Mel

• Autistic • BPD • special interests • sex positive • reptiles • rats • queer •

[readingpeacebypiece]

the more neurodivergent voices add to the internet sadly the more neurotypical people come across terms to describe our experience like ‘meltdown’ and ‘sensory overload’ and use them for their own experiences which are not the same in any way and it minimises our voices and covers our stories and it makes me so mad and I saw someone say that ‘triggered’ was a really useful term when discussing PTSD and it was turned into a meme which also sucks

[anais-ninja-bitch]

queer is such a great word

[cipheramnesia]

I don’t know what young or new LGBTQIA++ person needs to see this, but queer is a wonderful word. It’s not a bad word, it’s not a slur, and you don’t need to be afraid to use it or scared of it.

It’s a word for when we don’t quite know what we are. Or when what we know about ourselves is complicated, and we need a quick explanation. Or when we don’t need to share more. Or sometimes it’s just the best fit.

It’s the word where everyone is welcome, it’s the word for building a community. It’s a word for thinking, a word for doing, a word. Queer is the community y’all.

[fthgurdy]

Queer is the word that protected me for decades as I figured out who I was and still protects me when I want to speak and be seen without being forced to come out in specificity to random strangers.

[lmaoalien]

how much does a friend cost and do i get a discount if i buy 4

[npdsafe]

Things that don’t make you a bad person:

Displaying “scary” symptoms of mental illness

Being diagnosed with multiple disorders

Having one or various personality disorders

Being diagnosed with NPD, BPD, or ASPD

Having very low empathy, or no empathy

Having symptoms that cause anger, emptiness, or paranoia

Having triggers or “strange” personal boundaries

Needing extra help or accommodations

Having intrusive thoughts about upsetting or scary topics

[npdsafe]

More things that don’t make you a bad person:

Having DID/OSDD-1

Having executive dysfunction

Being lethargic or ““lazy””

Having delusions of grandeur, mania, or npd highs

Wanting attention, wanting to be noticed

Being sensitive to rejection

Being afraid of getting close to people

Not liking being touched, held, or any other form of physical affection

Having tics, strange body movements, stims, etc.

Having a blank face, coming off as inexpressive

[thebeanbaguette-archive]

[spiralstaircased]

Most authority figures are just some guy

[actuallyautisticmel]

How our boy lets us know he wants to get out and roam 😂 he’s so cute, I’ve been obsessing over my skinks a little extra lately and I think people are being bored of me

[actuallyautisticmel]

Homemade humidity shield. Helps keep the humidity in our boys cage, and cheap too 😂

[actuallyautisticmel]

Onyx the halmaherra bts versus waffles the merauke bts, waffles is almost twice onyx’s size 😂

[actuallyautisticmel]

Waffles, the beautiful merauke blue tongued skink

[sunflorally]

[rainsnires]

I don’t think anyone talks about the specific trauma of growing up autistic and not being able to read social signals tbh - at least it’s not something I’ve seen talked about.

It’s talked about sometimes in the context of abuse trauma that people who have it feel like they’re walking on eggshells because they grew up with unpredictable people who could go off at any moment(and I’m in this group as well), but what has to be understood is that for many autistic people, the entire *world* is like that. All people are unpredictable to us - we can’t read social cues. It’s not just a matter of being awkward, we can’t do it. We have no way of reading the signs that someone’s getting annoyed, or wants us to leave, or is “just being polite”, so as kids, we push and push past every signal because we can’t see them, and then, seemingly out of the blue, we’re getting snapped/shouted at and we have no way of understanding why or how to avoid it next time.

It’s traumatic, and it stays with you - there’s a reason some autistic people tend to be shy and withdrawn, or develop social anxiety. We learn at a very early age that everyone is unpredictable and could snap at any moment, and we don’t know how to feel it out at all, so eventually, it becomes safer just to not interact at all. We can’t see the boundaries, and we don’t want to get our hearts broken, so we pull back, we don’t message first, we wait for others to make the first move, we follow, we copy, we mask, but we never assume. And that weight carries into adulthood - it carries to friendships, romantic relationships, professional relationships, and every other form of interaction we have. Those times we’ve been startled by anger or caught off guard by irritation stick so deep in us and it’s not just something you shake off and forget.

[roxylalonde]

Help girl i am fidgeting

[roxylalonde]

[daily-reminders-that-ur-enough]

You are good enough

[dylanisastimmyguy]

low empathy in autism is often misunderstood. i want to explain it with some examples here to hopefully help you understand how it can affect people (this is how it affects me)

low empathy actually looks like: i don’t understand that what’s fun for me might not be fun for you. i might think i’m sharing Good Feelings with you by telling you about something i love or making you play my favorite game with me, and not realize that you’re not enjoying it because i have a hard time distinguishing that people interpret and enjoy things differently. i might be confused or upset when you don’t want to hear about something that makes me very happy, because it doesn’t make you as happy as it makes me and that’s hard for me to grasp. it is hard for me to put myself in your shoes and consider that other people might not get the same excitement and joy that i get out of these things. conversely, i might refuse to participate in something most people enjoy and come off as a “buzzkill” or self centered because i don’t understand that other people enjoy something that only makes me upset. i may be confused as to why everyone is engaging in something so upsetting or simply boring, like watching sports or listening to music that i don’t want to hear.

low empathy does NOT actually look like: i don’t understand that other people have feelings and therefore, i do things that i know are wrong because i don’t care about how my actions affect other people, or don’t understand THAT they affect other people. i am mean and rude because i don’t think it has any consequences (as opposed to being rude without realizing it, which is related to social skills, not empathy)

[cypric-rat-hyperfixation]

[spongebob-autisticquestions]

People will talk about how autistic people "suffer", whilst then going on to spread fear and misinformation about autism. Like, of course we have our struggles, but constantly being told autism is something bad and scary doesn't help us, it just makes things a lot more worse