still here

[burntblueberrywaffles]

I LOVE being autistic and trying to communicate because every time it’s

[orcboxer]

autism tests are so funny. I'm extremely literal most of the time, but people don't tell me that generally, so I'm inclined to answer disagree. because I'm taking the statement too literally

[peopleingishard]

^not my post but same sentiment

[3liza]

found some incredible internet sentences yesterday in this account by a redditor with autism who delivers a blow-by-blow description of what his oxytocin nasal spray does to his autism, but only for about 3 hours at a time

[3liza]

just so we’re clear, because i think someone could get that impression from these tags, oxytocin is NOT a drug. oxyTOCIN (hormone, the subject of this post) and oxyCONTIN (opioid drug) look very similar and sound very similar but they are not even vaguely related despite nearly being anagrams

it is not an opioid or a painkiller. oxytocin is a hormone and neuropeptide that is involved in the way mammals form social bonds with each other. it cannot cross the blood-brain barrier, so when you take it orally, it ONLY affects your body, it does not affect your brain. thats why it’s in nasal spray form in these posts. in obstetric medicine, oral or IV oxytocin is used during labor to increase uterine contractions, because in the body it is also involved in childbirth (both the physical act of giving birth and in boding with your baby/tolerating the people around you while you are in labor)

researchers have noticed for a long time that oxytocin levels in autistic people are generally very low, which in my opinion is exactly what autism “feels like” in social situations: ie, you are ambiently aware that hugging, physical touch, conversation either intimate or smalltalk level, and just being in proximity to people you care about should feel nice, everyone else seems to be having a good time, and they cant all be faking it. so what’s my problem? why does it stress me out so badly to be around people i actually want to be around and whom i trust and love? what am i MISSING that other people have? well, it might be the oxytocin for a lot of us. again, the studies on autism are 99% on “curing autism in children” and no one is interested at all in running research on improving quality of life in autistic adults, so the research we have on this is really stupid. but it offers some insight. autistic children given oxytocin nasal spray seem to respond with what you would expect from increasing someone’s low oxytocin levels: less social stress, better verbal fluency around people, better mood around people, etc.

everyone calling this “creepy” and “mind control” needs to really, really reexamine how they relate to their personalities, self-image, and their diagnosis. there is nothing coercive or deceptive being done here, to anyone. this guy ordered oxytocin on his own, administered it to himself on his own, informed his family he was going to do so, and then observed and reported the results. you are allowed to treat your own dysfunctions with medicine and then experience the effects. you sound like Christian Science maniacs saying stuff like “if god wanted me to walk he wouldnt have broken my legs in the first place” and letting their children die of sepsis and vitamin deficiencies because it’s God’s Will. you can actually do whatever you want, forever. when you do something of your own agency, guess what, that’s your personality now. that’s you doing something of your own free will. framing the alleviation of subjectively distressing symptoms (like social anxiety, anhedonia, depression and apathy!!!) as some sort of betrayal of your core tenets of Being Autistic At All Times is so regressive and self-defeating i dont even know where to begin. even if you dont personally experience autism as a disability or inconvenience, which is fine too, you are allowed to improve your conditions anyway. you are allowed to take blood pressure medication. you are allowed to take insulin if you cant make your own. it doesn’t “erase who you are as a diabetic”. jesus christ

[five-thousand-loaves-of-bread]

autism awareness & autism acceptance not either or. not mutually exclusive. can coexist. need coexist.

“there enough awareness for autism already 🙄 we need acceptance”

ok. you aware of high support needs autism? aware what that even means? not “need reminder take meds need remind take shower” “high” support needs autism, but “need full physical help do bADLs lack danger awareness may accidentally hurt self or even kill self without support” high support needs autism? not just higher support needs people who can be independently online do advocacy, but those who need help from others even be online, or those who cannot be online at. all.?

aware of nonverbal nonspeaking people? not just nonverbal nonspeaking people who can write grammatically correct cannot tell apart base on writing. not just nonverbal nonspeaking people who can be online who can advocate online.

