Seriously though, it sounds like you would have been a pretty standard case if not for your Mom monitoring your behavior and making sure you learned to deal with them before they grew worse and became life-obstructing.
That seems pretty good on her, really.
YES.
And you're completely right. Honestly, I am so incredibly lucky that my mom raised me and not somebody else. She put so much effort into helping me function in society, I don't think I would have been able to function as an independent adult if it wasn't for her. (I've told her this and how appreciative I am.) And she is still ridiculously patient with me.
Like, I get the whole mindset, of "oh just let autistic people do what makes them happy and don't push them to deal with stuff that makes them uncomfortable because it's really really miserable," but seriously- my life is way, way better than it would have been if my mom hadn't worked so hard on me. She has her faults, like everybody does, but she is a fantastic parent and I wish more kids had moms like her.
Like, I get the whole mindset, of "oh just let autistic people do what makes them happy and don't push them to deal with stuff that makes them uncomfortable because it's really really miserable," but seriously- my life is way, way better than it would have been if my mom hadn't worked so hard on me.
Well see, if it's coming from someone who really doesn't understand how to interact with someone who is AS, then "keep your distance and take it easy on them" is probably a pretty okay approach, at least until such a time that they have a better idea on what they're dealing with.
Again, sensory hypersensitivity is a very nonspecific marker for autism. Other psychological disorders, such as anxiety and depression, are associated with it, as are various endocrine and rheumatologic disorders. In addition, it is also prevalent in people who do not qualify for any major disorder.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I realize that. The sensory issues just one reason why I tend to think I *might* be on-spectrum.
There's the really, really bad social skills I used to have. (Talking for excessive amounts of time without making eye contact or staying in the same room as the person I was talking to. Or alternatively making so much eye contact it was creepy.) The jumping/bouncing uncontrollably when I get excited and picking at my nails when I'm nervous. (I also used to bang the kitchen cabinets over and over and over again until my parents put special locks on them.) And the way I get completely obsessed with things I like to the point where it can take over my life. (I was obsessed with dogs. I asked everybody I met if they had a dog. I asked to pet every dog I saw. I had a million toy dogs. I made my parents take me to dog shows. I made my parents tape dog shows so I could watch them over and over again. I pretended to be a dog, sometimes when it wasn't a socially acceptable time to do that. Then my parents got me a parakeet. You can probably tell what happened next, based on my avatar.)
The thing is, though, my mom trained most of that stuff out of me or at least taught me how to mask it as just a little "quirk." So if you talked to me in person, I'd seem normal, just really picky about things. Because the sensory issues are the only really, visible, present autism-like trait I have at the moment. And having sensory issues doesn't make a person autistic.
But you know what? I don't *seem* like I'm dyslexic. My writing is organized and largely error free. I read faster than most people. I come across as pretty academically intelligent. I mean, sure I'm horrible with directions. But being bad at directions isn't a sign of having dyslexia.
I don't seem like I have a learning disability because I've spent almost two decades working to make sure my learning issues don't negatively affect my life. I've been through tutoring, special education, I use about a million coping mechanisms to mask my deficiencies, and I don't read anything out loud if I can help it. So now, bad directional skills are the only problem that is visible to the people around me. That doesn't mean I'm not dyslexic, though.
I'm honestly not sure whether I've ever been formally diagnosed.
My early childhood shows indications. I had a spoken vocabulary of about twenty single syllable words until I was about three. I seemed to be able to understand other people, so doctors wrote me off as just shy. At about three and a half, I started talking about Ankylosauruses and Parasaurolophuses. My family discovered that if we were talking about dinosaurs, I was able to speak in complete sentences, and the problem was getting me to shut up. But I wouldn't make eye contact with people, I never wanted to cuddle, never said hello and rarely said goodbye, and never really tried to make friends with other kids, etc. It was all put down as shyness by paediatricians. I was always clumsy. I got a bike at age five but couldn't ride it without training wheels until I was seven. When my parents pushed me into sports, my lack of coordination really stood out. I was and remain strong but very awkward.
When I was about eleven, back in 1992-1993, I started going to a child psychologist. Those conversations were super painful, but she systematically made me aware of the things that I was doing that seemed odd to people. Lack of eye contact. Never adjusting my posture in conversations, keeping my back straight at all times. The way a conversation for me was me info dumping on people and then considering the conversation over, with no back and forth between me and the other person. The way I needed to lower my volume, because my natural speaking voice didn't take circumstances into account much. The way I never said hello to people - I argued that with her on that, on the position of 'if they already see me and know I'm there, why do I need to say anything?' The need to avoid using repedative movements. The way I needed to hide the fact that someone touching me really, really bothered me. The doctor explained to me that I had a way of making statements that seemed to come out of the blue; they made perfect sense to me, but I learned how I needed to break them down, and set up groundwork and context for the point I was going to make. At the same time, I also had a tendency to take the scenic route in getting to a point - I might think that something was relevant to a situation, but other people wouldn't see the connection. That really frustrated me - if I explained it, it was weird, and if I didn't explain it, that was weird too. My eleven year old self thought that was just stupid.
