One Step At A Time

Before i get started talking about this i want to put a warning out there. This post is not for everyone, but i feel like it’s important to talk about. This post may trigger or make some people uncomfortable, so if you don’t want to read or listen to any more posts about Sia’s new movie go ahead and stop reading. I won’t be mad i promise :)

Sia recently came out with a new movie called Music about a young autistic teenager and her drug addict sister learning how to live and love together.

The basis of this movie is very sweet however i quickly learned how uneducated Sia and her cast was, and more importantly how ignorant Sia is. 

Sia claims she did three years of research into this movie, yet she partnered with Autism Speaks, an autistic group known for trying to “fix” autism. They support ABA therapy and focus more on the suffering of the family and not that actual autistic child. After announcing her partnership with Autism Speaks she sent a follow up tweet saying ‘she didn’t know they were an autistic hate group’. 

What really bothered me the most about Sia was how she responded to the constructive criticism of the autistic community at first. I watched the first released trailer of the movie, and read the tweets that followed it. I was baffled to see how defiant Sia was; saying stuff like “how about you watch my movie first before you start hating it” when none of the comments i saw were about hate. 

I realized that after the first trailer came out people were done with constructive criticism, and just started boycotting Sia’s movie because she wouldn’t listen to what they had to say. Sia handled this situation really poorly. I think if she would have talked to just one autistic person about this movie her whole perspective would have changed. She could have been more credible if she was using actual autistic actors and accommodating them rather than produce the movie the way that she did. 

Sia used Maddie Ziegler, her goddaughter, for the role of Music in the movie. Already i can see that Sia was biased from the beginning. Maddie is an excellent actor and dancer; Sia made the movie and the dance numbers with Maddie in mind. Despite claiming that Sia had previously worked with a young nonverbal autistic girl who found the filming set “too stressful”, so her solution was to fire her. 

There are many things wrong with this. First of all Sia should have accommodated the girl instead of fire her and hire Maddie instead. Second, i don’t think there was any other girl besides Maddie. Sia is just trying to save her own skin. 

Another thing I found annoying was that the character Kazu was more of a main character than Music was; despite the movie being named Music. 

The focus of the movie was shifted more to the addict sister than to the character who the movie was named after and whom all the research was done for. Needless to say i was extremely disappointed and angry with how this movie turned out. 

Now about the movie itself, it is in no way autistic friendly. I have not watched the movie but I know that the dance scenes are very intense and have very bright colors with flashing lights. At this point i really doubt Sia did any research on the autistic community. 

As i’m sure many of you have heard or seen in a trailer. Two characters actually restrain Music in a very prone position. Face down, laying on top of her while she’s having a meltdown. I was so angry when i saw this in a trailer. First of all, restraining should always been a last resort when it comes to literally anyone. Music wasn’t even being violent she was just scared and overwhelmed.

This is how autistic’s get killed. 

It’s so heartbreaking for me to see the autistic community continuously getting overlooked, and their voices getting drowned out. 

Maddie even said to Sia that she didn’t want to play the role because she knew people would be upset with this movie and having a nt play the role of Music. 

Hi

I wanna talk more about focusing mainly because I took the SAT, and I’m really bad at standardized testing because I will unfocus.

(Also thank you so much for the support on the last post I was blown away thank you so much)

So especially with girls who tend to mask; focusing is a really big issue with adhd and autism. Fun fact, many autistics have no problem focusing (which is why it’s called a spectrum) so we’ll keep that in mind as we go along.

Many girls who have undiagnosed adhd or autism who also have trouble focusing is extremely common. Mainly because unfocusing in class or in social situations is seen as daydreaming which is common in young girls, but in reality these girls may have adhd or autism.

This is also why many girls go undiagnosed. They don’t have the same symptoms as the hyperactive boys.

This can cause a lot of problems especially in my country with standardized testing, because you’re in a room that you’ve probably never been in before for 4-5 hours sitting still in a desk the entire time with minimal breaks unless you have accommodations.

