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To those who tell autistic people “everyone experiences that”

This is something I’m pretty sure all autistic people get. They try and explain why they find certain situations difficult and hard to cope with, only for someone to respond with, “Everybody experiences that!” But usually that’s not the case, and these are the reasons why you might be wrongly thinking it’s something everyone experiences

1) You don’t understand how it feels for autistic people

Sure, allistic people may dislike crowded places or loud noise, but to my awareness, it’s not usually going to be almost painful. It’s usually something you can cope with, but to an autistic person, what may be bearable to most can be really difficult for our minds to cope with. Especially if there’s other things to process too. With allistic brains, they’re usually able to process things easily and without problem. With autistic brains, it’s like a computer that’s running too many files and has to either slow down or freeze

2) You’re autistic yourself, and you don’t realise it

That thing that you think everyone experiences? Maybe they don’t, and you’ve been taught to believe that’s how it is for everyone. Maybe you experienced some kind of overloading sensation and just thought that must be how everyone experiences it, without realising that’s not the case. You may find this one hard to believe but it’s actually possible, and I’ve heard of this happening before

mister--cat

Yep, I've been the second type.

growingupautie

Autism Vs. Ignorance

I was diagnosed as a child, but nothing really came of it and it was all but forgotten (at least by me.) I wasn’t rediagnosed until 29 or 30. I spent my whole life bullied, excluded, and ostracized for my Autism and I never knew why. To this day, there are still people who have blacklisted me for lies they believed only because they felt (based on their preconceived notions about me) were the only possible solution to their feelings about me.

Undiagnosed Autistic people are fighting against a hidden enemy. An enemy that misunderstands them, distrusts them, and either attacks them or avoids them based on their perception of our idiosyncrasies and different ways of thinking and acting. It is the reason Autistics with College degrees can’t get hired. The reason we are often pulled over by the police for “acting suspiciously.” The reason we get passed over for friendships, relationships, and other things. That enemy is ignorance.

When Autistic people finally receive their diagnoses that enemy steps out of the shadows, but with the addition of the stigma of being “Autistic.” While before, we were mocked, bullied, and ignored for being different, after our diagnoses, we are belittled, talked down to, and treated as if we are broken by our families, friends, coworkers, and anyone else who knows.

This causes many of us to hide our true selves and continue to deal with the still persistent “what’s wrong with this person?” accusatory vibe we still get from everyone around us. We get to a place where if we accept who we are, we open ourselves up societies current negative perceptions of Autistic people, but if we hide who we are and even learn to mimic Neurotypicals through years of struggle, we still aren’t accepted by everyone else.

I feel like we are close to a breakthrough though. I feel like with the right Autistic Autism advocates combined with some key Neurotypicals, we could bridge the gap and find acceptance of the diagnosed and undiagnosed alike. I for one know what it was like to grow up feeling like my alien parent dropped me off at the wrong Planet Daycare,“ and I will fight tooth and nail to make sure people like us don’t live through it the same way I did.

-Nathan Alan McConnell

scriptautistic

Can you talk about how to write a low-verbal autistic character please?

This is a very broad question. It is hard to answer because it covers so many possibilities. It is kind of like asking “how to write a French character” or “how to write a trans character”. Defining “low verbal” is very subjective. Verbal/nonverbal is not binary, and where people draw the line between the two is inconsistent. So, yes, I could make a very long and general ‘masterpost’, but I do not know if I would be able to do justice to the wide range of experiences covered by your question.

I can talk about it, but what do you want to know?

The other thing to note is that none of the current mods are nonverbal. We have each experienced relatively brief episodes where we have not been able to speak, and I know and have worked with nonverbal individuals, but this does not make me an authority. I have had periods of time where I have temporarily lost my hearing, but this does not give me meaningful insight into what life is like for people who are Deaf/Hard of Hearing. In much the same way, temporarily losing access to speech does not give me meaningful insight into life as a nonverbal person. It is a different experience. I am happy to relay things that have been told to me by nonverbal individuals, but I felt that this disclaimer was necessary for the sake of transparency.

If there are any nonverbal/low verbal #actuallyautistic people who would like to share their experiences and/or tell us how they would like to see nonverbal characters presented in fiction, you are very welcome to either reblog this post with your additions or submit a post. It may be possible to compile several people’s ideas into one post. Also, I know that writing large amounts of text can be difficult, so if you want to contribute something but need us to make accommodations in some way, please let us know!

Asker, I hope that this doesn’t feel like a cop-out in terms of answering your question, but I think that with a question this broad the most responsible response is to admit that right now we are not best-placed to answer. That said, if you have a more specific question that you would like help with, let us know and we are happy to do what we usually do and get our answer checked by a nonverbal consultant.

In the meantime, I would suggest that you read books and blogs by people who are nonverbal.