aware of nonverbal nonspeaking people who cannot communicate in way that easily understood, either for now, or ever? aware of nonverbal nonspeaking people without functional communication, aware of how without functional communication, how that drastically limit communication, even though behaviors are valid communication? aware of nonverbal nonspeaking people who may never use AAC fluently even with best support?

aware of technically verbal but very limited verbal autistics who may only able say wants & needs but not other things and certainly not online advocacy, “despite being verbal”?

aware of just how much our life depends on caregiver/carer/PCA/etc? aware how vulnerable that make us? aware of abuse from caregivers? aware of caregiver burnout from lack of support for caregivers, & how that impact our care we receive? have you even heard of term respite care? aware of those of us who cannot separate ourselves from caregiver? aware of those of us who cannot participate in autism community without caregiver?

aware of visibly autistic people? aware how we not automatically believed? aware how we often bear blunt of violence because we most easily identified target because we visible? aware visible =/= get support, aware that many those diagnosed severe who now adult so no longer qualify for services under 21 year old, languish in hospitals because nowhere to go? aware how long life saving necessary waitlists are? aware that even to this day parents have to fight school fight day service fight government fight insurance for them give their nonverbal nonspeaking child AAC & be properly taught how use it? actually, are you aware of how properly teach AAC to nonverbal nonspeaking, developmentally delayed child who may or may not have intellectual disability?

actually, aware of autistics with (correctly diagnosed) intellectual disability & how they make up big amount of autistic? aware of institutional systemic & legal impact of mental [r word] right & the human rights abuse justified using r word right? wait, you aware that r word come from old term for intellectual disability, that, actually, still in many laws because no one bothered updating, right? aware of what severe profound ID look like? and aware they real and they still human deserve education deserve life deserve care, yes?

aware of early diagnosis 20 30 or even 10 years ago, not same as now, even less resources & knowledge about autism now? aware that while gender race class 1000% impacted diagnoses, a lot of early diagnosed people early diagnosed because… they die without support unlocked by diagnosis, right? but also, aware that in old times, early diagnosis often did mean doom, not because autism bad or anything, but because severe lack of support & diagnosis can literally bar you from so many things including basic education?

aware that for many people in special education, which impact specific group of autistic people, they not get degree when graduate high school, they just get certificate, which limit their educational & employment opportunities & others?

aware of life saving importance and necessity of masking for autistic of color especially Black autistic people, despite stress inducing traumatic? aware that live in broken system be victim of hate crime & police brutality just as traumatic often even more traumatic than masking? aware that many Black & other parents of color forced to teach their child masking because of this?

are you aware of most marginalized autistic people? aware of leadership of most impacted?

aware you can and need to care about autistic experiences & form of autism you not experience? aware that you can and need to do that without try twist your experience into our experience into our words our community?

aware that advocacy goes beyond about you?

aware that you can’t speak for all autistic? aware that you shouldn’t speak for all autistic?

are you aware of when you need to stop talking & listen & amplify others? aware of when and how to decenter self?

aware that even this long post, barely scratch surface? still so much to say?

[better worded version of original post]

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

Dealing With Executive Dysfunction - A Masterpost

The “getting it done in an unconventional way” method.

The “it’s not cheating to do it the easy way” method.

The “fuck what you’re supposed to do” method.

The “get stuff done while you wait” method.

The “you don’t have to do everything at once” method.

The “it doesn’t have to be permanent to be helpful” method.

The “break the task into smaller steps” method.

The “treat yourself like a pet” method.

The “it doesn’t have to be all or nothing” method.

The “put on a persona” method.

The “act like you’re filming a tutorial” method.

The “you don’t have to do it perfectly” method.

The “wait for a trigger” method.

The “do it for your future self” method.

The “might as well” method.

The “when self discipline doesn’t cut it” method.

The “taking care of yourself to take care of your pet” method.

The “make it easy” method.

The “junebugging” method.

The “just show up” method.

The “accept when you need help” method.

The “make it into a game” method.

The “everything worth doing is worth doing poorly” method.

The “trick yourself” method.

The “break it into even smaller steps” method.

The “let go of should” method.

The “your body is an animal you have to take care of” method.

The “fork theory” method.

The “effectivity over aesthetics” method.

