Reading further into this online, she was autistic, had depression, anxiety and a personality disorder, her father passed away and she was estranged from mother and siblings. I'm 28 and this is scarily similar to my life and like...I get it.
My roommate was early diagnosed, I was late diagnosed, and often we exchanged stories. And I noticed all we ever said was "that must have been hard." "Man that sucks." "I'm sorry that happened to you." Not, "You're lucky and privileged."
Y'all gotta be a lil more patient with people trying to recapture some of their stolen years from things like trauma and such. If a grown ass adult who pays bills want's to wear princess dresses they fucking can. You got those years and they didn't.
It's extremely upsetting and I wish there had been another option. But for her there wasn't, she was literally told there wasn't. I have nothing I can say except, I fucking get it.
Something you should never do to your autistic loved one: Clean their room without telling them. For the love of God I don't know how many times I have to say this!
A much better way to explain "autistic burnout" is an apparent cognitive decline. The longer I spend in an overwhelming environment, the more disoriented I become. That's why employers often tell me it's like I've regressed, even tho I've worked for months.
Autism is having to understand other people before you understand yourself, and noone making the effort to understand you. Which even you don't understand, because all your effort has been spent understanding them.
Such a mind fuck to realize how many people figured out you were autistic and deliberately fucked with you because of it. They didn't know the word autism but they knew, "she reacts this way if I press this button."
Please tell your kid they have autism. I spent my entire childhood and early adulthood believing I was possessed. Like that I was literally evil and needed to be abused by people because I had committed some ultimate sin.
There's such a stark difference between people who only have autism or ADHD and people who have both, that I can't believe anyone thinks they're the same disorder.
I was the autistic girl that smiled all the time. Never disagreed, never had a different opinion, waited to be prompted, scripted.
I also didn't know for years how to communicate when I had been violated. To be not *disruptive* does not make us safer, it makes us targets.
I really need people to understand how sensory overload affects autistic people. I appear to literally cognitively decline because I become so disoriented, I can no longer figure out where the aisles are in the store or what colors I'm looking at.
Why are you mad if I wear a mask? You won! You got what you wanted. No mandates, no required vaccines, no data or testing. The government literally gave up. Why are you still angry about it?
Maybe you fucked up the data set. Maybe you have unconscious bias. If y'all can't even CONSIDER that you might be wrong about anything we are never getting anywhere.
Autistic people: Do you ever get super excited when an interaction actually goes well? Like if I land a joke or a conversation flows smoothly I will gush about it for days. I used to say "I was a person today!" Whenever it happened as a kid. (Dead giveaway).
Adhd and autism actually have very little overlap. The symptoms appear similar but the reasons behind them are different. Once you learn the reasons, if you're still not sure it's possible you have both.
Bedbugs broke me. They stole 8 months of my life. I couldn’t sleep because I was so paranoid about being bitten. The bites would itch for weeks, and even after they healed I had phantom itching. 👇🏽🧵
There are autistic people who like "childish" things. Bright, pastel colors, stim boards, toys, the word "neurospicy". We shouldn't be infantilized, but we shouldn't act like it's bad if you ARE like this. Some of us are.
Autism is cool and quirky until you have zero reciprocal response to someones display of negative emotion and they call you evil for it. Like it doesn't matter how compassionate my actions are. If I don't "look" or "sound" empathetic, I'm evil.
I find the idea that autistic people are the only ones annoying with their interests ridiculous. I never want to hear about Football or Christianity but do people who talk about these things care? No.
More people need to learn about dissociating in autism because once I stopped doing it so much, all my sensory issues felt just as intense as they were as a kid.
Dissociating makes me not meltdown, but it does not make me functional. It's not the same as masking.
Truly and sincerely, half of my problems are caused by other people, not autism. I'm ok with my autism. I know what to do for my autism. People won't let me do what I need to do.
I'm autistic and my senses are multiplied times 100 when I'm menstruating. I feel like we don't talk about this enough. Day 1 makes me feel like I'm losing my damn mind.
So I always used to say, "I can't think right now." And I realize I mean something completely different from non-autistic people. I literally mean I can no longer process information. They mean "oh I'm a bit spacey right now lol."
