We’re Insane But Not Alone

“I guess all I can do is embrace the pandemonium, find happiness in the unique insanity of being here, now.” Autistic, professional dx, current SpIn: Child Psychology Main is @tesseractingrey where I like to post about shows and musicals; this is more where I post personal stuff

[autism-fucking-rocks]

*cups special interest gently in my hands* thank you

[fish-climbing-a-tree]

Are they any autistic college students out there who have some survival tips? This is my first year on campus (online cause of covid before) and I thought things were going well but then I had a pretty bad meltdown yesterday cause I tried to go to the cafeteria for the first time and I just narrowly avoided having another by practically running away from the club fair

[fish-climbing-a-tree]

My coworkers and I were talking about tattoos today and one of them suggested to my coworker who works with special needs kids that she gets the puzzle piece symbol since she works with a lot of autistic kids and enjoys it and she was like “actually it’s an infinity symbol now for autism acceptance cause the puzzle piece is associated with a bad organization” and it’s a small thing but idk it just made me so happy that at least some special ed teachers understand that Autism Speaks is the worst

[thechekhov]

*this is especially important: these days on Tumblr there’s a wonderful atmosphere of being able to talk openly about your mental illness or your struggle. And that’s great! But there’s a difference between sharing in order to help yourself and other people and sharing just because you have no other coping mechanisms. As much as you’re able, try to work on developing a different outlet. People aren’t qualified to be your therapist because they’re nice to you a couple of times. Please remember that they have lives too, and their job is not to make you feel better or pity you, no matter how difficult your life is. 

And last but not least: 

But… 

I really don’t have a way to better this. 

Your interests are your own. I can’t advise anyone to change their interests to fit in with a certain group of people - that’s stupid, and actually quite damaging to your sense of self. 

Instead, I would recommend that, maybe if you feel like your topics of conversation are falling flat with this group of people, you move on to other, greener pastures. There are bound to be places where your ideas mesh better with an audience. 

And of course - try to be considerate about what you say and how you say it. 

Sometimes, what might seem like a harmless comment to you might be a very discomforting thought to another person. I recently had a conversation on a forum with a guy who was telling me that his headcanon was that Pearl (from SU) would soon get a male love interest who loved mechanics and weapons next, and that would be her best arc, because she would finally get a ‘healthy’ love interest. 

His intentions were good, but he was entirely unaware of how cringey this kind of thing was to a bunch of (probably queer) people, who have spent their entire lives being told that the only ‘good’ character development for them would be to get a ‘male love interest’. No one wanted to be the jerk to say “fuck off, we don’t want that to happen” but everyone was answering him in a flat way, trying to discourage the discussion further. Instead of picking up on the hint, he bulldozed on, thinking he was having a ‘lively conversation’ which was, in fact, in its late stages of death. 

I know I’ll probably get a few messages to this saying: What about people on the Autistic Spectrum? Sometimes, people can’t pick up social cues or ‘hints’. And if that’s the case, it’s incredibly difficult to understand why you’re not having any luck communicating despite your best efforts. 

I feel that on a person level, please believe me. I made this infograph for THAT VERY REASON. Because I WAS that awkward kid who didn’t pick up on hints well. In fact, I still have trouble talking to people. If any of you have had the misfortune of being my conversational partner, you’ll know that I tend to be overly blunt and come off as very unfriendly. It’s something that I, myself, am working on currently in order to grow into a better person. It’s a struggle in progress, but I am aiming towards the progress side, and I just wanted to help out others while I was at it. 

[the-real-seebs]

This is a really good starting guide to the social skills everyone thinks you should have just picked up magically.

So, yes, this is exactly the advice I think autistic people would benefit from; it actually tells you concrete, actionable, things you could do. I wish someone had told me this stuff when I was a kid.

[fish-climbing-a-tree]

So one of my least favorite things in the world is admitting that I’m not qualified to do something and can’t figure it out on my own, but I’m not qualified to teach this kid to communicate and I can’t figure it out on my own.

There’s this 3-year-old kid that I’m teaching (the one who hates being touched from my last post — thank you to everyone who replied, you were all very helpful!!) and the only method of communication I’ve seen him demonstrate is either very happy screaming or very upset screaming. I know can talk a little bit, but the only thing I’ve ever heard is him say something and his mom say “oh he’s saying ‘blast off.’” His parents are no help in general, though — they deny that he even has sensory issues, and I truly have no idea how they can do that. It doesn’t matter if your kid adjusts to an environment or someone touching them if their initial reaction is to have a meltdown. Preferring to risk drowning than letting someone touch you is not neurotypical behavior, regardless of if your kid adjusts to the teacher, but I digress.

