#autistic perspective

[yannaryartside]

There is a hidden detail in this scene. The faces in the pain chart here resemble something called the “5-point scale of emotions.”

So, with neurotypical kids, this tool is used to help the process and recognize emotions. But an autistic kid's scope of emotions and reactions can be labeled wrong if you hold them to neurotypical ways to emote and cognitive processing. Many autistic people even learn to mask 'normal' expressions throughout life in order to try to communicate better with neurotypical people. Because being perceived wrong can lead to many isolating and traumatic experiences.

Mel is very expressive, but sometimes you can see her forcing expressions in order to pretend to be okay or fit into the mood around her, and the more tired she is, the more difficult it becomes for her to mask this way. In season 2, she is stressed about the deposition, and she is emoting much less, which makes me think that expressing emotions and then being vigilant about how she is perceived can be very tiring for her. I imagine she got called 'too emotional, too loud" as a kid, and she carries that with her. So the longer the day goes on, she starts staring into space, loses her temper, and shows irritation. She cannot mask anymore and she feels guilty and disoriented her usual coping mechanism are failing.

So her staring at the pain scale chart with the faces on it makes me think she is trying to figure out how to process her own emotions, or more likely, how the fuck to communicate it to others. "rate your pain' and she is trying to figure out the things that have been accumulating inside of her, her own pain: the lack of social life, likely a lack of time to rest and unmask, being sidelined at work, the whole trauma of the job itself. And not only does she have to figure out all of that, but she also has to figure out how to express it in a way so her neurotypical colleagues could understand if she ever wanted to share it. Because she thinks no one is gonna go the extra mile to see it from her perspective or help her try to figure it out. This woman did a whole research project because she thought he had an eating disorder. I think she believes she has to figure out everything by herself. Enter Frank, who actually asks her what she thinks and why, providing a lot of patience while she figures stuff out.

[positronic-crisis]

The Emotion Chip proves that Data always had emotions

And all it did was make them more neurotypical.

I have thoughts. Hear me out: I think what the emotion chip storyline in the TNG movies actually shows is not that Data didn’t have emotions before, but that he did have them all along. What the chip really changes is the way he experiences them.

I know it’s already a popular theory in the fandom that Data always had emotions. What I want to talk about, though, is the way he might have experienced them before the chip—because it reminds me a lot of how some autistic people experience emotions.

As an autistic person myself, I often notice emotions mainly in a cognitive way. That means they don’t always appear as a sudden feeling. Instead, I analyze a situation, come to conclusions, and think something like: “That probably makes me sad.” The emotion is there, but it doesn’t necessarily arrive as an immediate, impulsive feeling. It has to be processed first.

This reminds me a lot of how Data talks about his own inner states. Before the chip, he constantly explains things in terms of preferences, interests, or logical decisions. He analyzes his reactions instead of describing them as emotions. In other words, he rationalizes them.

Much like some autistic people do.

With the emotion chip, his experience suddenly becomes more neurotypical: the emotions just appear. They are immediate, overwhelming, and sometimes difficult for him to regulate.

When watching Generations, I was reminded of a psychological idea that emotions often come before preferences and actions. So when Data sings the life-form song, the chip didn’t suddenly create a new preference. Instead, it might have made him aware of something that was already there.

Before the chip, he already chooses to scan for life-forms. He already prioritizes it over other activities. That’s clearly a preference. But he would describe it as curiosity or interest—not as joy.

The chip doesn’t tell him: “By the way, you dislike this drink now.”

It tells him: “The reaction you just experienced? That’s called disgust.”

As an autistic psychologist, what I see in Data often looks a lot like alexithymia—having emotional processes but struggling to identify or label them as emotions. He has cognitive access to his internal states, but he interprets them through logic instead of recognizing them as feelings.

So my interpretation is this: Data always had emotional processes. The emotion chip didn’t give him emotions—it made those emotions immediate, intense, and recognizable.

Anyway, I just felt the urge to share that thought. I don’t know. Just something I’ve been thinking about.

[mooneedsasleppy00m0]

YOU NEVER NEEDED TO FIT IN

Today is April 2nd, World Autism Awareness Day!

I always felt like a different child from the others when I was younger, I was always... in my own world... The children would call me to play... I would go, but I never felt that connection with the play, I didn't really understand what it was, why this emptiness?

Sometimes I had strange impulses... I wanted to... swing, I wanted to spin as if I were playing right there and then, but I held back... It wasn't what a "normal person" would do.