She has remarked about the ways she's learned to handle her sensory issues so she helps me cause she's done it all her life. I help her with things she's been held back from doing independently by other people.
Autism does not make you racist. You were raised to be racist. You haven't encountered anything to make you not be racist, like a right hook to the jaw area.
I know alot of autistic people are fighting infantilization tooth and nail, but I am an autistic person who does need tone indicators, does fully enjoy "childish" things, and does process a bit slower, does have ridiculously high amounts of anxiety.
As an autistic person I've known for awhile that no matter what I learn about social norms, it's near impossible to apply in real time.
Real time moves too fast. By the time I've finished processing my "tone", I've committed several other offenses.
We share the same support level. We both ended up in the same group home. We encourage each other. We help each other. We make up for what the other lacks. We work together.
Y'all just don't like autistic people because most of the time when I describe accommodations but don't use the word autism, people are willing to work with me. You say "autism" and suddenly my needs are actually too much. EVERYONE can be unpredictable, not just autistic people.
Alexithymia, common in autism, means that I often can't tell people I need help because *I* don't even know I need help. I shuffle between thinking everything is wrong or nothing is wrong.
Any other autistic people just know they can't drive? I'm too easily overwhelmed and disoriented by trying to focus on moving objects. This is why I can't catch a ball or play first person shooter games.
Autistic people needing carers and support workers are what we should be normalizing the most. That you can be a grown adult with autonomy and still need assistance in order to navigate through life.
All my life I've gone into jobs not telling anyone I'm autistic and having to leave once I you know, act disabled. And for the first time, I'm going into a job where people know and accept it.
I’m a black, 30 year old woman with autism
Can't keep a job
I go out of my way to be polite but ppl still think I'm evil
Never been in a real relationship
Struggle to connect with others
In and out of psych wards
And there is no one to talk to about this in real life
I'm not convinced that non-autistic people are better at communication when humans as a species have been killing each other over miscommunications for centuries.
Being autistic, and verbal and articulate is like being trapped behind a mask I can't take off. Because behind my words there was often no connection. I was just repeating what other people said. If I didn't understand the context, I just smiled and nodded.
As a late diagnosed moderate support autistic, the way some parents control their autistic children is the way I allowed *everyone* in my life to control me. Every person I met I looked at as a caregiver.
I am not hyperactive or under active. I have autistic inertia. If I sit still I can't stop sitting still, and if I move it's hard to stop moving. It's a transition thing.
It's just so crazy how hopeless everything feels when you have an autistic meltdown. I can't be consoled, the world is ending to me. Intellectually knowing it isn't, is like being two people. The logical one and the emotions I can not control.
Repressing myself as an autistic person was literally killing me, but expressing myself is causing a lot of judgement. Even just leaving the area before I explode causes judgement, there's no way to escape it.
Coming home to a familiar place and MY familiar place looking completely different is a mind fuck. And now I don't know where anything is. The worst part is it's a nice gesture. A nice gesture upsets me. Don't put me in the situation at all, please
Asperger's was never meant to be "high functioning autism." Asperger's meant autism with no significant language delay. That doesn't tell you the way someone functions.
I'm starting to notice just how much of autistic kids personality is influenced by parenting. If your kid is "cold" and "distant" maybe it's cause you aren't comforting them in the way they actually need you too.
I'm realizing that I don't relate to the experience of masking autism where you create a persona that people like and don't reveal the "real" one. The only two personas I have are, "quiet." and "oversharing."
I'm not unfocused, I'm not anxious, I'm not unmotivated, I can no longer process information coming through my sense or in my brain. I will not necessarily meltdown from this. I will just stop moving and communicating.
One of the reasons self diagnoses of autism doesn't bother me is because y'all don't believe the diagnosed either, if they don't measure up to what you think autism is.
What do non-autistic people get out of eye contact because I don't feel like anything is communicated when I look in people's eyes. I just see colors swirling around and shit.
Taking this as an opportunity to teach as well: Hyperlexia is literally a reading comprehension disorder. I decode language very fast which is why I can type fast, but I struggle to grasp the meaning of other people's long texts.
Does anyone else who grew up undiagnosed as autistic learn to communicate badly with allistics and now can't communicate with other autistic people either? It's quite lonely.
