#actuallyaudhd

[lestatslestits]

I put together some body check-in sheets for people who have trouble organically checking in with their bodies in order to see how they feel throughout the day. I couldn't find one that I felt met the criteria I was looking for, so I made my own. It was initially made with one specific person in mind so it may or may not be 100% applicable to everyone's needs, but I thought I would share in case it's useful to anyone. Feel free to save, print, use, and share if you find it helpful. You are allowed to post this to another site or re-post it, but please consider crediting me.

The Body Check-In Cheat Sheet

[angelshizuka]

Whenever people make that stupid "everyone's a little autistic/ADHD" claim, because "well, everyone does that sometimes uvu", I just imagine them claiming they cooked spaghetti, even though they're just holding a tomato.

Like, yeah, tomatos go in a spaghetti dish, but eating a tomato is not nearly the same thing as eating spaghetti.

[annasource]

A part of me loves it when people argue Anna can't be autistic, because "she doesn't seem autistic/isn't autistic enough", because that's part of the reason why I see her as autistic.

And the fact Elsa is more commonly headcanoned as autistic while Anna only gets ADHD headcanons at most (which she definitely has too, this isn't an "or" situation, the term AuDHD exists for a reason) is just further proof for me. Like, thanks for fueling my headcanon even more, because I literally lived this situation.

As someone who wasn't diagnosed until I was an adult and needed a literal mental breakdown before I was ever tested, compared to my sister who was diagnosed much younger, because "we could see it", it's really not hard for me to see that in Anna and Elsa.

To me Anna is the literal definition of invisible autism ("Autism where the challenges and difficulties associated with the condition are not immeditately apparent to an observer. This means there are no outward physical signs, and the struggles with communication, social interaction, and sensory processing are not readily visible."). The type where you're constantly called weird for "not being normal enough", but also called "too normal" to be considered autistic.

AuDHD Anna, my beloved, they will never take you from me!

[meichenxi]

affirmations to put on your wall:

don't ask, don't get. unfortunately this is often true and even more unfortunately, this is not actually bad

being hypervigilant and constantly looking for stress and tiny ways to make other people 'better' instead of letting them deal with their problems is not morally superior

being passive aggressive instead of aggressive is also not morally superior

no-one can read your mind

this is a good thing actually

you must accept that uncomfortable things only get comfortable with practice

therefore, practice stating your wants and wishes, and recognise that whilst doing so it will be uncomfortable

whilst you are doing so, you must extend compassion to yourself: if you did not 'have' any wants and needs growing up, identifying them can take some time!

start small. tell your friends, 'I'd like to go to this cafe'. think about whether you'd prefer the chocolate or the strawberry. are you just buying the cheapest thing? if you have the money to not do that - why?

do you like red? or green? or blue? exercise these muscles by window shopping in shops you will never buy from. look online at clothes. if you're not a man - what would you buy, if you were? if you like to dress skimpily - what would wear if you had to dress modestly? if you suddenly had a holiday to norway? the bahamas? if you had to go to a ball? if you had a million pounds, what would you buy?

remember your dreams. why the treehouse? why not the castle? what is it in YOU that likes the tree? find it. look at it. hold it.

the more you do this within yourself, the easier identifying your wants and needs may be

the more you can identify them, the easier communicating them will be (though it will still be scary)

recognise that you may have had love withheld for having wants and needs. recognise whether this is true now. if it is, consider whether you want to be in that kind of relationship/friendship.

consider whether it's maybe also your own fault

I don't mean this in a shame way. but only YOU can change how you show up in relationships. only YOU can change the people you choose

but that's not easy. not easy, but it's possible

if your partner/friends do love you in the way you want to be loved: be gentle with yourself, but recognise that you must take responsibility for this change

it's not their job to read your mind

from the other side of things: being constantly watched and examined often makes the other person feel like they can't express their emotions

they often feel stifled

they often feel avoidant, or want to pull away

they want to be in a relationship with another person. not a mirror of themselves.

you are not being kind to them, adult to adult, by being hypervigilant

you are not being kind to them, adult to adult, by suppressing your frustrations and wants because 'they should just know'

this in itself can be traumatising to THEM. it may bring up past memories. you may be, inadvertently, acting just like a parent or parent-figure

no, they don't just know. no, they can't just tell. does this make THEM worse? a bad person?

be nice. don't put them in that position. don't make them feel awful for not being able to read your mind

be kind to them

be kind to yourself

gentle discipline. that's the only way forward. loving discipline, and loving choices made every day to respect yourself, and them. this means discomfort.

it will hurt

but discomfort means growth. new life. new beginnings.

and this way the sun lies

[arachnick]

"hey google how do I recover from a meltdown?"

