Me:* an autistic person vibing to a song and taking every word of the song literally. *
People: ACTAULLY THIS SONG AS A SUPER DEEP AND HIDDEN MEANING! YOU’RE A BAD/DUMB PERSON IF YOU DIDN’T INSTANTLY GET IT!! HOW COULD YOU NOT SEE THE SUPER DEEP HIDDEN MEANING?!
That ain’t it chief. I’m sure some of you guys have seen profiles like this before. Parents invading their childs privacy and posting pictures/videos of their child displaying symptoms only to brag about how hard their life is and to fish for comments of praise from others. Also parents of neurodivergent children who advocate for organisations like Autism Speaks, either they haven’t done their research or they have and believe that their child needs to be cured which of course is wrong on so many levels. Ain’t it chief.
I’m getting pretty sick and tired of having to defend my right to exist to neurotypicals. Why as autistic people do we constantly have to explain why we shouldn’t be cured or why we shouldn’t be eradicated. It’s so fucked up, we are human beings and have the same rights as any other person on this planet. If you are neurotypical and support curing autism, please just consider how that makes us autistic people feel. It’s so incredibly hurtful and scary to think that our rights to exist are being demolished.
Autism in media: I got bored so I read three science textbooks and completed all these equations and now I’m working on the coding for this app-
Autism in real life: I’m so bored that every bone in my body feels like it’s being turned into one but don’t even talkto me about doing something about it
One of the really, really frustrating things about being autistic is that you feel like you spend your life trying to reach some sort of unattainable middle-ground:
- We’re criticised for not making enough conversation, but when we do actually really get in to a conversation we are told we’re ‘too intense’.
- We’re often trained to maintain unbroken eye-contact during conversations, yet in reality too much eye-contact is called ‘staring’ and makes people very, veryuncomfortable.
- We’re encouraged to ‘express’ ourselves more, yet our actual, genuine emotional reactions are usually deemed ‘innapropiate’ or ‘unnescessary’.
- We’re told to be friendly and confident when approaching new people, but are then warned that we ‘come off too strong’.
- We are told to try and make interesting conversation, but are also taught that speaking about our interests will only ever annoy other people.
- We’re asked to explain our difficulties and anxieties, only to be told that these explanations ‘make no sense’ or that our worries are unrealistic and invalid.
- We’re expected to force ourselves in to social situations that feel overwhelming and draining yet still somehow remain friendly, good-tempered and pleasantly sociable.
- We are encouraged to develop good self-esteem, while at the exact same time being taught that everything about us is wrong.
I don’t hate having autism - I’ve never hated having autism. But I do hate living with the never-ending pressure to attain this mythological ‘perfect’ level of social interaction that simply doesn’t exist in my case.
-We are told to use coping mechanism when we need them, but when we implement them we’re told to stop, act appropriately, and push through the situation “normally”.
- We’re told to pursue our creative passions, because according to diagnostic stereotypes we’re not supposed to have them, but when we prove adept and imaginative at making art, we’re dismissed as having unreasonable fixations, escapist tendencies, and wasting our time on producing content that has no value in capitalist terms. And even if we do make some money off our creative pursuits—unless we’re one of the infinitesimal percentage of creators who make millions—we’re told it’s not and never will be a real job.
…this is so depressingly true that I’m going to sit here, read it again, and pout autistically for a while. Until my ADHD brain sees something shinier.
I mean… I try so hard and get so far, but in the end it doesn’t really matter… and if I said anything more I’d be a whole Linkin Park song. But I try, I really do. It just doesn’t work out unless the people I’m interacting with are either part of a neurotribe or at least understand the issues.
I’m on a waiting list right now for my autism screening stuff and I’m very curious as to what is going to happen I hope everything goes well and I can get in
@pixiesky said : “nonverbal is get severely diluted . it before mean can not talk at all , ever. but loud verbal autism people take word away and make mean different things now . is not good for people who can never talk , actually nonverbal people .”
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That’s why I was asking this question, I was expecting nonverbal autistic people’s take on the subject.
I’m not sure it’s just verbal autistic people who “diluted”, as you said, the meaning of nonverbal, though. More than often, it’s NTs who tend to be those who decide stuff about autism, regardless of what autistic people think about it (like the high-functioning/low-functioning classification and such). But I could be wrong.
It’s hard to find an accurate word or expression to portray this particular experience, because selective mutism is, according to the NHS, related to social situations, when it’s not always the case for me when I can’t use my words (more than often, it’s because I’m being overstimulated, it’s not related to anxiety or social situations).
Semiverbal could be accurate, but it’s describing the fact that I have episodes where I can’t talk, and it’s not naming those episodes in particular.
Loss of verbal speech seems to be the easiest and most accurate way to describe it without using the word “nonverbal”.
I admit that I tend to differentiate between “being nonverbal” and “going nonverbal”, as one would be a permanent state, and the other an occasional episode, but if “going nonverbal” is seen as inappropriate by the nonverbal autistic community, I think it’s fair to stop using it.
I want to believe that we’re all in this together, and that we need to listen to each other, regardless of the way we’re expressing ourselves. The autistic community needs to be united, not divided.
Thank you for your valuable input, pixiesky. I hope other nonverbal autistic people will give their opinion on the matter c:.
That moment when you obsess over something and then the next week you find something new to obsess about. The ever changing cycles of my special interests in a nutshell. I have some many unfinished movies and tv series.. I have like 2 episodes left of the gifted: graduation.. i rly want to watch it but i’m just waaay to tired plus i have loads of other stuff to do.
