#my word are failing me because my brain is very autism rn. but i really do appreciate it

[southpark-realvoice-edits]

dude i love ur southpark vids on youtube thanks for taking the time to comb through and compile all that shit! i rewatch them at least once a week to keep my serotonin levels up

omg, thank you!! thats so sweet of you to say!! im very proud of those videos, i put a lot of work into them. so im so glad to hear that people actually enjoy them!!

friendly promo for my channel, since i feel like it gets lost in the shuffle sometimes. <3

[biquinntile]

TLDR: My biggest frustration being a late-diagnosed autistic is getting my brain to re-frame any of my behaviors. I’m having trouble figuring out how to help myself.

I was abused growing up, including some medical abuse, but my mom knew I had ADHD and lied to me and convinced me I didn’t. She never got a diagnosis but would ask me questions like “What are you, autistic?” I didn’t really understand what either of these terms meant back in 2012 when I was 13/14. So of course I said no, not even realizing until later that this was a rhetorical question (I am sighing so hard rn).

Fast forward to now, me age 26, being recently diagnosed as a person with ADHD and Autism. I spent my entire life up until now masking but even that feels like a weird word to use because it was never intentional. If I had needs not being met, I would find a way to get them met without talking to anyone or I would ignore them/push them away so that I “didnt have” that need anymore. In social situations, I made a lot of mistakes and found myself being very confused…so I would avoid being social altogether, or I would drill myself relentlessly before and after any social situation…and I mean any social situation. I remember people always criticizing me for “taking the long way” or not taking the most efficient route, but for me the “most efficient” route has never given me the results I wanted. It felt like I was a robot who had to constantly tinker with my own parts, with the goal being that one day I would be able to exist with other people naturally the way they do with each other. Not a robot, a person.

It’s very difficult to wrap my head around this not being a plausible goal anymore. I spent so long doing what was more difficult to mask symptoms I didn’t know I was masking. I spent my entire life operating under the belief that everybody was trying as hard as me to deal with sensory and socialization and all that jazz, it’s just that I was too weak to do it as well as they did. And it didn’t matter because I was doomed to fail.

I’m really working hard to not have such negative beliefs about being neurodivergent but it’s difficult bc in my brain I always hoped that one day I would just suddenly flip a switch and things would be easier. I would understand people and they would understand me. I wouldn’t spend weeks (if not months) obsessing over one singular topic. When I look back on moments where the autism was probably showing, I have all these memories of my parents calling me aggressive/angsty/spoiled/stupid/lazy/sensitive/etc. My stepdad would always say “You can’t be that stupid” and in my head, I would say “Well I guess I fucking am.”

All this to say, I have a lot of trouble now even recognizing when I’m doing a form of “masking” because it is so ingrained in me, and had I not done it, I would have faced worse abuse than I already had been facing. It took me until I was 24 to realize I was wearing a size too small in shoes because I believed a level of discomfort was just always a part of life, for EVERYONE not just me. I recently realized that I am not capable of crying in front of other people, even people I care about and trust, because when I used to cry people would find my reasoning trivial or tell me that I was too sensitive and they would (and I wish I was kidding) laugh or make fun of me. That is a silly thing to make fun of someone for, I know now, but I’m not sure how to change the behavior. I find day after day that there are a million things I’ve been overcompensating for or putting up with that I thought was normal or I thought I needed to do to keep up with everyone else (no wonder I feel so tired all the fucking time damn).

All this to say, I’m not even exactly sure what autistic symptoms I have or how to tackle them or even really how masking works entirely. I feel like I don’t know anything about myself. I don’t know how to help myself. Where do I even start? People keep throwing this “high-functioning” term at me, which I guess is fair, but I also feel like my bones ache at all times and I have constant rapid-fire anxious thoughts filling up my brain and I constantly feel like everyone on the earth is touching me and crowding me, even when I’m alone in my room. So I guess if I can keep pushing myself through those feelings, I’ll be fine and functioning fine but I don’t really think I can do that anymore.

Any advice or reading material would be greatly appreciated. Sorry if I didn’t explain things well. I’m trying my best out here

[centralkvetchmonolith]

@spikenards tagged me in a reposty ask meme!

Instructions for orderly continued dissemination of this meme:

Answer the questions the tagger asked!

Write 11 questions!

Tag 11 people!

That seems a little too virulent so like don’t worry about the tagging thing unless you wanna. Honestly you don’t even have to answer the questions. ilu.

