Thought. I have always run warm. I do feel the cold, but not as much as most people. I hate (detest?) overheated department stores. This got worse with the onset of perimenopause, & I was unable to wear jumpers for years, because I couldn’t get them off quickly enough during hot flushes, which threatened spontaneous combustion. This settled somewhat after finally going on HRT.
I’ve noticed a change since going on ADHD meds. I now wear winter pjs on a “cool” summers night, & a nightie on warmer ones & am more likely to don a jacket of an evening.
@LordCaramac@olena@actuallyautistic
I was a "bottomless pit" as a kid, but thought nothing of it because I was so tall, and while I definitely wasn't sporty, I was fairly active.
And after childbirth, I returned to my pre-pregnancy weight very quickly (which made me the cause of envy), and struggled (and failed) to maintain a good weight while breastfeeding. I made drinks with soy milk, an egg, banana, some oats, honey, and protein powder in an effort to not fade away. The same thing happened the second time around, but it was less pronounced.
I no longer experience hunger, just feel irritable or a bit sick if I haven’t eaten enough, & am less likely to snack for pleasure or eat too large a meal when on ADHD meds (which has actually been a good thing, but I need to watch that I do eat lunch.)
In short, I think the interplay between ADHD, temperature regulation & metabolism definitely needs a look!
I spoke online to my English language student today. She took her 3yo to a kinder session & spent some time talking to other mothers, which was challenging . So I need to teach her some more English small talk language. Me. An autistic person. 😂 Ironic. @actuallyautistic
@Susan60@actuallyautistic All she needs to know is how to talk about the weather 😄 I found toddler groups such a challenge. I wanted proper conversation so everyone else found me intense - story of my life! I don't think I understood at that point that regular women in their 30s who were married with kids could be #actuallyautistic I'd fallen for the stereotype, plus the only autistic person I knew was a very troubled 11yr old.
I've had some lovely if rare random conversations with people in shops etc, some when I was working in retail. But sometimes it turns out that while we have similar interests, we have very different opinions. Was having a lovely random chat with a woman after one of our many Melbourne lockdowns, and we said something about how the then prime minister Morrison was managing things. At the exact same time she said something like, "I think he's a good man at heart", while I said, "I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him", and we both stood there stunned, looking at each other. Quite a hoot really!
I was an avid reader of fiction when I was a child. Novels about challenging issues or strange fantasy worlds. In many ways reading was an escape to a safe place, but those books were also places where I could learn about how “people” worked. How they thought, felt & behaved. The diversity in those things.
I loved The Little Princess and The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett, because they were about children who were different & how they coped. I loved The Chronicles of Narnia because, although quite dated now, the girls had real adventures alongside their brothers. There was a series of books about witches, good & bad, which I loved but can’t remember the titles or author.
I loved Ivan Southall’s books, where tweens & teens faced dangers, often without the support of adults. (Marsden’s Tomorrow when the War Began is reminiscent of Southall.)
And as an adult, I still like youth & YA fiction, probably for the same reason, because I’m still learning how humans work. I also like adult fiction, but the naivety of youth fiction appeals.
And TBO, I read much more non-fiction than fiction nowadays. Obviously there’s the Autism & ADHD stuff that is currently dominating my reading, but also social commentaries of all sorts, by feminists, sociologists, etc.
@Fizzfizzpopop@actuallyautistic
I started reading the Narnia books to my oldest when they were 4. If I was having a bath, they’d drag a chair down to the bathroom & bring the book so I could read to them. They’ve just published the final volume of their portal fantasy trilogy.
Question. Some dogs can tell if a person has cancer, presumably by their smell. Does anyone think that some autistic people might be more sensitive to such changes in body chemistry? Not as much as a dog, but more than most other people? @actuallyautistic#ActuallyAutistic
@earthmothering9@Dr_Obvious@independentpen@homelessjun@actuallyautistic 😁I don’t like umbrellas, but raincoats make me too hot. I get into a habit of carrying one for a while, then get tired of it, then get caught out. And there’s been some summers where I’ve gone without a jacket for months, but they’re unusual.
I can sometimes be slow to notice the elephant in the room & the eggshells on the floor (the problem that everyone carefully denies and manages so as not to upset anyone), but once I do notice, I want to confront and solve it.
The problem in this instance is my MIL’s insistence that she & FIL continue to live in a house too large to manage on an acre of rambling garden in an isolated location at the top of a narrow windy road.
Of course solving such a thing is not always possible, & if I’m not the main person affected, the person doing their best to support & manage the situation, it’s not my problem. Attempting to solve it might just make the situation worse for that person & leave others feeling judged & hurt.
That’s the key word, balance. ATM, with BIL willing to do so much support with our moral support & financial contributions where necessary from overseas, the situation seems to be in balance. But any injury, the loss of a driver’s licence or the death of one of them, would throw that balance out.
