Untitled

Later

I made a corrupted pearl and post corrupted pearl. I have also learnt how to draw wolves. They are triangles

Things that are wonderful about my low empathy pals

Extremely perceptive

Almost impossible to freak out (great horror movie buddies)

Their ability to see through bullshit is unmatched

Immune to petty drama (unless it's funny)

Their sense of humour????????? The wildest, seriously

Perfect Poker Face

The ability to stay so calm in emergencies

Some of the least judgemental people I know (who knew rejecting social actually makes you more accepting of others? /sarcasm)

Some of the fiercest, most loyal and protective friends to those who have earned it

Unique and shrewd perspective on things because they're immune to guilt-tripping

Understand that actions, not thoughts, are the measure of a person's morality

Secretly the biggest animal lovers you'll ever meet

....and lots more things I didn't mention, but most importantly the most wonderful thing about aspd, npd, and low empathy people is that they are here, they are alive, and they are a beautiful expression of one of the many ways one can be human. They are just as capable of being good or evil as any other person is. If this is you, I want you to know I'm proud of you for surviving everything you've been through, especially the trauma and demonisation. You are worthy just as you are.

happy pride !! i love u my trans masc siblings 🫶 ⚧️ 🫶

Well actually YES but also:

Restricting food Does Stuff To Your Brain. "Restricting" doesn't mean stopping when you're full. I feel like this is what gets misunderstood a lot. It means placing rules and limits on food that supercede what your body is signalling that it wants. Let's use cookies as an example. Restricting would be:

- I can only have cookies when I deserve them.

- I can only have cookies when I'm alone.

- I can only have two cookies.

- I can only have low-calorie cookies.

- I can only have cookies on set days, or so-called cheat days.

- I can't have cookies.

- I can't have cookies in the house.

- I'm bad when I eat cookies.

- Cookies are a bad food and I must compensate for having eaten them.

Whether or not you stick to the restrictions you set, your brain is learning to be an anxious mess around cookies. It might want to avoid anywhere that has cookies. It might feel shame for wanting or eating cookies. It might get exhausted from suppressing the craving and decide to binge. It might go into binge mode every time you eat cookies because you've taught your body that This Will Not Be Available Whenever. It might feel ridiculously important to eat all the cookies while you can.

I know we're all so used to constantly talking about food, diets, weight and bodies, and it's completely normalised to look at absolutely everything you eat and assign it the level of guilt you're gonna feel for eating it, and to brag about not eating this and that, and to announce that you know it's a Naughty Indulgence when you eat anything sweet.

But oh my god, it's such a huge weight off your shoulders to just let yourself eat cookies because you wanted cookies and stop when you feel satiated and know that the cookies will be available next time you want cookies because you don't need to earn them in any way. Because a brain that knows it can have cookies whenever it wants cookies, doesn't crave cookies all the time. Nor does it feel any self-loathing when it does crave cookies.

(ANALOGY) If you’re taking a pan out of a hot oven and it hurts your hand, you’ll scrunch your face up and go “ow!” But then someone else comes along and tells you to be quiet, and then force you to keep taking out and putting back in the pan, until you don’t react when you do it. It still hurts, of course, but you’ve been conditioned to not react whenever you are burned by the pan. You could’ve used an oven mitt or had someone else get the pan for you, or maybe just not have done it at all, but you were told for years what the “right way” to take the pan out was. And now you’ve built up callouses, and take the pan out the exact way you were trained to, unconsciously ignoring your pain. It still hurts, but you’re not supposed to do it another painless way, and instead continue to hurt, because it’s all you were taught to do.

ABA doesn’t make autistic kids’ lives easier, it makes the parents’ lives easier, because now they won’t have to listen to their child telling them that they’re in pain. Your child is upset and hurting, but it’s too “hard/stressful” for you to acknowledge and help them.

WE ARE NOT AN ANNOYANCE OR A BURDEN. WE ARE YOUR CHILDREN. WE ARE NOT A BROKEN PUZZLE THAT NEEDS TO BE PUT BACK TOGETHER.