I don’t have accommodations.

I don’t know how many Americans follow me but I know that all of you probably have trouble with reading especially if it’s something you’re not interested in.

It’s like you’re reading but you’re not. You can see the words but they aren’t registering in your brain because you’re thinking about something else.

This is especially hard with standardized testing because those tests are supposed to press you for time. So taking extra time to go back and read something in which I don’t remember what I read was extremely stressful and time pressing.

Same thing happens in class all the time. I will be sitting in class taking notes over what the teacher is saying, but I’ll start thinking about something else and when I notice the class has already ended.

I have a fidget cube, so focusing on that really helps in class if I have something else to focus on.

A benefit of this is that I can multitask really easily

But it also happens when I’m doing homework. I will have to be listening to music or a podcast (more recently dsmp streams) as background noise so I’m able to get it done quicker.

If you struggle with focusing like this I recommend having something to listen to or play with. This is because while you’re doing one thing and not paying attention to it like fidgeting. Your brain has the ability to now focus on something else.

Instead of just not focusing in class or while doing homework. You’re tricking your brain essentially.

Thank you guys so much for listening to me; I really want to help people with my story and I’m excited to see where this leads me.

This is not a post about sia’s movie I’m still working up the nerves about what I want to say about that.

And I might go overboard cause I am upset and I don’t want you guys to see me at my worst.

Instead what I have seen recently is people claiming that we are overreacting. This is not new, we have heard these accusations before. What is really hurtful is that you are laughing.

Lemme tell you something about autism; we don’t know how to regulate our own emotions let only know what emotions we are experiencing at a certain time.

So when we are struggling to express our emotions in a way we understand, and that is not normal to you. Don’t laugh.

I have seen videos of parents communicating with their autistic children, and while those videos are very heartwarming to see that some parents are actually decent people; you are laughing at your child when they are doing things that are deemed not normal or what you call, autistic traits.

Lemme make this very clear. If your child is trying to communicate with you in a way you do not understand; let us know please. We have a hard time reading people and we cannot see when you don’t understand us.

What you should not do is laugh at how we are communicating with you.

I saw a video of a father asking his son if he wanted to ride the bus to school or if he wanted his mother to take him to school.

At first I thought this was amazing. They are communicating with their child and asking what he wants to do. The child was obviously overwhelmed and had trouble making the decision so he acted out by saying harmful curse words.

And the parents started laughing.

We are not idiots, we can see you laughing at us. We understand why you are laughing at us. Instead of laughing at your child by saying these things when he is obviously upset; you should instead talk it through and not laugh in his face which would cause him to be more upset.

Example of this

I was eating dinner with my family like I always do every evening, and we were having lasagna. I have sensory issues so I don’t like the textures or tastes of certain foods unlike other children who grow out of taste issues at an early age. So I didn’t want to eat the crust of the lasagna and picked a piece out from the middle of the pan.

My dad asked why and I said “that is the piece I wanted”. And my stepmom laughed at me. She thought it was funny I was so picky that I had to eat the middle of the lasagna.

“Just eat the crust Kay it’s not the big of a deal” she said

It is to me.

When you laugh at us especially at a vulnerable moment, we notice. It does not help us in any way, in fact it just hurts us even more because we feel like you don’t understand our problems.

I didn’t know that there was a name to all the stuff I was feeling until a while ago, and I’ve become better at communicating with people when they do something that makes me upset.

But I can only do so much without anyone’s help.

Stop laughing at your children

We can hear you

We can see you

And that shit is hurtful

Stay safe

When you see autism, what do you see?

Do you see an inability to focus? That’s also adhd, is it not?

Do you see trouble in social situations? That’s also social anxiety, is it not?

Do you see learning disabilities? That’s also dyslexia, is it not?

Do you see fidgeting? That’s also adhd and anxiety, is it not?

Do you see a need for everything to be the same, to stick to a schedule, to avoid change? that’s also ocd, is it not?

Do you see sensory processing issues (spd)? That’s also adhd, is it not?