[kurai-hono-blog]

This is the sacred texts, this is the holy grail.

[the-august-one]

TBR. If I can remember…

[treasuredplanet]

I think that when you're overstimulated you should appear kind of grayed out and no one should be able to interact with you like a locked character in a video game

[aropride]

why is getting the into the shower the hardest thing in the world. and once ur in the shower it’s fine but making the decision to take a shower and actually enacting it feels like you’re sisyphus with that damn rock

[despazito]

petition to relabel "strong sense of justice" in autism and adhd to "strong personal convictions"

[colombinna]

The real and correct name is cognitive rigidity and more people should know and use that

[earlgraytay]

Eh, that's kind of overly pathologizing- it's like calling Autism Can Stacking a 'restrictive, repetitive play behaviour'. It's the mirror image of calling it a 'strong sense of justice' - calling it rigidity carries a value judgement with it and that's a judgement that does not need to be there.

I think "strong personal convictions" is a great way to get across the concept without carrying a judgement in either direction - a personal conviction can be good or bad, after all.

[despazito]

petition to relabel "strong sense of justice" in autism and adhd to "strong personal convictions"

[colombinna]

The real and correct name is cognitive rigidity and more people should know and use that

[slugslop]

autism doesn’t make you morally better than other people. autistic people don’t inherently have a “strong sense of justice.” autistic people don’t have some unique supernatural ability to detect “bad” people or “narcissists.” nonverbal autistic individuals probably aren’t using telepathy, that’s just you trying to bargain with the idea that someone needs to be a “productive person” to have worth. autistic characters having obvious traits/symptoms doesn’t make them a stereotype.

sorry just firing my rent lowering shots

[pixlerelish]

My toxic trait is that no matter what I need three hours to myself at the end of the day to do absolutely nothing.

[unofficial-autism-post]

Unofficial Autism Post

[kamlo]

please stop treating the word neurodivergent like it means the overlap between autism and adhd

[kamlo]

i dont know how to articulate this well but some of you act like neurodiversity starts with adhd and ends with autism. you talk about "the neurodivergent experience" and everytime you mean "the overlapping experience of adhd and autism."

please remember us when talking about neurodiversity. ocd, dyslexia, dyscaculia, personality disorders, tourettes, intellectual disabilities, schizo-spec disorders, etc. all fall under neurodiversity.

please stop saying neurodivergent when you mean "autism and adhd."

this post is okay to reblog but do not clown on it

[briarpatch-kids]

Related to the "infantilizing" post, it's not infantilizing to speak to or about someone the way they prefer. If someone prefers to be talked to the way you'd talk to a child (I have a friend who calls it "nice words") and have other people make decisions that keep them safe, that is not infantilizing them. That is treating them like a person with agency who has told you what they want. What's infantilizing is when people decide they know what's better for them and ignore their expressed wishes. It also applies to what language they use to describe their disability and how they feel about it.

This post is mainly about intellectual disabilities but can also apply to mental health disability and physical disability.

[despazito]

petition to relabel "strong sense of justice" in autism and adhd to "strong personal convictions"

[aw-tysm]

Some autistics have an odd view on what a special interest within autism actually is, and it's a very damaging take.

Special interests within autism can cause clinically significant impairments in one's life.

Special interests can borderline obsession and addiction and compulsion. They can even run inline with addiction, obsession, and compulsion.

Special interests aren't always knowing everything about it, researching it, and infodumping, or engaging in it in multiple ways.

Sometimes autistics don't know much about them, some will not research them, some autistics won't infodump about them. Some autistics only every engage in their interest in a very restricted and fixated way, a very limited way.

I honestly think some autistics get special interests and hobbies mixed up. You are allowed to have hobbies you are very passionate about, love to talk about, and have a vast knowledge on them. There are many allistics in this world who have hobbies just like that and with such an intensity.

Special interests for autistics aren't always cute and quirky and fun. They can be damaging and impairing, and cause stress/anxiety. They can be inappropriate, dangerous, or bad.