With my autism sometimes I can't turn the shower on or cook or clean at home if I've done too many other things that day. Brain can't process the tasks. Is there a spoon theory for processing power?
I don't like the idea that only *stereotypical* autism gets recognized. I have stereotypical autism. It doesn't get recognized as autism, in black people.
I am black and autistic. I am tired, and already despised upon every corner of the earth.
I'm not going to waste my energy on attempting "normal." I'm going to squeeze every drop of joy and authenticity as possible from life.
#AutismAcceptanceMonth
#BLM
#ActuallyAutistic
Stop forcing autistic people to act like non-autistic people and I am so fucking serious. Treating myself like everyone else has done nothing but harm me. The minute I started to understand my own brain is when I started succeeding in life.
I wish everything didn't move so fast. Everything just moves SO fast. And I need to think about things. Process before I respond. There's never any time to do that. I want to just hang around only AAC users.
As an autistic person the existence of people who can perfectly fake emotions and intentions is terrifying because I can't really do that. So I wonder alot who is actually lying to me.
For example, "distracted because fun thing" is different from "distracted because of a sensory imput". Stimming from energy is different from stimming to regulate sensory, emotional or information input.
The childhood autism/adhd narrative especially needs to die.
I spent all my life believing I would grow out of my struggles at a certain age.
I now need the MOST compassion/patience I've ever needed, at an age where people expect you to need less.
I've realized I never learned emotional regulation as an autistic child, only suppression and dissociation. So now that I'm an adult, my emotions are actually still as big as they've always been, and now I'm in this adult ass body.
"That's not autism, that's x" As if y'all can't fathom that autism alone can make someone SIGNIFIGANTLY disabled. If you think not being able to control your own body and thoughts is naturally occurring go ahead, but what is the point of pointing that out, really?
Both autism and adhd have communication difficulties. But adhd is more related to impulse control, like "think before you speak." Whereas in autism it doesn't matter how much you think. It has to be explained so you understand.
I often get ignored when I talk in a group setting. I have a theory that there's something in autistic peoples actual voices that doesn't register to others as speech. Like my voice blends in with other background noise or something.
I don't make eye contact, I don't always speak, I struggle immensely to pay attention. I do need things broken down into smaller steps sometimes. I do sometimes stay upset for awhile, or from "small" things.
Missing social cues from not paying attention is different from not picking up on social cues whether you pay attention or not. Same on the surface, different when you go one layer deep.
That is how I survived having no support. By being abused into being afraid to do anything I wasn't told to do. Relying on everyone else, even complete strangers, to make decisions for me.
See as an autistic person, it's not that I don't put effort into sounding polite or pleasant, it's that I can not and have never been able to do anything subtly. When I'm trying to be "nice" I DO sound condescending.
I'm so autistic that I say things that sound passive aggressive when I'm just processing out loud. Like I'll say "these boxes are really heavy. And I'm doing it by myself. It would be nice to have help." And then ask for help. I just processed and then concluded I need help.
"I'd never make fun of an autistic person." Is the biggest lie.
Making fun of traits common in autistic people is so normalized that I've seen myself directly in the people who get made fun of all my life, I just didn't want to "out" myself to others.
#actuallyautistic
I know I am an adult. I take responsibility for the things I do and the way I make other people feel. I have seen where I am actually MORE considerate of other people than those who pride themselves in never acting "childish."
Autism is part of my identity. If parents should be allowed space to grieve over the child they'll never have, I should be allowed to grieve over the child I was never allowed to be.
@Galaxibrain444
@wideeyedla
This is excellent. Pushing socialisation is dangerous.
I was pushed into socialisation a lot throughout my life and the result is now I hide in my flat and remove myself from society severely because I have that choice now.
This isn't even all because of autism, it's just my personality. It's not an act, I've always struggled with what I've struggled with. I'm still am adult. Needing different support than other autistic people is not something I'm going to be ashamed of.
"I didn't let my disability stop me." I appreciate the sentiment but we are two completely different people and you do not know me at all so I will be the deciding factor in what that phrase means for me.
I think there is too much emphasis on "normalizing" instead of destigmatizing. Many things are not "normal." They need to be destigmatized. Not matching what is thought of as "normal." Is the entire point.