Do you see hyperfixations or special interests?

Do you see a loss or decrease of speech?

Do you see a difference in appearance?

Do you see weird?

Do you see different?

These are not acceptable questions. We are tired of being the outcasts because our diagnosis and different from others. We share feelings, thoughts, lives. We are people, and yes we are different, so is everybody.

We’re different because we’re weird?

That’s not a reason, that’s ableism.

Why do we need to be fixed if the people who we share symptoms with are okay with being themselves?

Stop trying to fix us, I am not afraid of who I am, nor will I apologize for it.

I will change the world, one step at a time

Everyone else, stay safe

Some of you may find this funny

Here we go

Focusing!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can’t do it. I’m not over exaggerating I actually genuinely can’t do it cause it makes my brain hurt.

I found a good post talking about why neurodivergents can’t do simple tasks, and they wished to remain anonymous and not be tagged in this post but told me i could dicuss their findings.

Basically it’s like a neurotypical stopping themselves from putting their hand on a hot stove, there is an impulse in your brain stopping you from doing that. This is located in the prefrontal cortex of your brain that is your impulse control.

Well the prefrontal cortex of our brain just decided to do something else. My friend had an experience yesterday with this and I’m gonna use it. She had to get rid of all distractions, mute her phone, have the house quiet, get her cats out of the room, just to be able to do homework that was due the next day.

It physically made her brain hurt to force herself to pay attention to something that is important. Her prefrontal cortex puts homework and putting your hand on a hot stove on the same wavelength of “do everything in your power so this human doesn’t do this”.

This is why if you ever say stuff like ‘just focus’ or ‘it’s not that hard’ to a neurodivergent person. It is hard, we can’t ‘just focus’, it takes years for us to learn how to best push ourselves so we can actually succeed in school.

Another thing that our brain controls that just decides to not work is our dopamine and norepinephrine control. Dopamine is the happy chemical, it gives you joy and pleasure from simple things in life. This is why many nd’s have either hyperfixations or special interests (there are multiple words for it but they basically mean the same thing). I call it special interests, because in my brain hyperfixations revolve around shows or movies, but my special interests revolve around medical things and different stuff I can research and learn about.

But you can call it whatever you want, this is not where I was going with this.

The next chemical is norepinephrine, which controls attention levels in our bodies. Basically we don’t get enough of either of these chemicals and it causes our brains to lose focus and interest in things very very quickly.

Here’s a reason why this could be a problem (this happened to me like ten minutes ago).

I’m driving my brother to his school, and our schools are right next to each other but they’re separated by a light. So I drop my brother off since his school is farther down the road then mine, and I head over to my school. Now since his is farther down, in order to turn into my schools parking lot I have to take a left at the light, and this light usually takes a long time.

I can remember looking at the light, and then looking at it but not registering anything that was going on about it. Then I realized that I was looking at the light, but I wasn’t really looking at it. The colors and shape just phased through my brain. So then I started forcing myself to pay attention to this light so I would notice when it turned green and I could turn, and then I stopped noticing it.

You see where I’m going with this

I didn’t see the light turn green

I was looking at it!!! But then again I also wasn’t. See how this is a problem?

Most of the time we have to force ourselves to pay attention to make up for that loss of norepinephrine, and it’s really hard to do sometimes.

I have a lot better control over forcing myself to focus, but my friend also had another analogy I’m going to steal.

(God if she ever sees these posts she’s gonna be so mad, sorry friend I hope you forgive me)

It’s like the logical side of the brain is telling her “stop procrastinating and do your work” while the other side is saying “I will never do a task in my life” and it’s a constant battle inside her brain. Medication helps strengthen the logical side but it usually wears off by a certain point so the procrastination side usually wins.

Even then if the logical side wins, that was a certain amount of time that could be spent doing something rather than arguing with your own mind. And then you lost time to do what you actually wanted to do.

