mental health blog

if we post abt stuff that doesn't have to do with neurodivergence, it probably has to do with a special interest or hyperfixation of ours | plural | go follow our art account @birdhouse-art !!

[autispec-hours]

welcome to the mental health blog ^- ^

CURRENTLY OBSESSED WITH : our ocs :3

some things about us:

we're bodily an adult ( ind. ages fluctuate )

we're autistic , plural , & have adhd

we're bodily a jewish , white USamerican , and were raised christian ( ind. backgrounds may fluctuate , but are inevitably influenced by the source )

that being said , we are collectively anticapitalist , antifascist , antiamerican & pro liberation in a variety of ways . our main @eptck delves more into this . we believe in a free palestine , DRC , sudan , and turtle island . that's not what this blog is necessarily about , but we also believe true mental health cannot be achieved without seeing a world liberated from capitalism and colonialism

anything we post / reblog that has to do w a special interest more than it does neurodivergence will be tagged #un-tism

we have trauma , & much of it . this & our neurodivergence may pepper our interactions with people , so being clear abt your tone is very helpful to us when interacting w our posts . tone indicators are helpful , but not compulsory !

we are physically disabled , with chronic pain & chronic migraines , which we believe is enhanced by our sensory processing being more acute than the average person’s

we are not opposed to teaching or answering questions about our experience , but we're not mental health experts by any means . we can only speak on our own experiences and knowledge ; what works for us may not work for you

also , rudeness , pettiness , and bigotry will no be tolerated . we block liberally

thank you for your time ^- ^

[infiniteoreos]

undiagnosed autistic people will be like "I don't get upset when my routine changes though!!" and it's because they've built a set of if-then loops in their head to pick from one of 6 different strict routines and they do get incredibly upset when they're unable to keep to any of the 6 scripts. I'm john normal

[overclockedopossum]

If you tell neurodivergent people they need to "get comfortable with being uncomfortable" I am putting gravel in your shoes. No you can't take the gravel out. You have to deal with it. Dealing with it makes you a better person. What do you mean "pointless suffering".

[witchy-fennec]

So, I don’t really fit the term semiverbal, but I definitely don’t fit as a fully verbal autistic either. Because of this, I’ve been thinking of what a good term would be for sorta verbal (aka can reliably talk a decent amount of the time, but also has plenty of verbal shutdowns, and a little trouble speaking in a way that’s usually not all that hindering when able to speak) autistic. I decided on demi-verbal and think this sums up my experiences pretty well. I’ve never seen demi-verbal anywhere and searching for it brought up nothing.

Demi-verbal:

Can reliably speak most of the day for most days of the week

Verbal shutdowns happen anywhere from a few times a week to a few times a month, possibly for no apparent reason

May experience some level of difficulty with mouth words, anywhere between slight difficulty only a little of the time to half the time

Please respect nonverbal/non-speaking and semiverbal/semi-speaking autistics and listen when they tell you not to use (and thus misuse) a word/words that was coined specifically for nonverbal/non-speaking and/or semiverbal/semi-speaking autistics. Those words/terms were coined for a reason.

[creekfiend]

I understand that there is discussion of masking by autistic people that is much more honest and in-depth, but so much of the stuff I see sort of leans on the assumption that masking is something one chooses to do in order to appear "normal"

In reality, I think the behavior pattern that we name as "masking" is the natural behavioral and psychological result of being consistently punished for attempting to acknowledge your own reality during formative developmental periods. And I'm not sure that "masking" is a clarifying word to use for this

[beemovieerotica]

it's weird how there's this perception of OCD as the "cleanliness" disorder where people still consider OCD behaviors to be like, rooted in some rational and correct (but overshot) trajectory toward objectively sanitary conditions, if that makes any sense? like there was a reddit post about somebody's roommate who had an extremely biohazardous room and a few commenters mentioned that OCD might be a factor based on her other behaviors, and a bunch of non-OCD-havers were like "what??? but it's objectively not clean??? there's so much bacteria in there???"

like idk how to tell you that the disorder gives you disordered thinking. disordered thinking is not rational. and there are absolutely things that trigger 1 person with OCD but do not matter to another, because your OCD can latch on to literally anything.

