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Maddy ✿ she/her ✿ 19 ✿ autistic, semi-verbal A blog where I can openly be my autistic n neurodiverse self while sharing my overall experiences. I also have Auditory Processing Disorder, depression, SAD & OCD. I’ll be posting mental health related things n things that make me happy, like Animal Crossing, Minecraft & bees, too!

[weetbeex]

Just a reminder that compassion is a choice whereas empathy is not!

Empathy: the ability to feel what another person is feeling or to immediately recognise when somebody is feeling a certain way.

Compassion: wanting to support or help somebody.

I’ve seen the word empathy being thrown around endlessly to describe somebody caring and it’s a little disheartening being equated to being a bad person for my low levels of empathy just because I don’t know how others are feeling or I can’t experience what they’re feeling. Autistic people can experience low empathy, mentally ill people can experience low empathy and it doesn’t make us bad or evil.

[sicksadtumble]

Can I add that traumatized people might experience low empathy due to their abusers guilt tripping them to the point where they eventually had to become numb to survive?

[traumasurvivors]

You are allowed to grieve for what you lost when you went through trauma. You are allowed to mourn. You are allowed to be angry. You are allowed to feel. 

[weetbeex]

Just a reminder that compassion is a choice whereas empathy is not!

Empathy: the ability to feel what another person is feeling or to immediately recognise when somebody is feeling a certain way.

Compassion: wanting to support or help somebody.

I’ve seen the word empathy being thrown around endlessly to describe somebody caring and it’s a little disheartening being equated to being a bad person for my low levels of empathy just because I don’t know how others are feeling or I can’t experience what they’re feeling. Autistic people can experience low empathy, mentally ill people can experience low empathy and it doesn’t make us bad or evil.

[thatfunkyopossum]

People who have psychopathy also experience low or no empathy and also deserve your respect because they are not bad or evil either

[crispyjenkins]

as an autistic someone who experiences both an overwhelming amount of empathy and then sometimes none at all, just because it fluctuates doesn’t mean you’re broken, and the times you do experience empathy don’t invalidate the times you don’t. 

[aromoji]

Anyways stop telling people to “learn empathy” 2020. People with low empathy are not evil or abusive. A person isn’t a bad person becase they are unable to feel the way others feel. What makes them bad is when they hurt others without caring how others feel. The word “compassion” is your friend. When you use the words empathy and compassion interchangably you’re throwing tons of neurodivergent people under the bus. Do better

[micdotcom]

Potent minimalist art sends a strong message about police and vigilante brutality in America

Journalist and artist Shirin Barghi has created a gripping, thought-provoking series of graphics that not only examines racial prejudice in today’s America, but also captures the sense of humanity that often gets lost in news coverage. Titled “Last Words,” the graphics illustrate the last recorded words by Brown and other young black people — Trayvon Martin, Oscar Grant and others — who have been killed by police in recent years.

Let us not forget their voices

[cartnsncreal]

Reblog and you might save someone’s life, especially with all our Black Girls going missing #ProtectBlackGirls #SaveLife

[lazorsandparadox]

For those who don’t know what’s happening in the video, she untied her shoelaces, pulled one through the inside of the zip tie binding her hands, then tied the shoelaces together. Then, by pulling downward and back and forth on the shoelaces with her feet, she created enough friction to wear away part of the ziptie, making it weak enough to snap right off her hands.

[m3rcykill]

SIGNAL BOOST

SIGNAL BOOST

SIGNAL BOOST

[jewel-charisse-deactivated20181]

Will always reblog

[yourladyindank]

Protect all the ladies and the dudes

[your-naked-magic-oh-dear-lord]

Damn

[fenway03]

For those who don’t have shoelaces and for those who do but don’t want to trip over their own feet in case something goes wrong, here’s another way:

It’s all about quick, determined movement of your arms. To see it in action, watch the video at https://youtu.be/0Gr6HX_IKpw?t=9m – the zip ties part starts around the 8:00 min mark. The video also shows how to escape handcuffs and duct tape. And if you’re wondering what to do when you’ve got your hands behind your back, go to approx. the 0:20 min mark of the following video: “Moving cuffs from behind back to front position” (taken from thrillwriting.blogspot.de/2013/05/credit-wikipedia-disclaimer-this-is-non.html, where you’ll also find additional information on how to escape handcuffs). 

