Also people with reading comprehension issues saying they can’t just sit down and read theory and need other sources like videos/audiobooks/etc isn’t fucking childish. Indicating that we’re lazy for not wanting to struggle our way through hell like we did when we were students is ableist as fuck. Just because systems built by conservatives fail to include us doesn’t mean you get to as well.
The world is geared towards non-disabled people and if you can’t understand that your leftism is shallow and garbage.
Me: I broke my leg in several places, it hurts like shit, but I still manage to walk without a limp and behave completely normal when I’m with people.
Person: WHAT THE FUCK GO TO THE HOSPITAL SEE A DOCTOR GET TREATMENT!
Me: Oh, sorry, I misspoke. I meant: I have all the symptoms of undiagnosed ADHD, it’s exhausting like shit, but I still manage to function completely normal when I’m with people.
I don’t know who needs to hear this, but if the phrase “self care” doesn’t resonate with you, try calling it “system maintenance” and see if that clicks.
I cannot put into words how much I do not care about people who ‘fake being disabled for benefits’ cause a) it’s wildly blown out of proportion, is a very damaging rhetoric and is a huge waste of time and resources b) I do not trust the government to decide or be able to tell who is and who isn’t 'faking’ and c) if someone is going through that much hassle for such a comparatively small reward then they probably need the money and I’d rather they have it than not.
Oooohhhhhh PPPRRRREEEEEAAAACCCCHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
Also, do y'all know how BORING being disabled/chronically ill and not being able to do stuff can be? Every “normal” person quits after a few months because there are only so many movies/TV series to watch, online games to play, books to read, records to sort, cupboards/closets to empty and rearrange, stuff to do around the house, blankets to knit… Believe me. (Insertion: Would I be glad to be able to do all that.)
So you wanna go outside at some point. But guess what: Ppl will ask you what you’re doing outside during daytime when everybody else is working. So you should be able to explain what kind of disability you have. And then ppl will ask you: But… It can’t be that bad, you’re able to take a walk, so why aren’t you working?! Well… Believe me! You’ll only be able to have that conversation a few times before you get super annoyed and try to stay at home (because you’ll meet ppl who know you literally everywhere and every time you’ll have to explain that, yes, you’re still disabled/sick, and no, you’re not better yet, and also no, you’re still not able to work). But at home it’s boring again.
In conclusion: Even if somebody was trying to fake it, they wouldn’t be able to keep the scheme up for very long because basically, non-disabled ppl don’t have the eagerness to do it. It needs a lot of physical and emotional strength to be disabled - it is almost impossible to fake it over a long period of time.
i’m tired and angry and i just wanna give a special fuck you to every teacher who implied that using “complex” language meant you were cheating or sucking up, when in fact that’s just how a lot of neurodivergent/autistic kids (and adults) naturally sound
My thoughts indeed
This is so me. I used to use really complicated sentences and stuff, but did a lot mistakes bc i was dyslexic - which of course nobody told me. So the complexity of what I was saying resulted in even more mistakes. Since our school system only counts mistakes… Well… I was a bad student. Of course. Because how else would it be?
Not to deep dive into my mental health struggles but I’ve been researching a bunch of ways to deal with autistic burnout and one site recommended to “sit in a dark closet outfitted for sensory bliss (soft pillows, dark, quiet)…
You want me to build a den? A silly little den for my silly little self? *starts crying* I can do that, sure!
growing up being autistic but not knowing is just *hiding in room while people are over* *getting tired and needing to recharge after the smallest chores* *getting called a gifted kid* *knowing that you’re “weird” because people are making fun of you but not knowing how to stop being weird* *having adults tell you how “mature” you are* *getting in trouble for not doing work* *convincing yourself that you’re just lazy and stupid because you can’t make yourself do work* *getting really invested in “weird” media*
For those who are seeking diagnosis, are questioning if they’re autistic or self-diagnose as autistic.
Special interests are often portrayed as knowing everything there is to know about one niche topic. It’s often shown as the ability to state all facts about that topic, proving every NT in the room wrong.