We are people, we have thoughts and feelings, and we feel pain. But we keep it bottled up inside because showing love and care for your child is apparently too “difficult” for you.

(EDIT)

But it’s something I can’t relate to at all. And it’s not because I am ashamed of my autism, because I’m definitely not. It’s just a fact in my life, not proud of it and not ashamed. I just am autistic.

This is one big echo chamber. If you don't step out of that bubble, you can start to think all Autistics are in the same boat.

People will have different opinions to you on basically everything within autism.

Gatekeeping terms is a bad idea. Some people like functioning labels. Some people are older and new to Tumblr and know nothing of why Aspie is a bad term. Some people live in countries where that is still a diagnosis. Step back, breathe, and assess before concluding anything.

ABA is bad. But some people benefited from it. Just sit and live with that. It's okay for something to be bad and still have helped others. Many factors go into therapy.

Edit to avoid confusion: autism levels (described often as autism support needs) are how much help you need with your social and language skills, not in help with ADLs such as showering or brushing your teeth.

Intercepting autistic traits is not always a bad thing. As @five-thousand-loaves-of-bread said, not all therapy is ABA, and not every single ABA therapist is harming children. We need to sit with that.

A lot of Autistics are traumatised.

Autism is not a superpower or a jump in the evolutionary chain. This is a dangerous thought pattern.

Autism can both suck and have benefits to the individual. They are not mutually exclusive.

Autistics can lie. Autistics can manipulate. We're not genetic saints.

There are a lot of differences in an autistic brain. And a lot of social and environmental factors that can make or break someone.

Some Autistics do not have good days or bad days. Some are high support needs all the time.

None of us speak for all of us.

There is going to be research on autism no matter how much we hate it. And some people want a cure.

Some Autistics will never have children because they do not want to risk an autistic child. I am one of these people. Support these people.

Some Autistics have several children with and without autism. Support these people.

Listen to all levels of support needs. Sometimes irks you? Discuss why. Open dialogue. Remember, Autistics can struggle with theory of mind, or black and white thinking. None of this is easy.

First thing is first: I'm probably a level 1 autistic, I have higher mid support needs but not related to my autism. I'm currently nonspeaking and I'm not sure if I'll get mouth words back considering how long it's been.

Onto the main bit: I have always been a high masking person, since I was young. Some strong examples of the only times I remember not masking are having a meltdown after having a toy lost and having the "wrong" reaction to a gift. I was punished disproportionately for both incidents.

I was taught at a young age that acting like myself was bad. I was lucky. I was in a gifted program, I was a rule follower, I could make friends. I also had things that set me apart from neurotypicals like me. I was in speech therapy, I was hyperexpressive, I talked a lot.

I remember coming home most days and being exhausted just from school. The reason this is weird is that I wasn't physically disabled when I was younger (aside from breathing and swallowing issues). I could do physical activity for hours before being tired (so long as it wasn't aerobic). I was that tired from socializing.

As I got to middle school I started finding fandoms and dressing different. I started finding myself. Or I thought I was. The truth is I was diving into these medias hoping that I could replicate someone from them. I would read Hunger Games and start acting like Katniss. It wasn't intentional. I wasn't attention seeking. I was just forming a defense mechanism.

I've always watched people. If I wasn't forced to join in, I would sit and watch. I still do. I would watch interactions and reactions and how to respond to things. It wasn't a conscious choice. I just became a chameleon. Or a mirror. Whatever worked best. I thought I was a bad person for a while because I was hanging out with bullies (didn't realize) and mirroring their behavior.

But now. Now it's getting harder and harder to mask. Sometimes even trying will give me (worse) migraines. I can't talk anymore. I can make mouth noises but they're just stims. I can't control the noises. My movements are becoming more "stereotypical". I get visibly stimmy when people mention my sp/ins. I take my comfort item (Jameson, a stuffed dinosaur) with me nearly everywhere (not bathroom or into places he could get lost).

Words in general are getting harder to use. If you follow me you might notice that sometimes I talk more simply, sometimes in 3rd person. I don't know if there's a pattern. All I know is that there are 2 modes of words for me. This and simple. There used to be a lot more. I could adapt my words however to fit my audience.

