My Autistic Point of View

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I've started prepping one every couple of days when I have the spoons, and it does give an answer to "what am I going to eat" when I can't be bothered to cook or look for anything

Anyway, you just drain a tin of ready to eat chickpeas/beans, and add it to a bowl with your favourite salad veggies and your favourite dressing, and you're good to go

I usually cook alot of meat and veggies in a crock pot at the beginning of the week then just throw together with a sauce during the week.

I can do rice pasta with meat and veggies too.

But that would probably do well as a pasta salad if the pasta had time to cool (I don't know if you would have to replace the cooked frozen veggies with fresh for it to keep, it's been a decade since my last food safety course)

Reminder that Queer Books Newcastle are doing a fundraiser for Rainbow Home, a specialist charity in the North East of England, providing relief, assistance and promotion of social inclusion to LGBTQ+ identifying asylum seekers and unsettled refugees. They provide individual case support for people progressing through the UK asylum process, and a facilitated social environment to reduce isolation where people can relax, gain mutual support, and feel part of the local LGBTQ+ community.

I've started prepping one every couple of days when I have the spoons, and it does give an answer to "what am I going to eat" when I can't be bothered to cook or look for anything

Anyway, you just drain a tin of ready to eat chickpeas/beans, and add it to a bowl with your favourite salad veggies and your favourite dressing, and you're good to go

Reminder that Queer Books Newcastle are doing a fundraiser for Rainbow Home, a specialist charity in the North East of England, providing relief, assistance and promotion of social inclusion to LGBTQ+ identifying asylum seekers and unsettled refugees. They provide individual case support for people progressing through the UK asylum process, and a facilitated social environment to reduce isolation where people can relax, gain mutual support, and feel part of the local LGBTQ+ community.

I've started prepping one every couple of days when I have the spoons, and it does give an answer to "what am I going to eat" when I can't be bothered to cook or look for anything

Anyway, you just drain a tin of ready to eat chickpeas/beans, and add it to a bowl with your favourite salad veggies and your favourite dressing, and you're good to go

Sensory issues - I know that this is personal to me and some people might have the same struggle with the bean salad, but I can't deal with the texture of reheated meals, I can use frozen ingredients or processed frozen food like pizza or fish fingers, but the texture of a reheated frozen meal is never right

Cooking time/effort - If I can't be arsed to do anything, I can't be arsed to watch a pan, it's just as much effort to throw together a gochujang* or tuna pasta**. This also goes for the prep end, I find chopping a few veggies and draining some beans easier than watching a pan.

PDA - If I have prepped ahead of time, I might decide that I don't want it, especially if I feel trapped into eating it, and the benefit of the bean salad is that since it takes no prep, if I start to feel like "I don't want that", I can have a small spoonful, knowing that I can put the rest back if I really don't want it, before it can turn into a meltdown. Usually I start to actually want it once I start eating, but if I need to wait for it to heat up, I'll have a meltdown in the meantime.

Portion sizes - Prepping meals only works if you want a full-blown meal, the good thing about the bean salad is that it can work as a snack as well. You can decide how much you have when you dish it out, it wasn't decided ahead of time when you made it.

*pasta in one pot, and pre-diced frozen onions, garlic cube and veg mix of choice in a frying pan with some sesame oil, add some pre-diced panchetta or some sausage meat (you need to break this up with your spatula as you go) to the frying pan once everything seems unfrozen and starting to cook, and then add some gochujang and some tomato purée when it's starting to look done. Once it's all cooked, take the frying pan off the heat and add the pasta with a little of the water (I just spoon it out with a big plastic spoon so some water comes with) and mix it together before serving

If you are a socially anxious person, you have to socialize. Your panic/anxiety attacks will only get worse and trigger more frequently if you constantly avoid contact with The Public. Not saying that you need to be a social butterfly- but there is a genuine problem with not being able to order your own meal at a restaurant. And it cannot be solved by always having someone else do it for you.

I had an event that I was worried about, where I might have to talk about something that I was struggling to mask my autism about

And I was telling a friend, and she scoffed, saying "just don't be aggy"

And then I admitted what my non-masked response would be

And she was like "oh shit, yeah, that's super aggy"

And I know that

I know that I come across as a bitch when I don't mask

And I've recovered enough that I think I can mask appropriately, but whether or not I stepped back was a reasonable response in this instance

If you are a socially anxious person, you have to socialize. Your panic/anxiety attacks will only get worse and trigger more frequently if you constantly avoid contact with The Public. Not saying that you need to be a social butterfly- but there is a genuine problem with not being able to order your own meal at a restaurant. And it cannot be solved by always having someone else do it for you.