did you know that apparently if you try to act normal the normalness doesn't come through but the acting does. and did you know apparently everyone can smell this on you like a bloodhound
has anyone written about autism and layers of locution meanings. like. i only have a little bit of understanding of this but i really dont think "autistic people take things literally" cuts it or is accurate a lot of the time but "autistic people tend to understand locutionary meanings rather than illocutionary meanings" seems to immediately explain a lot more
basically like if you say "do you have any lemonade" the locutionary meaning is asking if the listener is in possession of lemonade. the locutionary act is a request for information
but thats not actually what is meant when someone says that
when you say "do you have any lemonade" the illocutionary meaning is "i would like some lemonade, do you have some you can share with me?" and the illocutionary act is requesting that the listener share some of their lemonade
i think a lot of autistic people hear the locution and go yes i have lemonade. and then dont perform the intended perlocutionary act which is to share their lemonade. and then the speaker gets pissed lmao
people have in fact written a lot about this topic, yes! i wrote a long tumblr post about this a while back, which you can find here if you're interested, but basically: there's been a lot of studies that suggest autistic people struggle with implied requests like these. if you want to do some digging, you should find plenty of results by searching for papers on autism and implicature; scholars in this field i think tend to use that term more often (maybe because they're more interested in the content of speech than in speech acts themselves).
possession horror where the thing possessing the autistic character causes them to behave in a more neurotypical way. autistic possession horror where the thing inside you is easier to communicate with than you are, the thing inside you doesn’t have a flat affect, the thing inside you doesn’t let your body stim, the thing inside you is how you were told to behave and you can only do it when you are no longer you. autistic possession horror where you will never forget that everyone liked it better than you before they found out something was controlling you. autistic possession horror where they know what’s inside you isn’t you and debate whether it would be easier for everyone to leave you like this anyway. you agree. reblog.
The data does not support the assumption that all burned out people can “recover.” And when we fully appreciate what burnout signals in the body, and where it comes from on a social, economic, and psychological level, it should become clear to us that there’s nothing beneficial in returning to an unsustainable status quo.
The term “burned out” is sometimes used to simply mean “stressed” or “tired,” and many organizations benefit from framing the condition in such light terms. Short-term, casual burnout (like you might get after one particularly stressful work deadline, or following final exams) has a positive prognosis: within three months of enjoying a reduced workload and increased time for rest and leisure, 80% of mildly burned-out workers are able to make a full return to their jobs.
But there’s a lot of unanswered questions lurking behind this happy statistic. For instance, how many workers in this economy actually have the ability to take three months off work to focus on burnout recovery? What happens if a mildly burnt-out person does not get that rest, and has to keep toiling away as more deadlines pile up? And what is the point of returning to work if the job is going to remain as grueling and uncontrollable as it was when it first burned the worker out?
Burnout that is not treated swiftly can become far more severe. Clinical psychologist and burnout expert Arno van Dam writes that when left unattended (or forcibly pushed through), mild burnout can metastasize into clinical burnout, which the International Classification of Diseases defines as feelings of energy depletion, increased mental distance, and a reduced sense of personal agency. Clinically burned-out people are not only tired, they also feel detached from other people and no longer in control of their lives, in other words.
Unfortunately, clinical burnout has quite a dismal trajectory. Multiple studies by van Dam and others have found that clinical burnout sufferers may require a year or more of rest following treatment before they can feel better, and that some of burnout’s lingering effects don’t go away easily, if at all.
In one study conducted by Anita Eskildsen, for example, burnout sufferers continued to show memory and processing speed declines one year after burnout. Their cognitive processing skills improved slightly since seeking treatment, but the experience of having been burnt out had still left them operating significantly below their non-burned-out peers or their prior self, with no signs of bouncing back.
It took two years for subjects in one of van Dam’s studies to return to “normal” levels of involvement and competence at work. following an incident of clinical burnout. However, even after a multi-year recovery period they still performed worse than the non-burned-out control group on a cognitive task designed to test their planning and preparation abilities. Though they no longer qualified as clinically burned out, former burnout sufferers still reported greater exhaustion, fatigue, depression, and distress than controls.
In his review of the scientific literature, van Dam reports that anywhere from 25% to 50% of clinical burnout sufferers do not make a full recovery even four years after their illness. Studies generally find that burnout sufferers make most of their mental and physical health gains in the first year after treatment, but continue to underperform on neuropsychological tests for many years afterward, compared to control subjects who were never burned out.