I used to read people really well. I could read emotions and body language (not how a NT does but still). Now I can't even look at faces half the time( the only person I can look at in the face now is my mother). I can't even look at my own face half the time! I can't even read my own emotions. I don't know how I feel other than "good, bad, or neither."

My internal sensations are going out of wack. I can tell something is wrong sometimes. If I focus I might be able to tell what it is. Most of the time I rely on time of day to tell me when I'm hungry, tired, or need the restroom. Sometimes my body does things that tell me (i.e. stomach growling) but other than that I won't notice until it's too late to do anything about it. I don't drink water unless I have it next to me, I remember, and my hands are working. Usually they don't happen at the same time.

I can no longer mask these things. The reason I am not noticably autistic is because I am noticably physically disabled. I cannot stim due to pain+fatigue. I can't do the comfortable "T-rex" arms while I'm standing because I have to use my hands on my mobility aides. I can't do a lot of the "stereotypical" visible autistic things because I am physically disabled.

I flap my hands really hard, and verbally stim, and tip toe walk, and swing my arms, and roll my knuckles together, and more.

I have big stims, and I do those big stims wherever it feels right.

- having no empathy. at all

- anger issues, being easily frustrated, explosive anger, destructive behavior

- being "over emotional" and sensitive- laughing for too long or too much, being easily amused, having big meltdowns over things people think "don't matter", having meltdowns because of even being able to hear horror movies or something sensitive someone told you. you could argue this is a type of "taking things too literally" too

- being too rough. i personally throw things i mean to just put down and slam doors i mean to shut quietly

- experimental behavior (saying or doing things just to see what will happen)

- not understanding boundaries

- not understanding consequences

- not understanding that other living things are real and have thoughts and feelings and bodies

- not understanding good and bad

- not knowing how to express emotions

- expressing or feeling a different emotion than is expected

- expressing an emotion you don't feel because you have no other way of communicating

- systemwide flat affect (tone, body language, and face)

- shallow emotions (feeling something but not feeling it as strongly as is expected)

- just flat out not feeling what you're expected to, at all

- what's considered manipulation because your brain just doesn't... work another way

- self absorption. both in terms of "only i exist to me" and "i will walk into the fucking road unless someone helps me watch where i am going". something parents of autistic children often complain about is their child coming out of their room, walking into the room where they are and they say hi and the child doesn't even acknowledge them. that. not acknowledging other people or objects or your environment at all. for me it's because my brain just literally doesn't "see" stuff but also sometimes i don't acknowledge people for reasons i don't even know. if anyone else gets this and knows why you do it lmk

- impulsivity

- incontinence

- not being able to understand, interpret, or process body signals like hunger, exhaustion, or needing to use the bathroom

- dysphagia and problems with eating and talking. can result in drooling

- issues with balance, proprioception, and motor skills (frequently bumping into stuff, tripping, falling, knocking stuff over, spilling, missing trash cans, being unable to grab something, missing your face when you eat, having a hard time dressing yourself, messy handwriting, having a hard time with buttons or staying in the lines or drawing a straight line)

- atypical gaits and mobility issues (may require the use of mobility aids)

- not being able to understand sarcasm or jokes. by themselves. just sarcasm and jokes. no complexity.

the point of this post is "please keep all of this in mind when you think about and discuss autism, and when you interact with others, especially people you know are autistic."

(correct me if I'm not aware of some nuances, and please add other words in the comments)

If you suddenly can't speak/struggle to speak:

losing words

losing speech/speech loss

speech loss episode

verbal shutdown

low/weak verbality

If you can't even make sounds:

going/being mute (people who are always mute and those with selective mutism, please tell me in case that's not for those who only experience it sometimes - I'll delete it in that case)

If you want to express that you only use nonverbal communication to communicate:

communicating nonverbally/using nonverbal communication - NOT being nonverbal, that doesn't refer to you using nonverbal communication and is something else entirely ☝🏼

If you can't speak anymore and can't make sense of language anymore simultaneously:

losing language

If you could speak theoretically, but simply choose not to do so:

word resting (for example if you want to save energy)