timeloop enjoyer

To recover, you literally need to manually learn skills that most people learn as a toddler

You need to learn what makes your body uncomfortable, and what to do to fix it

If you are high-masking, that usually means that you have learned to ignore every distress signal your body sends unless it is a distress signal that a neurotypical person would recognize. People have likely been unintentionally gaslighting you about your lived experience your entire life

If you feel bad or panicked for no reason, stop and try to pay attention to your body. Are you tense? You are likely feeling physical pain somewhere. If you've been gaslit about your pain your entire life, you might not be able to identify it.

Go through a sensory checklist.

SIGHT: Try closing and covering your eyes. If this gives you relief, the lights are probably too bright. You may also need differently-colored lights

SOUND: Cover your ears. Does this give you relief? If so, you may need earplugs or noise canceling headphones. You may also benefit from a neutral or pleasant background noise, like soft music or brown noise.

TOUCH: Are your clothes uncomfortable? Your chair? Your body? Do you feel greasy, like you need a shower? Do you need softer, sensory-friendly clothing?

TASTE: Do you need to brush your teeth or tongue? Would chewing on something help?

SMELL: Is there a strong or unpleasant smell in the room? Do you need to clean or empty a trash can? Would an air purifier help? Would a pleasant smell like a candle help?

INTEROCEPTION: Are you hungry? Thirsty? Tired? How is your posture? Are any of your muscles tight or sore? Scan your body slowly from head to feet, tensing and loosening each group of muscles. Going for a walk or doing a series of quick stretches may help a lot.

Learning how to do this stuff is not intuitive, if you've had an entire lifetime of gaslighting telling you that everything hurting you isn't a big deal and you're being dramatic over nothing.

This takes time, it takes work, it's not intuitive, and it's hard. Most people forget how hard it is, because they learned this as toddlers.

"I want a gf with autism :3" ok are you prepared to help them with hygiene tasks? Are you gonna help them with laundry and cleaning their room? Are you gonna be patient with them when they're using AAC? Will you comfort them through meltdowns? Or do you just want a gf who talks to you about dinosaurs and has a cute "neurodivergent aesthetic"?

Stratt: "hmm what do you think dr grace?"

Grace: wow what a crazy plan that would take an absurd amount of power to accomplish and have far-reaching impacts "yeah it's feasible, i'd go with it"

Stratt: "alright, you heard him, do it"

But aside from that my mother loathes political signs. You know the ones. They go up on road medians and stick around for months after the election ends because no one bothers to pick them up.

So one day in my childhood long ago I was sitting in the front seat, just kid baggage getting hauled around on errands by my mom. After a while my mom realized the car in front of us was placing those hated signs.

My mom had a couple trains of thought. The first was that we were in the family truck. The second was we had no pressing business. And the third was that we needed to insulate the chicken coop.

Suddenly mom announced we were having an adventure. We were punishing the big bad littering machine by taking their signs. I was utterly delighted by this. We began to follow the election campaign car, pausing after they did. I’d leap out, snatch the sign and toss it into the bed of the truck as fast as I could before flinging myself back into my seat.

It took a long time for the sign car to realize what was happening. They got out to yell at my mom who stoically informed them that the signs were being left on public property and as such counted as litter. The person huffed at her and drove away. Mom followed along hopefully but they were done placing signs.

After that we made a game of snagging signs when we saw them, amassing quite a collection.