People who have experienced burnout report worse memories, slower reaction times, less attentiveness, lower motivation, greater exhaustion, reduced work capability, and more negative health symptoms, long after their period of overwork has stopped. It’s as if burnout sufferers have fallen off their previous life trajectory, and cannot ever climb fully back up.
And that’s just among the people who receive some kind of treatment for their burnout and have the opportunity to rest. I found one study that followed burned-out teachers for seven years and reported over 14% of them remained highly burnt-out the entire time. These teachers continued feeling depersonalized, emotionally drained, ineffective, dizzy, sick to their stomachs, and desperate to leave their jobs for the better part of a decade. But they kept working in spite of it (or more likely, from a lack of other options), lowering their odds of ever healing all the while.
Van Dam observes that clinical burnout patients tend to suffer from an excess of perseverance, rather than the opposite: “Patients with clinical burnout…report that they ignored stress symptoms for several years,” he writes. “Living a stressful life was a normal condition for them. Some were not even aware of the stressfulness of their lives, until they collapsed.”
Instead of seeking help for workplace problems or reducing their workload, as most people do, clinical burnout sufferers typically push themselves through unpleasant circumstances and avoid asking for help. They’re also less likely to give up when placed under frustrating circumstances, instead throttling the gas in hopes that their problems can be fixed with extra effort. They become hyperactive, unable to rest or enjoy holidays, their bodies wired to treat work as the solution to every problem. It is only after living at this unrelenting pace for years that they tumble into severe burnout.
Among both masked Autistics and overworked employees, the people most likely to reach catastrophic, body-breaking levels of burnout are the people most primed to ignore their own physical boundaries for as long as possible. Clinical burnout sufferers work far past the point that virtually anyone else would ask for help, take a break, or stop caring about their work.
And when viewed from this perspective, we can see burnout as the saving grace of the compulsive workaholic — and the path to liberation for the masked disabled person who has nearly killed themselves trying to pass as a diligent worker bee.
I wrote about the latest data on burnout "recovery," and the similarities and differences between Autistic burnout and conventional clinical burnout. The full piece is free to read or have narrated to you in the Substack app at drdevonprice.substack.com
It was about 3 years ago. It took about a year after I hit the wall to be able to reliably work at volunteer jobs ~9 hours a week. My tolerance for sensory input, social stamina and resilience to stress still haven't fully rebounded and i no longer engage in many of the activities and hobbies that I used to enjoy.
It's taken the past 3 years to regain the unhealthy amount of weight that I lost (when I dropped out of school I was the same size I had been at age 14 and my vision went completely black every time I stood up) and my overall health and immune functioning is worse than it used to be.
Even with a lesser work load my performance in school is also much lower nowadays, which hurts.
Clinical burnout seems to be basically a long-lasting health crisis caused by ignoring distress and exhaustion signals in the body for a long time.
The Arno van Dam article defining clinical burnout EXACTLY describes what happened to me in every last detail, but mine wasn't because of a heavy work load necessarily, it was because of chronic and extreme stress related to being autistic in a world that isn't made for people with my needs.
Having a different experience of stressors means things that are not very stressful for others are often extremely stressful for me. This led me to calibrate my internal distress scale to ignore most things hurting me, aligning with others' expectations.
Therapy techniques like CBT unfortunately encouraged this and destroyed my ability to be in touch with my body 
I am eternally furious about how ignoring distress is encouraged in people and how my constant feelings of terror and fear my whole life were designated as "anxiety" and something to be ignored, squashed down, locked away, censored from my brain by regulating my thoughts. Turns out the Fear was the part of me that was caring for me whole time, protecting me and affirming that my needs were important.
Therapy never considered that I might be reacting to the actual reality my body and mind were experiencing
GREAT addition, thank you. That's exactly why distinguishing between "Autistic burnout" and "clinical burnout" can't be easily done -- they're both a response to persistent exposure to stress. The only real difference is that what dysregulates a person to the point of chronic stress varies based on their neurodiversity.
I saw the post again where the OP is like "I don't care if you're autistic, you have to eat vegetables"
Sometimes a disability means you can't do a thing...That is what disability...Means.............
If you are an autistic person who sits around being judgmental and condescending toward every autistic person more disabled than you, you are a tar pit
Yeah, "you must" is one of the worst things to do around restrictive/avoidance/fearful food related symptoms, whatever the source.
At the height of my symptoms, saying anything along the lines of "I don't care about (you), you still have to eat this" would be a great way to make it so that if I could manage to take a bite, I'd immediately reflexively, uncontrollably gag like I'd tried to swallow something rotten. Not fun! Even worse when I had to hide what was happening to me because "it's rude to not eat the food."
