#autistic struggles

[my-autism-adhd-blog]

The Struggle of Not Realising You Are Autistic Because You Took The Diagnosis Criteria Literally

Neurodivergent_lou

[flirts-with-dragons]

Calling myself out

(Image description: stick figure sitting on the ground with an arrow pointing down at it from a text box that says, "doesn't know how to ask for things in a way that neurotypicals won't see as demanding or annoyingly apologetic", referring to the stick figure. End of description.)

[snakeautistic]

I find that sometimes when I enter a situation where I don’t have a script prepared for what to say I just freeze up and lose the ability to string together a coherent situation. The longer I go unable to explain myself and panicking the harder it is to break that streak and try and explain myself. I become unable to communicate well verbally, although I can often still text or show an image with an explanation. The situation is also usually not particularly serious at all- being made to do a presentation, having to ask a teacher something, but there is some aspect of it that makes me get ‘stuck’ on the first step and leads to that reaction.

In the past I used to force myself to stay completely still in this situation, but it’s more natural for me sort of curl in on myself and sometimes stim somewhat for self regulation. I let myself do this the most recent time it happened, which I think was helpful. It also is helpful to have a person I’m comfortable with calm me down and get me past this first sort of hurdle.

I’m not sure if this is exacty selective mutism, as I still can speak, but my verbal communication is definitely hindered for a period of time.

[trashandwriting]

Me, confidently: I am autistic. So I don't always understand social rules. That is totally okay, it is part of my disability. I shouldn't beat myself up for that.

Also me when I don't understand social rule: I AM ACTUALLY WORTHLESS JUST LET ME ROT IN MY APARTMENT FOREVER WHY DO I EVEN HAVE TO GO OUT AND DO THINGS EVERYBODY HATES ME

[purpurrock]

autistic culture is when the only two options in life is to mask and conform to everyone's bullshit while hating yourself because you're not you, or unmasking and being yourself but everyone hates you for being you. Plot twist you're miserable both ways because it's very tiring and being hated isn't fun.

[amethysttheanarchist]

So in my class our icebreaker was write a fun fact about yourself on a slip of paper and put in a bucket as she will draw it out and guess who

Simple right?

Well, I wrote that my favorite show is bobs burger

She pulled it out and forgot what bobs burger was and kinda fumbled around

And some people were laughing at the note like it was stupid

And it hurt my feelings cause that's my special interest, I know everything there is to know about it

And they laughed at it

It's been hours and I'm still upset

Edit:someone told me i can't just be upset that someone doesn't like the same stuff as me. It's not that, I'm upset cause they had to go and be hurtful about it. You don't have to like it, but you shouldn't be mean about it

[adhdxxsdiary]

This goes for ADHDers as well 😊

[piffany666]

No because you dont understand the FRUSTRATION i feel as an autistic writer wanting to ramble about my worlds and premises and LORE but being too scared somone will snatch up my idea and steel it!

[masterdisastre]

Hey science side of Tumblr and autistic side of Tumblr!

I have a question.

I've recently started taking some vitamin B supplements, under suggestion of my pharmacist, because I was feeling mentally exhausted to the point that it was slightly impacting my work.

Now, I am in fact able to focus better and I complete my work tasks flawlessly. My colleagues say that I look way better too.

The thing is, almost at the same time my autistic issues (over sensibility and understanding social cues and such) have worsened a lot.

I've read everywhere that vitamin B helps children with autism with their symptoms, but since the world is dominated by neurotypical people, my question is: does it just make us better at masking or does it really help and this is only coincidental? Am I worsening my condition by helping my focus capacity?

Tagging @autistic-af in case you can help me spread the question.

Thank you all in advance ❤️

[mental-illness-bingo]

Struggling with transitions isn't always externalized in the form of a meltdown. Here are some examples of things (from an autistic former early childhood teacher) that also count as struggling with transitions.

Note: I'm including things to do with adult transitions and childhood transitions here. Examples and explanations are given in italics.

Trying to politely decline to transition - sometimes, this may include lying about your wants/needs or not even realizing you want or need something because your brain isn't processing that information during the stress of a transition; "Becca, it's time for snack." "No thank you, I'm not hungry."

Undetectable self-harm behaviors - digging nails into palm, "itching" when you aren't itchy, internally degrading yourself, biting cheek or tongue, holding breath until you can't anymore. Self-harm during transitions is a common and valid struggle, even if you didn't try to use it as leverage to avoid the transition.