At school, I was always very advanced in other areas, but in math I never was, I wasn't good enough at math, it made me feel bad, "math is easy," "it's just counting."

They explained and explained and I couldn't retain the information in my head, the years passed, I got older, but I still couldn't understand what was wrong with me. The light hurt me, my ears felt like they were being pierced, and someone who should have helped me said, "Why are you crying? It's not even that noisy."

It was like that every day, after I got off the crowded bus, I walked home, lay down on the living room floor, and wondered why this was happening. I was tired, very tired of wondering why this was happening.

And then... When I was in the middle of my second year of high school, I received my diagnosis.

Autism Spectrum Disorder, Level 1, and ADHD

After all this, it all made sense. I wasn't a problem, I was just a little different, and that was okay.

I am a person with a late diagnosis.

And I'm not yet undergoing treatment. If you suspect any kind of condition, get tested; it can help you a lot.

Seek Help

A big hug from your friend, Max :]

🐉

[salti-thelatediagnosedautist]

As an autistic person people really don't understand how soothing routine and ritual really is. And how much of a part of my life it is.

Example, for breakfast, I love to have the same thing every morning. Cornflakes and soy milk, a small soy yoghurt cup and some fruit. Now don't get me wrong, I do LOVE these foods, but it's not necessarily about the foods themselves. I also genuinely love the act of repeating this same breakfast.

Measuring the cornflakes and the milk, peeling the lid off my yoghurt, choosing my fruit, the order I eat the food in... Something about it just feels really serene and soothing!

Same with painting. I love water colour painting. But I don't just love the act of painting. I love the ritual of setting up my work space. I like pulling all my tools out of their little spots, preparing my jugs of water, picking up my favourite brush, prepping the paper. I also love the cleaning process. I love cleaning the palette and cleaning my brushes, being sure to let them dry properly.

Doing all these in the right order and having an atmosphere of order and control, and knowing that I am *doing* the right steps, really makes me feel so peaceful and happy.

It really is painful when people don't understand how hard it is to go without those rituals and routines. I really struggle with staying away from home for the night because I need the familiarity and reliability of my routine and rituals to feel safe and comfortable.

At other peoples houses I don't have my bathroom with all my things, where each product/tool is placed in a spot that "feels" right to me. I don't have my pillows or my plushies to sleep with. I don't know where I will plug in my phone charger (and I really worry about this because my phone is definitely a comfort item). It's all these little tiny things that stress me out beyond belief.

I wish people were more understanding of my fear of the unknown, my discomfort of different and my aversion of these things. It's not a personal attack if I don't want to sleep over. And I really don't think it's that much of an inconvenience to my friends if I want to go to the same restaurants over and over. And I don't owe people my time and attention when I could be doing these incredibly soothing and helpful rituals and routines at home instead.

Of course I hang out with the people i love when I can, but constantly being purposely misunderstood hurts. It's comments like "I don't understand how you can eat that everyday", or "Why can't you just change plans?" or even "I don't get why this is so important to you" that really hurt. It's like people don't even want to try to understand, because I am somehow inconveniencing them.

Sometimes I'm already too stressed to go out of my comfort zone. Or to leave my familiar safe spaces behind. If it's something important I'm perfectly happy to compromise or make adjustments, it just often feels like it only goes one way when you're autistic.

[not-enough-teeth-and-treasures]

An Autistic’s Perspective on Tears of Themis’ Representation (spoiler alert: it’s bad)

Before you read, I should warn you that there will be spoilers for Chapter Five! Read at your own risk. Also, trigger warning for discussions of ableism and harmful disablility stereotypes. I get pretty heated as well, so if you’re not a fan of swearing and stuff, then it might be best to skip this.

So, I was debating whether or not I wanted to talk about this, mostly because this game doesn’t do anything new in regards to the perception of autism in media. Unfortunately, it ends up leaning into a lot of not great tropes and goes into “what the fuck that’s incredibly offensive territory” waaay to quickly. So here I am.

The most prevelant character with autism (or who we start out thinking has autism. Don’t worry, I’ll get to that) is a small, supergenius child (a boy as well *sigh*) is so overdone at this point that there aren’t many new criticisms I can say. The stereotype of autism presented in media is overwhelmingly extremely intelligent (usually with sciency or math based interests) men with no ability to socialize or be kind to others. This not only paints autism as a disability that effects men primarily (which creates intense stigma around AFAB autistic people and makes it harder for us to get diagnosed or believed), but also creates this expectation of greatness. Autistic people are often held to superhuman standards, which further others and dehumanizes us in the eyes of allistic people. The vast majority of autistic people are not savants, and that it perfectly fine.

