LehtoriTuomo

LehtoriTuomo, 1 month ago to actuallyautistic

I attended a party yesterday. As usual, I had trouble following people's conversation due to the background noise, zoning in and out. Suddenly I started thinking whether this is an autistic thing. I self-diagnosed last fall. Before that, I've just always assumed everyone has trouble hearing in those situations. Now I started wondering whether NTs can actually direct their attention to the discussion better in those situations. Any thoughts?

#ActuallyAutistic @actuallyautistic

LehtoriTuomo, 1 month ago to actuallyautistic

Someone asked whether I ever played Doom. No, not really. I told that I've never liked first person shooters and then it hit me. I never liked them as there's too much going on. In fact, I've never been a big fan of any types of shooters, the only exception being Cannon Fodder. Now, with the new-found autistic perspective, it makes perfect sense. Sensory overdrive all the time equals no fun. How about my fellow autistics, any fans of shooters?

#ActuallyAutistic @actuallyautistic

LehtoriTuomo, 7 months ago to random Finnish

Olen viitannut silloin tällöin terapiaan. Tämä on yksi asia, josta haluan olla avoin, omalta osaltani normalisoida terapiassa käymisen. Olen käynyt läpi kaksivuotisen terapian, josta sain paljon irti. Aloin nyt käyttämään #terapiajutut-häsää, jonka alle tulen kirjoittamaan heränneitä ajatuksia.

Olen ollut jo parikymppisestä sitä mieltä, että jokaisen kannattaisi käydä terapiassa. Tietenkin psykologin paperit omaavana minun pitäisikin olla tätä mieltä! Suutarin lapsilla ei kuitenkaan ole kenkiä, joten vaadittiin koronasulku ja masennukseen sairastuminen, että lopulta hakeuduin terapiaan.

Oma asiansa on taas terapiaan pääsemiseen liittyvät kommervenkit. Itse olen sen verran etuoikeutetussa asemassa, että pystyin maksamaan yksityisellä puolella tarvittavat käynnit kela-lausuntoa varten. Toisaalta en ollut liian masentunut jaksaakseni etsiä itselleni sopivan terapeutin. Sekään ei ole helppo juttu, aloituspaikkoja on hirveän vähän. Onneksi toisen kokeilemani terapeutin kanssa synkkasi. Ymmärrän, että moni muu terapiaa kipeästi kaipaava on julkisen puolen varassa, tai ei pysty tai jaksa käydä läpi aloitusprosessia. Prosessi ei ole nopea, jos on akuutti tarve.

#terapiajutut

LehtoriTuomo, 1 month ago to actuallyautistic

I've been trying to understand what it means that an autistic brain is bombarded with so much information. We spent some time at our summer cottage and I think I got some insight in this.

Instead of seeing the lake in front of my eyes, everywhere I looked I saw a detail. Its size would vary but it would still be a detail. A swan there, its partner there, no leaves on that tree yet, what a cool pattern on the small waves, what does it look like when I move my eyes this way, or that way, a car on the opposite shore, the shadow of the tree, I wonder what seagulls those are etc. A new detail with every single glance.

At the same time my attention tried to keep track of the dog and listened to birds singing and bumblebees flying around.

Now I wonder what it feels like just to see the lake.

#ActuallyAutistic @actuallyautistic

LehtoriTuomo, 7 months ago to random Finnish

Kun oma vaatimustaso on perfektionismin myötä korkealla, tehtävät, joissa on osaltaan vastuussa, on "pakko" tehdä viimeisen päälle. Ja kun on kerran saanut päähänsä sen oman vastuun, on avun pyytäminen todella vaikeaa.

Yhteisartikelissakin, kun on itse ykköskirjoittajana eli ekan raakaversion kirjoittajana, haluaa saada kollegalle/kollegoille mahdollisimman viimeistellyn version, vaikka akateemisessa kirjoittamisessa jos missä kyse on prosessikirjoittamisesta. Kiitos terapian, tästäkin olen saanut vähän hellitettyä, vaikka paikoin piirre nostaakin vielä päätään.

