sparkledawgs

In their reply to the audience they then say they are picking her up from middle school, again implying that their girlfriend is underage, but quickly state she’s grading papers letting us know she’s a teacher, definitely an adult, and there no reason to be upset.

The rollercoaster gif portrays how switching from upset and worried to relieved in such a short period of time feels emotionally.

also you are never going to be safe for people for whom english is their second language. if someone clarifies their meaning and apologises and you can't accept that over the original wording then don't bother pretending to be autism friendly.

and like part of my autism is that i become convinced that the way i interpret words is the way that they're meant. my autism is disabling to my communication abilities. i have poor emotional regulation, i jump to conclusions. a lot of my reactions are informed by prior negative experiences. i can and probably have been overly defensive in the past.

and i've been misinterpreted so much and had my words picked over and mocked for saying the wrong things and mocked for being unable to say anything at all and it always feels devastating. it's ironic that the same disability that has me treated poorly would have me react poorly to a similar situation, but that's just how it is.

i think sometimes people forget that words are not an inherent thing to the world, we made them by using them and shaping them around use, they are clumsy and have lotssss of meanings, especially when put together. they are just our best attempts at waving around our ideas.

i guess it comes from autistic people operating with a different social understanding, so we interpret meaning differently as well.

reminds me of the study that showed allistic to autistic communication is marked by lack of empathy and assumptions. situations where allistic people don't understand the way autistic people think, and autistic people don't understand the way allistic people think. except it often just becomes 'the autistic person did something wrong' in social situations.

when you have a DD/ID communicating really just becomes you constantly having to overextend yourself for other people. masking. scripting. repeating yourself. straining to find different ways to communicate something, and somehow it makes everything worse. and you're just trying to be understood instead of punished.

a lot of people aren't willing or ready (at first) to understand that people experience the world differently than themselves, even if they're neurodivergent. unfortunately none of us are immune to falling in line with the status quo at times. but that doesn't make it okay.