I have a good friend who spent about five years traveling to her parents place 90 miles from here four or five days a week to try to keep them aging in place. They loved where they lived! Loss of it would mean loss of identity, as you mentioned.
Then, both of them had health problems and took a turn for the worse. I don't know if staying there was better or if moving them would've been better. It's a tough call.
I was going to post this as a response to someone else’s post, but realised it wasn’t really relevant to their point.
Years ago, when doing my teacher training, we had a guest speaker come & talk to us about our role as teacher when dealing with sexual diversity etc. He was a very conventional looking young white man.
It was a seminar type presentation, with discussion along the way. As time went on, he slowly removed his “straight” mask, to show how many students can & do present as heteronormative until if & when they’re ready to come out.
I wonder how this would work for autistic advocates who can mask effectively, in small group presentations? Masking as in making eye contact, smiling, a self effacing introduction etc. And then, “This is how I can present when I feel the need. This is how I present when I feel safe or give up caring.” Followed by an explanation of the impact that masking has, the fact that many autistic people can’t mask, the fact that we shouldn’t need to mask etc as well as general autism education.
Of course this shouldn’t be necessary & it wouldn’t be in an ideal world.
We could make comparisons with women who have to play by the men’s rules in business & politics, the people of colour &/or members of other different ethnic/religious groups who try to “assimilate” to get ahead, & how many struggle to do so, feel like traitors to themselves & their peers, get sick of &/or struggle with pretending to be someone other than they really are. Masking autism is not the same, & this would need to be explained, but I think many people would relate to some of the similarities & the feelings involved.
There will always be some people who refuse to learn, who insist on a negative approach as part of their strategy to prop up their own ego. And it’s not them whom I would bother trying to convince. It’s the more reasonable but ignorant people who are open to learning that I think would be worth targeting.
@Susan60@actuallyautistic I have been masking so long, and have stopped so recently, that I think it'll be very difficult for me to act out the transition between the two. I do think it could be a good idea, but am a little skeptical about how a neurotypical audience would react.
That’s why I love this place. We can all express stuff & what we read can spark off epiphanies. I often find myself jutting down notes on my phone or in a notebook.
I’m so glad you found this helpful. Given the way autistic people were often treated back then, I’m glad that I went undiagnosed & learned how to mask. Obviously my traits were such that this wasn’t as awful an outcome as it has been for some. But when had to step up & take charge after my parents’ deaths, I was able to do so. Yes, I burnt out, & suffered depression, but I got through.
I think my own mother was probably AuADHD and while I sometimes found her hard or distant, I also have precious memories of tenderness & empathy when I was sick, surprisingly gauche humour (she could be a bit of a snob) & in depth analytical discussions in response to articles in the Saturday paper.
I’m always aware when I write that there are others for whom the journey has been harder and more painful, leaving deeper & more tender scars. But surely it’s a good thing to recognise & acknowledge the good experiences we’ve had?
When I started investigating the possibility of being ND in some way, I’d come across “oh look, there’s a unicorn”, which I dismissed as plain silly. In my mind, the things that I took notice of were worthy of my attention, not mere “distractions”. And my “special interests” were deeply intellectual & relevant to my situation at the time. Social justice issues for example.
So I didn’t fit the rather shallow ways in which AFHD & autism are often portrayed, as if it’s merely about being distracted by unicorns & fascinated with dinosaurs.
I didn’t delete it! At least, not deliberately. I don’t know where it went.
“Giftedness” wasn’t a thing when I was at school. I was one of the youngest in my cohort, with no pre-school experience. My social skills & physical coordination were poor but I had excellent language skills & was a strong student.
My interest in school flagged a little in high school, both because I was furiously masking & trying to be cool, & because much of the curriculum content & teaching failed to engage me. (Not all. There are great teachers in all schools, & I still did quite well.)
Both of my kids were offered participation in extracurricular gifted programs. One turned it down & the other withdrew because it was “boring”. (It was a fiction writing group. They basically sat & wrote. Why write in a classroom full of strangers when you could sit in a tree & write at home? Now a self published author.)
I think “giftedness” & programs for supposedly gifted kids are often a farce. Too often the kids in them are simply bright students who work hard, sometimes because of parental pressure. Meanwhile the brightest kids, ND or not, are busy masking or are distracted from their studies by ADHD, sometimes earning a “troublemaker” label. (NT kids masking their academic prowess to fit in with peers.)
I did bits of various IQ & other tests at uni when studying psych. All such tests are problematic for a range of reasons. Autistic people apparently perform poorly in some sections even when clearly “gifted”, & are much more likely to be argumentative about the logic & wording of questions. 😂
While I’ve probably seen the episode, I don’t remember it. I’m not afraid of the label, just the potential reactions of my awfully ignorant peers in their 60s. “Rainman” was the peak of their autism education.
