#high functioning autism

[adult-female-with-aspergers]

[bluefile]

Artificial intelligence videos #love #kiss #cinematic, #lesbianfilm, #aesthetic, #emotionalscene,  #shortfilm, #youtube

[oghellokittyislandadventure]

Worked hard on this one!

[neurotypicalabusesurvivor]

Accept your child with autism or you will be forced to accept a child with autism and DID, cluster B personality disorder and/or PTSD.

The choice is your.

[trashandwriting]

Autism is funny, one moment you're like "I'm fine this is fine I'm actually so great I wonder if I even have autism or if I'm gaslighting myself" and then the tiniest change happens and you're all like askebhdbejsvfbdied

[postal97]

3 docs from crayons

[spacefaringamoeba]

I hate that I'm considered "high functioning". I barely qualify for any "level" of disability in my country and I will never get a disability income. Yes. I'm able to go to work. But I will not be able to hold it for more than a few months before getting burned out and having daily meltdowns. No, having 10 minutes extra work break won't help me. Neither will wearing headphones or carrying fidgets. I'm literally not able to work 40h a week without severe negative consequences... How do i fucking exist in this society!

[clown-around-and-find-out]

everyone is all about autism acceptance until they meet an autistic they can't infantilize

[theautisticdoctor]

Entry #007

Sensory System

In autism the sensory system is a funny part of the body, it can be hypersensitive or hyposensitive. It can be a kind of a superpower and a disability at the same time. When people think about the senses, they often think about the five senses that do the seeing (visual), hearing (auditory), smelling (olfactory), tasting (gustatory), and feeling (tactile), but there are three more systems in the body that take in information for the brain to process and acts on it. It are the balancing and coordination (vestibular), the positioning (proprioception), and the information from inside the body (interoception).

I won't be explaining the visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory and tactile senses separately. I think they are pretty self-explanatory, in contrary to the vestibular, proprioception and interoception senses. Generally there are three categories in how people can perceive the information through their senses, they can be normosensitive, hypersensitive and / or hyposensitive. It is not one fits all, you can be hyposensitive and be stimulating it yourself, but then suddenly get overstimulated after all. It is a journey to find out how you react and how to balance your systems. But know that all the systems work together, for example your visual system works together with your auditory and vestibular system. I have drawn out the links I have found up until now how my systems work together, so that if one system gets overstimulated it could have some effect on another system for me.

Vestibular

The vestibular sense is the sense of stability, balance, movements and position of the head on the body. It works together with the visual system to make sure your eyes look in the right direction while moving your head and to correlate movements registered with what's being seen.

Proprioception

Proprioception is the possibility to perceive the position of your extremities. It gets registered by the mechanoreceptors in the tendons of your muscles and together with the visual and vestibular system it makes sure someone can coordinate movements with correct force. It is partly conscious and partly unconscious regulated, and is responsible for body position, reflexes, movement coordination, correct tone of muscles and stability. People with autism can often have trouble with correctly positioning their body, stability and coordination of movements. This is partly because of the two other senses as well, but also because of a hyposensitivity to the mechanoreceptors in the tendons.

Interoception

Interoception includes the thermoception (possibility to perceive temperature and regulates body temperature) and the nociception (possibility to perceive pain), as well as all the other bodily sensations like hunger, thirst, pain, toilet urge, flatulence, intra-abdominal gas, nausea, etc. Notice that pain is listed twice, as 'nociception' and as 'other bodily sensation'. This is because nociception is a complex thing. Nociception is pain through a stimulus within a tissue by either thermal, chemical or mechanical. But pain can also derive from other sources, for example pain from nerves is called neuropathic pain. It's a separate study on its own, but the distinction could be relevant, because for example, I'm hyposensitive to nociception and hypersensitive to neuropathic pain stimuli. Meaning, I won't feel I'm overstretching my muscles and creating an inflammation around or even doing a little damage to a nerve. Ending up with a neurogenic inflammation pain and sensory loss across an entire nerve branch for weeks, which is excruciating for me. But hey, I was able to bend my arm backwards and get that paper from behind the cupboard without moving it.

Integration

It's useful to make an inventory in what categories one is hypo- or hypersensitive for certain stimuli and what practical problems it creates for you. Beneath this sensory system inventory worksheet I have included mine too, so you have an example as well.

