that other people have different knowledge, opinions, wants, and needs from you? Also if someone ever moves away from you, don’t feel to bad about it. It might be someone like me, who means it in a nice way!
Common myth: “neurotypicals don’t stim”. This is actually false. Neurotypical people do stim, it’s just usually in a slightly different way. Common stims that you might notice a neurotypical doing include: nail biting, hair twirling, leg bouncing, foot tapping, pen biting, skin picking, knuckle cracking and more. These are stims that go unnoticed most of the time because they are so common. Autistic people’s stims are usually more noticeable. Stims you might see autistic people doing include: hand flapping, rocking, echolalia (repeating words or phrases), head banging, excessive blinking, spinning in circles and more. Stimming is not an exclusive autism trait. It’s the short term for “self-stimulatory behaviours” which every human being does in one way or another. It’s a completely normal way of regulating emotions. I’ve seen some people saying “neurotypicals don’t stim, they fidget” but fidgeting is actually a form of stimming.
The reasons why a neurotypical stims is usually different to why an autistic person does, however, the reasons can be the same. Stimming can help in stressful situations where anxiety levels are high. You’re more likely to notice a neurotypical person stimming when they are particularly anxious, for example in an exam or a job interview. Autistic people stim as a way of expressing emotions, for example we will stim when we are happy or excited, not just when we are anxious. Autistic people frequently experience sensory overloads and stimming helps to calm us down.
I find it ironic and hypocritical when neurotypicals make fun of autistics for stimming when they literally stim too. My parents will comment on my stimming when my mum is sat there biting her nails and my dad is bouncing his leg and picking his skin. How are my stims wrong and their stims right? Before you judge an autistic person for stimming take a look at yourself because I can guarantee you stim in one way or another. Let’s normalise and embrace stimming because not only is it beautiful, it’s incredibly important. Suppressing stims can be detrimental to our mental health.
Embrace the stim! No matter how big or small! All stims are valid!!
I’ve always thought that if neurotypicals just tried hand flapping, they’d like it but noooo, they’ve gotta insist that stimming is weird even though they do it too.
Routines don’t have to be doing the same things at the same time every day. Sometimes, it’s choosing the exact same options in a video game every single time, even if the game gives you a variety of choices (looking at you, Life is Strange). Sometimes it’s checking your apps in the same order when you wake up in the morning. Or when your songs MUST be in the same order when you listen to them. I personally dislike routines like “wake up at 10 a.m. and have oatmeal for breakfast, shower at 11, etc.” However, I love doing everything else that I listed. I worried about being a fake autistic before I realized that those were routines too.
me, every time I get a new hyperfixation: oh my god, this thing is so wonderful! I’m literally going to love this thing at this same intensity until the day I die.
me, when the hyperfixation ends: my identity as a person is shattered. there is a void that will never be filled. I will never move on from this.
me, when I get my next hyperfixation: oh my god, this thing is so wonderful! I’m literally going to love this thing until I die!
Don’t assume autistic people can do everything you can do but also don’t assume that we can’t do something. Ask us about our individual abilities, since we’re all different. And if we ask for help, give it if you can.
Stop perpetuating the idea that avoiding eye contact = lying. Some of us are just autistic and shouldn’t have to force ourselves to make eye contact just to avoid being called liars.
Same goes for fidgeting. It doesn’t necessarily mean someone’s lying or nervous. It could just be the result of neurodivergence.
Many, many neurotypical people who are not from English-speaking Western culture will also not look you in the eye if you are an authority, because in their culture, that’s how you show respect.
And people with albinism and other low vision conditions often have something called rhythmatic nystagmus, where their eyes move back and forth uncontrollably.
It’s ableist against more groups than just the neurodivergent and it’s ethnocentric, bordering on outright racist, to perceive “not looking you in the eye” as dishonest or disrespectful.
Oh no it IS outright racist. That many Indigenous people don’t make eye contact ESPECIALLY with strangers was widely used against them because: SEE THEY ARE LIARS. DECEITFUL. HIDING THINGS.
I didn’t know that. This is a very important addition to my post.
Stop perpetuating the idea that avoiding eye contact = lying. Some of us are just autistic and shouldn’t have to force ourselves to make eye contact just to avoid being called liars.