If you love someone with ARFID symptoms, if you care about them at all, or even if you don't know they have trouble with food, even just to be decent to another human being, offer things neutrally, and accept the word "no".
"Would you like to try a bite?"
"No"
"Alrighty, let me know if you want more of another thing."
It's annoying too because it would have been SO easy for that post to not be judgemental of people with ARFID symptoms or related issues by just saying "hey if you personally want to eat more veggies but are struggling due mild texture/flavor sensory issues here are some tips to make it easier" especially because it does have useful info, just for people who don't have disorders that make eating some foods physically impossible, but because this is the internet they had to make it a moral thing.
Also like, it's just so fucking unhealthy in general to view food as something you have to do regardless of your preferences. Starting off from the place of "I have to eat this" is the fastest way to get a person to dig their feet in or give up because humans don't respond well to being forced to do something we find unpleasant, no matter the reason. This is why intuitive eating exists as an answer to diet culture, you have to re-program yourself to not view any food as inherently good or bad and trust your instincts to tell you when you're hungry and what you need to eat. To stop viewing it as a punishment or something you have to withstand, but as nourishment and comfort and joy.
This also offers no room for people with other medical conditions that can make fruits and veggies unhealthy. If I'm having an IBS flare a fresh salad or fruit smoothie can ruin my entire night. Fruits and veggies are not the be all end all of health, every human is different and a healthy diet is a diet composed of food you will actually eat, because(ofc barring said health/sensory issues) there is no food thst is worse for you than not eating. If the choice is between a hot pocket and not eating, the answer is the hot pocket. I genuinely cannot overstate the importance of eating, not eating it tied to so many negative health outcomes, healthy food is food you will eat. Even if that means you eat nothing but spaghetti or pb&j sandwiches or eggo waffles.
So yeah, if you want to eat more or less of anything that's fine, and there should be tips for how to make it enjoyable, but if you legit tell any group of people, let alone a group of people who are predisposed to having severe sensory issues that can make negative stimuli physically painful/induce vomiting and sobbing, that they MUST eat food they hate to be "healthy" then you have already failed. Eating is too important, we cannot in good conscious be making anyone who struggles with it for any reason feel like shit. (Also a lot of people with food related sensory issues or ARFID symptoms likely have trauma from being forced to eat food that made them sick or felt physically painful to try to swallow, approaching them with "you have to eat this" is pretty tactless at best.)
Legit all it would have taken is just removing the guilt trip. Stop making food out to be a punishment. It will get you nowhere and help no one. We know for a fact that guilt and shame are abysmal motivators, humans respond much better when you give them space and understanding and meet them where they are and don't moralize something they already struggle with. Also, in general, if we want to be good allies to autistic and disabled and fat people in our lives, we need to remember to mind our own buisness when it comes to other people's health! Sometimes people are going to eat a diet you don't understand and that's fine. Health is not an obligation, and it looks different for every person, and again, healthy food is food that you will eat. That's what's important.
I'm one of those people with ARFID who struggles to eat vegetables (and a lot of other things) for sensory reasons. I spent two years until this past June in treatment for it, where I met with a dietician and a therapist weekly to manage it. Back in March, my dietician told me about a continuing education presentation she went to that was led by an ARFID researcher and actual people with ARFID.
She said that the presenters spoke about alternative methods to treating ARFID that don't involve nearly as much exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy as is mainly used in treating other restrictive disorders like anorexia or bulimia. The high comorbidity between ARFID and sensory processing disorders, including autism, means that ERP will not effectively treat ARFID because those sensory processing issues are "built in" to people. Exposure will only reinforce the trauma of eating a trigger food and cause more stress.
(I can personally attest to this. When I began treatment in PHP for ARFID, I had an anxiety attack on day 2 that left me throwing up from the stress out of the idea that ERP would mean I was constantly going to be forced to eat foods that were sensory hell for me.)
My dietician told me how the presentation concluded with the idea that eating disorder treatment plans for sensory-based ARFID should be focused less on trying to get someone to eat "normally" and more focused on helping the patient find methods to incorporate variety into their diet that take into account the patient's specific sensory processing issues. She said that while her methodology had always tried to take that into account when working with ARFID patients, hearing it in this presentation had made her intention to work with patients on how to modify their diets even stronger.
I cried in relief at hearing this.
