I am doing a survey about yoga and neurodivergent folk and your boosts would be appreciated.
If you are neurodivergent (self-realized or Dx'd, it's all good here), and fall under the vast ND umbrella, I'd love to hear from you. Quick 6-7 question survey and you can remain anon if you want.
I’ve been reading about “stimming in autism”, which up until now was very confusing to me mostly because that’s the one point kept being repeated in the community being a must for an autistic individual. And I can’t relate to that at all.
Then I came across something that describes the purpose of ‘stimming’ is to deal with extra energy. Then it kinda hit me, I’ve never had the need to stim because I’m a low energy person in general.
I get overwhelmed with activities when they involve raising heart rates (yes, THAT too). I like quiet things, dead of night etc. Once at a time in my life, I was pretty sure I could hear flow of electricity.
So my question to the #ActuallyAutistic community: do you think stimming is a must for autistic people? Do you relate to it? Anyone know of any low energy stimming that gets overlooked?
Diary of an ASD Squirrel. Day 210 , Saturday 25/05/2024
Up earlier than I wanted, Pavlovian response kicked in 🙄🤦♂️
Went for a walk this morning , the British summer was on its best behaviour & did me proud !
I saw the shadow of a butterfly, not the wee beastie itself, which inspired my muse to spout a little poem.
Tried to sit down for my lunch, first the sky went seriously dark so we had to get out & get the washing in , then the door bell went & the Postie wanted to leave a parcel with us for a neighbour. Then 3 minutes later he was back as the neighbour had appeared at their door !
For Nuggan’s nuts will I ever get this sarnie eaten!
Lunch was finally finished & followed by a lovely coffee 😊
Hovered up then watched ‘Traces’ with Mrs S.
Finished off the evening with some ‘B’ movie.
Final Thoughts.
I don’t write poetry often - but sometimes the urge takes me & I scribble a little nonsense.
Thank you to all those who are helping me on this journey, in a myriad different ways. I am thankful to each & every one of you! 🫂 🫶🐿️🖖
please help octo! she needs to pay her monthly bills including rent, debt payments, and college expenses. she's struggling with parental abuse. anything helps!
Ich kann’s mir selber nicht erklären, aber ich ertappe mich in letzter Zeit dabei, bewusst viel mehr zu masken als sonst. Mit einem Gefühl von Trotz, nach dem Motto „da habt ihr halt den Scheiß“.
Natürlich gibt‘s Like/Love/Fav dafür, weil ich ja nett bin, und das macht das Ganze noch ambivalenter.
Machen andere Autist*innen das auch immer wieder mal?
#WritersCoffeeClub 5/25. Do you use a cover artist or design your own covers? Share your cover art.
I tried making my own covers. Didn't work out very well, but cover designers are expensive. They should be, it's value they create, but when my books don't earn much... it creates a rock and a hard place.
Anyway, I use cover designers now, and I'll share one that I love very much (partially because I love the characters so much and the designer totally got them).
"Many of us get trapped in a feedback loop of learned helplessness, confusion, shame, and frozenness" - Devon Price in Unmaskin Autism.
Bingo! I relate so much to this!
Sometimes I know I'm supposed to do something at home, or with a group of friends, for instance when cleaning up a place after a party. (I don't mean routine chores at home, those are very clear. If I remember to do them.) However, I don't know what it would be.
I can't ask as I've learned that people don't take it well, they get irritated if one asks what one should do. If I do something small that seems clear enough for me, there's a chance I "do it wrong" and someone else finishes it. If I don't do anything, people will be angry at me for that.
Then I just stand there and people think I'm lazy and get irritated anyway. Now I understand it's my autistic brain freezing, confronted by a badly defined task and unclear expectations.
You may know I was diagnosed with autism 10yrs ago. You may not know I was also diagnosed with schizophrenia at the same time. Today is World Schizophrenia
Awareness Day (1). Here in so-called Australia, schizophrenia affects between 150,000-200,000 humans (2).
You might know autism and ADHD/ADD are forms of neurodivergence, but did you
know that schizophrenia social anxiety/anxiety disorders and depression are as well?