Jos perfektionismi ei aiheuttaisi niin paljon ahdistusta, en taistelisi sitä vastaan niin voimakkaasti.

#perfektionismi #terapiajutut

LehtoriTuomo, 1 month ago to actuallyautistic

One reason why it took me so long to self-diagnose autism is that I thought I don't stim. In fact, once I learned that I do stim, my self-diagnosis process kicked in. That was the first time I said to myself that I might actually be autistic.

The reason for this misunderstanding was that I thought stimming is stereotypical, very repetitive, compulsory movement. I guess this misunderstanding is quite common.

I've since learned that stimming, short for self-stimulatory behavior, is basically stimulating one's sensory system in certain ways. It may be a way to soothe oneself, help to focus in overwhelming situations by feeding one's brain predictable sensory input, a way to express joy, or simply something that feels nice. Movements are part of it but any sense can be used.

When googling the term, there are mentions that also neurotypicals stim but that when diagnosing autism, stimming is somehow different -- only socially unacceptable stims are "real" stims. Bah.

I've started paying attention to how and when I stim, and collect a list of stims I do. I've noticed all types of stimming behavior (soothing, focusing, joy, fun). I do it more than before -- or maybe I just notice it more often. I've noticed that I love moving my body parts, especially to music. I also love different textures.

#ActuallyAutistic #stimming @actuallyautistic

LehtoriTuomo, 1 month ago to actuallyautistic

I read about auditory processing difficulties a week or so ago. References mentioned difficulty of processing spoken instructions as one symptom. I thought that I don't have such difficulty.

This weekend, my spouse told about how she and the dog have now practiced walking on the same side of the path instead of the dog going everywhere. I asked how they have done it. She explained her three point procedure, at which point I said it sounds complicated.

Another heureka moment for me! The procedure certainly wasn't difficult. It was the number of points. For me, two points would've been ok, the third point caused my brain to give a "can not process" error message. Turns out I do have difficulties in processing oral instructions.

#ActuallyAutistic @actuallyautistic

LehtoriTuomo, 19 days ago to actuallyautistic

In the series "so that's an autism thing too": difficulties in cooking. I have hard time coming up with the shopping list outside of the routine things which I always check against a list on my phone. It's especially difficult to plan what particular dishes should be cooked in the following days.

Once I got hang of cooking -- which happened after I had turned 30, almost 35 -- I learned to like cooking when there's no rush and the recipe is clear. I even can improvise, albeit on quite restricted range. However, when my spouse isn't around, I default to microwaving things or eating frozen pizzas.

#ActuallyAutistic @actuallyautistic

LehtoriTuomo, 29 days ago to actuallyautistic

Mentioned to a coworker that I'm getting some books, for example on autism, and as they showed interest in the topic, proceeded to lightly info dump. Did give some space so that it was a true conversation. However, it reminded me of a thing I've been pondering.

As I present male, I've always been overly cautious of not mansplaining -- or at least ever since I learned about the term. Now that I know I'm autistic, I understand it's entangled with having learned that NTs don't like infodumping.

Whatever the cause, I have a tendency to stay silent even if I know about the topic at hand but aren't 100% certain that it's appropriate to talk about it. Sometimes it makes me sad.

#ActuallyAutistic @actuallyautistic

LehtoriTuomo, 1 month ago to actuallyautistic

After self-diagnosing with autism, I've been on the hunt of what characteristics and symptoms -- for the lack of a better word -- of mine are due to that. It's been an interesting journey of discovery. One thing that kind of bugs me, though, is that many things are related to differences between NDs and NTs. Naturally, there's no way of knowing how another person experiences anything. And the way I experience is the way I've always had. For instance, some things catch my eyes easily, others don't. But how do I know how attentive to detail a NT person would be? Some examples of my pondering.

Yesterday, I was following a doctoral defence and at one point started looking at the gadgets on the wall. I noticed that there were two gadgets (likely wifi routers), supposedly put on symmetrical places on both sides of the lecture hall. However, one of them was slightly off-center of the plate it was attached to. Would an average NT person pay attention to this?

