"I have cats at home. Come over."

I've seen "autism isn't an excuse to be a picky eater," "autism isn't an excuse to struggle with tone/misread sarcasm in a post," "autism isn't an excuse to be bad at social cues" (with the comment of "literally just go out and learn by talking to people, it's not that hard," as if autistic people don't already do that), "autism isn't an excuse to not make eye contact, that's so rude," "autism isn't an excuse to wear headphones in class or work, nobody else gets to do that," and "autism isn't an excuse to be unemployed/live with your parents/not leave the house enough" (wondering if this person has any idea HSN autistic people exist?). Some people here are like half a drink away from saying having flat affect is "literally weaponized incompetence!!!" or something. I'm starting to wonder what you people think autism even is. Because if you've found a way for autistic people to turn off the most basic symptoms (like sensory sensitivity or difficulty with social settings), that's news and you need to share your incredible findings with the world immediately.

Like this applies to all “invisible” disabilities in the sense that just bc you can’t see what’s wrong doesn’t mean nothing is wrong or they aren’t disabled but it’s especially the case for chronic migraines

Migraines are NOT just headaches. It’s not just “oof ow my head hurt :(”, Migraines are WHOLE body affair. It’s getting weepy and irritable hours before the pain hits, it’s starting to get clumsy and feeling body aches just before the pain starts, it’s getting stiff because of the aches and sensitive to light and sound because of how heightened senses get.

And when the pain gets, sometimes it is the general image of someone locked in a dark room in bed, which is genuinely awful bc you can’t do anything. You just have to lay there and stew in your pain and no medicine touches it and everything hurts, worst of all your head and there is nothing to focus on other than the pain because any light hurts and any sound hurts.

But sometimes the pain isn’t bad enough for that, or sometimes you have to work or go to school with nails in your head and it’s impossible to focus. Your depth perception gets wonky, you’re clumsy, you slur or stumble over your words because so much of your brain is occupied only by pain. You can’t miss another day of work, you can’t miss the money, but you’re messing up orders or you’re misunderstanding instructions.

And then there’s the after. Postdrome, the migraine hangover. Where the emotional and irritability returns, and you have issues with your stomach, very often leaving you unable to eat or drink without puking. Your neck is stiff, your head feels heavy, your brain is so fogged up that you can barely string together a coherent sentence. Your body aches much worse than before, and you’re exhausted, fatigued to hell and back, and that lasts for 1-3 days after the actual migraine.

Migraines are a multi-day condition that affects EVERY aspect of your fucking life. And medicines that treat the pain very often only lessen the symptoms that occur before and after.

If we were diagnosing based on how we "feel" then a lot us would either not be diagnosed at all or we'd all be level 3.

I guess that I find it frustrating because your internalised experience vs your externalised experience isn't the same thing at all.

You being able to do something and internally feeling anxious or whatever about it, is still not the same as someone who can't do it at all or needs support to do it.

People not only need support boundaries, but safety boundaries.

1. there will always be someone more severely affected by their disability than you are, this does not mean you aren't disabled, or that your struggles aren't real. these disabled people are not your enemy.

2. visibly disabled people are not treated better than invisibly disabled people, there are different struggles to both.

3. visibly & severely disabled people are not lucky for being visibly disabled or severely disabled. this belief is ableist.

4. we all need to keep the more severely disabled people in mind, they are the most vulnerable & this is disability justice 101.

5. there will always be severely disabled people in public, you absolutely need to work on your discomforts about the conditions/aids/symptoms/behaviours they might have; drooling, incontinence, "odd" behaviours, visible differences, use of AAC etc. this is a you problem, not a them problem.

6. there will always be symptoms of disabilities that you don't approve of; zero social awareness, cognitive impairments, violent meltdowns, strong smells & loud noises, being nonverbal/semiverbal etc. no one can force you to like it, but you cannot be cruel to them regardless of your opinions, again, this is a you problem & not a them problem.

7. you can still be ableist even if you yourself are disabled, this isn't always internalised, it can also be outright ableism.

8. caregivers of severely disabled people often play an important role in disability spaces, try not to *immediately* discount their experiences, unless they're truly over stepping, are being factually incorrect/uneducated or ableist. (caregivers can come with unique problems in disability spaces, 100%, but they are not inherently bad)

9. severely disabled people will have experiences you do not have, it is not an attack on you when these experiences are talked about.

10. “people wouldn’t say [ableist thing] to a wheelchair user” yes they would and yes they do.

Special interests within autism can cause clinically significant impairments in one's life.

Special interests can borderline obsession and addiction and compulsion. They can even run inline with addiction, obsession, and compulsion.

Special interests aren't always knowing everything about it, researching it, and infodumping, or engaging in it in multiple ways.

Sometimes autistics don't know much about them, some will not research them, some autistics won't infodump about them. Some autistics only every engage in their interest in a very restricted and fixated way, a very limited way.

I honestly think some autistics get special interests and hobbies mixed up. You are allowed to have hobbies you are very passionate about, love to talk about, and have a vast knowledge on them. There are many allistics in this world who have hobbies just like that and with such an intensity.

And it's not that this special interest or coping mechanism itself is harmful in terms of subject. It's not like self-harm or getting involved with a dangerous community.

But it's isolating, because it's revolved around something that no one will get. And I can't. Stop. Thinking. About it. It's so oppressive and relentless that the possibility of a breakdown has happened before. It feels like you're trapped in an endless loop with no one there because no one else cares enough to entertain it. And it just never stops because you need it. You can't live without it. But it's horrible in how it's taken over and seems to have cut off empathy for anything else.

It's the act of being obsessed about this one thing that only matters to you, and the feeling that you can't leave it, because then what was the point of all that if you don't get something useful out of it.