ERP didn't help me much. For the most part, I forced myself to eat what the treatment center put in front of me during my two weeks in PHP, but it was mostly an exercise in tolerating distress, and I've had a lot of experience with that. And as I mentioned above, the idea of having to eat all these foods that I could not stand was so stressful that I threw up, which is not something that I normally do. It was an incredible relief to learn that there are discussions among eating disorder treatment providers that there are people pushing for alternatives to treating ARFID that aren't just forcing people to eat like a "normal" person. It gives me hope that treatment will be less stressful in the future for people with ARFID.
ARFID is disabling, often due to reasons outside a person's control. It is better to work with people with ARFID to find ways that work for us rather than try to force us to eat like a "normal" person.
"Force yourself to be exposed to this thing that is horrible to you until you shut down and stop trying to resist it..." So much trauma embedded in the autistic experience centers around this.
My theory of adhd management is that in order to focus there are 4 things that need to be sufficiently occupied:
Eyes
Ears
Hands (or body)
Brain
And if you aren’t occupying them enough or there’s too many things demanding the use of one, it’ll start to wreck havoc on your ability to do things.
So for example, listening to a podcast. This occupies your ears and brain as you focus on both listening and processing what you hear, but it leaves your hands and eyes completely without anything to do. If you tried to sit down and just listen to a podcast by itself you’d probably get unbearably bored and stop doing it.
But if you pair that activity with something that uses your hands and eyes, like a craft, household chore, or commute, suddenly you’re fully plugged in and can in fact focus better on both tasks than you could if you tried doing them separately.
It’s also why you can’t listen to a podcast while doing homework; you’re trying to use your brain for two different tasks. To occupy your ears while doing homework (which is already using eyes, brain, and hands) you need something for your ears that doesn’t require your brain: music. Specifically music that doesn’t use too much brain power, which is why some people prefer instrumentals or songs in other languages.
Hyperfixation and sensory overload change this by moving the threshold for how much sensory input you need to be able to function. If I’m extremely focused on a craft project (eyes, hands, brain) I might not even need something for my ears; my interest in the project makes up for it. If i’ve had a very overwhelming day, trying to listen to an audiobook while I do some stretches could be too much to process. My brain needs a break.
Video games, which pretty much universally occupy all 4 areas, are basically instant, easy focus wrapped up in a neat little bow. No wonder adhd-havers tend to love them.
If you’re struggling with a task, try looking at which areas it occupies and which are left unattended. Then try to find something enjoyable to fill those gaps, and see if that helps.
In which case you might need more input (snacks, gum, mints, chewelry) - especially important if trying to stop or reduce smoking/vaping but a lot of people have the need all the time anyway
Or less input - brushing my teeth helps, you might drink water or rinse your mouth or wipe your teeth with a cloth if brushing is not accessible, or taking a break from removable mouth appliances
I think something a lot of other people can relate to is the way that you get so conditioned to discomfort that you stop registering it.
I remember sitting at the table with my family, eating dinner as a child. I’d try to eat, because of course I was hungry. But sometimes the flavor or texture was so repugnant that it moved into a category of Not Food.
“Two more bites before you can leave the table.”
“I can’t,” I’d say, trying to explain the impossibility.
But because I was a child they heard, “I won’t,” and made me sit at the table. I’d sit in dull agonized silence, bored and hungry for hours until bedtime when they’d give up. I’d hate myself for not eating and my parents for forcing me to sit there. The few forcefeeding moments ended in vomit.
They’d say, “If you don’t eat this you can’t eat a snack later,” and I moved past trying to communicate my discomfort into accepting that I’d just be hungry.
That state of affairs didn’t last, because my parents realized nothing could force me to eat so they catered to my palate, worrying they’d starve me. But the message stuck. If you can’t do anything about a situation, just accept the suffering.
A few years later my mother called me off the playground to ask, “Are you limping?”
I shrugged. My feet had hurt for a long time, but that was just the way things were now. My mom pulled my socks and shoes off and gasped. The soles of my feet were covered in huge painful planters warts.
“Why didn’t you say anything?!” She demanded but I could only shrug at her. I’d learned a long time ago that saying things about my discomfort didn’t matter, so now I had no words. Sometimes things hurt and sometimes they don’t. I simply accepted and did my best.
Now as an adult trying to learn to improve my own conditions can be hard. If I make food that I can’t eat I’ll force myself to sit at the counter still, full of guilt and self loathing, trying to will myself to eat it.
At first I needed my betrothed to gently take it away to present me with something I could eat. Now on my own I can usually admit that it’s not happening before too long and get something else, but I still feel guilty.