But all of this is pretty standard. The red flags started popping up when it was revealed that the autistic kid, Hugh, doesn’t actually have autism and is faking it in order to keep people from asking hard questions about him or trying to pry into his life (which is full of secrets). I’m definitely not a fan of perpetuating the idea that people fake diabilities in order to manipulate people, so this plot twist was not my favorite. However, it wasn’t really enough to inspire me to write a whole ass essay about the representation. And then I got to the fucking text conversation with Vyn.

Here is where I’m gonna put a trigger warning for talk about eugenics, curing autism, ableism, and basically just a fuck ton of awful shit. Fuck, this makes me so mad.

So, I went in and took screenshots of both options just to see, and all of them lead to terrible bullshit. Lets start out pretty light with the MC and Vyn discussing symptoms.

This is a pretty limited and honestly incomplete explanation of autistic behaviors. These can definitely be symptoms, but they’re heavily overcovered and really basic. A lot of autistic people don’t have these symptoms, and it would be really nice if more media branched out and covered more of the spectrum. However, considering they don’t do anything different in any other areas, I’m not surprised.

Also not a fan of Vyn’s use of “abnormal.” It has some very negative connotations and is a bit insulting, honestly. These behaviors are perfectly “normal;” they’re just not as accepted by neurotypical people. Plus, no behaviors can really be labeled as normal because humans are complex and different.

That was the easy shit. Let’s get into the truly awful garbage.

This is treading into ABA territory here. For those of you who are unaware, ABA is pushed as the best autistic therapy, but a large majority of autistic adults consider it to be abusive and unhelpful. This is mainly because it seeks to “correct” many behaviors that are helpful for autistic people. It seeks to surpress stims (which are behaviors that improve the mental health of autistic children), force us to talk (as opposed to letting us use sign language and technology), and more. This harms our mental health and makes us ashamed of who we are. These behaviors do not need to be “corrected.” We don’t need to act “normally.” All this therapy does is make us more palitable for neurotypical people, and it’s bullshit.

It also doesn’t help that ABA was pioneered by Ivar Lovaas, a man who did not believe autistic people were human. He developed ABA as a way to “build a person” using harsh punishments such as withholding affection and ELECTRIC SHOCKS. If you think this is a think of the past, you’d be wrong. Electric shocks are still being used to harm disabled people. Look up the hashtag #StopTheShock to learn more and help push for legislation that bans this practice.

Oh, and did I mention Ivar Lovaas also inspired gay conversion therapy? Because he did! So yeah, fuck ABA and fuck Vyn for performing it (god damn it, Vyn, I liked you a lot).

And now, onto the eugenics. Fuck my life.

FUCK! THIS! BULLSHIT!

I am so tired of autism being treated as this horrific disease that needs a cure. I had a perfectly fine childhood. Yes, it was hard at times, yes I got traumatized, but a large part of that was due to ableism and abuse from teachers and peers. A large reason why autistic people suffer is because the world is not built for us, and we are often denied accommodations that would make our lives better.

It is beyond offensive and disgusting to suggest that we would be better off not existing than “suffering so much” because of autism. Because that is what this game and everyone else who thinks there should be a cure is suggesting. There is no me without autism. it literally affects my brain structure. You are wishing for a completely different person when you tell me that autism should be cured.

Now, I’m not going to get into the horrible consent issues that arise from talks about a cure, including genetic editing, fear mongering to parents so they think abortion is the only option, and straight up Nazi style eugenics. I do not have the spoons to delve into that exhausting discussion. But if you want to know more, then there are so many incredible autistic people who have written blogs, Twitter threads, and more about why a cure is a terrible idea.

Oh, and if you’re going to come at me with the “severely autistic people should be cured” bullshit, don’t bother. There is no such thing as “severe” autism, first of all, and second, non verbal autistic people (which are who people think of when they talk about “severe” autism), largely don’t want a cure. There have been so many surveys of tens of thousands of autistic people, and the result is that the overwhelming majority do not want to be cured. We want support and proper accommodations. Listen to us.

