autisticmixtape-blog

[autisticmixtape-blog]

Pre Elect Words (still true)

Why just a two person race two people with similar skin and face Not too distant in their neurology It's a loaded crapshoot Based on social psychology Whoever, they will both pull the pin On the directions you can go And how you live within Compact the city into nice Gentrification Segregate the nation Because the 99 has to move away and be done Or live on the streets and scraps of the one And now the 99 have become Fifty fifty in Our minds So Move to the toxic land and rivers Before that only Some land, chickens and a pony Or work in the poisonous factories Dairy farms We should be up in arms For that ‘Safe to wade’ in the veins or our land Fight it or put out your shaking hand Do what Wear protective body shields all day From the shit in the food and the spray in the hay still going hungry to feed the kids Or gamble, fuk and/or piss it away Explosions, leaks and pollution They will be the ones in charge of your future Disclaimer I have shit in My eye I'm from New Zealand I have shit in my eye They call it freedom The safe haven Of Wes Craven Surreally surrounded by salty water I Wish you were here My Dads daughter And you, Dad Watch me if you want It is our time We already live it It's your time I don't mean to diminish it There is only two and I'd rather sit out There's only two who influence and shout Supposed to represent all sorts of faces But they are armed with batons and maces Vote if you can Know the elite doesn't change now they just have A muppet or two Condensed as ‘so called’ leaders can't think for themselves Let alone a nation Of MSM elves Move us to the fields Watch us grow compensation It's what we can do To retrieve the nation Water protectors Life protection Do we have to rely On cash injection We have hhUuge numbers of people Fuck the old laws Servicing the elite Red and blue and Buckle my shoe There's way more than two There's fukn millions of us At the door And Together we stomp the floor

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I have two questions: what do you know about Opposition Defiance Disorder and autism? I was diagnosed when I was very young and as I'm in early adulthood I don't think this fits me. I don't know if autism does. I had many SpEd services but it was always "well she has ODD but more than that she's just something" and I'm a bit tired of being "ODD and then something else unique". And also, Body Focused Repetitive Behaviors and autism? Like trich or dermatillomania? Maybe a negative stim? Idk thx

Oppositional Defiance Disorder is not only not a disorder, it’s not even a real neurological type that exists. As the name implies, it is literally just pathologizing (read: gaslighting) people for being noncompliant. It is typically used as a retrospective diagnosis to justify forced hospitalization, like when police slap arbitrary “resisting arrest” charges onto otherwise completelly innocent people. However, given your story, it sounds more like somebody realized there was “something” going on with you, but they didn’t have the expertise to identify it, so instead they picked a random disorder out of a hat to make sure there was some record of diagnosis happening

Body Focused Repetitive Behaviors is a pathologized name for stimming. All people stim, even neurotypicals, but in a “diagnostic” context it’s almost always based on Autistic stimming. Dermatillomania (skin picking) and trichotillomania (hair pulling) can be Autistic stims. Unfortunately, unlike other stims they really do present health risks, so if either of them describe you, I would encourage you to find other stims to replace them with.

-Mod Valencia

[autisticmixtape-blog]

Dominoe

The surface held an appearance of perfection, never to be complete without exposing discomfort. Barriers would crumble and reveal fear of many fathoms. She exhibits a mask to hide her vulnerabilities. It was fashioned out of a life of imitation, cleverly executed however poorly held together. The mask served purpose in a mediocre way and it wasn't long before it allowed bravado to become her. A camouflaged pattern of self, woven fortified mythology of her being. These misconceptions would power the electrical system for her pain. The depth of the disconnection within herself would stop her from ever feeling complete for more than fleeting seconds. There would be moments of lucidity, when exposure felt freeing, when what seemed like the truth was laid bare. Momentary lucidity led her to have the ability to transcend the domino of her making. This was how she maneuvered in her world, with blinking widened pupil moments. She saw her real self, concise and authentic.

[autisticmixtape-blog]

Is it hard to live with an autistic person?

Imagine that 97% of the people in this world were autistic.

Imagine that the vast majority of authority figures (your parents, your teachers, lawmakers, etc.) were autistic.

Imagine that you were expected to obey traditions created by autistic people, even if they made no sense to you.

Imagine that you had to act autistic in order to have any chance of making friends, getting a job, and staying out of trouble with authority figures.

Imagine that autistic people’s stereotypes about you were treated as being more accurate than your own personal experiences.

Imagine that people read textbooks written by autistic people to learn about you instead of just asking you.

Imagine that instead of people seeing your individual abilities, they labeled you as a “high functioning” or “low functioning” non-autistic based on how well you’re able to pretend to be autistic. 