So don’t tell someone with adhd or autism to ‘just focus’ cause I will punch you

(I’m just kidding I love all of you)

But I hope this opened up your eyes, especially if you have a friend who is nd, like me, and don’t know how to best confront them about their problems. Just listen, if you can’t relate to them then just listen.

Cause it’s a lot better then saying ‘just focus’

Stay safe

Masking- “cover (the face) with a mask” or “conceal something from view”

The type of masking I’m talking about is not the literal definition, it’s more of a metaphor that is to be taken literally.

At first I was really confused about masking, and it is possible one of the hardest things I’ve had to learn about when researching autism, but the more I read the more I seemed to relate to people who were masking.

Masking in context of what I’m talking about is more of a figurative way of saying someone is hiding from something.

(Oh lord I’m really bad at explaining things)

Ok here’s an example cause these always help: imagine you realize you’re part of the lgbt+ community (anything works), and you realize this. You know that you are different from the majority of society. Now you really wanna come out, and you know that many people will be fine with you coming out, but some will not. Say you’re transgender and you’ve been bullied for liking things that society thinks are not meant to be liked by people of your gender, or you’re lesbian or gay and people make fun of you for calling people of your same gender ‘beautiful’ or ‘pretty cute’. To save yourself from this embarrassment you start to act like how people want you to act. You can see how people act and know that it is acceptable to society for someone to act that way, so you start copying it. You copy your parents, siblings, friends and the things that they do that are deemed socially acceptable. This saves you from getting bullied, but it is not who you are nor who you want to be. Soon you get so used to acting like how people want you to act that you forget you’re doing it, and now you’ve become a different person entirely. That is what masking is.

And I wanna talk about how much I hate it

I don’t hate it because of people who do it or why people do it. I hate it because of what it stands for and what it truly means.

With masking, especially at a very young age, it becomes normalized and most times the masker does not even know that they’re masking.

As a kid I was bullied for being weird, for talking too much, for not sitting still. So I changed it, and i basically changed myself. I wanted to fit in with societies standards so much because I did not want to be bullied or feel weird or feel like I was different.

And what sucks even more is that most autistics use masking as a form of protection. Meaning they mask in order to protect themselves from childhood trauma.

See why this is not okay?

I didn’t even know I was masking until recently, and even now I still do it because I’ve been doing it for so long it feel normal, and I know this is a bad thing.

Masking is the main reason why most autistics don’t get diagnosed until later in life, especially girls.

There is not enough information on autism in girls because many studies done are centered around autism in boys, so it was hard to gain information on masking in the first place. There just aren’t enough studies done on autism in girls and most of it goes unnoticed. Many girls with autism go undiagnosed for an entire lifetime and they never even knew because girls are a lot better at masking then boys are.

I wanna explain a bit more:

Autistics do not understand societal norms, it’s something that takes a while or just doesn’t click in our brains. Same thing with tone. We may say something that society deems as rude or inappropriate, but we don’t think we said something that was rude or inappropriate.

However we can see what people do and we see that it is socially acceptable, so we copy it. This is usually done at a very very young age, we know that what we are doing is weird in the eyes of the people we want to impress. We desperately want to fit in with society so we copy them, eventually we do this so much that we forget we’re somebody else. We make up intricate lies to make ourselves fit in. For instance I used to say that I was good at sports like baseball because in my mind being good at sports meant that you were a normal child and you weren’t different in any way.

I always knew I was different, but I had seen autism in a specific way at my school that I never knew it could come in different forms. Which is why I never knew I was masking.

It’s also really fucking exhausting

I’m not even joking. Masking is hard, and it’s easier for others. Imagine that everyday you have to change your entire personality and everything that you do to fit in with everybody. For me personally I don’t have just one mask; I act different around certain people and groups and I never even realized I was doing it.

For me, learning about masking changed my life. I related to the symptoms of autism but I had seen people with autism every day at my school and I wasn’t like them. It was then I learned about masking, and how autistics can come of as neurotypical. In a way I felt better about myself, but the more I thought about it the more I realized how awful it was.