I don’t know if I’m directing this question to not fully verb autistic people or to people who have even the slightest bit of experience in teaching communication methods but: what’s the best way to teach him to communicate? I need him to have some way of 1. asking permission to get in the pool (he keeps jumping in when it isn’t his turn and it’s a huge safety issue), 2. saying he needs a break if he gets overwhelmed, and 3. expressing if he’s okay with something. Is it better to try and encourage him to say a word or two, to teach him some very basic signs, or to try and make everything a yes/no question and get him to nod? His identical twin brother can speak so I know he has the ability to learn to speak at least a couple words, but I don’t know how to teach that. I also don’t know how to get him to understand that a hand signal corresponds to a word or even how to get him to move his hands or head how I want him to when I can’t touch him without him getting uncomfortable. Just to make things even harder I’m not sure what his fine motor skills and even gross motor skills are like. I really have no idea what to do, so truly anything would be helpful.

[fish-climbing-a-tree]

Are there any autistic people who hate being touched and would be willing to talk to me about what that’s like? I have a kid with major sensory issues that I’m trying to teach how to swim, and I’m trying to problem solve so I can touch him less, but I don’t fully understand what that’s like, since that’s not how I am.

[fish-climbing-a-tree]

So I work with a lot of young kids, and that means I hear about “Paw Patrol” a lot. I’ve heard so many parents (both in person an online) complain about how the show is awful, and while there’s valid criticism to be made about the educational value and the messages it’s sending, I don’t understand why they’re so mad at it for being repetitive. Like maybe it’s just my routine-loving autistic brain, but I watched a couple episodes of the show to familiarize myself for the dogs so I could talk to the kids about them, and I’ll admit that I still sometimes watch episodes when I’m stressed because the formulaic nature is calming. And it’s so low stakes — sometimes even my comfort shows have too high of stakes for me when I’ve had an especially rough day even though it’s something like “two friends have a minor disagreement with humorous results” and I know everything works out, but in a kids’ show, there’s never any real danger.

And why can’t be just let kids have that? Why do adults have to complain that the show their preschoolers are watching has unrealistically easy solutions for all their problems and why are they annoyed that there’s a reliable constant in their kids’ lives in a constantly unpredictable world? Maybe it’s not the only TV show they watch, because of the aforementioned valid criticism, but it’s not without merit. It’s not a mystery why the show is popular; it’s a comfort show with cute animals and I think we should just let the 3-year-olds enjoy it in peace.

[fish-climbing-a-tree]

So my mom wants to buy me a puzzle piece necklace.

She wants to do it to show support for me being autistic, and since it’s silver and smooth, she knows it’ll likely will be quite fun for me to play with. I like wearing jewelry for the sole purpose of stimming with it, and a necklace with a smooth part I can rub and also interesting stuff on the sides that’ll give different textures would be nice. The problem is, of course, who came up with the puzzle piece symbol.

My problem with it is just the connection to Autism Speaks, though, and not with the idea of a puzzle piece as a symbol. I actually LOVE puzzles — when I have several days off in a row, I order a puzzle or two and just spend hours with a podcast and a cup of tea and a puzzle and it’s so much fun. My favorite part of my job too is how it can be like a puzzle sometimes, figuring out what exactly I need to do to address an issue and how to fit different things together. So if this puzzle piece necklace just represented loving puzzles, or even just feeling different and struggling to fit in sometimes, it would be an issue. I just don’t know if I want to wear something that’s connected that such a terrible organization.

[fish-climbing-a-tree]

I say I don’t sit properly in chairs because I’m gay but really it’s because I’m autistic and either I’m enjoying the pressure my contorted position has put on my limbs or I’m swinging at least one limb for the vestibular stimulation

[fish-climbing-a-tree]

Befriending Coworkers

Or, at least becoming a step above workplace acquaintances. Workplace pals, if you will.

So I’ve never put much conscious effort into being friends with my coworkers — I figure I’ve got a couple real friends who actually know me, and these are just people I’m paid to be around and it doesn’t matter if they like me. At my first job, I definitely wasn’t friends with any of my coworkers, but I didn’t mind. I assumed it would be the same at this job, but little did I know, I was about to discover a social skill goldmine through the power of excessive affective empathy.

I definitely have hyperempathy, which really just means uncontrollably strong affective empathy and the classic lack of cognitive empathy because I am autistic, after all. So I often involuntarily feel other peoples emotions, but I don’t have the social skills to respond to that emotion with words. Instead, I just try to be helpful. Even if it doesn’t fix the issue that someone is upset about, being helped makes someone feel a bit better anyways.

I just started being helpful, because the job can be fairly boring and so I have nothing else to do, and because my empathy makes me want to do something when someone is upset. My first interactions with my coworkers was just them thanking me and complimenting me, and then it sorta became the inside joke that I was better at my job than everyone else because I was just slightly less lazy, and now my coworkers think I’m nice and friendly and so they’ll just talk to me about things. I have done and still do very little initiation of conversation with them, and yet my coworkers have said they consider me a friend. I prefer the term “workplace pal” because they still don’t know much about me so I don’t think we can really be friends, but still.