But: those sessions helped a lot. I made friends, I became much better able to act normal, even if it's still in a very learned way, rather than a natural way. You know how in movies or TV you sometimes see a machine or alien watch humans and then try to replicate their behavior? That's how I still feel most of the time. By late 1993, I was able to stop going to the psychologist. The next year, I found out about Asperger's when the psychologist sent my parents what amounted to an information packet on Asperger's. A letter with it basically said "new standards have come out, I read this and immediately thought of your son." There was no prompt to return unless my parents thought that I was backsliding, and I was never formally evaluated for Asperger's. The way that my family and I have looked at it over the years has been along the lines that since there were no pharmisuitical treatments that it didn't really matter what I had, what mattered was how I dealt with it.
It's been twenty-three years or so since I first saw the psycologist. All of the underlying conditions are still there. I still find eye contact difficult. I need to remain aware of when I'm info dumping. I still need to work hard to emulate the rules of social interaction. People touching me, for any reason, really bothers me. As an adult, I wear plain black cotton t-shirts, black dress pants, dark blue jeans, and loose fitting cotton dress shirts of various colors. All of my socks are of the same brand, and they're all black. I still can't figure out what people are feeling by looking at their faces most of the time. If my daily routine or plans get thrown off I feel really uncomfortable and miserable - part of the reason I almost never take sick days at work is because I'm more comfortable being sick and following my routine than I am feeling sick and breaking my routine.
In some ways, I've found ways of channeling my tendencies. For example, I obsessed about castles and fortifications, but only in learning their names and where they were. Now, learning about their history, learning about why they were built the way they were, learning how people lived in them, and taking vacations to go visit them has become a thing for me. It turns out that my natural speaking voice and ability to confidently info dump work really well when I'm speaking to large groups. Since I still can't read people effectively, I'll frequently ask if anyone has any questions, and that works out really well. An interest in sports stats (despite being basically unable to sit through and watch a game in any sport) helps me in fantasy sports. I've been able to find work that involves noticing breaks from patterns and that benefits greatly from being able to memorize hundreds of small units of data.
I'm confortable with being who I am.
Shadowhope on
Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
As long as you're honestly comfortable with yourself, and you're doing okay with your friends and loved ones and coworkers, I suppose there's not much to worry about.
Heh, @Creagan I still do stuff like that sometimes, but I learned to compensate.
Example: If I'm listening to someone but I wish to leave the room for whatever reason, I'll just go "I'm still listening!" while walking into another room, so it doesn't seem like I'm suddenly brushing them off.
I would actually be speaking, to the other person, while walking away from them. My best friend used to do the same thing. Or, she'd keep talking after you said, "Hey, *friend*, I have go go upstairs for a second."
That one was fixed fairly quickly, though. My mom just kept reminding me that she can't hear people talk to her unless they're in the same room and facing her. (She's got some hearing loss.) Eventually I caught on.
I would actually be speaking, to the other person, while walking away from them. My best friend used to do the same thing. Or, she'd keep talking after you said, "Hey, *friend*, I have go go upstairs for a second."
That one was fixed fairly quickly, though. My mom just kept reminding me that she can't hear people talk to her unless they're in the same room and facing her. (She's got some hearing loss.) Eventually I caught on.
I have no problems listening to people while not actually facing them, which is sometimes interpreted as me ignoring them. I have occasional situations where I have to explain that I'm still paying attention even though I'm facing away and working on the computer.
What is it with people and standing behind me to talk so I have to turn 180 degrees?
you haven't lived until your brain goes into shutdown after getting the mail
and then not opening those envelopes for days, even weeks, out of anxiety over dealing with their contents
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Just hearing you say these things brings to mind a couple of scenes from the film, where Max has near meltdowns when reading Mary's letters, among other things.
I've mentioned it already in this thread, but I can't help but bring it up when it feels appropriate.
I have a fellow autistic friend that I often have discussions with about personal experiences. It's pretty great actually.
Yesterday he sent me a link to a post he found on Reddit. I know, I know, but there's good stuff to be found everywhere. It was a pretty interesting personal description of the working of this poster's mind during a social outing. It's not the easiest read, so rather than share it outright I had the idea write a piece, using extracts from the post and comparing his experience to my own.
