adventures in self diagnosis

she/they, probably autistic and using this blog to collect autism posts for research, will spam reblog, follow at your own risk

[drferox]

Yeah, surely my interests are all very neurotypical.

[faandomcat]

being autistic is like using google translate for emotions. like, yeah, its right sometimes, but a lot of the time its a little bit off and sometimes its completely fucking wrong

[autisticmabel]

being autistic is being overwhelmed/overstimulated by how messy your place is but not having the spoons to clean

[maybeaustic]

Anyone have any advice on what to expect/how to prepare for ADOS testing? I finally asked for a referral and my first appointment is next week, so I wanted to see if anyone had any input from their experiences, especially afab people since I know the process can be harder for us

[maybeaustic]

Is anyone else not so much particular about food textures and taste but very particular about how you eat your food? Like, I'll usually eat whatever you put in front of me (though if left to my own devices, I resort to samefoods) but I don't like it if the chicken sauce leaks into the salad or if my garlic bread gets salad dressing on it etc. Everything has to stay separate.

I also tend to dissect things like sandwiches and pies and eat one element at a time. For instance, I'll take the top off a chicken pot pie, eat the chicken, then the vegetables, then the sauce, and then eat the crust starting from the bottom and working my way to the top.

I sort my candies by color and eat them according to the number in each group; if I have animal crackers or goldfish, I sort them into small broken pieces, big broken pieces, and whole crackers. Lots of food sorting, basically, instead of food aversion or sensory issues related to food.

[maybeaustic]

@sir-morti YES I totally forgot that whenever I have lucky charms I eat out all the cereal bits and organize the marshmallow bits around the rim of the bowl by shape in order of the rainbow and then eat them starting with red and ending with purple. Thank you for unlocking that memory 😂!

And yeah now that I'm thinking about it, my whole dissect and separate thing is probably because I don't like the combination of textures/I can more fully appreciate the textures when they're separate

[maybeaustic]

Bringing this back because I recently realized that my NT coworkers do not eat salads by sorting the lettuce and toppings into piles and eating them separately

[william-snekspeare]

working memory bad 💚

[william-snekspeare]

agshsgshsh target audience ❤️

[maybeaustic]

My mom sat me down yesterday after I got distracted from a task and left in the middle of it for the umpteenth time to tell me that she knows I've been "researching Aspergers" (😬) but I really seem ADHD (as if I can't be both), so now she wants me to a. Illegally try some of my brother's ADHD meds or b. Consume coffee or soda to see if the caffeine helps, ignoring the fact that I am physically repulsed by anything with caffeine in it bc sensory issues!

[maybeaustic]

Update: I drank coffee and discovered that I absolutely cannot drink it without physically recoiling from the taste. It did actually help me focus, but instead of doing productive stuff I hyperfocused on a game for 3 hours sooo perhaps not the best outcome, but one that showed some results at least

[maybeaustic]

My mom sat me down yesterday after I got distracted from a task and left in the middle of it for the umpteenth time to tell me that she knows I've been "researching Aspergers" (😬) but I really seem ADHD (as if I can't be both), so now she wants me to a. Illegally try some of my brother's ADHD meds or b. Consume coffee or soda to see if the caffeine helps, ignoring the fact that I am physically repulsed by anything with caffeine in it bc sensory issues!

[maybeaustic]

I got the shot!!!! It was an overwhelming sensory experience--lots of people, bright lights, emotional turmoil--and I was pretty much on the verge of a meltdown the entire time, but I did it! The people were so nice and it helped that they told me exactly what to do and where to go. I cried a bit in the observation area and had a full on meltdown in my car afterward from excitement and relief

[cypopps]

What does “The Spectrum” mean? Do some people have “more Autism” than others?

I covered these topics in a comic to help explain the extremely individual and incomparable nature of the autism spectrum!

Instagram // Twitter

[gracinglys]

Me: Uh, there are used tissues everywhere? When did this happen? I cleaned like, two days ago.

Brain: We had a meltdown last night, remember?