Same goes for fidgeting. It doesn’t necessarily mean someone’s lying or nervous. It could just be the result of neurodivergence.
I saw this tweet about how things don’t always “occur” to adhd people and I thought I could relate to it as well, although I’m autistic and not adhd.
For example - if I have a headache, it simply won’t occur to me to take pain meds. I know I have a headache. I want the pain to stop. I am aware of the existence of pain meds. But the idea never occurs to me to take them until someone else suggests it.
The example they gave in the tweet was that if someone says hello to them, it may not occur to them to say hello back and yep… I do that as well.
I just never realized that other people may not do these things.
This is called executive dysfunction and it’s very common for both adhd and autistic people! <3
I was under the impression that executive dysfunction was being unable to transition between tasks. Like that feeling when you’re trying to get up and make some food, but your brain won’t let you no matter how hard you try. Is that something different?
They are both forms of executive dysfunction! Executive dysfunction simply means one of your executive functions isn’t working. The executive functions are:
Emotional control
Task initiation
Working memory
Self-monitoring (interoception, something a lot of autistics struggle with)
Flexibility
Organization
Planning & time management
Self control
What you’re experiencing and what you already considered executive dysfunction are both issues with task initiation, and I think what you’re experiencing is also an issue with planning.
The reason ADHD and autism are so similar is that the executive functions are impacted; among other symptoms and traits, they are both executive functioning disorders. Which is why you experience this thing that a lot of ADHDers experience, and why ADHD and autism have such a high comorbidity rate.
I saw this tweet about how things don’t always “occur” to adhd people and I thought I could relate to it as well, although I’m autistic and not adhd.
For example - if I have a headache, it simply won’t occur to me to take pain meds. I know I have a headache. I want the pain to stop. I am aware of the existence of pain meds. But the idea never occurs to me to take them until someone else suggests it.
The example they gave in the tweet was that if someone says hello to them, it may not occur to them to say hello back and yep… I do that as well.
I just never realized that other people may not do these things.
This is called executive dysfunction and it’s very common for both adhd and autistic people! <3
I was under the impression that executive dysfunction was being unable to transition between tasks. Like that feeling when you’re trying to get up and make some food, but your brain won’t let you no matter how hard you try. Is that something different?
April 11th: What are your thoughts/feelings about masking (a term for when autistic people hide their autistic traits)? Do you mask?
most of our thoughts about masking is that it should never be necessary
if we managed to get to a place where masking wasn’t necessary - where it was genuinely safe to not mask, where we weren’t punished for our autistic traits (officially or socially), then i’d say that if someone still wants to mask, go for it. i dont get it, but whatever.
but right now, not masking has so many consequences that a lot of autistics start masking before we even know who we are, before we’re even really conscious. and thats pretty fucked up.
yeah, we mask. we learned real young that acting and reacting the way we naturally do (specifically the way the old host did) was ‘bad’ so we stopped doing it.
April 10th: How important is representation to you? Is the representation that is out there generally good or bad? What is your favorite piece of representation? What you like to see more of in autism representation? What would you like to see less of?
representation is really important to us and we’ll end up going on a couple long rants about some of our favorites (under the cut) because we can, it’ll be real messy because theres at least 3 of us talking and im just about positive that people were blurry when writing shit out so sorry about that but that’s just how it is
for us, representation enables us to see people like us in stories. the other thing for us, not specific to autistic representation, is just that we tend to enjoy more diverse stories more? maybe we’ve just had good luck but we’ve found that stories with characters who are members of marginalized groups (whether the story itself is diverse or not) tend to be better written. maybe it’s because we generally prioritize ownvoices works, idk.
so first i wanted to take a look at some numbers regarding autistic characters we’re familiar with (yes we know there are more, we just have a focus on books in our brain) and we started with books & comics and got some interesting numbers that we weren’t expecting! we haven’t read all these books yet so there are some gaps in the information.
of the 10 characters (from 8 books and 1 webcomic):
5 are female, 4 are male, and 1 is nonbinary. 2 are black, 2 are white, 1 is mixed (surinamese/dutch), 1 is mixed (vietnamese/irish), 1 is mixed (fictional races). 9 (possibly all 10) are main characters 6 are over 21, 2 are under 12 (9 and 11), 1 is 16, 1 is 18 3 are straight, 3 are gay/lesbian, 1 is bi.