I think it turned out pretty good. It's interesting to compare how autism effects people at different points on the spectrum. I'll probably end up doing more stuff like this in the future.
I have a fellow autistic friend that I often have discussions with about personal experiences. It's pretty great actually.
Yesterday he sent me a link to a post he found on Reddit. I know, I know, but there's good stuff to be found everywhere. It was a pretty interesting personal description of the working of this poster's mind during a social outing. It's not the easiest read, so rather than share it outright I had the idea write a piece, using extracts from the post and comparing his experience to my own.
I think it turned out pretty good. It's interesting to compare how autism effects people at different points on the spectrum. I'll probably end up doing more stuff like this in the future.
During a recent business trip, my coworkers invited me out to a bar. I agreed, because I felt it was probably the socially appropriate thing to do. But the change of plans was very off-putting, the bar environment was loud and filled with people in close proximity, and any patience for either was exhausted during a banquet earlier that evening. I spent the next forty-five minutes with my back to the wall, counting down the seconds until I felt that it was going to be probably ok to leave.
Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
and I wonder about my neighbors even though I don't have them
but they're listening to every word I say
+1
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Captain Marcusnow arrives the hour of actionRegistered Userregular
Apparently April is "Autism Awareness Month", along with being "Cupcake Month" or "Reye's Syndrome Month" or whatever. Happy month, thread.
A writer at the Washington Post takes a very dim view of this, and I'd have to agree. "Awareness" doesn't do crap and like she said it's a way for an organization to promote itself- see how Susan G. Komen slaps pink ribbons on everything and funds bonuses instead of cancer research.
Although that "half of babies born in 2025 will be autistic" statement might be uh, a just a tad on the hyperbolic side. Just a tad.
Wow, "autism shouldn't be celebrated, it should be treated as a global crisis" is pretty fucked up. Minus the fact that she wants money for support rather than eradication, she sounds like she falls right in line with autism speaks' ideology of autism as a burden on neurotypicals
+16
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Captain Marcusnow arrives the hour of actionRegistered Userregular
I got the impression that she was talking about the poor people on the far end of the spectrum, like her daughters. Having to care for people who can't feed or bathe themselves definitely is a burden, whether they're the elderly with dementia or young people with severe autism or mental disabilities. This sort of thing obviously doesn't apply to people on the shallower end of the pool, but for those on the deep end I can see it being a crisis.
Having to care for people who can't feed or bathe themselves definitely is a burden
you and I hella disagree on this point. human beings aren't 'burdens' no matter how 'functional' or independent they are
why am I not shocked to follow the links in the header and find she is a managing editor of a site that is anti-vaccine and believes mercury is a contributing factor to autism
like ugh jesus I'm sorry I'm seriously so mad right now, the way she describes her children, the way she talks about them, the fact that she thinks that they weren't born with autism but it was caused by some outside factor, that she hates acceptance and awareness campaigns, that she wishes there was a cure so that she could see her "real child" underneath the autism, there is no 'real child' underneath the autism jesus christ
like sometimes it is possible for me to forget, because even with my neurodiversity I can live on my own, I can mostly function independently, even if I suck at it sometimes, that there are legit people who think the world would be better off if neuroatypical people just didn't exist because they can never live "independently", because sometimes they're incontinent or they're non-verbal, how about a post from one of the people I'm friends with who is occasionally non-verbal and has been institutionalized before and has had incontinence issues in the past, someone who has been told that their family would be better off without the 'burden' of their existence by both their family and their medical professionals, who was told that they would never live outside of a care facility
"Hmm. Very bad executive functioning day today. Bad enough to be one of those “this is why I can’t live by myself” style days. All of which I’m okay with; it happens. Took forever to feed cats and put on some food for lunch. The latter of which I would not have done if I didn’t have BF here (sleeping, but quickly wake-able if I need help).
Not to say I don’t still get very frustrated by it sometimes, but today? I’m feeling pretty cool with it. And I just like to sort of mention this online sometimes as a reminder that I’m an autistic adult, I can’t “live independently” or drive a car, and you know what? I’m financially supporting myself and my physically disabled BF and we’re like, alive. I have work and hobbies and relationships, and my clothes still don’t have small buttons or itchy tags, and I still have lots of trouble with some/a lot of stuff but it’s fine.