So, in conclusion, fuck this text conversation and it’s ableist and offensive bullshit. I really wish ToT had stayed away from autism, or at the very least did not touch on therapy or a possible cure. For a game that is about genetic experimentation on children and how bad that is, it sure peddles a lot of eugenics.

Fuck, this text conversation actually made me ill and I hate that. I’m so done with constantly trying to prove to the world that I am a human being who deserves to exist. I’m gonna go cuddle my service dog now.

[thequeerunicorn]

[positronic-crisis]

autism in trek gifs #16

me, when people tell me i need to do something

[positronic-crisis]

My autistic self

Feel free to reblog, copy the questions, and answer them yourself!

1. When and how did you find out you’re autistic?

2. What made you realize you might be autistic before that?

3. How does your autism show up in your daily life?

4. What kind of stims do you have or enjoy?

5. What are your sensory loves and hates?

6. What’s one thing that instantly causes sensory overload for you?

7. What are your current special interests or hyperfixations?

8. How do your interests make your life better?

9. What does masking look like for you, and when did you start to unmask?

10. What’s something that changed after you started unmasking?

11. What are your biggest autistic strengths?

12. What’s something you still struggle with?

13. What’s one thing you wish allistic (non-autistic) people understood about autism?

14. What helps you calm down or regulate yourself when you’re overstimulated?

15. How do you express comfort, affection, or connection with people you care about?

16. What’s your favorite part of being autistic?

17. How does your autism influence your creativity or the way you see the world?

18. Which fictional characters feel autistically relatable to you?

19. How do you practice self-acceptance and autistic pride?

20. If you could tell your younger self one thing about being autistic, what would it be?

1. When and how did you find out you’re autistic?

I found out earlier this year, around March. I came across the word neurodivergent in connection to myself, and it just stuck. The more I read, the more I realized that many things I experience are autistic traits.

2. First signs that made you think you might be autistic?

Supermarkets and crowded places were always overwhelming. Bright lights, loud noises, and certain textures could be unbearable. Those first made me notice something was different.

3. How does your autism show up in daily life?

I structure my life around it: lots of alone time at home, walks with my dog, short social interactions, working from home. It helps me manage my mental health.

4. Stims I enjoy:

Playing with my hair, beard, eyebrows, fidgeting with fingers, grooming my dog, using weighted stuffed animals, jelly balls, or spiky balls, especially while watching a series or working.

5. Sensory loves and hates:

I love soft things—cozy socks, blankets, pillows, big sweaters. I dislike microfiber, loud or crinkly noises, and worn or uneven textures.

6. What causes sensory overload?

Supermarkets, crowds, neighbors smoking, loud barbecues, or strong smells. I prefer quiet, cold seasons when I can control my environment.

7. Current special interests:

Star Trek: TNG fanfiction, especially Data. My other interests are on pause right now.

8. How interests improve life:

They help me pass time, reduce boredom, lower sensory overwhelm, and improve executive function. They also fuel my imagination.

9. Masking and unmasking:

I change my voice, laugh more, make extra eye contact, hide my stims and interests. Unmasking is easier with neurodivergent clients, harder with others, and still sometimes feels uncomfortable.

10. Changes after unmasking:

More energy and authenticity, less time needed to “remember” myself after social situations.

11. Biggest strengths:

Great memory, detail-oriented, structured thinking, vivid imagination, storytelling ability.

12. Struggles:

Fear of being misunderstood when unmasked, difficulty fully accepting myself, balancing strengths and limitations.

13. What I wish allistic people understood:

Autistic people are diverse. Masking is exhausting and not healthy. Not every autistic person fits stereotypes like the “math genius.”

14. Self-regulation:

Being with my dog or weighted stuffed animal, lavender oil, watching funny series, “safe food” like rice, darkness, silence, and control over my environment.

15. Expressing affection:

Infodumping, doing things for others, being present, emotional support, humor. Rarely saying “I like you” directly.

16. Favorite part of being autistic:

Noticing everything, being highly detail-oriented. It can be overwhelming, but also inspiring and fascinating.

17. How autism shapes creativity/worldview:

Detailed, structured thinking and deep immersion in worlds fuel creativity.

18. Relatable fictional characters:

Data (TNG) and Bob Belcher (Bob’s Burgers). Literal thinking, authenticity, and refusing to compromise values resonate with me.

19. Practicing self-acceptance/pride:

Still learning. Posting on Tumblr about Data and Star Trek helps me embrace my autistic self.

20. Advice to younger self:

Your perception is real. You’re not imagining things. You are not wrong.