Mine looks something like this:

It's probably not finished yet, but I thought I might already share it. How I think my sensory system works together or influences each other for me, that I found out up until now (the faint and bolder green lines are both interactions):

[psychiatricwarfare]

autism is so fucking hated, you arent allowed to be high functioning because youre "faking it", you arent allowed to be low functioning because youre "faking it" and all of us are expected to just try harder and "stop acting stupid" (which is extra insidious when intellectual disabilities are so commonly comorbid with autism)

oh you need some help with getting things done? grow up

oh you need someone to remind you to shower/take meds/etc? grow up

oh youre nonverbal/nonspeaking or lose speech at times? just Talk

oh you Cant Eat unless its This Specific Food? grow up

oh you dont understand when something is dangerous? stop being stupid

oh you need lots of help with bADLs? youre a leech. do it yourself

oh you need a caregiver in order to keep yourself alive? youre so dramatic, everyone else manages just fine without one, why cant you?

oh you can get around for the most part in day-to-day life but need extra support in some areas? youre just exaggerating, youre not really autistic

autistic people are literally never allowed to just exist in society. we are always expected to prove something, whether thats being autistic or being human beings that deserve respect

youre either not autistic enough or too autistic for allistics and its really fucking annoying. autism is a real disability and those of us who are autistic live with it every single day. it can be extremely disabling or it can be a bit of a nuisance or it could be both or somwhere in between or fluctuate depending on the day

stop shaming autistic people for being autistic in a way you dont like or arent used to seeing. that goes for everyone, other autistic people included

[surrah698]

[adult-female-with-aspergers]

I don’t think this is true 100% of the time but it does seem like a good portion the time.

[myrthing]

This is the DUMBEST SHIT I have ever seen, so congratulations! You win a prize and the prize is apparently "myling unwisely picking fights".

AS A LEVEL 1 autistic person I say this unto you: Shut up. Sit down. Listen to higher support autistics. If you're so scared to be seen as disabled that you have to deny how autism is the direct cause of people's disability, there's always just the possibility of masking. I don't like saying that, because I think it's perfectly possible to both be autistic and to not be disabled in any way, but I despise these attempts from fellow low support autistic people to distance the disorder from those who are actually disabled. It stinks of ableism.

ASD isn't a mental illness. It is a developmental disorder. Feel free to explain how homosexuality being seen historically as a mental illness maps onto a developmental disorder that is frequently both intellectually and physically disabling.

Sometimes, there's actually a good reason to have a name for a group of symptoms! Such as the fact it makes it easier to get help.

[zoobiefish]

Day 10: Self-Advocacy

Having a neurodevelopmental disability often means getting talked over, unfortunately. The moment they know I’m Autistic, most people tend to treat me as if I’m a child. I know this is sadly the experience of most of us on the spectrum. I’m a university student in my mid-20s earning an honours bachelors degree in psychology, yet I often get spoken down to. Not only that, but I’ve had people treat me outright with hostility when they found out I was Autistic; like I was a nuisance just for existing. I’m in a precarious position because I’m also considered “high functioning” by clinical standards. In no way am I saying “I have it worse” than “low functioning” Autistics, not by a long shot—nor am I saying our experiences are comparable. This isn’t any kind of “oppression olympics” or competition of any kind. But as someone who is “high functioning,” and considering this is my post, I will be talking about my personal experience and the specific nuance that comes with it. Additionally, please know that I’m not a fan of “functioning labels.” I am only using them here to describe myself as I would be described in clinical terms. Anyway, being high functioning means very specific and often contradictory expectations are put on me. I often don’t “look Autistic enough” for people to take my disability seriously. And anytime I’m legitimately struggling because of my very real disability, I get told to “suck it up” or that I’m “faking for attention” or something along those lines. I’m privileged enough to be able to speak and advocate for myself, yet it often still falls on deaf ears. At best, I’m just treated like a child and not the adult that I am. At worst, I’m treated like a pest. I need support, but I don’t need it “enough” in people’s eyes to “justify” needing it. I’m a leech in their eyes. I find being high functioning means that I feel compelled to mask more too. I recognize that being able to mask at all is a privilege, but it doesn’t make it any less stressful. Everyone expects that because my Autism is “mild,” I have some sort of unwritten duty to be performatively neurotypical 24/7. And that is cognitively exhausting. I just had several major tests in my uni program and I’m finally on break for a week, but I’m so burnt out now. I wanted to do a more relevant drawing for today’s prompt but then I thought “you know what? My art *is* my self-advocacy. So I’m gonna advocate by being honest about how tired I am.” I need a break. I need less stimulation. I need less expectations. I need to shut the blinds to my room and curl up with a favourite show. I have advocated my needs now.

[cryinginmyroomsposts]

the tragically beautiful pipeline from high-functioning child to burnt-out adult with a laundry pile of hobbies itching to be cleaned and used again but the adult is just too exhausted to do anything more than pick them up from the pile to check if they are dirty enough only to find out... they always will be dirty now that the adult has lost the bandwidth to do laundry

[trashandwriting]

Good morning fellow autistic people, please remember at all times that neurotypicals can't relate to our struggles and view of the world because their brain functions in entirely different structures than ours. They aren't entitled to tell you if something should bother you or not. Have a nice day!