1. name your favorite fairy tale by aarne-thompson type if you’ve got it or failing that by a vague and wobbly summary. My absolute favorite, which I could not find in the ATU index, is a substory from Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins wherein Hershel offers pickles to a demon and the demon gets stuck and Hershel is like "I will tell you the secret if you let me light the hanukkiyah" and the demon is like "FINE WHATEVER YOU WANT" and Hershel is like "dude just take one pickle; you're stuck because you tried to take? all of them? what is that even" 2. do you have synaesthesia? I do not! 3. have you ever seen  a ghost? you yourself, not someone you knew. Never seen a ghost but when I was five my babysitter tried to show me magic that I was unable to replicate later for my parents, and we were threatened by a GI Joe action figure once so that was kind of a ghost but I feel like my mental stats were too low as a kid to become a plasticmancer and my greatest regret in life is not asking her, when she visited my mom 15 years later, if all the things I remembered actually happened because what if?? What if magic is real and I could have done it. I failed the test. Never going to Brakebills now. 4. aliens: Would you? I think a better question is "which aliens: wouldn't I?" and like okay thinking harder about it there are certain, like, Things that would be massive turnoffs to, ahem, Diplomatic Entanglements, ahem, but like for example Alternian/Beforan trolls yes Klingons yes Vulcans only if they're halfsies Hutts no Toydarians solid maybe tentacle monsters depends on texture & secretions Twileks sure Na'vi no mulefa no Andalites no Yeerks tentative yes Hork-Bajir mmyes Taxxons no Skrit yes Na no Chee in a hEARtbeat Ketrans hell no the moon-sized brain coral that trapped the Ellimist for several years yes Leerans no voidf 5. do you have a favorite way to do your nails like all the same color or alternating or designs or what? My favorite way to do my nails is NO WAY BECAUSE NAIL LACQUER IS A TRANSGRESSION BEFORE THE NAME but nah really it's just that the idea of something on my nails that is not nails is sensory hell, to the point where I feel uncomfortable looking at other people with painted nails 6. what’s the longest you’ve ever gone without showering (doing something cool like camping for three weeks or something doesn’t count) Hahahahahaha um I would say 2 weeks tops? My mean time-to-shower has like. quadrupled over the last few years. 7. how many languages can you say dirty words in? & what are they? Russian, Arabic, English, French, wanna say German but I am like a little baby and can't remember any rn 8. who’s your most embarrassingly transparent favorite character who like Shaped you in a mortifying way? double points for homestuck Oh dear okay Karkat is like...my most embarrassingly transparent self-insert bc she's shouty and also a terrible egg baby and hates herself but in a really admiring way; character I was most embarrassingly Shaped by is...probably Marten from Questionable Content...bc he was chill at a time when I really needed to learn to be chill......ugh okay next 9. what’s the worst internet phenomenon you’ve ever had to explain to a family member? Uhhhh honestly my parents don't ask questions about memes or discourse but one time I described playing Smear the Q**** with the [redacted] Scouts and my dad was like "UM you do know that's a slur for gay people right?" and I was like "wait wtf BEN EARLE WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU" so that was the worst thing I have ever explained to a family member 10. how bad is your handwriting? bonus points for posting a picture of it. CAN’T SEEM TO POST THE PICTURE I MADE FOR THIS but yeah my handwriting is 95% legible to me and 20% legible to a surprising number of people. It is very tall and skinny. 11. did he turn his hat around backwards? He Inverted The Direction Of His Head Adornment

I am tagging @galacsin @menderash @octobig @haretonearnshawismysonnow @itsady @73785733 @bimahbabe @with-amore-infinito @carpebutts uhhhhhh I am for real falling asleep as I consider the complicated social dynamics of who to tag/not tag so I am not going to make it a round 11 anyway question time Ctrl-X Ctrl-V let’s go

1. What's yr favorite reaction image? 2. If you're autistic or an autism cousin, what's an echo you have been fond of recently? 3. Which Carly Rae Jepsen song makes you feel the gayest? If you are unfamiliar with her body of work, which song in general makes you feel the gayest? 4. Give yourself a good good epithet. For instance, I am Lulavet, Mistress of the Endless Night! Get it cuz I don’t sleep ever. 5. Have you ever done a scavenger hunt? If yes, tell me the most memorable clue. If no, make up a scavenger hunt clue! 6. You're in a desert walking along in the sand. You look down and you see a tortoise. It's crawling towards you. You reach down and flip the tortoise on its back. The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs, trying to turn itself over - but it can't. Not without your help. But you're not helping. Why is that? 7. Recount a time you saw someone so attractive you just had to, like, lie down? 8. What's the most disconcerting game glitch you have ever seen? 9. What's your go-to condiment, when something tastes boring and you want it to not taste boring? 10. What is your most gender-affirming vestment/accessory? 11. Tell me about a character you made up! An original character, if you will.