[8thwonderful]

For teach this to your kids….boys too. We don’t need to lose noone

[gunsandfireandshit]

Zip cuffs are a lot more resilient than zip ties, you need on of these setup for cuffs or you’re gonna fuck up your wrist

[weetbeex]

Just a reminder that mentall illness ≠ being an asshole. Stop calling shitty people mentally ill lmao.

[weetbeex]

Just a reminder that compassion is a choice whereas empathy is not!

Empathy: the ability to feel what another person is feeling or to immediately recognise when somebody is feeling a certain way.

Compassion: wanting to support or help somebody.

I’ve seen the word empathy being thrown around endlessly to describe somebody caring and it’s a little disheartening being equated to being a bad person for my low levels of empathy just because I don’t know how others are feeling or I can’t experience what they’re feeling. Autistic people can experience low empathy, mentally ill people can experience low empathy and it doesn’t make us bad or evil.

[weetbeex]

Suddenly this post gained a ton of likes & reblogs over the last three days and I’d like to thank everyone for that! I’m really sorry if this post comes off as kinda mean or agressive, I was a lil frustrated at the time 😣

[so1987-deactivated20230102]

gifted kids had potential for more than academics and special needs kids had potential for more than a life spent hiding, treated like an accident waiting to happen

you were children, and that’s not a bad thing. all children have infinite potential to be themselves and be curious. society didn’t nurture that curiosity.

[lakemichiganbaby-deactivated202]

yeah “gifted kids” had it rough but please no more sob story posts abt that bc i PROMISE that the kids labelled “dumb” by the system and shoved to the side n not given half the attention that ur gifted ass was got the short end of the stick. its so much more tragic to think of all the wasted potential of children who maybe were too loud or rowdy or didnt test well than “gifted kid burnout uwu”. like yeah it fucking sucks! i was a “gifted kid” too and it fucked up my self esteem for a long time but i was given opportunities and attention in school, something not afforded to other students for arbitrary reasons. the american school system just fucking sucks but i promise u as a star student who got stressed u did not get the worst of it

[autisticsapphics]

god i relate to this post too much 

my whole life, people have told me that i am smart. but i was denied from the gifted program because I was “slow”, yet, somehow, my siblings got in. it was the autism. it made me too different to pass the fairly biased tests into a program that i honestly NEEDED to be in. 

then, in middle school, i took another gifted test when I moved to florida. again, I was slow, but you know what the gifted parents told us? to pay 1,000 to a psychologist to diagnose us as gifted. I’M NOT KIDDING. there’s a reason that all gifted programs have such rich kids in them. it isn’t because they deserve it. it’s because they paid for it.

in short, the gifted program is a bunch of ableist, classist nonsense and “gifted people” are not superior.

[weetbeex]

This. I was labelled “slow” from a reasonably young age by both teachers and so-called professionals and boy did it mess a lot of things up.

My parents were constantly being reminded that I wouldn’t excel in school and a teacher tried to convince my parents to give up on me. I couldn’t understand what was being said at the time but now that I do... wow, that hurt.

I wasn’t given opportunities or support like my siblings were who did excel in school and could do the work that was above their expected “capacity”.

[weetbeex]

Hey everyone! I’m really sorry that I haven’t been all that active on here recently. I’m still adjusting to my new meds and I feel like I have all of the energy in the world but also I was hit by a bus. I’ve been dedicating a lot of my time to my current special interest: reptiles.

Do any of you feel like your special interests are always changing, stay with you for a very short amount of time or they’re re-occurring?

[weetbeex]

I saw a question earlier asking autistic people what not being able to speak is like, specifically temporarily. I broke my experiences down into two points to explain what it’s like to me:

I become so distressed and cry/scream/yell that I can’t go through the thought process of making words with my voice/mouth and my throat feels closed. It really hurts.

When I’m tired (end or beginning of every day) I find that speaking is really hard even though my thoughts are racing and I have a lot to say inside of my head but don’t know how to express or say it verbally, like I don’t have the energy or can gather thought process. I usually just make some noises to tell people I’m listening.

What is it like for you guys? Do you relate?

[autisdoc-deactivated20211230]

Too stressed to talk; it's like there's a barrier between my mouth and my brain that I can't break through without making it worse. I could talk if I REALLY tried, but it might tip me over the edge into meltdown or shutdown.

