#neurodiversity

[marauderstars]

Sirius: Have you ever felt like your entire personality is annoying and decided to change everything about yourself but then gotten distracted and gone straight back to how you always were?

James: I have ADHD. That is literally my entire life.

[vivianseda]

Thank you @neurodivergent_lou

[cleolinda]

Okay, I am having an issue I can only attribute to The Autism, and I am curious as to whether anyone else vibes with this:

I have an extreme aversion to wearing brown clothing. Like to the point where I started to wonder if I was persecuted by colonial Puritans or steampunk pilots in another life or some shit. It has only developed since I became an adult; I had a perfectly witchy brown and black maxi dress I wore as a teenager, and a pair of shoes I got compliments on all the time. Brown is fine in nature, in decor, on animals, on other people, on anything that isn't me. Love a good neutral (can lean slightly warm) brown eyeshadow; looks great with my complexion. Brown eyes of all shades are beautiful and I love them (I have green). Don't drink coffee but it's not brown's fault. Buy me a chocolate factory and I'll live in it. No real fight to pick with the mere existence of brown.

I wear black. Accessories, shoes, purses, jewelry, wardrobe staples, whatever: always black for the last 20+ years, never brown. It's like I decided that if I always stuck to black, everything would always coordinate, and it just... spiraled from there?

When I went to pick up my new glasses a couple weeks ago, there was some kind of mix-up, and the frames weren't black; they were a dark, almost-black brown with light amber mottling: tortoiseshell. "I HATE TORTOISESHELL" I blurted out (once the sales associate wasn't present. Nobody is paying him enough to deal with that kind of weirdness). I really did not know that I hated tortoiseshell at all until it came up when I was first browsing frames three weeks prior, and I blurted out, "I HATE TORTOISESHELL." I did not know this about myself! It might not have even been true until that moment! It's not the pattern; it's purely the very yellow/orange-leaning shade of brown, on me. Tortoiseshell is lovely on other people! It's aesthetically cromulent! I reacted like someone had offered me a tarantula. I don't know.

I have now reacted so bizarrely--I've spat out "I HATE BROWN" on previous occasions as well--that I'm trying to unpack what the fuck is going on. My best theory at this point is that it has something to do with a neurodivergent aversion to yellow, which I REALLY REALLY HAVE. (Again, yellow is fine wherever doing its own thing, love a gently yellow flower, but I do not want to wear it and it kind of hurts my eyes a little if it's too much. Like I almost feel queasy.) I keep trying to stress-test this aversion in my mind--what shade of brown would I wear? A sweater that's such a dark and neutral brown that it's almost black? A really pretty "brown sugar" color like the eyeshadow I like so much? "Redwood"? "Raw umber"? "Beaver" (........)?

My secondary theory is that it might come down to some kind of involuntary self-assertion thing. "I SAID I WEAR BLACK, WHY AREN'T YOU LISTENING TO ME??" I think... that's a good bit what happened with the glasses. Although I really do react very strongly to the sight of the amber bits (on me).

Anyway, I am usually a very measured, even stoic person with this kind of thing--to the point where I don't stand up for myself enough--so here we are, trying to figure this out. Do you have any kind of vehement aversion like this? Not to something rational (I can't deal with seafood and I stand by that), but like, "I jump back from this like a vampire from garlic and I have no idea why"?

[johnnyblueisblue]

@_narudaibeaga_

[spooniepolar]

"It is also possible that constitutional sensitivity of the child creates a special demand and an impossible task for the caregiver to meet, and subsequently the child feels mistreated or neglected. Unfortunately, the wrong type of response from a caregiver is more than enough to invalidate a child’s feelings. Parents who are not psychologically minded may be unintentionally invalidating the child through misinterpretation, lack of clarity, or lack of interest in the inner world of the child.

To the exquisitely sensitive child, these small misses add up, leaving the child feeling alone in the world, without a fully developed sense of self, and with only himself to look to for guidance." (Source)

[bortbytingen]

"Being Autistic in a neurotypical world is often traumatizing, and being forced to mask is essentially an experience of society-driven abuse."

-- Dr. Devon Price, "Unmasking Autism" (p. 159)

[hidefdoritos]

"a joy to have in class" aka This Child Will Not Be Diagnosed for at least Eight Years

[turns-out-its-adhd]

Edit to say: it gladdens my wee little heart to hear about all the treats folks got themselves. You get that thing. Life is short and you should grab every moment of joy you can.