Imagine that autistic people could get an immediate free pass to do whatever they wanted as long as they said “I was just kidding”, but you had to constantly watch what you say because autistic people may find it offensive.

Imagine that you were expected to be able to do something just because someone else who’s not autistic is able to do it.

Imagine that anytime you struggled with something, people didn’t believe you. Imagine that refusing to believe you was expected to be taken as a compliment.

Imagine that becoming autistic was expected to be your #1 goal in life.

Imagine that there were parents willing to risk their children dying from preventable diseases because they’re worried that vaccines would cause their children to be like you.

Imagine that society sympathized with autistic people who killed their non-autistic family members because non-autistic people are considered burdens on their families.

Now, on top of all of that, imagine that you were considered weak, sensitive, and easily offended if you wanted one place where that didn’t happen.

If we can handle all that, then you can handle living with one of us.

[autisticmixtape-blog]

Accomodate to accentuate

In a room full of sounds I struggle to hear you .......APD In a room with white lights, I can not see .......'no filter, visually’ Vibrations and movements get me unsettled Physiologically And I need to be Grounded .......for I am overloaded, sensorily Eye contact penetrates my spirit I only need a flashing moment To Connect with you deeply Mindful Accommodations allow me to be Who I am on the inside They allow me the true me It's not snobbery Or disinterest my friend The way I am And the way I want to be Can seem incongruent to you. Imagine how that is for me…. I feel hopeless And helpless And frustrated as fuk Because the expectations Of the typical Grind me amuck Allow me please, the space and time To equalise My body and mind And I can be who I truly am Honour my kaleidoscope mind That box to ‘fit in’ that heeds Doesn't work so well With my specific needs Endangered and raw I sit in my car and can't make your front door Unless maybe, that you know my ‘oddity’ isn't a show With time and care neurologically calmed, I can appear Comfortable and fair I will never ‘fit in’ with ease I'm a mash up of sensory intensity That craves inclusion and appease I am very aware of my diverse needs However, I can not be anything Within this expected thing Without you stretching your own bounds Of ‘normality’ Please widen the gates of your formality So I can feel less disparity Between Who I am And how I want to be Coz friend We both get blessed By this in the end xXx

[autisticmixtape-blog]

[Hand-colored rainbow square with a quote from Jim Sinclair: “Autism is a way of being. It is pervasive; it colors every experience, every sensation, perception, thought, emotion, and encounter, every aspect of existence.”]

[autisticmixtape-blog]

I am clinically disordered !!

DSM V (deep shit manual 5)

AUtism Spectrum Disorder level 1

Mine is official, so what do I do

Let’s remember a time when I was 13

I saw Sid’s quote and learned it to a T

How did I forget

When feeling hurt and dismayed

That I once embraced disorder

now I would like the word to go away?

So fuk it I say

my disorder is official and I gotta say I am proud,

I can't delete that ‘disordered’ stuff

So I shall swing it around loud

(when I'm not overwhelmed)

My disorder means I see unique in all,

It means that I can’t stand around in a crowd at the mall

My disorder means words are shapes and rhymes,

writing poems, playing with letters, numbers,

and patterns I have found

My disorder means I see deep beauty in all around

It also means I jump at any sudden sound

My disorder shapes my understanding of the world

Which is often so different to other *boys and *girls

My disorder isn’t always obvious to others around

I get tense and anxious and I daren’t make a sound

Typical sequencing does not come naturally

Society's ways are like a foreign language to me

Sometimes I feel ashamed, embarrassed and low

At times I feel - should stay or should I go

But this can change for me to be free,

Chaos and disorder is simple

And yet a complex

Part of me.

[autisticmixtape-blog]

Adults love to tell kids that it’s important to be yourself no matter what anyone thinks. Until that kid is autistic. Suddenly fitting in is all that matters, even at the sake of your mental health

[autisticmixtape-blog]

A Tale of Momentum & Inertia from HouseSpecial on Vimeo.

[autisticmixtape-blog]

PSA: Disabled people’s vulnerabilities are not here for your entertainment.

As an autistic person, I spend a lot of time with social skills. I’d like to start off with some social skills that you may have learned in childhood. I’m betting that these are fairly non-controversial statements:

Do not pull a cat’s tail. That’s mean.

Do not kick dogs.

Do not slam the door on your pet’s tail.

Do not blow a high-pitched dog whistle loudly into a dog’s ear.

Always treat animals with kindness.

Now I’m going to say another social skill, which is apparently less important to some people:

You should treat disabled people with kindness.

Along the way, sometimes it gets forgotten or ignored that people like me also have thoughts and feelings. And people will treat actual humans far, far worse than they would treat an animal.