[five-thousand-loaves-of-bread]

sometimes special interest be real people (whether celebrities or like person in autistic person life). intensity of special interest + autism's inherent struggle to understand social stuff like social norms n boundaries n privacy n theory of mind, that can get obsessive n creepy n disruptive really fast, even to stalking levels (even if unintentional/not aware of harm).

some autistic people (which often, but not always, lead to dx level 3 / severe / whatever term most comfy, simply bc symptom intensity) can only, only really do things related to special interest, can only socialize when special interest - hence why it often call “Highly restricted, fixated interests […]”

n sometimes that look like have no interest in anything that not relate to special interest, n so not do them. and that include things like basic daily life activities need to stay alive, like eating, sleeping, toileting, clean self, etc.

n mean “ONLY do special interest” “not do anything that NOT special interest” in most basic straightforward not exaggerated way n not have language to say clearer. but even then ppl weirdly not get what mean n reply “oh that me n no one help n so just push through force self do other stuff” n that. not what mean

ETA another thing be for example really really really not like when be interrupted when do special interest in own little world. get really deregulated. which usually may just be “ok then ppl shouldn’t interrupt u” problem but when you in own world kinda 24/7 doing special interest stuff near every waking moment of day n you depend on other people’s verbal prompt n physical help it kinda become…. quite a problem.

[decompose1]

you tell me that all the bad people are stupid. you tell me that stupid people should be killed, bred out, that evolution will leave them behind. i tell you that's not funny, that i have an intellectual disability, that i want to be allowed to love and to have children of my own. that maybe it's not the end of the world if "stupid" people get to stay. that my caregiver loves me and takes care of me. that she reads to me. that i get by with my little accessibility tools scattered about the house, my aac, and by being gentle. you tell me it's a joke. clearly you aren't like those REAL eugenicists, you only talk like them. you tell me surely i must agree- all the bad people, the ones who take away my rights, they must not be smart, they must be lacking some information to make them like this. i tell you smart people have hurt me more than anyone else because they know better and they still choose cruelty. these people in power aren't lacking anything. they have all the resources in the world and brains that work the way they want. they don't know struggle, they doom everyone who does. you don't stop talking about "stupid people" like we're a disease to eradicate. i note you down as one more smart person who has failed me by choosing to be cruel when you knew better

[autiebiographical]

Pretty sure an autistic world, while not perfect, would at least be more orderly.

[shepandem]

I'm not going to lie, stuff like this bugs me. What people mean when they say the world would be better in [insert ways here] if everyone were autistic, what they mean is that they think the world would be better if everyone were low support needs autistic. They don't mean autistic the way I'm autistic.

I knew a man with severe level 3 autism back when I lived in my first host home. He was fully nonverbal, and essentially noncommunicative, minus a couple of sign approximations that only his caregivers understood. He was incontinent, and aggressive towards himself and others. I couldn't spend much time around him, because he would scream, or randomly touch me, and set off my sensory issues, and my fear of men.

People like him make up 25-33% of the autistic population.

If the whole world were autistic, a quarter to one third of the global population would be dead of dehydration or starvation in a matter of weeks, unless the autistics who functioned closest to neurotypical level took over their care. That's equivalent to the losses seen during the boubonic plague epidemic that raged through Europe and Asia from 1348 to the mid 1350s.

Then there are people like me. I can talk sometimes, and I can bathe myself when reminded, but the government has determined that my ability to work is so limited that I couldn't survive on the amount of income I earned from the amount of work I'm able to do.

Neurotypicals aren't bad. My caregiver and support staff are all neurotypical. Autistics like me need neurotypicals, or neurotypical-functioning people, in our lives.

When you say the world would be better if everyone were autistic, you're erasing the autistics who can't function and be "productive" the way you are. The austistics like me.

[pixierainbows]

Pixie usually really like this comics . But . Very much Seconding what em and shep wrote about this one .

With out Pixies guardians and ( usually neurotypical ) caregivers , support staff , doctors , etc , Pixie would die *horribly* .

And . Also . A very big majority of ( low support needs ) autism people that Pixie have actually met in person want Nothing at all to do with Pixie , specificly because Pixie too disabled ( by autism ) .

This reads dangerously close to “ aspie supremacy “ ideas . And . Pixie feel kind of really awful about it …