The other day I was following a Zoom presentation on the relationship between human and dog. Super interesting! Anyway, on the slides, there were many places with tiny "beauty flaws", a missing space after a comma, bullet points with both capitalized and non-capitalized sentences etc. Things that I would fix on my presentation if I noticed them. Would an average NT person notice these? On the other hand, there was a duplicate word that the presenter noticed. I didn't.

#ActuallyAutistic @actuallyautistic

LehtoriTuomo, 1 month ago to actuallyautistic

As I said, the realization that I'm autistic disn't lead to that much of an identity crisis. It's way more about starting to understand how my brain actually works. It's continuation of what I learned in therapy, partly using tools that I acquired there. Some of the aha moments have left me with an open mouth after saying "fuck" to myself.

My thinking is partly based on intuition bundles, as I like to call them. In fact, I think my intuition is very well developed. I understand many things, including scientific topics, by intuition. However, putting that understanding in words might be a real struggle. In science, that's not a good thing. This is partly behind my dislike of partaking in scientific debate.

I've started wondering whether relying on intuition is some sort of strategy my brain has developed. As it gathers lots of information and fails to filter the crucial bits, maybe it has started to create these association groupings, that is intuition bundles. I feel things as wholes but might not be able to verbalize them.

#ActuallyAutistic @actuallyautistic

LehtoriTuomo, 1 month ago to actuallyautistic

Reading about autism and processing what it means in my case is very interesting. But maybe most of all, it's a relief. As I start to write this toot, tears come to my eyes.

I've kicked myself so many times in different situations for not being smart enough. I guess my doctoral degree is counter-proof. Anyway, I've struggled with my identity as a scientist a lot. This has happened especially at conferences. I've felt so out of place there. I haven't been able to discuss many topics. I haven't been able to follow all the talks.

Or when discussing a topic with a research group, I haven't been able to come up with ideas or solutions to problems. Not on the spot, but when I've had the same information in writing and have been going over it on my own, it's been so much clearer.

Therapy worked wonders with understanding what my strengths are. However, it's been even bigger relief to understand that I'm autistic and how it has affected my life. It explains so much.

#ActuallyAutistic @actuallyautistic

LehtoriTuomo, 28 days ago to actuallyautistic

Yesterday I was wearing sunglasses when I went to the city centre as it was sunny. Oh my, what a difference it made to the sensory overdrive. As I mentioned earlier, I like to watch around but had finally noticed that I keep grounding myself by looking at ground due to all the visual input. Sunglasses took the edge off and it was way easier to look at things.

#ActuallyAutistic @actuallyautistic

LehtoriTuomo, 1 month ago to actuallyautistic Finnish

My previous actually autistic posts gave me some excellent answers and furthered my processing a lot. Thanks to everyone involved! 💜

I self-diagnosed very late. Some big reasons have been a) not having certain stereotypical qualities such as aversion of eye contact, and b) scoring between NT and autistic in many online tests. Interestingly, the realization that I'm autistic wasn't that big identity-wise. I've understood I have certain qualities ages ago. Instead of a change in my identity, it's been a big relief to understand why I'm this and that.

There's still lots to process though. I'm only now coming to grips with how my memory works, for instance.

Ordered two books on autism, Neurotribes and the Devon Price book. Really looking forward to reading those.

#ActuallyAutistic @actuallyautistic

LehtoriTuomo, 3 months ago to random

When I was younger, I might decide to take an earlier bus stop and walk some extra instead of having to talk with someone I know and was riding the same bus. It's not that they were bad people, I just didn't know how to talk with them. I kicked myself for this: why can't I be a normal person?

Now that I've understood I'm autistic, I can cut myself some slack. It's perfectly ok to walk extra to avoid talking with someone. It makes it easier for my mental health.

#ActuallyAutistic

LehtoriTuomo, 1 month ago to actuallyautistic

Sitting in the bus after a day at work. Feeling tired. The meeting that ended the day dragged on and I stopped even trying to follow the discussion. I haven't listened to music in a bus in ages but now I find myself thinking that maybe I should buy a set of noise-canceling headphones.

