You best better believe I have a sleep schedule

There will inevitably be a question on most autism diagnostic tests that is something like

“Are you obsessed with numbers? Do you memorise phone numbers, dates, or license plate numbers?”

This is a problematic question because the point of the question is about pattern recognition.

Non autistic people just, for the most part, think that autistics are all cookie cuter carbon copies of each other (or really they did when the tests were developed and seemingly no one has updated those tests)

The question should be:

“Do you easily recognise and spend time thinking about specific patterns that may not seem fun or meaningful to others but are for you? For example, phone numbers, dates, song lyrics, letters/abbreviations, colours/shapes or music notes?”

It’s about pattern recognition and the tendency autistic peeps have to focus on (“obsess over”) small patterns!

For me it’s words and letters!

I love memorising the letters on a license plate and then figuring out how many different things the letters could be abbreviations for!

When I was a kid I would write down the song lyrics to basically any and every song that I enjoyed and write them over and over and over again in different fonts and different sizes and write our full analyses of what the lyrics meant!

I’d write out words and then write the prefixes of the words (like Latin root words for example) and the write out more words with the same root word and I’d do that for fun and I wouldn’t even share it with anyone it was just my fun little notes about the world!

Sorry to commandeer a funny post but yea, the question should not be “if autistic then you must love numbers!”

They also do the cherry blossom thing in late fall

As someone who has epilepsy and used to have several grand mal seizures a day, I’d also like to add that “offer help” can range anywhere from keeping the person calm to explaining to them where they are and what they were doing to even just telling them they should sit and rest for a while longer (lack or coordination is common, and it can be hard to walk straight or see clearly).

It’s okay for them to take up to a half hour to fully regain their bearings and sort out what they were doing prior to the seizure. Just answer any questions calmly and be there for support.

If they come around and you start to panic or shake them or ask them what the heck is wrong with them they are going to freak out and panic too.

I cannot stress it enough that this is bad.

DO NOT CALL THE POLICE. I’m dead fucking serious. I had a grand mal in public once and the POLICE were called and imagine coming out of the seizure, feeling like you got smacked in the head with a sack full of bricks, confused, dazed, in desperate need of some sugar to boost low blood pressure and some DIPSHIT has called the police and I was being threatened with being ‘drunk and disorderly’. It took a phone call to my doctors office to get them to back off. The police cannot properly deal with sick people. 

Offer help can be:

assuring person where they are/what time it is

getting them something to drink if they can; seizure burns so much energy and does cause a blood pressure drop

getting them safely to transport or a carer

getting them some dignity like a blanket/towel [loosing control of your bladder and bowels is fucking horrifying]

ensuring they have a way to get home. Someone who has just had a seizure should NEVER DRIVE straight after

calling emergency services if you notice any of these symptoms because they may have stroked out.

Why you shouldn’t put anything in someone’s mouth: they will choke. Yes, they may bite their tongue but I can assure you it’s less traumatic than cracking your jaw on someone’s greasy wallet or choking on a spoon.