[rawrda]

This is your daily reminder to not be ashamed of making your life easy for yourself.

Cut your food into small pieces, make the font size 30 on your e book, use straws to drink, get a pen that’s comfortable to hold, take more naps, walk slowly, eat another cookie, buy velcro shoes, re-watch the part you couldn’t understand the first time, write things on your hands so you don’t forget it… whatever you want and/or need

Don’t let anyone tell you how you should be doing things. We don’t need to prove each other anything

[ryanjudgesthings]

There's a mistake I see a lot of people in the mental health community make and in all honesty, it's one I've made myself. But I think we should really work on it. And that's saying "if this were a physical illness, wouldn't you care?"

I've learned that no actually, people wouldn't care. Katelyn Weinstein (theADHDprincess on Twitter) is a neurodiversity acceptance activist who really put this in perspective for me. She said that it's actually more an issue of longevity than physical vs mental health.

If you're having a bad day people will generally be understanding. But when you're experiencing chronic depression and you have many bad days people lose sympathy.

In the same respect people may be understanding when you've broken a bone that will heal properly or when you have a cold that will go away soon in ways they simply won't understand when you have chronic pain or need to use a wheelchair. They may send chicken soup for a temporary situation, but when you need consistent accomodations it's an entirely different story.

I understand that from our perspective it looks like people care more about physical health than mental health, but it's good to remember that our own perspective is also limiting. Facing ableism doesn't mean you can't be ableist. And I know so many people are not ill-intentioned when they say this. I know I wasn't. But we can't discount the lived experiences of physically disabled people. If we want true equality we need to be united and we need to listen to those with physical disabilities and illnesses. And those with physical disabilities and illnesses (some of which are also invisible) have said that they are not given proper accomodations either.

So let's be united and fight for equality and accomodations for everyone, no matter what their illness or disability may be.

[m0untaing0ats]

People on the internet treat autism like it's some cute, childish thing, but like, autism and the trauma that comes with it have literally lead me to severe alcoholism, anger issues and a criminal record.

This post goes out to autistic addicts and autistic people who have personality disorders and autistic people who have hurt people during meltdowns and autistic people who have been in trouble with the law and autistic people who have been diagnosed with every mental illness under the sun only to find out it was autism all along.

You are loved. Your trauma and your reactions to it do not make you a bad person.

[never-ending-fanfic]

Are you the "I will eat the good food first and let the bad come last" neurodivergent or the "I will suffer through the bad food first so I can end with the good" neurodivergent?

[lavenderr-juniperr]

One thing that bothers the fuck out of me when I tell people I’m autistic, and they say the old “really? I couldn’t tell! You don’t seem autistic,” is that they COULD tell. They could tell that I’m intense and have no volume control because they’ve pointed it out. They could tell that I dont have a great understanding of social cues because they laugh when I miss them. They could tell that I stim because they’ve told me to stop fidgeting. So they COULD tell, because I DO “seem” autistic, but to them, they just saw my autistic traits as personal failures and never as things that I simply couldn’t help.

[neuroticboyfriend]

Shoutout to people who speak "overly formally." You deserve to express yourself in whatever way feels most natural and fulfilling for you. The way you speak isn't pompous, annoying, or mockable; it's just how you communicate, and there's nothing wrong with that. Your voice adds creativity and diversity to this world, and I think that's amazing.

[adhdxxsdiary]

Me, not talking: Ah fuck, I am being weird

Me, talking: Ah fuck, I am being weird

[prokopetz]

It kind of bugs me that Tumblr has seized upon “taking everything literally” as the Defining Neurodivergent Experience™ – not only because it’s actually pretty uncommon, but also because it’s erasing an enormous variety of other frequent communication style issues, including but not limited to:

Having your brain stubbornly seize upon the first interpretation that happens to pop into your head as the Only Possible Interpretation, regardless of whether it’s literal or figurative  

Easily identifying several possible interpretations of a statement, but having absolutely no ability to parse for context and identify which of those interpretations is most plausible  

Being confronted with a statement that has Implications, then getting thrown for a loop when it turns out that the speaker wasn’t considering any of that and really did just mean it literally  

Perfectly understanding a statement’s intended meaning, but getting annoyed with the speaker anyway because they didn’t phrase it Correctly, seriously, are you the only person here who gives a shit about the goddamn Rules?