Too tired to talk after distress; too frazzled to put words together correctly and then Send To Mouth. Tongue feels clumsy and heavy anyway.

Too tired to talk for other reasons, not enough energy to say words. Just can't put the effort in.

Unable to locate words needed. Can't talk if there are no words to use.

Too overwhelmed to talk. Emotions are so overwhelming that they're in the way of finding and using words.

[weetbeex]

Im not diagnosed as autistic or anything but i do have anxiety and i go nonverbal when im highly stressed. I will just go on autopilot and it feels like i just physically cant speak??? Its a very weird feeling. Its like im too frozen to speak

I found myself having a lot of these “episodes” before my diagnosis without knowing a lot about what I was going through or what I was experiencing. I thought maybe everyone became nonverbal when under a ton of stress or when they were really tired. I was actually diagnosed with social anxiety disorder at around the age of 13 (that’s about 5 years before I even received my ASD diagnosis!) and situated it with that.

I don’t know a lot about it, but I’ve heard that a lot of people who experience this and have an anxiety disorder go through something called “selective mutism” (which itself is its own anxiety disorder I believe??? but is co-morbid with a ton of other disorders, namely other anxiety disorders). Where you find it hard to and can’t speak in public settings like school or when you’re under a lot of stress.

I’m sorry that I’m not much help, but I wanted to let you know that you’re not alone in this feeling and I’m here to support you. I completely understand.

[weetbeex]

I decided to do a lil photoshoot with one of my pythons and... I love her. I love how cute she is.

[weetbeex]

I saw a question earlier asking autistic people what not being able to speak is like, specifically temporarily. I broke my experiences down into two points to explain what it’s like to me:

I become so distressed and cry/scream/yell that I can’t go through the thought process of making words with my voice/mouth and my throat feels closed. It really hurts.

When I’m tired (end or beginning of every day) I find that speaking is really hard even though my thoughts are racing and I have a lot to say inside of my head but don’t know how to express or say it verbally, like I don’t have the energy or can gather thought process. I usually just make some noises to tell people I’m listening.

What is it like for you guys? Do you relate?

[thecatprince]

I relate most with the second one. For me I tend to go nonverbal towards the end of the day, and it just feels like I don’t have the energy to move my mouth and form the words and it just takes too much energy to talk. It is sort of like when you are really tired and your eyes feel really heavy, and you are struggling to keep your eyes open, it sort of feels like that but for your mouth if that makes sense.

[weetbeex]

Yeah that makes a lot of sense! That is exactly how I experience it!

[weetbeex]

So I had my appointment with the psychiatrist today and it went... okay. A little weird. Odd. He strongly believes I’m autistic alongside having an unidentified ‘severe’ specific learning disability in Math as well as a speech/language disorder/disability. He wants me to see the speech therapist on his team for an evaluation and I’m not sure what to expect. I didn’t think I struggled with my speech, maybe just communication.

I’ve also been given two new medications with my current two being taken out of the mix. Seroquel and Prozac. If any of you have any insight or experience with one or both of those medications I’d like you to share if you’re comfortable. Thank you all again for supporting me through this.

I also apologise for my inactivity — I’ve been really out of it lately. I’ve been so stressed, but I hope each and every one of you are doing okay and are safe.

[autistic-infp]

I’ve been on Prozac for a while, no particular complaints. It has a low incidence of side effects. It’s an SSRI so hopefully it’ll help you feel calmer, but if you find anxiety ratcheting up after a few weeks, let your doc know ASAP.

Everyone reacts super differently to antidepressants. My friend and I were both on Zoloft; it made them hallucinate while I just got drowsy.

[weetbeex]

Thank you for the insight! I appreciate it

[weetbeex]

So I had my appointment with the psychiatrist today and it went... okay. A little weird. Odd. He strongly believes I’m autistic alongside having an unidentified ‘severe’ specific learning disability in Math as well as a speech/language disorder/disability. He wants me to see the speech therapist on his team for an evaluation and I’m not sure what to expect. I didn’t think I struggled with my speech, maybe just communication.

I’ve also been given two new medications with my current two being taken out of the mix. Seroquel and Prozac. If any of you have any insight or experience with one or both of those medications I’d like you to share if you’re comfortable. Thank you all again for supporting me through this.

I also apologise for my inactivity — I’ve been really out of it lately. I’ve been so stressed, but I hope each and every one of you are doing okay and are safe.