Neurodivergence means having a different brain to what is historically, clinically and socially classified as “normal”. (shudder)
Fortunately for the neurospicy like me, the Social Model of Disability is seeing medical definitions rewritten with a healthier focus, changing outdated societal ideologies and expectations.
My form of schizophrenia is visceral (3). When I’m tired, stressed, or anxious, my
symptoms can arise despite daily medications. I see, hear, and feel bugs. Flying, buzzing, crawling insects. Bugs creeping on my scalp and into my skin. It’s usually a speck of dust. Sometimes, it’s actually an insect. An offset of my schizophrenia is a cognitive disability (4) (confused thinking, loss of words, disjointed understanding, and
forgetfulness).
There is too much misinformation on how schizophrenia manifests. Science has not discovered irrefutably what causes it; however, mine was likely brought on by excessive stress and poor health maintenance.
When the word “crazy” is so easily used as a gross negative, it paints schizophrenics as bad people with uncontrollable brains leading to dangerous behaviour. We see this stereotype in the media when individuals enact incomprehensible harm (5). More often, the individual is just a massive angry douche. To be clear: people with schizophrenia are rarely violent, and when they are it is usually self-harm (6).
I’m not prone to hyperbole, but every time I hear someone use the term “crazy”
derogatorily, it HURTS me. It means you consider ME suboptimal.
I know language is difficult to change. Hell, I’m almost 50 & struggle with using “crazy”, particularly directed at myself. We stopped using other harmful words in my lifetime, so we can stop using this one too.
I've spent most of my professional life in academic circles. However, I had a short stint as a clinical psychologist when my PhD project wasn't funded. This was in the '00s.
I had this one patient who came in diagnosed with severe depression. I was a rookie and felt that I just couldn't help them. Now it hit me that they were autistic.
My studies hadn't prepared me for this; there was barely a mention of autism. I guess it was part of one course on clinical disorders, based on then current research around the turn of the millennium. Furthermore, I was still more than 15 years from my self-diagnosis.
I wonder what happened to them. They stopped coming as they felt therapy was of no use. I can't blame them.
"It might not feel like it's an active step toward self-acceptance or authenticity, but coming to understand yourself as disabled is a pretty dramatic reframing of your life."
Devon Price in Unmasking Autism
This sentence hits me hard. Haven't thought it using that wording. My internalized ableism screams. "I'm not disabled!" But I am. I need to digest this.
Do you use subtitles? I'm using them more and more when they are available? It helps me to keep track of what's going on, and I like that I can turn the sound down when if it gets overwhelming.
What is the term for that type of inertia where you can't get anything else done in a given day because you have one time-specific thing on your calendar so you end up waiting until you do that one thing?
I know there are words for it. I just can't remember them.
This self-discovery journey has been mostly satisfying. However, sometimes one is not really sure what to think. Overcompensating in order not to appear selfish is to be very helpful. I've thought this is an important part about me. I like to help. Now I read that this might actually be a way of masking. I guess the important part is not to OVERcompensate. And to think about my wellbeing first. Ah well.
I love Unmasking Autism. I've now read almost the first half and there's this constant flow of "that's me!", "oh!" and "wtf?!" from my part.
Part about learning certain characteristics being unwanted and masking by overcompensating for them was especially revealing. Things that really resonated:
"Pretending I didn't know the answers to questions" and "Keeping silent when people said things that weren't true" in order not to appear arrogant.
"Solving problems by myself" and "Not getting 'too excited' about anything, including good things" in order not to appear annoying and loud.
"Nodding or laughing, even when I have no idea what's going on" in order not to appear clueless and pathetic.
"Not voicing my needs" in order not to appear sensitive.
I'm in this picture and I don't like it... It's not that I recognize ever being certain things but I recognize overcompensating.
I started a new Youtube channel a few months back to kind of help me come to terms with my late autism diagnosis, and I seem to be doing better on views than my (8 years old) Clay Disarray channel :ablobdizzy:
Anyhoo, thought I'd post a link here if you're interested 🧡