Me: oh ye

Me: right

Me: forgot about that

[maybeaustic]

My friend has ADHD and I have autism so whenever we video call they infodump for 30 minutes straight while I happily listen, and when we text I infodumo entire paragraphs while they read, and I just think it's a beautiful equilibrium

Edit: pronouns bc friend has gender!

[maybeaustic]

question for fellow autistics/people with sensory processing disorder: do any of you experience an unpleasant tingling sensation in your mouth in response to certain stimuli? I've always had this thing where some tastes or textures make the roof of my mouth tingle (astronaut ice cream, for example, as well as light brushes or touches around my mouth or nose) and I HATE it so much. This was literally the first thing that made me consider the possibility of being autistic bc it's such a weird and intense sensory aversion and I'm wondering if anyone else experiences it

[joyseer24]

I don't think I've had that specifically, but I do get a weird tingling in my feet of I see something gross, specifically certain body horror like exposed ribs or amputating a limb

[maybeaustic]

THIS! I didn't even think of it until you mentioned it, but I get the same thing on my feet when they touch rough textures or if I see body horror stuff too

[maybeaustic]

Much as I love Hannah Gadsby's analogy that having autism is like being the only sober person in a room of drunks (or vice versa), I have never been drunk nor even encountered a drunk person so I didn't really fully understand what she was getting at until I realized that for me, being around other people is like being almost fluent in a language but not quite, so I technically know what people are saying and I can usually understand what they're getting at, but it's a lot of work (since its my non-native language) and I still haven't quite passed the threshold of true understanding so miscommunication happens

[maybeaustic]

Wow so I've heard a lot from other autistics about using AAC and other non spoken forms of communication and that has been the one thing about autism that I didn't think I really related to. I haven’t looked into AAC much bc I just. assumed that I prefer oral communication, I guess. BUT it just clicked for me that given the opportunity, I usually choose written over oral communication. Like, when I’m in a watch party with a friend, we’ll call on Discord so that we can see each other and chat while we watch, but I vastly prefer to type my thoughts in the chat box rather than unmute myself to make a comment. 

Also, both the quality and quantity of my communication increase when I’m writing rather than talking. Conversations with even my closest friend (who has ADHD and possibly also autism, so we have very similar communication styles) can become stilted when we’re talking out loud, but if we’re just texting, we can natter on for hours. 

[maybeaustic]

question for fellow autistics/people with sensory processing disorder: do any of you experience an unpleasant tingling sensation in your mouth in response to certain stimuli? I've always had this thing where some tastes or textures make the roof of my mouth tingle (astronaut ice cream, for example, as well as light brushes or touches around my mouth or nose) and I HATE it so much. This was literally the first thing that made me consider the possibility of being autistic bc it's such a weird and intense sensory aversion and I'm wondering if anyone else experiences it

[ifihadmypickofwishes]

I get that on the roof of my mouth if I eat a lot of sugar at once. I don't know if it's because of my autism or not. If it's happening with specific foods you might want to not eat those/get an allergy test. One of the symptoms of a food allergy is a tingly mouth when you eat the food you're allergic to.

[maybeaustic]

You know, I tried researching it and the only thing that came up was that allergy angle, but I've had localized allergic reactions in my mouth before and it's an entirely different sensation (this is more tingly and lasts only a few seconds after the stimulus ends, rather than for minutes or hours the way an allergic reaction does). I mostly get it from things touching my face, like make up brushes or kisses any way, so I can definitely rule out the allergy angle. The lack of other suggestions from the internet made me think it was probably a really specific sensory processing thing that not a lot of people get. Your experience does sound exactly like it though!

[maybeaustic]

question for fellow autistics/people with sensory processing disorder: do any of you experience an unpleasant tingling sensation in your mouth in response to certain stimuli? I've always had this thing where some tastes or textures make the roof of my mouth tingle (astronaut ice cream, for example, as well as light brushes or touches around my mouth or nose) and I HATE it so much. This was literally the first thing that made me consider the possibility of being autistic bc it's such a weird and intense sensory aversion and I'm wondering if anyone else experiences it