For anyone else who masks; I’m not telling you to stop. In fact I know that many autistics can’t stop whether it be for safety or just because masking does help you fit in. I know, and I understand. I’ve been slowly letting down my mask a bit further each time around other people.

My table group really helps me with this, and they don’t even know why I’m doing this. I’m starting to show more of myself around my best friend who is also nd and she understands me (even though she still thinks I’m nt).

So for you people who are struggling with letting down your mask; find those people who you trust (this is easier on the internet). Don’t completely take it off if it makes you uncomfortable. Instead just slowing let down your mask over time with people you trust and who can understand you.

I know that not all autistics can mask, I know that masking is a privilege, and I especially know that not everyone can let down their mask in front of others. I see you, I feel you, I understand you.

No matter how much I talk about how masking has ruined my life; I still do it too, because it is a safety mechanism for myself.

I hope one day no one has to mask. I hope one day everyone can be free to be who they truly are without having to fit in with societies standards. There is so much more I want to say and so much more I want to do.

And I’ll do it, one step at a time.

Stay safe

Like can we talk about stims for a quick moment?

First off, what is a stim? By definition it’s referred to as “self stimulating behaviors, usually involving repetitive movements or sounds”.

Stims have a wide variety of choices depending on what people normally do, it’s not a definite autistic trait however most autistics do use stimming as a form of self calming or soothing.

However stimming can mean something else entirely, just because you stim does not mean you are autistic, there can be a variety of reasons why you stim. For example, you could just generally feel anxious or nervous, you could have restlessness, or you are just very energized.

There are a bunch of different kinds of stims too. The most common are nail biting, hair twirling, cracking knuckles or other joints, drumming your fingers, tapping a pen or pencil, jiggling your foot, tongue clicking or even whistling.

However there are also some more extreme stims such as head banging, like against an actual object, or biting whether it be on an object or a person. These stims are very prominent in young kids with adhd or autism.

Now there are some less severe but also not as common stims (some of which I didn’t even know until I looked this up) which could be rocking yourself back and forth, pulling hair, repetitive blinking, rearranging or moving things, scratching or rubbing your skin, licking objects, staring at moving fans or any other rotating object, flicking or snapping your hands and fingers, repeating words or phrases excessively, and smelling objects or people.

I know. Crazy right?

Now all of these stims you may have done at least a few times in your life, but not all of them relate to autism. The common stims are very prominent in neurotypical people and neurodivergent people. So stimming is not a for sure way of diagnosing your autism or not, however it’s always a start or a place to come back to that creates the foundation of autism.

Here are some examples of my stims as a self diagnosed autistic teen:

Repetitive blinking (I literally did not know this was an autistic thing I did until I looked it up and it blew my mind)

Repetitive noises (I make weird little grunts that sound like I’m clearing my throat and it drives my family insane)

Chewing pens and pencils (always gotta have something in my mouth)

Rocking

Twirling hair

Messing with the strands on my jackets. You know those things on the hoodie that you can pull and the hood gets smaller; I literally cannot stop rolling those strings up as I sit in class it’s become a habit now

Scratching/rubbing my skin (specially face)

Picking at scabs

Biting and punching (this is usually when I’m very overwhelmed and stressed. Kinda like when a child had a tantrum; this is what I do)

Cracking knuckles

Drumming fingers

Jiggling my foot

Nail biting

As I was writing this list I realized how much I do dear lord.

Anyways

Stimming does not always equal neurodivergent or neurotypical, there’s a wide variety of stims and reasons for stimming.

If you are struggling with self diagnosing I would look at a variety of symptoms that autistic people have

And here’s a tip for you

If you’re realizing your autistic later in your life, it means you’re doing something called masking or camouflaging (I’ll explain this in my next post). In the meantime, do some research. I’ll try to help out as many of you as a can but doing your own research for your own symptoms really does help.

Stay safe

I self diagnosed myself with anxiety during early middle school and got officially diagnosed after I had a massive panic attack at a social event, which finally convinced my family that I was not overreacting; it was not puberty; there was something different about me.