Undetectable stimming to regulate (very healthy!) - especially with objects that have a similar texture to one from the previous area or material

Slow or stuttered transitions - Starting to move on, but repeatedly having "just one more thing (you) forgot" or physically walking away slower possibly while staring at the previous area or material

Verbal shutdown (total or partial) during or immediately after transitions - this could be part of a more overall shutdown or exist on it's own

Fixating on the previous task/area/material - may show by excessively talking about the previous task long after others have moved on for example trying to tell everyone about your cool lego building or even showing them pictures of it (taking pictures is good coping mechanism for moving on from a toy) long after everyone stopped playing with or talking about legos, or if you were moving from legos to drawing, wanting to draw a picture of legos

Keeping materials from the previous task - if you were playing with legos, but have to clean up, you might keep some to build with or even a single lego on your person somewhere as a comfort. In larger/life transitions, you may refuse to get rid of something long past when it is socially acceptable (such as an ex's shirt) or taking something "strange" such as a piece of trim or a scrap of wallpaper from a previous house.

Brain fog, fatigue, disorientation, and/or dissociation during and/or immediately after a transition

Internal emotional distress during/immediately after transitions - due to autistic issues with emotional regulation, these emotions may last the rest of the day if not supported because of bottling up the emotions

Executive dysfunction post-transition - especially if you don't usually struggle with it or weren't before the transition

When going to bed, insomnia is an extremely common presentation of struggling with transitions

Feel free to add on! Preferably in the text of the reblog rather than in tags so I can reblog this with your additions, but either works!

I also want to specify that not all of these are harmful or negative responses to transitions. If you do these things and they help you without hurting anyone, that's fine! This is just to help give you the language to get help as needed because it's much easier to get help if you say "I struggle with transitions because of my autism" than "I'm struggling right now but I'm not sure why".

[arcalx]

♤ The daily struggle of having to remind myself that I am indeed disabled and that I actually cannot do the thing despite the fact of thinking if I just plan it out, it'll "work out".

[flirts-with-dragons]

One of the worst things about consuming media as an autistic person is not being able to tell when it's problematic, even when it's specifically being offensive towards you. Like so much trans hate and autism ridiculing goes right over my head. So when people rightfully call out media i engage with for being weird/hateful/problematic I just feel confused and guilty because I didn't catch it

[helen-magpies]

Little rant:

Don't you all just hate it when your family say that you should lie, be manipulative, get a better attitude, have a nicer tone, stop rolling your eyes, stop being aggressive, stop yelling, and overall just berate you about being autistic and acting autistic because you are autistic and they refuse to listen to you when you say that you are autistic? I try to explain that i cant hear my tone, i dont roll my eyes, i physically cant lie, i refuse to be manipulative, im not yelling im just slightly raising my voice out of excitement or passion or frustration, im not aggressive im just unmasking...they say i just need to "learn" to essentially mask better...literally related to idiots :/

I am so sick of this ablism!

I am so sick of getting introuble for unmasking and being myself, im so tired of being lectured for my "attitude" and autistic traits. Im so angry at continuously being called weird because i dance like a bug, screech like a pterodactyl and call out unjust and harmful behaviours in others! I AM SO ANGRY AT THIS STUPID HIERARCHICAL SYSTEM I DON’T CONFORM TO! I WILL NOT CONFORM TO YOUR IDIOTIC SOCIAL NORMS!!

GENDER ISNT REAL! FEMINITY AND MASCULINITY ARENT REAL! SITTING PROFESSIONALLY ISNT REAL! NOT MAKING EYE CONTACT BECAUSE ITS RUDE ISNT REAL! MAHAHAHA YOU CANT STOP THE AUTISM! WE WILL DESTROY THIS STUPIDITY >:D

[anonymouslydisabled]

if you’re a high empathy autistic talking about autism even if you only have a small platform please stop pushing the narrative that all autistics are incredibly high empathy. Not only is it untrue but it further pushes the stigma that low/no empathy people like me are bad people or that we’re emotionless and can’t manage relationships for that reason. Even if you yourself are high empathy you should still be explaining how some autistic people can experience incredibly incredibly high empathy and how some autistic people can experience incredibly low or no empathy - we’re both valid, sympathy and empathy are not the same thing.

[michaelnotholden]

"Is it acoustic?" "He’s restarted"

I’m about to kms how about that

[theangelblood]

So turns out my mom believes that all my struggles caused by me being autistic are actually caused by Internet addiction (which I don't have) because she watched half a documentary on internet addiction

Unfortunately a lot of the time I'm forced to use internet, music, ebooks, funfiction, podcasts and series as an escape from a world where my needs were never met and still aren't to this day so I have no other way of coping with sensory, emotional or any other issues.