For many years I have been conscious of frequently swapping from normal glasses to prescription sunglasses & back again… much more than most people. Someone said something recently about their own sensitivity to light & the need to wear really dark glasses a lot of the time. I’m not so much really sensitive to light, as liking a very narrow range of light, not too bright, not too dark. But both, I’m guessing, are indications of light sensitivity experienced by autistic folk. Who knew? @actuallyautistic#actuallyautistic
@Carex@actuallyautistic The sun is strong in Australia & I’ve had 1 skin cancer removed, & my partner is balding & always wears a hat, which reminds me.
If you want a truly decadent bread & butter pudding, use a panettone with sultanas & orange peel in it as the bread, with some melted butter, eggs & milk. Serve with pure cream. Not my fault, partner creation.
Last night I listened to a podcast on Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, https://www.divergentpod.com/blog/ep-29
. It’s is common amongst ADHDers, & therefore some autistic folk. And I realise that it’s probably been the main influence in my life, the motivator for my masking, the cause of my fawning response that has sometimes made me vulnerable & often made me squirm, & the source of so much grief & anxiety.
I’ve learned some strategies over the years to help me, both to establish better boundaries & to be more rational in my thinking & less reactive, but have also been led to blame other people for my insecurity, rather than see it as a product of my ADHD (which hadn’t been diagnosed). And guess who was at fault? My parents of course, mainly my mother.
I have no doubt that my mother was AuADHD like me. She had her flaws, but was smart, witty, funny & had a good set of values. She was a bit of a snob, aspirational, but not a victim blamer. Her own health issues arose when she still had one child in primary school, and she died at 45, so she didn’t get the chance to do, learn & reflect as I have over my longer life, (& I’m not done yet!)
But I know her values from so many discussions about newspaper articles & Phillip Adams’ column in the Saturday Age. She, like many of her generation, was still shocked by the enormity & depravity of the Holocaust, even though she was only a child during the war. She judged the German people harshly, but could be very warm with individuals of any background. She befriended a Czech refugee family. She admired Don Dunstan, supported drag queens, loved filling in for a friend who worked for a gay intererior designer in his shop…
I wonder what she would have thought when my sister came out as lesbian, & my oldest as non-binary?
And I wonder how she might’ve responded when I started to explore my own neurodivergence?
Just saw an interesting post by someone missing the simplicity of their childhood. I know that most people wear rose coloured glasses when they’re feeling nostalgic, but I wonder how many autistic people read such posts & think, “No way!”?
I had lots of fun & interesting times during my childhood & adolescence, but there was also so much complexity, confusion & distress. Learning to mask made it easier. I could at least pretend to understand what was going on & therefore attract less negative attention. @actuallyautistic
I was watching a colleague teach using Inspiration. My brain exploded. And it’s bottom up. You’re starting with all the details then linking them together to see the big picture.
Such a long day’s travel yesterday, winding up with a family dinner, when all I wanted was to unpack, shower & go to bed. Managed to excuse myself from the conversation to do just that. Yay me! @actuallyautistic
@Susan60@actuallyautistic the weird thing was, I think, that voicemail was activated by default at my last provider and one had to call them to deactivate it! Absolutely unbelievable! My new provider had the option to deactivate it oneself!
Okay, challenge. I can play basic computer games like Tetris for ages, but give me an audio only pod cast, & my mind wanders off. I’m about to listen to another Newsreader podcast, which I love, but it’s a struggle. Any hints? #ActuallyAutistic@actuallyautistic
@Susan60@actuallyautistic as others have said, I listen to audio books and podcasts while doing something else. I've always done this with TV and film too. It's one of the reasons I don't like going to the cinema; my mind drifts.
I crochet, game, do chores, cook...
I used to be able to listen to something, take notes, and read something else. Can't keep that pace up anymore, but it was useful at uni!
How do you “curate” your feed? I follow most followers, but that can result in quite a lot of stuff that doesn’t interest me, or an excess of US politics which does interest me, but only up to a point.
OTOH I don’t like to block or mute someone unless I find their posts offensive or hugely irrelevant to my interests. I have created a favourites list, but laziness means I’m sometimes slow to add people to that list, aggravated by the fact that I don’t bother to look at my “home” feed very often.
I love being on a platform that is free of algorithms, but there are drawbacks. At this point I must confess that I’m pretty slack about using hashtags. And I’m not into digitech. I use it to communicate, learn etc, but I like it to be intuitive & not require me to think too much about the mechanics involved.
@Susan60 I followed everyone interesting until I'd got to about 1000, then I eased back. Now I just follow people whose output interest me, and I unfollow the original ones occasionally. I block much more easily here than I did at Twitter. No time for nonsense.
Also, I follow a number of hashtags. One of the best features of Mastodon IMO.