Whilst yes, this is also how a special interest can work, it is not the only way.
How a special interest can present (just examples and not an exhaustive list):
Collecting random information about a broad topic such as having a Pinterest board of science facts or a folder of dinosaur pictures.
Collecting books about topics but not knowing all the information. Remember, it’s the fact that this interest excludes all other interests that makes it a “special interest”. It’s not the memorising of every fact.
Collecting objects. Having shelves of figurines, stuffed animals, D&D dice, Funko Pop Vinyls etc.
Watching videos on a topic. Not everyone has the money to collect items and other neurodivergences can make reading difficult, so watching videos on your special interest counts as engaging in your special interest.
Learning all you can about a person or character. People can be a special interest.
Your work can be a special interest. Some autistics end up in a field of work that they want to know all about, and it becomes their SpIn.
Multiple small Special Interests. Not all SpIns are big huge topics. Some autistics have small, narrow interests or sometimes broad, vast topics as special interests. They all count.
“Average” interests can be special interests. It’s intense interest to the exclusion of all other interests…it’s not about whether allistics also like those things. Euphoria can be your latest special interest, a cartoon can be your special interest, a new video game etc.
Collecting images of a topic.
Making that special interest part of your life, such as owning cats or being a dog walker because you love to learn and interact all you can with them and if anyone asks you’ll gladly gush for hours about how amazing these animals are etc
Writing stories. I truly think there is a huge amount of amateur fiction and fan fiction written by unaware autistics based on their special interest.
And many many more ways.
Remember: an standard interest is “yes, I enjoy that. I will talk about this topic if it is brought up.”.
A special interest is “I love this and want to discuss it now. Can we bring this topic around to my special interest? I feel like my heart is pounding just even thinking about this topic. Even my standard interests would benefit by having some of my special interest added.”
here’s a couple little hand stim emote for you!! i wanted to make one even though theres a lot of them out there… we can never have enough flappy stim emotes though … —
like or reblog if using pls!! i also got a kofi if you want to throw money at the court jester https://ko-fi.com/fiarts
autistic people are twice as likely as allistic to receive a late diagnosis of OCD
people with OCD are four times more likely to receive a late diagnosis of autism than those without
overlapping symptoms:
repetitive behaviours
anxiety
hoarding
sensory issues
executive dysfunction
desire for routine
what do they look like together?
this is a complicated question, because both OCD and autism can have a lot of different symptoms and presentations. but common issues include:
increased chance of alexithymia, which you can read about here
autistic people often get overwhelmed more easily than allistic people, which means we may also have a lower anxiety threshold before we turn to a compulsion
over-relianceon stimming can turn stims into compulsions — because almost anything can become a compulsion
high likelihood of thought spiralsandmeltdowns feeding into each other
increased likelihood of communication challenges, making it harder for others to understand what they’re doing and why
in conclusion:
autism and OCD can be hard to live with on their own, but together they cause unique challenges that need to be countered very carefully. despite a high comorbidity rate, it can be hard to be diagnosed with both due to similarities in external presentation.
WHOOSH finally I’ve finished this behemoth of an art video about canon autistic characters!! This took forever, but really happy with it~ Please check it out and leave a comment if you liked it, it would mean a lot
Autism is a developmental condition that can make both verbal and non-verbal communication more difficult.
Psychiatrist Leo Kanner first coined the term “infantile autism” in 1943, but autism symptoms were documented and recognized as far back as the 1700s.
Autism diagnoses are increasing among both boys and girls in the US, but that is not necessarily an indication that autism is “on the rise.” It could just be a condition that is more frequently diagnosed than it used to be.
Everyone with autism is a little different, and symptoms can range from subtle to debilitating. Here’s what to know about the reality of autism, and how it’s actually diagnosed.