Laying in bed at night waiting for my betrothed to finish getting ready I let out a huge sigh of relief when they turned the lights off.
“Why didn’t you turn them off if they bothered you?” they asked the first time it happened.
“I didn’t even know it was bothering me until it was gone.”
Assessing my physical state now to see if I can improve it is something I’m still relearning but I’m relieved to finally have the space and support to do it.
Autism thing i hate that it’s considered rude to not like a food and not want to eat it. And i hate that i have to be all apologetic about it instead of people just understanding that foods just aren’t for everyone and a person not wanting to eat something isn’t an insult to anyone’s cooking
And i am sorry i can’t eat that! You put a lot of effort into something and i can’t eat it! But i’m not going to force myself to eat something that makes me want to throw up just to appease you and no i will not try it every single time to see if my opinion has changed
a bottom-tier autistic experience is being told throughout your entire childhood that you are just an overthinker when it comes to social situations and later finding out that your friends did, in fact, hate being around you and tried to communicate that through weird little hints
I have so much trauma about this, that all those friendly like "your friends don't hate you, they're just busy!" posts honestly grate on my nerves at this point.
Because like, yeah, sometimes they do hate you. Sometimes you're fighting for your fucking life, masking so hard so you have no fuckin' clue who you even are, and the dissociated shell of a copied personality you're remotely piloting manages to make some friends.
But then they start seeing all the cracks in your facade. You're not really like them. You're just several raccoons in an extremely ill fitting skin suit and they find your chittering off putting.
But our society has no script for that. So they just pretend to like you. And you just pretend to be the person they could like. And on some level everyone knows we're all pretending and everyone hates it, but no one says anything.
And then school ends and you drift apart and that happens at least two or three times while your brain is still solidifying shit, and at some point you just start to believe that You're bad at making friends.
When in reality, you were never given a chance to be who you are to attract the kinda folks who would actually enjoy being your friend in the first place.
because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.
you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.
you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.
don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.
if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.
you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:
how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!
Imagine my shock as a neurodivergent teen when I first realized that using large vocabulary and eloquent speech doesn't make you less likely to be misinterpreted, rather it adds an entirely new layer of misinterpretation I had never even realized existed in the form of people thinking you're being snobbish or condescending when you're just trying to be specific
people lots lots lots say " can not control situation but can control reaction " … so want shout out for people who can not , actually .
people who have meltdown because " small " thing go wrong - always bigger than people believe .
people who get angry and defensive when someone try bully and hurt - can not " just " ignore like everyone say .
people who feel actually violent when something upset - who need time and place to go hit things , so that not hurt people .
people who can not understand how stay calm and walk away - who instead get frustrate and say shut up go away .
and anyone else who relate to this - that can not control how react , not so easy like that .
is not bad person to not be able control reactions how people expect .
there is benefits in have skill , but , not deserve to beat self up for not have skill . people should support if or when try learn , but also , should support even before learn , give outlets and patience .
some people will forever have less skill , because brain physically can not adapt and learn right . some people have episodes and crises where control impossible . still do not make bad person . still deserve support .
like intellectual disability much more than just social but social is impact even without autism because … have problems learn things and problems understand and problems follow . of course that will make social hard .
even autism people always always always expect for gwydion learn social rules - even if different autism rules and not " normal " ones - but still could not do that !
look . when gwydion brain focus on something and want talk about that , there is , nothing else can say . not something that can try harder to be polite . not something that choose do because self obsess and hate listen .
brain get on one track , and , that is only track want ride until brain choose is done now . can do best listen and have conversation with people , but , sometimes can not help if brain do not stop talk talk talk about same thing about self . and need for others know that is not try be rude thing , that if try interrupt and make listen , that just make for sure will not be able follow . need let brain follow path until tired , so that can able listen back .
and even after brain done focus on own stuff , still have really hard time change topic and say lots , answers often short , like exclamations and smile faces . not mean not interest , but , take time for brain understand and process new topic , figure out how feel and what want say . sometimes person say something , and only have " real answer " 10 minutes or 30 minutes or even hours after say .
these , is things people not want understand . decide these make rude and weird and should go away never have any friends . people always say break social rules make people uncomfortable but never never never explain why . hurt until meltdown then say is rude for tell to go away shut up .
and know . yes sometimes really done things wrong . but many more times , is people not understand these important things , pretend to self that rude on purpose . and in all all all case not help to just say done something wrong and never say what !!!
Finding the Path @iwaxallmysplines - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
discoholicmusic
titsay
izzy806
ellievsbear
janainaart
jbbartram-illu
pixelskylines