And for a while I was fine, I never did well with making friends anyways and being in large groups and that was fine; I knew this about myself. I have one friend that I tell everything. We share the same interests, hobbies and hyperfixations so I never noticed that I was talking so much about my interests, so much to the point that it was more than normal, because my best friend also had these same interests.

It wasn’t until I met a girl who was self diagnosed with autism and I started seeing a whole new perspective on people with autism, how it affects them, and why this girl had never been diagnosed before. In my lack of experience; I had only heard of people getting diagnosed with autism when they’re around 2-4 years old, and many of them are boys. I took two classes that centered around helping autistic people, but it was just recently that I realized those kids I were helping were kids with very severe autism.

The girl I had just met was not that

And by met I mean I found her on tumblr and I was very interested.

When I get interested in something I search it up and learn as much as I possibly can. That is when I found another woman named Paige Layle, a 20 year old autistic woman living in Canada. She made shirt tiktok videos and YouTube videos about her autism and her perspective on many issues surrounding autism.

The more she talked about her symptoms and why she wasn’t diagnosed with autism until she was 15 made me even more interested in the topic. However the more I watched her videos, the weirder I felt.

She was talking about things that I felt, but I never told anyone. All the symptoms that I could never explain; most of which I thought were normal kid things, but they weren’t. It was then I heard her talk about masking (or otherwise known as camouflage).

It’s why so many autistic teens (mainly girls) are not diagnosed with autism until later in their life.

One of the main things I learned about autism is that autistic people or people with autism don’t understand societal norms or cues, however they can copy them. This is mainly stemed from childhood trauma of not fitting in or being bullied because of autistic stims or tics that autistic children do; that are not considered normal in society.

So to fit in with the rest of society, autistic children learn how to copy what society deems as exceptable. This allows them to appear neurotypical when in reality their symptoms are still there; they’re just hidden from society.

I have spent weeks researching this and taking multiple different tests and I realized most of the information I put on this post is my own personal experience.

I have not spoken to many autistic people, I don’t understand how it feels to others or how I look to other people. But in the recent events I feel as if my brain is tired of masking and of trying to understand why society deems things as acceptable or unacceptable.

My symptoms have started to shine through the mask I created that I didn’t even know was created in the first place until someone with a similar story said “hey I have autism and this is who I am”

If you are autistic as well, let me know if you also feel these things. No matter how much research or studying I do, I can never truly understand how it feels to other people.

I’m not asking for your help or your pity. I don’t want people to feel bad for me because I am still a person. Even if I do have autism; that is not all of me.

I am asking for your guidance, for your stories and symptoms and that may be too much to ask (I honestly have no clue) but at least give me the benefit of the doubt

Be honest, because I can’t read your mind. I don’t know if you’re being sarcastic or not, or if you’re hinting at something.

I am embracing myself

This is going to be a long journey

But I hope I find something along the way

You’re body feels so heavy that it’s hard to breathe, you’re falling and the wind is pressing down on your chest

And you try to stand up but you have no energy, you have no will

No fight left in you so you just give in

Ever feel like people hate you?

Like they purposely ignore your calls or texts?

Even though you know that they’re your friends, there’s always that deep seated feeling isn’t there

I wake up in the morning and I want to do nothing, I don’t want to look at my phone, I don’t want to say good morning to my parents, I dont want to go to school/work. I want to stay in my bed till silence comes and then peace begins

You know how when you wake up there’s that one shining moment of bliss? You forget everything that’s happened since the beginning of time and there’s only light, then darkness settles in and you’re hit with the reality that is life

I want that moment to last longer, I need that moment to last longer.

They think I’m annoying because I talk too much or I seek attention and they’re right, I am annoying I’m aware of that.

But I do try, I try to listen, to think about other people before myself, I’m not a bad person

So why do they hate me?

I know they don’t but there’s this deep seated feeling that everything will never be the same again, and I’m too afraid to ask because I’m too afraid of what they’re answer will be

So I stay silent

And I wait