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This is something I’m pretty sure all autistic people get. They try and explain why they find certain situations difficult and hard to cope with, only for someone to respond with, “Everybody experiences that!” But usually that’s not the case, and these are the reasons why you might be wrongly thinking it’s something everyone experiences

1) You don’t understand how it feels for autistic people

Sure, allistic people may dislike crowded places or loud noise, but to my awareness, it’s not usually going to be almost painful. It’s usually something you can cope with, but to an autistic person, what may be bearable to most can be really difficult for our minds to cope with. Especially if there’s other things to process too. With allistic brains, they’re usually able to process things easily and without problem. With autistic brains, it’s like a computer that’s running too many files and has to either slow down or freeze

2) You’re autistic yourself, and you don’t realise it

I was diagnosed as a child, but nothing really came of it and it was all but forgotten (at least by me.) I wasn’t rediagnosed until 29 or 30. I spent my whole life bullied, excluded, and ostracized for my Autism and I never knew why. To this day, there are still people who have blacklisted me for lies they believed only because they felt (based on their preconceived notions about me) were the only possible solution to their feelings about me.

Undiagnosed Autistic people are fighting against a hidden enemy. An enemy that misunderstands them, distrusts them, and either attacks them or avoids them based on their perception of our idiosyncrasies and different ways of thinking and acting. It is the reason Autistics with College degrees can’t get hired. The reason we are often pulled over by the police for “acting suspiciously.” The reason we get passed over for friendships, relationships, and other things. That enemy is ignorance.

When Autistic people finally receive their diagnoses that enemy steps out of the shadows, but with the addition of the stigma of being “Autistic.” While before, we were mocked, bullied, and ignored for being different, after our diagnoses, we are belittled, talked down to, and treated as if we are broken by our families, friends, coworkers, and anyone else who knows.

This causes many of us to hide our true selves and continue to deal with the still persistent “what’s wrong with this person?” accusatory vibe we still get from everyone around us. We get to a place where if we accept who we are, we open ourselves up societies current negative perceptions of Autistic people, but if we hide who we are and even learn to mimic Neurotypicals through years of struggle, we still aren’t accepted by everyone else.

I feel like we are close to a breakthrough though. I feel like with the right Autistic Autism advocates combined with some key Neurotypicals, we could bridge the gap and find acceptance of the diagnosed and undiagnosed alike. I for one know what it was like to grow up feeling like my alien parent dropped me off at the wrong Planet Daycare,“ and I will fight tooth and nail to make sure people like us don’t live through it the same way I did.

This is a very broad question. It is hard to answer because it covers so many possibilities. It is kind of like asking “how to write a French character” or “how to write a trans character”. Defining “low verbal” is very subjective. Verbal/nonverbal is not binary, and where people draw the line between the two is inconsistent. So, yes, I could make a very long and general ‘masterpost’, but I do not know if I would be able to do justice to the wide range of experiences covered by your question.

I can talk about it, but what do you want to know?

The other thing to note is that none of the current mods are nonverbal. We have each experienced relatively brief episodes where we have not been able to speak, and I know and have worked with nonverbal individuals, but this does not make me an authority. I have had periods of time where I have temporarily lost my hearing, but this does not give me meaningful insight into what life is like for people who are Deaf/Hard of Hearing. In much the same way, temporarily losing access to speech does not give me meaningful insight into life as a nonverbal person. It is a different experience. I am happy to relay things that have been told to me by nonverbal individuals, but I felt that this disclaimer was necessary for the sake of transparency.

If there are any nonverbal/low verbal #actuallyautistic people who would like to share their experiences and/or tell us how they would like to see nonverbal characters presented in fiction, you are very welcome to either reblog this post with your additions or submit a post. It may be possible to compile several people’s ideas into one post. Also, I know that writing large amounts of text can be difficult, so if you want to contribute something but need us to make accommodations in some way, please let us know!

Asker, I hope that this doesn’t feel like a cop-out in terms of answering your question, but I think that with a question this broad the most responsible response is to admit that right now we are not best-placed to answer. That said, if you have a more specific question that you would like help with, let us know and we are happy to do what we usually do and get our answer checked by a nonverbal consultant.

In the meantime, I would suggest that you read books and blogs by people who are nonverbal.

Examples:

Emma’s Hope Book

The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida

Carly Fleischmann’s website

Books by Tito Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay

Ido in Autismland

Amy Sequenzia

Girls, taught to ignore their anger, become disassociated from themselves.

Anger is so successfully sublimated that girls lose the ability to understand what it feels and looks like. Is her heart racing? Does she feel flushed or shaky? Does she clench her jaws at night? Is she breaking out in hives? Does she cry for no reason? Laugh inappropriately during difficult conversations? Fly off the handle over something that seems inconsequential? You can see where I’m going here…those crazy girl hormones, right? Better to just think of it as a phase.

As this seems fairly urgent, I am responding on mobile as I cannot get to a computer at the moment, so apologies if I am unable to respond as thoroughly as I would like.

Your teachers obviously do not understand autism or selective mutism. Pressuring someone to speak only increases anxiety and difficulty and they need to be aware that they are doing more harm by trying to emotionally manipulate you into speaking.

If you have a supportive caregiver ask them to speak to relevant staff at your school on your behalf.

If you have to talk to someone yourself, put it in writing. If possible you could try to print off some information to include. This might also help you with some of the things you’d like your friends to help with (for example, allowing you to go to lunch earlier to avoid the crowded lunch hall, or eat somewhere else).

“360 No Scope” Aspies are often found to be overwhelmed or befuddled in seemingly simple situations. That is because we often see everything all the time and with so much competing information it makes it hard to focus or pick up on and remember directions.

This is one of the main reasons for my hat. It blocks out everything above me and a lot of what is in front of me when I wear it. I can over ten lower or raise it to take in more or less information and.

Stimmy Stims

GUISE

IF YOU HIT “X+C” IT SHUTS OFF EVERY GIF ON YOUR DASH

EVERY SINGLE ONE TURNS TO A LITTLE GREY BOX WITH A LOCK

GUISE

TUMBLR HAS MADE ITSELF SAFE FOR EPILEPTICS

KINDLY THANK THE OP FOR THIS KNOWLEDGE