lost in perception

the vent blog of just another neurodivergent kid | autistic, diagnosis is complicated | avpd, self-diagnosed

[acomfortablevoid]

im going to regret making an actual personal post on main (i won't i've been doing it for years) but like. growing up and getting diagnosed with adhd ocd asd odd (that one was kinda bullshit but it happened) and then teachers noticing tics in class too like alllll these different things then being a teen and going through the classic depression and anxiety ringer and then going to therapy as an adult and getting a cptsd diagnosis.... like okay im a fundamentally broken person what am i going to do about it. just say im fucked up and move on

[acomfortablevoid]

me: can u 🅱lease get up dude u have to be at work in 6 hours my brain: no me: fine then be tired all day my brain: i mean sure that's tru but honestly?? scrolling twitter and taking the autism quotient for the billionth time just to make sure u aren't Faking It™ is a waaaaaay better option me: sounds fake but ok my brain: plus do u reaaaally think i have the energy to get u off this phone?? keep dreamin chump me: fair enough i guess but i don't even want to do this anymore my brain: uhh too bad???

[butterflyinthewell]

I just explained my issues with executive dysfunction to my dad and holy shit he gets it!

I described it like this: 

Imagine you’re back at AllPro(where he worked) with fifty phones and they’re all ringing. You want to answer them all because they’re all equal priority. That’s an environmental cue– phones are generally a ‘respond immediately’ cue.

Picking up a phone is a simple thing. You know it’s as easy as deciding which phone to answer and reaching out to pick it up, but your brain is saying “I must answer all of them!” The phones are ringing, and you can’t make your body reach out to pick one up because you don’t have fifty arms to reach out, you don’t have fifty ears to listen with, you don’t have a brain that can process and respond to fifty conversations and you don’t have fifty mouths that can all say different things all at the same time. 

Either you do it all simultaneously or nothing will happen. You can want to do it so bad it makes you cry, and you can’t make a decision because no choice seems like the right one. So the task stays unfinished and you get frustrated every time somebody reminds you to “just do it, it’s not that hard!” Because yes, it really IS that hard.

Now, if you had somebody who could point to which phone to answer, you can do it fine. That’s a prompt. Prompting removes the ‘middle man’ thought that says ‘do it all at once’ and gets you to focus on tasks one at a time instead of seeing them as some towering insurmountable mess.

Dad looked at me for a couple of seconds and said something to the effect of, “I didn’t know doing things were that hard for you.”

This is a major, major, major breakthrough between us because dad had it in his head that I left things messy because I didn’t care. While that’s crappy of him to assume, teaching him how that’s not the case and having him really understand it is a huge deal.

[acomfortablevoid]

what honestly kills me is that i can GUARANTEE if "fidget spinners" were an autism- or ADHD-exclusive thing in the classroom, those kids would be picked on by NT classmates. it's funny how neurodivergent kids have been made fun of for stimming since the beginning of time, but now that it's an NT fad, it's suddenly accepted and even glorified. and the kids who may have truly benefitted from them suffer as they're getting banned from classrooms.

[acomfortablevoid]

i'm dead inside because we're out of conditioner so i had to use this old bottle that's been under the sink since probably middle school lmao guess who's going to needless change in routine hell ALSO it doesn't even smell as good and my hair felt awful after using it :'(

[acomfortablevoid]

sometimes i'm so scared i'm just making it all up but then i think of my childhood and my early teens and realize there's no possible way that i'm faking it. because it doesn't just "go away." it shows itself differently but it's always there. i have to wonder -- i think i pass as NT, but what if there's something very blatantly "off" about me that other people see, and i don't? a fear of the unknown. it's strange because i "made small talk" the best i ever have yesterday... in front of older adults at a craft show. i have no idea how that happened but it did. i loved it... this strange wave of social competence that overcame me. so do i really have it in me this whole time and my main problem is i'm just not confident enough? so many unanswered questions...

[ssadfghmhtyrtjdhgrsf-deactivate]

So can we like…start normalizing the idea that not everyone dates or has their first boyfriend/girlfriend in junior high or high school?

There are plenty of people who go into college with little to no dating experience. There are tons of people who go into college having not had their first kiss yet. It’s not wrong; everyone experiences things at a different pace, and that’s okay. Don’t feel pressured into doing things you’re not comfortable with at the time just because you feel like you have to fill some sort of “quota.”

[clairwaldorf]

People: “aww you’re ill why? Did you eat a trigger?” Me: “I HAVE IBS EVERYTHING IS A TRIGGER IT DOESNT NEED A REASON”

(via clairwaldorf)

[irritatedandhungry]

I don’t feel my emotions, my stomach feels my emotions.

An INTJ With IBS (via irritatedandhungry)

[dateaboysuggestions]

Date a boy with autism

[againstpollutions]

You know who else is underrated? Owl City. This introverted guy who wrote a bunch of songs on his computer in his parents basement. With lyrics like “reality is a lovely place, but I wouldn’t wanna live there” and “please take a long hard look through your textbook, cause I’m history” and he tweets stuff like “got groceries. Enough social interaction for the week” and “girl I ain’t no astronaut, but I need a little space” and I love owl city

[acomfortablevoid]

CAN I GO ONE FUCKING DAY WITHOUT BEING YELLED AT OR TREATED LIKE A CHILD

[awn-network]

When Do We Get to Be Autistic?

