Autism $peaks doesnt speak 4 me

You have to unmask eventually.

Unmasking is even more necessary when your body is in constant management mode trying to appear "normal" while suppressing tics.

Your stress is increasing significantly while trying to appear neurotypical. You use a large amount of concentration while trying to manage your sensory outputs.

By trying to blend in with neurotypical people you are eliminating your body's ways of releasing stress after processing sensory. You are holding all of your normal ways of coping inside where you cannot decompress and destress.

Stimming is how you release internal feelings while processing the world around you. Stimming helps your body manage absorbing large amounts of sensory input. Stimming is a way of regulating your emotions during this. Stimming is how you sooth your body. Stimming helps you let out internal pressure.

Here's to a year of weird, funny remarks and strange looks,

Here's to a year of ableists, well meaning ableists, and people who don't care,

Here's to a year of anxiety, losing sleep, wanting to be normal.

Here's to a year of never being normal.

A year with Tourette’s.

Every twitch, whistle, click, shout and slap.

Here's to everything that's taught me.

I'm never going to be normal. And I never have been. But I'm so outwardly different that I act as a beacon letting others know that it's okay to be strange and screwed up.

My Tourette’s shows me people's true colours right when I meet them. It teaches me not to take life too seriously. It's a fun ice breaker. It cuts through silence and isn't afraid to speak its mind. It makes me feel okay with being a freak because I know I can't help it and I know that there's more to me than what meets the eye.

Maybe I'm just emotional and tired and a little tipsy right now and I'll wake up tomorrow and regret saying anything positive about the condition that renders me helpless and paralysed on the floor when I least expect it.

But on the one year anniversary, I just can't bring myself to hate it.

Because then I'd be hating me.

And I'm not going to do that anymore.

People with tics do NOT have to hold down a tic attack just for you to not feel uncomfortable.

People with tics do NOT have to suppress.

Suppressing is a shitty thing, when I suppress my tics, my whole body tenses up, I can’t talk because I’m afraid a vocal tic may come, I let small tics go because it can go unnoticed, I can’t focus on anything that isn’t suppressing tics, I suppress because I’m afraid people can look at me weird, say something bad, or bully me.

And yes, is a form of surviving in a neurotypical world, but it makes US have tic attacks, it make US tired, it make US feel like shit because we can’t unmask around people, we can’t be us with our tics.

Please don’t tell people to suppress their tics!!!

I have Tourette’s, and I am able to suppress my tics for a short amount of time.

When I’m suppressing my tics, I experience this awful sensation of ants and sand under my skin, and pressure building up my extremities. I also experience a sharp pain in my chest. All my focus and energy goes into suppressing my tics.

For me, and many others, tics suppression can lead to side effects such as

- Tic attacks

- Anxiety

- Fatigue

- Rage attacks

- Seizures

- Dystonia

- Depression

- Worsened tics

- Heightened sensory issues

- Fainting

- Irritability

- Pain

- Restlessness

- And much more

Needless to say, tic suppression is not the solution for most people.

A number of studies show that autistic infants have a higher fundamental frequency cry, with the space between the sounds is more narrowed.

In these studies, the parents of the autistic infant felt a feeling of unease and higher levels of stress at their baby's cry.

The cries also gave a feeling of unease to people who were not the parents.

Out of curiosity, I checked with my mum: