#but AAAAAAH happy chemicals about this

[oneiroy]

silver fox ryss agenda, this time without photoshopping required!!!!!!!

thanks so much to @mythandral for letting me use his elezen wrinkles and helping me out with editing them for ryss <333

[dasklaus]

I identify with autism a lot lately. My failure to be a person, the feeling that normality is something I perform, my genderlessness in absence of strong body dysphoria, all point in that direction. It's been on the table since my teens, and the last time (the only time) I took a diagnostic questionnaire I had severe arrhythmia, fear of dying of it and felt a strong need to be institutionalized and to never be alone. That I have trouble existing without a designated carer, that I hate crowds and feel happiest when people are listening to me saying clever things - I know I am weird on several axes, and I know work is a lot harder for me than others, especially full time (not the specific tasks associated with work - just the environment, the rules of it).

What I don't have: stimming, pronounced sensory issues, a need for routine. And I have social needs. The trope that autists are happy left to their own devices needs to die in a fire, though. It's not true. All autistic people I've met or even just read about had social needs. Everyone needs downtime, and social interaction is generally more stressful for autists, but they crave connection, too. Not feeling connected, regardless of quality and amount of interaction, though, that might be my defining symptom from childhood.

I always knew others had magic ways of knowing what to do or say. It's just this magic might just be neurotypicalness.

...

On further thought, when saying I have no sensory issues, I may just be unused to the term, to frame things like that. Because I sure am really particular about some things. Behold:

- I don't like chairs. When I sit, I either want to be folded into myself on the ground or rest my back on something (preferrably far back, so I become an obtuse angle). In any case, my feet need to be on the same level as my butt. It's okay with tables - I can slouch over them, concentrate on what's in fron of me, but without a table, I'm uncomfortable. Waiting rooms are horrible. It's better when I am alone and don't have to care about sitting "right".

- I'm bad with hygiene and can't seem to get used to it. I hate showering (especially the face), washing hands, brushing teeth. I cannot stand cremes or lotions. I've gotten better with doing stuff anyway, but I'd be perfectly happy just not cleaning myself for weeks.

- Chemical smells, perfumes, especially when it's supposed to be a "nice" smell. Deoderant, air "fresheners", aftershave, whatever. I'm way better with normal people smell, or even stinky people smell.

- Insects. Itchy, tickling things, rapid movements in front of me, sudden sounds close to my ears - GAH! They move so fast, I have almost no control over whether they touch me or not. I go crazy in the woods. I like the general idea of woods, but cannot stand the reality.

- I'm a picky eater, and was even more so as a kid. Some things I genuinely don't like the taste of, but often it's about texture, too: cooked vegetables, too soft pasta or rice. Produce in general: it's irregular, random, varied and therefore feels risky to eat. I like food to be consistent in texture and taste.

- Voices. I cannot listen to people for long. I’ll get headaches when listening, especially digitally, especially normalized voices (when the overall volume is digitally forced to constant, even though the speaker is varying his intonation). When voices are loud enough to understand, I can’t not listen, when they’re not, it’s stressful, and in between even more so, because I strain to hear, even when I don’t want to. I will sometimes listen to talks, but it’s rare, and I sometimes have to stop for a while.

All these can reach a point of "aaaaAAH I CAN'T STAND IT" that seems unusual in its intensity. I threw tantrums as a child, not to get things, but to get away from things, had daily breakdowns (often for no specific reason) as a teen, and to this day flee situations when they become unbearable. It's not always clear what has or will set me off. It just get's too much, in some way or another. Nowadays, I know how to excuse myself politely, without causing unnecessary drama.

There are sensations I enjoy, too:

- being wrapped tightly by several blankets, wearing too-small clothes (as long as nobody sees me in them), or wearing a bandage. More general: even pressure on large areas of skin without restricting my breathing or circulation.

- dusty, dry environments. Soil after a drought is really pleasant to me. I like my hands after physical labor, when they're dry, dirty and rough. No mud, water, oil, though.

- Picking on my skin or hair. I scratch and pick on my face a lot. As a kid, I played with my hair constantly, when it was long enough. When a scissor is nearby, I cut my hair. Constantly, incrementally - always picking at it until I find a strand that feels too long, then cut it. I never look at what I'm doing, I do it by feel alone. I haven't been to a hairdresser in a decade.

In the end, all this might be normal. A lot of it, on its own, is. I spent last night reading Black Sails fanfiction (because as gay as that show is, it's still not gay enough, you know?) and finding one describing Hamilton's stay at Savannah. It threw me way back into my most isolated years, which felt like prison was described there. Disjointed, senseless. Not knowing what is memory and what is fantasy. Feeling very, very apart from the world. People being foreign things that I could not relate to. I can easily see myself falling back into that mindset again. I have to work on not doing that. Being a member of society is something I consciously chose, time and time again. And being a person is something I learned to do well enough to pass, but it's not my native language at all. Perhaps that's not autism. Perhaps everyone feels that way, or enough do to make it normal. I just wanted to write it down, to find words for it.

Thanks for reading.