Image is a yellow/blue watercolored background with the text: I have been congratulated for “overcoming autism” : a well meaning gesture that means nothing at all. For a time I thought …

Image is a yellow/blue watercolored background with the text: I have been congratulated for “overcoming autism” : a well meaning gesture that means nothing at all. For a time I thought this was applause for having the ability to pass, but I have learned that it’s code for “we expect you to act normal now and anything that you can’t do we will consider a personal failing.” – eisforerin.com

[spaceviolin]

When I am openly and unapologetically Autistic, when I live my life in the way that is most healthy and happy for me, I believe that is celebrating. Choosing to share my experiences with you as a way to spread awareness and understanding, and when I get to talk about what I like about being Autistic or about how a/Autistic people are important and worthy of love, that is a form of celebration. Probably the most radical thing I have ever done is make a list of things that I like about being Autistic. I like how deeply I feel- when I love I give my whole self. I like how I notice the details that others miss. I like how I see patterns and make connections. I like how I see music, bright and rhythmic, flowing shapes and colour. I like how every good feeling is more, and so much, my body can’t contain it. I like how I get to feel what it’s like to sing with your body and dance with your hands. I like when the world shrinks down to my special interest, and for a time, I can make sense of everything, and everything is good.

Amythest Schaber, from The Celebration of Autism (via spaceviolin)

[andreashettle]

Writing Image Descriptions

I wish more people would try to write at least some of their own image descriptions for the pictures and images that they share.

Yes, blind people do use the Internet–I have literally known dozens of blind people who are using computers every day to do their jobs, including using the web. I have even known blind computer programmers and IT experts, including at least one who is deafblind (i.e., both deaf and blind).  They way they do it is that they have software that can convert text into speech.  (Or, for deafblind people, software can convert text into braille with the use of a braille output device that they connect to their computer. ) But this only helps for text that a computer will recognize as text. If you just have an image, including scanned images of text or text on top of gif images, then screen reading software will not help. But if people provide image descriptions, then that gives blind people another way to understand what the pictures show and what message people are meant to get from the pictures.

Image descriptions do not only help blind people. Some people need to turn off all images for various reasons – for example, people with photosensitive epilepsy are at risk of seizures if they see flashing light images, and turn off images to keep themselves safe. Some people have visual processing disorders, which means they can see things but the part of their brain that processes visual input and interprets it may not work properly so they may miss a lot of important detail unless someone helps point out key elements in the image.

Blind people often have a lot of frustration using the internet because, even though there is a lot of content perfectly accessible for them, there is also a lot of content they can’t see that doesn’t come with image descriptions. This is similar to the frustration that we deaf people feel when we come across a video we want to see but can’t, because the video doesn’t have captions to tell us what people are saying in the video.

I try to write image descriptions at my blog as much as feasible. But sometimes I see posts going around that I would really *like* to share, but I have to ignore them because I just don’t have time to keep writing image descriptions for every post I see that I would like to share. If more people wrote at least some of their own image descriptions then I could share more of their images with my followers.  

I’m glad for blogs like @image-descriptions (which shares images with image descriptions) but wish it wasn’t so rare for people to write their own image descriptions.

Please consider adding image descriptions to at least some of the images that you post. Even if you might not have followers who need them, some of the people who reblog them from you might have blind followers or others who need them.

[realrat]

I know I haven’t added image description in the past but I really want to start doing so whenever I have the ability to. and yeah, it would be so great if more bloggers added descriptions to their own content

[andreashettle]

You can start out with adding the ones that seem simple to do on occasion, and then when you get more used to doing them then consider if you are ready to try doing more. You could also consider browsing or subscribing to @image-descriptions, or look for other blogs that consistently do their own image descriptions. These would give you possible sources of images that already have image descriptions.

[necromancx]

i am eighteen years old and one of the memories i am most fond of is the one where i am only four and can feel the wall pressing against my back while i mark the borders of my territory around me on the carpet of my mother’s room with pennies. i am eighteen years old and the memories i still despise the most are the countless ones where i am too odd to be quirky, too different to be normal and everyone laughs at a deformity i thought i didn’t have, but maybe i was wrong. the nights of my school years have been spent soundlessly screaming into pillows behind closed doors, feeling my throat constricting and tears falling down my cheeks, violently throwing my small body on the floor or against the wall closest to my bed, feeling myself ignite with fire, except the spark was never there and i am only consumed by pain and there’s too much, oh, god, there’s too much- my limps fall numb against the mattress of my bed, my breath evens out.  the buttons of my shirts are always fastened all the way up to my neck. the bottom hem of my pants must be rolled up at least two times, thick exactly an inch. we’re in a store and my mum tells me i already have too many blankets, yet i still point at it and read out the name of the product, hopeful, every single time. she yields. but i do not know how to say thank you the way i would like to. i never know how to say thank you. “aren’t you a little too old for toys?” someone always asks and i try to smile and make them see a bright side to the squishy lizard i grasp like a lifeline in my hand. they laugh. i am safe. i fold my feet underneath me as i sit in the classroom, slip my hand under my knees for more pressure, and for a second everything is easier. “you’re too picky about your food.” i know, i know, i know, and my body convulses with fear of abandonment as i detect the cold tone of your disappointed voice and i am sorry. i never know how to say i’m sorry. i am eighteen years old and i’ve “always been a little different” but squishy lizard toys are for children and being upset over a sound is childish and they want me to change and “grow up”, but i know better and that nose of mine i’ve kept buried in books in solitude is not satisfied with “different”, is not satisfied with “quirky”- there’s a word for me, a word that is lovely and feels like easing into a routine, feels like sitting on my hands, feels like my favourite foods, feels like tight hugs. they think it’s a bad word, it tastes bitter to them, but to me it’s sweet. i am autistic. and i am all right.

“different” (via anticristino)

[acomfortablevoid]

because I'm sure everyone here is tired as heck of all of my sporadic stupid paper mario blogging, I made a new blog for it, so I'm done here (and yes the blog is queergoombella hmuuu)