Hurting people is always wrong. Even if something doesn’t hurt you, if someone says it is painful to them, you need to stop it.

In praxis, this means:

Do not grab an autistic person from behind to make them wail. That’s mean.

Do not try to trigger unreality in a psychotic person. That’s mean.

Do not tell your dog to jump on someone with zoophobia, do not throw fake spiders at someone with arachnophobia, and do not show a graphic injury to someone who is terrified of blood. That’s mean.

Do not slam doors or fire guns to make someone with PTSD jump. That’s mean.

Do not show triggering pictures to someone with a mental illness, without warning them first, to make them cry or “get over it already.” That’s mean.

Do not mimic someone’s ticcing or try to make them do it more for your entertainment. That’s mean.

Do not upset someone on purpose, whether they are obviously disabled, secretly disabled, or not disabled. That’s mean.

Do respect other people’s pain. If they say that hurts, believe them. Don’t do it more to watch their reaction.

Some might say that this is the Thought Police trying to control you. It’s not illegal to think that it is fun to hurt people. You won’t be carted off to jail for intentionally making someone cry.

But people won’t trust you, any more than I’d trust an adult who pulls cats’ tails for fun. Because it’s a sure sign that you aren’t a decent human being.

And to the people who don’t do this: if you see someone else doing it, please ask them to knock it off. Bullies might not listen to disabled people, because they might not care what disabled people say. But they may listen to someone else. Please don’t let them keep tormenting their victim.

Please consider sharing this with your friends, to remind them how important it is to stand up to bullying, no matter what it looks like.

[autisticmixtape-blog]

[autisticmixtape-blog]

Just. Meant. Words.

On the surface there appeared to be perfection, however, this love story would never be complete without exposing discomfort. Barriers would crumble and reveal fear of many fathoms. She had fashioned a mask to hide her vulnerability. It was fashioned out of a life of imitation, cleverly executed however poorly held together.

[autisticmixtape-blog]

What they say:

“Why is autism so much more prevalent now? I don’t remember this many people being autistic when I was younger.”

What they mean:

“I refuse to admit that the socially awkward kids who I bullied were most likely autistic.”

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Mind Your Language - Autistic Whanau Care Bits

The chance of you being the one to ‘fix’ their ‘behavioural’ issues is zero, please take that off your agenda

We don’t want you to fix anything, we want you to help create a safe, supportive environment for all neurotypes

Please don’t tell us we need to  

push harder to ‘fit in’

punish them by taking away the stuff they love 

teach ‘socialization' (like a puppy, is it?)

‘make’ them go to sleep earlier

Chances are we have tried all 4 and discovered things that I hope you never have to.

‘Make sure you get your rest’ – usually followed by the lovely ‘you seem a bit stressed’, ‘go do something nice for yourself’ – sure, why hadn’t we thought of that !! If you feel the need to say these things please only do so if you are offering to take my place for an hour or 9.

‘He is just copying his brother/sister/friend’ – sure, all people want to copy someone who is having such a hard time they find it hard to leave the house, make friends and generally get their needs met.

‘at least they are not in a wheelchair’ – Yes, that would be difficult to manage, however I would happily build ramps, get a people mover, re-work the bathroom to accommodate. People see the wheel chair and generally give space and assistance if needed. People do not see neurodiversity and so do not accommodate – invisibility breeds unacceptance.

‘But you/they have been given a gift.’ What if you get given said ‘gift’, something that you know has amazing potential, but society's disabling bias gives you no means to open the box...

‘Why do you need a label?’ – Good question…..If you were blind would you want people to think you were seeing just to avoid being labelled? Would you kick the kid out of his wheelchair so he doesn’t get labelled as ‘disabled’? 

What if that ‘label’ is an important part of your identity?! Most have already been ‘labelled’ – naughty, defiant, oppositional, un-empathetic, poorly parented etc. So it’s ok to be given a label but not to own a label for ourselves?  

‘There is help out there, you just have to ask for it’ – I have no words except – asking for help does not equate to receiving help.  

Different to the 'norm' neurotypes have been judged, minimized, disbelieved and ignored.

There becomes a fine line between asking for help (again) and losing your shit - exhaustion, anxiety and general malaise does this to a human.

If you see someone who appears as though they are struggling and/or isolated, please reach out.  

Take them a coffee, run them a bath, read them a chapter in an inspirational book - watch their kid/s for an hour. 

Interrupt their day with some care and love.

I understand that everyone’s experience is subjective, we can’t begin to understand everything that someone else experiences. However even just acknowledging that is a great start.

[autisticmixtape-blog]

Governments in Australia, New Zealand and the UK are failing disabled students