Examples:

Emma’s Hope Book

The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida

Carly Fleischmann’s website

Books by Tito Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay

Ido in Autismland

Amy Sequenzia

-Mod Snailbuy me a coffee // check out the FAQ

metapianycist

the “lol triggered” meme is only considered funny in a society where mentally ill people are devalued. it relies on a context where mentally ill people’s needs are considered ridiculous.

metapianycist

additional fact: the meme has made mentally ill people afraid to use the word trigger with their doctors and therapists. it’s literally making mentally ill people less able to access care. defending this meme, with that knowledge, is blaming mentally ill ppl for being hurt by ableism.

cripplequeer

And people also treat the term trigger like it should never be used, but it literally just means something sets off a symptom… It triggers a symptom. It’s not this magical thing you gotta build up mental illness points for to do once a month, I can literally get triggered by multiple things within a day, days in a row, and these people have made that hard to have a dialogue about.

aspie-the-scarlet-a

Nearly had a meltdown at the grocery store. I was only there for one item… ugh. Had my sunglasses and everything. I was feeling so improved; but, goodness knows, it doesn’t go away. Wish there were more resources for adults. Don’t they know AS kids grow up eventually. It doesn’t get any better; instead with adult stress and responsibilities, it gets worse.

spongebob-autisticquestions

Person: It’s easy!

My Executive Dysfunctioning Self: I wonder how I’m gonna mess this one up!

kibblesandbitch

Here’s something to chew on.

coldasaslab

about me.jpg

whistlenotes

honestly

poesieplease-deactivated2020061

In case you wanna read the article this quote is from: http://rolereboot.org/culture-and-politics/details/2016-05-daughter-know-ok-angry/

cygnaut

Adaptable girls find socially acceptable ways to internalize or channel their discomfort and ire, sometimes at great personal cost. Passive aggressive behavior, anxiety, and depression are common effects. Sarcasm, apathy, and meanness have all been linked to suppressed rage. Troublesome behaviors, such as lying, skipping school, bullying other people, even being socially awkward are often signs that a teenager is dealing with anger that they are unable to name as anger.

Girls, taught to ignore their anger, become disassociated from themselves.

Anger is so successfully sublimated that girls lose the ability to understand what it feels and looks like. Is her heart racing? Does she feel flushed or shaky? Does she clench her jaws at night? Is she breaking out in hives? Does she cry for no reason? Laugh inappropriately during difficult conversations? Fly off the handle over something that seems inconsequential? You can see where I’m going here…those crazy girl hormones, right? Better to just think of it as a phase.

For too many women, however, the phase never ends. It’s lives spent never expressing anger at all and believing that they don’t have the right or ability to do so without great risk.

strangerdarkerbetter

“While anger in girls and women is overwhelmingly portrayed as irrational, it is, in fact, completely rational. Girls learn to filter their existences through messages of powerlessness and cultural worthlessness. Girls might be more inclined to depression because coming to terms with your own cultural marginalization and irrelevance is depressing. Why isn’t this making you angry?”

This article is very much worth the read

mister--cat

Read it and I’m angry because of how much it’s true. Extremely so.

askanautistic

I'm terrified of school. I go to school in less than 30 minutes and I'm crying. On top of the fact that I am autistic and have selective mutism I have learning problems in math. Almost every adult in some way is guilt tripping me into speaking. Say things like don't you like me and you must hate me because you can't speak. My friends call me a baby when I need assistance like asking them if they can walk across the lunch room with me. I don't know what to do. I'm so scared.

As this seems fairly urgent, I am responding on mobile as I cannot get to a computer at the moment, so apologies if I am unable to respond as thoroughly as I would like.

Your teachers obviously do not understand autism or selective mutism. Pressuring someone to speak only increases anxiety and difficulty and they need to be aware that they are doing more harm by trying to emotionally manipulate you into speaking.

If you have a supportive caregiver ask them to speak to relevant staff at your school on your behalf.

If you have to talk to someone yourself, put it in writing. If possible you could try to print off some information to include. This might also help you with some of the things you’d like your friends to help with (for example, allowing you to go to lunch earlier to avoid the crowded lunch hall, or eat somewhere else).

As for your friends, perhaps you could try explaining in more detail why you find certain things difficult. It’s tiring and difficult to explain things sometimes, but people are often dismissive of issues they don’t experience or understand and having a better understanding might make them more patient and accommodating.

junkfoodchimney

My dad just said: at your age you’ll probably wanna try a lot of things. Boys, girls, being a girl, being a boy, being punk or goth or spunky. And im okay with that. As long as you don’t come home and tell me youre a republican

mauridianhallow

parents who care

troyler-4-life

As long as you don’t come home and tell me youre a republican

growingupautie

“360 No Scope” Aspies are often found to be overwhelmed or befuddled in seemingly simple situations. That is because we often see everything all the time and with so much competing information it makes it hard to focus or pick up on and remember directions.

This is one of the main reasons for my hat. It blocks out everything above me and a lot of what is in front of me when I wear it. I can over ten lower or raise it to take in more or less information and.

TEACHER TIP: If you have a distracted autistic person in your class allow them to put their back against the back wall with the least eyes on them as possible. This cuts out the back facing stimuli and makes it easier to focus.

queercoded-villain

Stimmy Stims

Ft. Pressure stimming for top ones

sweetandsavageautistic

If people think autism is an illness, does that mean I can call into school like:

“Hey. I can’t come in today. I’m still autistic.”

howtoautism

How to not get upset with your parents when you start to remember all the autistic things you used to do as a child that they shamed/punished you for and lead to you not being diagnosed until adulthood

autismproblems

autism problem #1142

When kids in class talked to you and you’re nervous but still happy someone wants to talk to you, but later find out it was a “joke” and they just wanted to hear the “shy kid” talk……

howtoautism

How to not have store employees get mad at you for being so Overwhelmed in an unfamiliar store that you can't find what you're looking for (even tho you're looking at it) and Don't Understand what they're trying to say to you and have trouble making decisions especially when under pressure??