The results:

"if your child--"

"if your autistic child is having a meltdown "

"[anything by autism speaks]"

"what to do if your toddler has a tantrum"

[bipolartwo]

audhd stamps<3

base by @puppizai

[sweetheartfemme]

“you talk about (topic/thing) a lot”

i have both the adhd’s near-constant dopamine seeking behaviour and the autism’s special interest thing working against me here, what do you expect me to do?

[bigfrozensix]

Can i just say something? please don't take it the wrong way i'll try to say it in the best and respectful way i can.

Sure it's fan's headcanons ( and it's cool! do your thing and be respectful to others, don't hurt anyone over them ) but to me, i don't find it right that people assume a female character is LGTB+ because the character is single or doesn't have a love interest ( see Elsa and Nobara from JJK ) i think for me i find it somewhat mysognistic. Single straight women who just aren’t interested in love or having a family exist. I’m one of them. It's also not fair to judge or assume a woman's sexuality because she's single or not interested in having children and such. And the same goes for men too. Many men ( like women ) are adults and never had a relationship in their lives.

That doesn't mean people like that are gay or LGTB+ there are many factors to that. Some might be trauma, sometimes it's neuro stuff ( like ADHD or autistic and relationships like that might scare them or just not be for them ) and some might prefer platonic and familiar relationships. I think that's fine and okay too. And they should be respected and loved as anyone.

I do not mind LGBT headcanons though, those hurt nobody and it's not like they affect the story in any way. It's just something many fans ( some being LGBT+ ) do because they feel connected to the character, it's not something that has to do with me or anyone, they are doing it for themselves mostly.

I think it more has to do with the fact that when a character is single and has no real answer to their sexual/romantic attraction, there's more freedom to headcanon about it.

Also, not having sexual/romantic attraction (aka aro/ace) IS part of the LGBTQ+ and, at least if it hasn't been properly confirmed in canon, is still a headcanon. Because being single and not actively looking for a relationship aren't the same thing as being aro/ace. Obviously those things overlap, but it's important to acknowledge the difference.

And because of how rare lesbian rep still is in media, a female character showing no romantic interest in men (which usually means they're single/showing no interest in romance in general) is the closest to a lesbian we can get, because these corporate movies/shows are still too homophobic to actively show a a female character show romantic attraction to another female character.

My real problem is with how much infighting this causes. People who want a character to be aroace so bad they happily attack lesbian headcanons, even though lesbian characters are also still extremely scarse in media and is an orientation that unfortunately still puts you in danger in real life (and online). Or people who headcanon a character as a lesbian and attack aroace headcanons for "not being a real sexuality" and all that.

I've been a Frozen fan since 2013... I've seen it all. Not to mention someone can be a lesbian AND aroace, because it's a spectrum. Since we're on the subject, I actually headcanon Elsa as an aroace lesbian. As in, her sexual/romantic attraction is extremely low, but when she does experience it, it's to women only.

Anyway, my main point is that the infighting is a problem for me. At the end of the day every single LGBTQ+ sexuality and gender are opressed and at risk of real life harm. And the moment you act like a sexuality or gender is "more opressed" or "more valid" (including the validity of a headcanon) than others, you completely missed the point of what the LGBTQ+ community even is.

Also, I'm saying all this as a single woman in her 30s who's an aroace pan with AuDHD and who doesn't want kids. And though it took a lot of work to figure myself out, I know where the lines of me being single from the aroace, the AuDHD or the trauma are.

This his got a bit long... but I hope I got my point across.