Also people act like autistic people would have been, like, left in the woods to die or something as kids for most of history, but as i said i’m researching islamic saints and in both islam and christianity there’s an awful lot of just, like, “Yeah that guy decided to go live in a cave by himself and wore one (1) article of clothing and sometimes he would walk around and scream randomly, it meant he was closer to god than everybody else”
I’d have to research this, but I kinda feel that, what with how much the eugenics movement pervaded everything for a huge chunk of recent history, our narrative of how disability was for much of history has gotten a little warped.
I feel like I always heard “yeah they assumed people were possessed by demons Back Then” but actually researching religious history? I’ve found a lot more of people seeing a person showing signs of (what we would call) neurodivergence or mental illness and being like “hm. yea that’s god.”
It’s also definitely like…in the US anyway fundamentalism has absolutely decimated a lot of AWARENESS of what Christianity specifically can look like.
american evangelicalism is based a lot on Belief in your religion as axiomatic Fact and at the same time a very buddy-buddy view of god where Jesus is like, your cool dad. Both of which are not very good for allowing the numinous and divine “mystery” to exist
So I think we assume people throughout history would default to “things I don’t understand are of the devil.” when very often they would instead be “things I don’t understand are of God.”
and they would see someone speak in strange sounds or move his body strangely or respond differently to the world and see something divine in it, and there are instances of this across many religions
@invisibleoctopus There’s this fascinating book about the cultural aspects of how mental illness presents called Crazy Like Us by Ethan Watters that is not without its flaws, but that (among other things) discusses how schizophrenic people do significantly better in cultures where there’s a precedent/religious or spiritual explanation for people ‘hearing voices’ and such, because for one thing, they’re not treated as social outcasts for it. Those environments are better equipped to help and accommodate those people on the basis of being able to keep them integrated into a community. At least according to the Ethan Watters guy.
The thing about imagining that autistic children would have been left to die for most of history is just… it’s so lazy. And it betrays a huge failure to understand what autism looks like for autistic people and what daily life looked like in history at the same time. It’s very frustrating.
There’s this weird idea that autistics only develop special interests in this very narrow stereotypical STEM-field domain of life, also, which is total nonsense. Of course religion autistics are a thing. Judaism, too, has a lot of room for autistics: you develop very deep spheres of knowledge, about which you argue constantly, and prayer is sung and you get to move back and forth during it rhythmically.
The other thing that gets me is that it’s not just that there’s historical room to interpret weird behavior as Godly, it’s that autistic people are relatively likely to come up with unusual ideas about people and how people do and should work. If you’re talking about any theological tradition that involves contextual study and argument, you often find a very autistic sort of perspective writing the theology.
Also, just as a general data point: my stepdad, who is in his mid-70s, grew up in a rural farming community, and was never diagnosed with anything, is Obviously Autistic to anyone who knows what autism is.
He can only tolerate about 2 different fabrics against his skin.
And can only eat about 5 foods for obvious food texture reasons.
He hums softly and continually.
He never looks at people.
He has a bunch of other people-related sensitivities, like the inability to tolerate a lot of sounds and nearly all perfume smells.
He has about 3 topics of conversation, which are a) tractors, b) agriculture, and c) Rottweilers.
And you know what? He has had a nice long life of being a Rural Farmer and gets along great with other old farmer dudes who want to talk dogs-tractors-farming with him.
I mean, it’s generally understood that he is Weird, but also that he knows Really A Fucking Lot About Tractors. Which counts for everything in a rural farming community.
It goes beyond lazy into a type of downright cruelty. No matter how autistic people did or did not fit into their communities in the past, chances are someone loved them. When they were little, someone found the clothes they could tolerate and food they would eat and something they could do that matched their interests and abilities. And people married some of them and had children with them. Maybe not all of them, but some of them at least were loved.
We know this because archeology shows over and over again a great level of care and because these traits are still present - they had to get passed on somehow. And we know it because we too feel love for others, despite them constantly failing to live up to any ideal whatsoever.
Anyone who approaches other people with this attitude is only seeking to perpetuate an excuse to be cruel to them. It has nothing to do with what happened in the past and everything to do with what they hope they can get away with in the future. They discount the love that must have existed because it can’t be used against us.