[aesungaia]

[serious-tabaxi]

ok this level of simultaneous vague and direct psychological horror hasn't been expressed since Amnesia Was her Name

[mclennonyaoi]

incredible subset of autistic/adhd person out there who thinks that “neurotypicals” don’t have inner worlds/thoughts /interests

[mclennonyaoi]

comments under a post about autistic hyper empathy. like you can’t really believe that 80% of people don’t wonder or care or think about anything can you

[bonediggercharleston]

[mclennonyaoi]

maybe it’s because i’m level 2 but i have carried lots of repression and shame about being autistic from childhood and have regarded it as a curse pretty much all my life so when i see people doing some autistic supremacy autism is cool and silly and funny and autistic people just feel deeper and care more and think harder bullshit it makes me angry because it has never been like that for me in my life. makes me feel very alienated from myself and other people and the “autistic community.” online and irl. people tell me you’re generally not supposed to say ‘i wish i wasn’t autistic’ but there have been lots of times i definitely wish i wasnt . ultimately not something that will ever change for me so what can you do but try to make peace with it but still definitely puts me off sometimes

[mclennonyaoi]

ultimately i just think it’s isolating all the time. to allistic people you’re either a weird freak who can’t socialize or a hot gf wiki editor who loves trains league of legends and goldfish or a bill gates like savant and to other autistic people you’re a derpy special interests silly guy or it’s some starchild hyperempathy neurotypicals don’t think and autistics are the only ones who truly understand socializing bullshit . idk .

[mclennonyaoi]

think it’s often people who have lower support needs who talk like this also which also adds another level of distance to it like we fundamentally have very different lives and experiences

[socialistexan]

Same exact playbook, down to the "but it was based on a lie."

[livingvampires]

I need non autistic people to realise meltdowns are a real debilitating thing that has a serious effect on your mental and physical health NOWWWWW!!! The way its been trivialized and lessened pisses me the fuck off. It's not a tantrum and it doesn't come from "being too weak-willed" it's painful and it's embarrassing AND MOST OF ALL IT'S INVOLUNTARY!! Don't claim to be an ally to autistic or disabled people and then make fun of people who have meltdowns. Literally get the hell out of my sight

[livingvampires]

"autistic people are fine as long as they don't have meltdowns and aren't weird And aren't annoying and only like the things I like but don't like them in a weird way and don't talk or carry themselves in an unconventional way and only stim in a way I deem acceptable if I allow them to stim at all (stimming is cringe if you only do the hand flaps but the hand flaps are the only acceptable one) and don't make it obvious that they're autistic"<- what these people fucking sound like

[03josten]

stop fucking using the word psychotic to describe bad behaviour and violence already god fucking damn it

[03josten]

oh my god i'm so tired psychotic does not mean violent it does not mean angry or erratic. it refers to a person suffering from psychosis, a loss of touch with reality that includes hallucinations and/or delusions. psychotic people are not inherently violent and y'all need to understand how much stigma you create when you again and again incorrectly use the word psychotic without even thinking about it

[03josten]

would appreciate if non-psychotic people could reblog this

[ooppo]

Idk why but as a kid I used to get hysterically upset everytime I would imagine a gif of a rotating cow because I could never stop the cow from rotating no matter how hard I tried and I would be crying and no one knew why

[ooppo]

[ooppo]

[ooppo]

[ooppo]

[chetungwan]

This is probably an unnecessary addition, but OCD is missed in cases like these because it's deeply misunderstood by most people.

It's talked about like being obsessively neat or repeating pointless tasks is the main part of it, when really those are just potential symptoms.

The main thing behind OCD is not being about to turn off a thought. There's a thing where most people can just stop thinking about something. If it's over, it's not relevant, it doesn't matter anymore, people can turn their attention away. For OCD, that mechanism can get stuck. And some thought that was supposed to just temporarily pass through your head just stays there. An image of an object rotating. An anxiety about something bad happening. A wish that you made on a dandelion. These are all things that have at some point gotten stuck in my head, sometimes for years at a time.