The bus is hissing loudly, there are conversations that I can't hear which somehow makes them even more annoying. On top of all I'm sitting under a loudspeaker that plays the stop signal in a very loud tone. Shit, it rang again and startled me. Why does it have to be that loud?

Fortunately I'm not too far from home but still.

#ActuallyAutistic @actuallyautistic

LehtoriTuomo, 22 days ago to actuallyautistic

"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.

#ActuallyAutistic @actuallyautistic

LehtoriTuomo, 30 days ago to actuallyautistic

Yay, got some new books!

#ActuallyAutistic @actuallyautistic

LehtoriTuomo, 15 days ago to actuallyautistic

Took a bunch of autism-related online tests, some of which I've also taken in the past. While I previously didn't score "high enough", now several tests said that I have autistic characteristics and am likely somewhere in the spectrum. Huh.

When answering questions, I noticed some places where I would've answered differently earlier. Now that I've been on the self-discovery journey, it seems I've come to understand many things I wasn't aware of earlier. Very interesting.

#ActuallyAutistic @actuallyautistic

LehtoriTuomo, 1 month ago to actuallyautistic

Regarding childish things. I just changed my phone theme and fell in love with this cute theme. For some context, I'm approaching 50, have long hair and beard, often wear band shirts.

#ActuallyAutistic @actuallyautistic

LehtoriTuomo, 27 days ago to actuallyautistic

Went to a bar with a visiting scholar. The first three hours or so were fun. We had good food and nice whisky. Colleague was chatty and I enjoyed listening.

Then loud drunk people came in. I noticed I had hard time following my colleague's talk. The drunk people started to get on my nerves. I was also very conscious of my pinkish nails. Now that I've paid more attention to my bodily reactions, I noticed how anxious the change of the atmosphere made me.

Fortunately I had already checked my bus schedule and the colleague had said that I can just let him know whenever I have to leave. I said that it's getting loud, then explained I'm autistic and have auditory processing problems and that there would be a bus in 15 minutes. He said that we can leave right away. 💜 Once outside, it felt better again.

The older I get, the less I enjoy noisy bars. Or should I say the less I tolerate them. Never really liked them.

#ActuallyAutistic @actuallyautistic

LehtoriTuomo, 23 days ago to actuallyautistic

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.

#ActuallyAutistic #UnmaskingAutism @actuallyautistic

LehtoriTuomo, 24 days ago to actuallyautistic

I'm currently reading Unmasking Autism by Devon Price and it's super interesting. It surely resonates and I recognize myself in many places.

Reading about "female autism" -- which Price criticizes as a label -- was a real eye opener. I too am a very sensitive and likable person who adjusts to new situations quickly.

For instance, I've noticed ages ago that I take cues from the situation, mirror verbal and nonverbal expressions and mannerisms. I might not give much of my real self if the situation doesn't feel safe. It often doesn't. Plus I'm introverted so there's that.

Another example. When writing to others, I tone my reply to fit the recipient or forum. I've loved using emojis but if the recipient doesn't use them, I haven't used them either.

And now I read this is masking. Mind blown.

#ActuallyAutistic @actuallyautistic

LehtoriTuomo, 23 days ago to actuallyautistic

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.

#ActuallyAutistic @actuallyautistic

LehtoriTuomo, 1 month ago to actuallyautistic

Only very lately, I've started to understand how loud sounds affect me. It's a strange combination of self-controlled loud music (yes, please) and uncontrollable, sometimes sudden, loud sounds making me very tense. I mentioned a loud stop signal in a bus yesterday.

The tensest I get is when our dog, who just turned one, starts to whine at the end of a car ride. We try to teach her that she needs to be quiet in order to get out. When she's agitated it might take a while. It's loud and I feel empathetic and get very tense. I can feel it everywhere in my body. Another example is when she repeatedly barks in a small space, such as our sauna cabin by the summer cottage. It might reverbarate in the structures, and my head.

Another type of sound that gets to me is the sound of brushing. It's physically uncomfortable, has always been. The worst is when a tractor is brushing gravel off the road after the winter. Almost makes me shudder to think about it. Always wondered why it's so uncomfortable. Now with self-diagnosed autism I get it.

#ActuallyAutistic @actuallyautistic