So the social skill life hack I’ve discovered is simply be helpful to people and that will make them like you and then they’ll talk to you and suddenly you have a new pal without having to put in much social effort at all. Turns out that even though I don’t need to be, being friendly with my coworkers can make the work day more interesting too which is nice

[fish-climbing-a-tree]

Do any other autistic people ever find themselves empathy stimming?

Oftentimes whenever I see another autistic person stim it makes me want to do the same thing they’re doing. I don’t know what to say to them, but if I see an autistic person happy flapping, I wanna do it too. Autistic people often express empathy differently than neurotypical people (Nathan Selove on YouTube did a great video on it), and so it came be easier for us to empathize with fellow autistics than neurotypicals.

[fish-climbing-a-tree]

This is such a small thing but today I was watching my coworker teach an autistic kid to swim and he wasn’t listening so she told him to take off his goggles and I’m expecting her to make him look her in the eyes so she knows he’s listening but instead she just says “look at my nose” and idk it’s just nice to see special ed teachers accommodating kids instead of trying to force them to mask like that should be a given but I know it definitely isn’t with a lot of teachers so this just made me happy

[fish-climbing-a-tree]

To other autistics:

Autistics are known to think differently than neurotypicals, so for you, how does that translate into how you learn best? What are things that teachers did that worked really well for your brain, and what are some things that really didn’t work?

When it come to teaching autistics, it seems like the most common strategy for educators is just repetition for reinforcement and route memorization, but that just doesn’t work for everyone. So I’m curious what does work better for you all.

[fish-climbing-a-tree]

I feel like people underestimate how effective scripting can be for autistics. At work, I seem like I’m very social and no one would ever suspect I’m not neurotypical, but it’s actually just a very predictable environment. I’m basically like an NPC cycling through a set of planned responses, and yet somehow I manage to make people think I’m good at talking to them. It helps that we’re all wearing masks rn so I just have to think about my tone and not my facial expression, but it’s surprising how far a dozen canned responses can get you. I just got a performance review that complimented me on my interaction with parents, which is literally just due to my nodding and smiling skills, with a couple “mhm” and “yeah”s thrown in there as well, because mostly people just like talking about themselves and want to feel heard. I’m told I’m good with kids, but all I do is use the same couple phrases every time to tell them what to do and encourage them, and the same three techniques (complimenting their outfit/hair, asking them about their weekend, and asking them about a cut they have) to make them feel like I’m interested in them.

I always used to tell my friends to script conversations that they were nervous about, like for dates, and they always used to think I was joking or just kinda weird. But why don’t people script more conversations??? It’s insanely effective — as long as it’s a predictable environment, it decreases the amount of energy you need to put into social interaction by at least 60%, or maybe even 70%.

[fish-climbing-a-tree]

Masking

I’ve had this job for the past couple of months, and I really do enjoy it. But I have to mask so strongly, and I’m starting to realize that just because I can doesn’t mean I should. I don’t mind working with kids because I’m teaching them something so our conversation has a purpose and I enjoy helping people, so the only part that’s fake is acting more happy than I usually do, but kids make me happy so it’s not a faked emotion just a forced expression. But when I’m talking to adults or my coworkers, I’m basically a different person. Sometimes if I go get food right after work I catch myself accidentally still wearing that mask and making small talk with the cashier even though I passionately hate it. I know that looking for a job where I don’t have to mask at all is probably too much to ask for, but I don’t want to settle for one where I just have to mask so hard all the time, you know?

[fish-climbing-a-tree]

So apparently not everyone feels burning pain in their nostrils when getting COVID tested?????? I went with my whole family today bc my mom wanted us tested so we could safely see family for thanksgiving and they all thought it tickled somehow? I mean I know I’m touch sensitive but I guess I never considered how that affected the inside of my nostrils and deep into my sinuses so good to know I suppose

[fish-climbing-a-tree]

So in one of my classes I have a problem and my mom, my therapist, and one of my friends all agreed that the best way to explain it to my teacher and get it resolved would be to out myself as autistic. I don’t mind that, but it is kinda annoying that sometimes people don’t believe your symptoms are actual problems and not you just not trying hard enough or wanting to avoid work until you name drop a diagnosis. I emailed him 9 hours ago and he hasn’t responded and so I’m just imagining him like staring at it and panicking and having no idea ie to respond bc he’s significantly misinterpreted several things lol. The nice thing about the “autistics can’t lie” stereotype is that then people stereotypically assume we’re always telling the truth even if we’re lying and I can lie but generally prefer not to so sucks when someone assumes I am and I’m glad this teacher won’t do that anymore and maybe I don’t need someone to proofread my emails to him anymore to make sure I didn’t say anything that he wouldn’t take at face value and would therefore get a very incorrect interpretation from

The fun part about outing yourself though (as autistic or lgbtq) is knowing the other person’s eyes are widening in fear as they frantically trying to recall if they ever did or said anything ableist/homophobic/transphobic