The compulsions, the rituals, are the person trying to address the thought so it can go away. After all, if you're worried about the door not being locked you can check the lock. But for someone with OCD, that doesn't make the stuck thought go away. So they check it again. And again. And they made a ritual, maybe if I check it exactly five times, I'll know that it's locked and I can let this worry go.

It helps a little. It feels like you're doing something. But it doesn't solve the problem. Actual therapy for OCD involves not doing the compulsion. Instead, you ignore the thought, move around it, try not to give it space in your life. Your mind won't let the thought go normally, so instead you fill yourself with other thoughts. Other parts of your life.

It's not easy at first. Your mind fights you on it. But as you get practice, it gets easier. You learn tricks around your own mind, ways to look at the thought and go, hm. I guess I'll go distract myself now. It does get better. I promise

[ocdheritageposts]

OCD Heritage Post

[is-this-fascism]

nobody ever talks about how 'compliance' is directly at odds with boundary setting. compliance in mental healthcare is for insurance companies only. it's for their metrics and to ensure the poor insurance companies that their money is being used 'properly', i.e. the way they demand.

when a mental health service demands compliance, they're threatening to cut you off from services for enforcing your boundaries. 'i will not take that medication that gives me awful side effects and doesn't work' is non-compliance and grounds for termination from the program. 'i will not attend group therapy on the weekends' is non-compliance and grounds for termination from the program. 'i will not answer a call from staff past 8pm' is non-compliance and grounds for termination. 'i will keep my door locked while i'm sleeping' is non-compliance and grounds for termination. 'i will attempt to make friends and seek peer support from other members' is non-compliance and grounds for termination.

compliance, and that is the actual word they use, is an archaic and backwards way to force people to not set boundaries in terms of their care. it shuffles them along through a system that may or may not, and likely will not work for them because they know what they need and insurance companies do not. insurance companies do not have their best interests in mind, their interests are profit and spending as little money on the crazies as possible, and they will literally hire a person whose job it is to find any reason to kick people out of whatever care program it is, and they'll frame it as 'if you don't comply, you must not want help! we can't help you if you don't comply!!'

[kaputtsolvi]

What I feel people frequently forget about autistic special interests is that they aren't always information based. They may simply be visual or mental

Someone may have a special interest in a show, but instead of that meaning that they will talk about that show often, it may mean they watch that show extremely frequently.

Special interests are ways of regulating, not simply encyclopedias we have in our heads. Sometimes it's watching something frequently. Maybe only listening to one genre of music, maybe it's a collection, maybe it's an action. I'm tired of it only being seen as autistic people's personal encyclopedias

[asexual-amanita]

Justice sensitivity is not an autistic trait. Autism has no morality, and to say so is neurosupremacy. What you may be thinking of is a specific presentation of cognitive rigidity that some autistics have.

One way I’ve seen this in the community is black and white thinking leading to nuance lacking rhetorics such as “the puzzle piece is a hate symbol.” Or “Autism Speaks has never done anything good.”

And while I won’t deny that neutral or even positive things can come from this way of thinking, the cognitive rigidity itself is not morally aligned.

[birdofmay]

You know what really annoys me?

There's this new pedagogical thing going around regarding students who need more time in exams. You know, accommodations for ADHDers, etc.

There's this claim that "more time" itself isn't helpful, it's better to grant the student as many breaks as they want to "re-focus", and only the time they're actually writing the exam is counted as the "exam time". So for example you have 60 minutes "exam time" and your breaks in between don't count. Exam starts, timer starts. You take a break, timer stops. You continue writing, timer continues. And so on.

While I like that they realise that breaks are important, this doesn't take into account that many students who need more time struggle with processing what they read. If you're fully focused but your processing speed is slow, you'll still need more time than others.

This new "Hey, instead of giving my student more time, I let them take as many breaks as they want, but exam time itself stays the same"-mindset apparently is considered a breakthrough among teachers who think that they're doing their student a huge favour.

It isn't! It robs people with processing issues of time they really need!

And I see this spread! Maybe it's encouraged by ADHDers who in fact simply would have needed breaks and just "more time" itself wasn't helpful for them, idk. But it spreads and that's bad for people with processing issues.

Whenever I see this, I'm like "I hope this doesn't make it into educational guidelines for accommodations, we'd be absolutely fcked!"