I think that’s very cool actually! we would like to see more trans autistic characters (the only trans character out of the 10 seems to be the 1 nonbinary character) for sure, and more explicitly canon autistic characters in general. i’d like to see less “autism representation” that isn’t actually canon (even though we do love some of the characters, if you have to go find an interview with a producer where they say probably in order to find out the character’s autistic, it’s not canon).
now time for our specialized little rambles!
so i’m going to start with another quick explanation of fictives again because it’s extremely relevant right now.
again, a system is multiple people in one body. individuals within a system are system members (there are many different terms, that’s what we prefer). fictives are system members who are/are based on/are versions of characters
i’m a fictive of danny becket from the webcomic sharp zero and honestly we all love sharp zero! it’s extra fun now because it’s one of the special interests we all share and it’s my source and i’m double autistic (system as a whole is autistic, and I was autistic to begin with) so i now have this intense special interest surrounding… myself??? anyway, sharp zero is great because
sharp zero doesn’t go “the autism one is pure and innocent <3″ sharp zero goes “the autism one drags a corpse through a magic portal to perform a ritual to resurrect him” and that’s pretty cool
also explicitly showing the use of stim toys!! tangle spotted
~Danny
I’m a fictive of Julian from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and I’m one of the favorite cases of representation for most of the system, which is very interesting for me. In the show, it’s a case of unnamed disorder, which my parents tried to ‘fix’ via genetic engineering. I specifically matter to the system because of one particular parallel.
When I was a child, my parents noticed me ‘falling behind’ and decided to ‘fix’ me, and then proceeded to hide that information from me. When I was 15, I found out what they’d done, and began going by a different name.
When the body was a child, we were going to a neurologist for other reasons, and the parents were told that we’re most likely autistic but to not get a diagnosis ‘unless it gets in the way’. They proceeded to hide that information from us. When we were 15, we found out about that. Around the same time, the old host came out as trans and began using a different name.
That parallel is very important to most of our system members, especially the old host.
Despite it never being stated that I’m autistic, and it being implied that my parents may have succeeded in their attempt to ‘fix’ me, it’s clear from my behaviour that they didn’t. Even if they had, it was clearly shown that what they did was illegal and wrong, and that it did direct harm to me. But every autistic person we’ve met who has watched DS9 has taken one look at me and said something along the lines of that man’s a whole autism.
I’m shown having clear interpersonal issues, including trouble with social cues and clear implications that I never had friends before arriving on DS9. My own parents thought a half-finished hologram with no personality who didn’t recognize them was me.
I think that kind of representation is important. The kind where things did go wrong, where there has been suffering and loneliness, and it takes time, but a support system does get found.
-Julian
k now y’all need someone who isn’t just sorta talkin about themself i think, who fuckin knew i’d be the one who was giving the general system-wide opinion
so, rep is really important to all of us, seeing people who’re like us. makes us all feel like someone might actually understand it and understand us
our favorite autistic rep is probably julian, which is real fun with him being here and all that. and i mean it’s actually fun and we all get each other. the way our system works, the way we have a mostly-shared memory, means that we all really get it, and all of us relate to julian a lot in one way or another
anyway, a while back we started lookin’ for books with autistic rep by autistic authors and the first one we found was on the edge of gone by corinne duyvis, and we’ll always have a soft spot for it cuz it’s really good and it was the first one we got
April 7th: How are you with sarcasm and/or metaphors/figures of speech? Do you interpret things very literally?
This is one where we vary quite a bit, actually. Some of us are much more literal than others and some of us understand jokes and sarcasm very well.
Rhetorical questions and joke and trick questions are our downfall though. We tend to not realise when somebody doesn’t actually want an answer and nearly always interpret questions literally. Also, even when we do realise a question is rhetorical, we often get excited and can’t really resist talking about the answer provided we have it.
We tend to interpret sarcasm fairly well from people we know well, or people who use sarcasm in the most obvious typical way.