I tend to “abandoned” stuff because i get a new special interest or i’m just waay to tired to obsess over that certain thing rn. Then i start to feel bad bc i just abandonded my interest like that for something else…
When you do online shopping am i the only one doesn’t really like starting on top of the page and then scrolling down to the bottom? I like starting at the bottom and then scrolling to the top. I mostly do it when i play dress up games to look for inspiration for my drawings.
But it depends on how much i have to scroll thorugh to reach the bottom of the page… Does anybody else do this?
Also merry belated christmas or happy holidays if you don’t celebrate it.
Sooo i went to my drivers test today. And umm.. i failed it. I started crying afterwards. I also had a drivers lesson before my drivers test. We also had to answer 1-3 questions which i failed two of them. I feel terrible about myself. I guess next time im going for a drivers test i’m not going to take a lesson before my actual test. I’m unable to drive for too long at a time. I can usually drive up to 30 minutes before getting really tired… I also didn’t tell the person whom i was driving with that i’m autistic. Should i tell him that next time?
Have anybody else here failed their drivers test and how did u cope with it? I feel really bad about it and i can’t get it out of my mind.
That autistic feel…. Lol but seriously these food separators are great!
I do that too. But i don’t have food seperators like that. So i just put the food as far away from each other as possible. I don’t really like when my salad get’s mixed with other kinds of (warm) sauces on my plate, i have nothing against it if i put it on myself.
So it’s kinda fun to look at my familys plate vs mine. Bc they aren’t bothered by it at all.. and i’m like ‘no no go away!’ almost everytime my food touch each other. If the food cold has touched the warm food i usually wont eat it. So my parents usually tell me i put too much food on my plate.
Question: How do you as an autistic person show affection? We all have our different ways of showing affection. Some of it may not be the (neurotypical) traditional way of showing love.
Answer: I occasionally hug people but not a lot. I’m not very affectionate. Sometimes getting hugged, cuddled or embraced in a hug (if that makes sense…) feels like a cage to me. Idk why but it makes me uncomfterable.
Wby you? How do you feel about affection from others? Or how do you show affection?
(I’m sorry i haven’t been updating much. But i just started in high school… and im very tired when i come home. But luckily its an all autistic class.. so we’re all autistic in that class)
Who else feels depressed whenever there comes changes in your life? I’m finishing high school very soon and i just feel so depressed and it happens every time. Does anybody know how to cope with changes in your life? Because these few weeks i have felt so depressed due to the big changes that are happening soon.
Sooooo this summer i think i will start looking for a job. I have never had a job before,, but i have always wanted to have one. I hope to find a job nearby that’s somewhat “autism friendly”.
Sorry i haven’t uploaded in so long,, i’m currently writing a huge assignment on 10-15 pages. Plus i’m finishing my HF/highschool (højere forberedelses) this summer and i have quite a bit of exams to study to as well. Happy autism awarness month between!
(This was a couple of years ago lmao.. it has been sitting in my drafts for ages now. This was kinda at the start of quarantine in Denmark i think in 2020)
Today i went to pick up my package at the other side of the town i live in. When i said my name he picked up the wrong package. The person apparently had the same name as me. But it was the wrong package because it wasn’t the right adress on it. Then he finally found the right package and then he jokingly said “You must have a sister in this town” or something like that… Then i replied that i didn’t have a sister annndd then he said he was joking.
Ever get that feeling when you nothing or too much to hyperfocus on? I’m currently watching squid game… but i’m also watching ‘the uncanny counter’, and just watched the first 5 minutes of 'mad dog’ on netflix. My brain doesn’t know what to do.. and i tend to feel empty when i don’t have something to hyperfocus on.
I also have a though time finishing movies, reality shows, series, short films etc. Anybody else who does that as well?
I got my drivers lisence almost a month ago yet i’m still afraid to drive.. especially in the nearby city (where i even have driven?? before loads of time during my driving lessons).
In like 14 days i have to eat at a restaurant with my youth club. And i’m afraid to even drive there. Does anybody else struggle with this who is autistic and have a drivers lisence?
That moment when somebody tries to touch you and looking directly into your eyes.. my dad that sometimes. He puts both hands on my shoulders and look directly into my eyes. It’s so uncomfterable.. He got mad at me yesterday for flinching away and saying “don’t touch me”. He also thought it was violently embarrasing.. Sometimes i’m okay when people touch me and sometimes i’m not. Has anybody else experiences this or something similar? I’m sorry i haven’t posted in months.. i didn’t know what to write about plus school has been draining me for the past three months.
Hello! Me (Eryn Star) & my research partner Laura K. Anderson are both Autistic people doing actually Autistic research! We are interviewing Autistic survivors of emotional abuse from teachers when they were in K-12 public school about their experiences and thoughts about how those experiences impacted their lives. I’m an undergraduate student at Albion College and Laura is a PhD Special Education student at the University of Northern Colorado. A few examples of emotional abuse are if a teacher or more than 1 teacher repeatedly called them names, shamed them, refused to pay attention to them, and/or intentionally pressured them. Participants need to have: -graduated high school at least a year ago. We’ll also accept participants who dropped out of high school & got their GED. -went to public school in the US -be between ages 18-26 We hope that our research will help start conversations amongst Autistic survivors and the education profession about how to address teacher-student emotional abuse. Would you be willing to let me interview you? Please share this post with anyone who may be interested in an interview! If you’re interested in learning more & wish to be interviewed, please contact me, Eryn Star, at [email protected]. Thank you!
Still looking for interested Autistic participants!