And I say all this because I know that ten years ago I literally couldn’t envision what someone with my disabilities would be/live like at my current age, because I had nothing to go on and a lot working against me. So, just saying, if you’re overwhelmed by the specter of impending or current autistic adulthood, hey, I’m doing it, we’re doing it. Achievement Unlocked. "
Having to care for people who can't feed or bathe themselves definitely is a burden
you and I hella disagree on this point. human beings aren't 'burdens' no matter how 'functional' or independent they are
why am I not shocked to follow the links in the header and find she is a managing editor of a site that is anti-vaccine and believes mercury is a contributing factor to autism
I would actually argue that everybody is a burden in some respect. Like, I was something of a burden as a child because I struggled with reading and needed extra time and money poured into my education. But at the same time, living in a world where you need to read if you want to earn a living was an enourmous burden on me. I had to work three times as hard as everybody else to have a chance at living as an independant adult, and that had a psycological impact.
The important thing is that we need to work together to relieve the collective burden of our individual existances.
Having to care for people who can't feed or bathe themselves definitely is a burden
you and I hella disagree on this point. human beings aren't 'burdens' no matter how 'functional' or independent they are
why am I not shocked to follow the links in the header and find she is a managing editor of a site that is anti-vaccine and believes mercury is a contributing factor to autism
I would actually argue that everybody is a burden in some respect. Like, I was something of a burden as a child because I struggled with reading and needed extra time and money poured into my education. But at the same time, living in a world where you need to read if you want to earn a living was an enourmous burden on me. I had to work three times as hard as everybody else to have a chance at living as an independant adult, and that had a psycological impact.
The important thing is that we need to work together to relieve the collective burden of our individual existances.
Yeah I don't really think of that as "burden," I think of that as sort of the collective existence of humanity and society. Sometimes people need more and sometimes people need less and in the end it should all, in theory, balance out. Except that there's an awful lot of people who believe 'fuck you, I got mine, if you would just act NORMAL' and well there we are on that
but I don't fundamentally disagree with what you're saying, just the word burden I do not care for, etc etc etc blah blah blah
Having to care for people who can't feed or bathe themselves definitely is a burden
you and I hella disagree on this point. human beings aren't 'burdens' no matter how 'functional' or independent they are
why am I not shocked to follow the links in the header and find she is a managing editor of a site that is anti-vaccine and believes mercury is a contributing factor to autism
I would actually argue that everybody is a burden in some respect. Like, I was something of a burden as a child because I struggled with reading and needed extra time and money poured into my education. But at the same time, living in a world where you need to read if you want to earn a living was an enourmous burden on me. I had to work three times as hard as everybody else to have a chance at living as an independant adult, and that had a psycological impact.
The important thing is that we need to work together to relieve the collective burden of our individual existances.
Yeah I don't really think of that as "burden," I think of that as sort of the collective existence of humanity and society. Sometimes people need more and sometimes people need less and in the end it should all, in theory, balance out. Except that there's an awful lot of people who believe 'fuck you, I got mine, if you would just act NORMAL' and well there we are on that
but I don't fundamentally disagree with what you're saying, just the word burden I do not care for, etc etc etc blah blah blah
Yeah, the word isn't that great, but I think it's really important to recognize how taxing it is for people to deal with different things. Burden sums it up nicely in one word, which is important to me because I recieve a lot of pressure acedemically (and from my dad and sister) to be concise.
Also, fun fact: this is what my writing looks like au-natural, without a spell check fixing everything for me. (I won't have computer access until late Saturday and have been relying on my spell-check-less phone since Monday.) I'm using words I'm more familiar with/can spell phonetically to cover as best I can in the meantime, (like I wanted to use sucsinct instead of concise, but I CLEARLY can't spell the first.)
you and I hella disagree on this point. human beings aren't 'burdens' no matter how 'functional' or independent they are
I'll agree to disagree, then; I've been a big believer in genetic counseling since my 5th grade class volunteered in the special needs classroom twice a month. Seeing kids capable of only sitting in a chair and drooling was well, scarring. You've always seemed like a kinder person than I.
why am I not shocked to follow the links in the header and find she is a managing editor of a site that is anti-vaccine and believes mercury is a contributing factor to autism
Oh wowsers she is a terrible person hands-down then. Maybe mercury is a factor (it's certainly not good for you) but there sure as hell isn't any mercury in vaccines.
you and I hella disagree on this point. human beings aren't 'burdens' no matter how 'functional' or independent they are
I'll agree to disagree, then; I've been a big believer in genetic counseling since my 5th grade class volunteered in the special needs classroom twice a month. Seeing kids capable of only sitting in a chair and drooling was well, scarring. You've always seemed like a kinder person than I.
why am I not shocked to follow the links in the header and find she is a managing editor of a site that is anti-vaccine and believes mercury is a contributing factor to autism
Oh wowsers she is a terrible person hands-down then. Maybe mercury is a factor (it's certainly not good for you) but there sure as hell isn't any mercury in vaccines.
well when you say it THAT way it's hard to be mad at you
but yeah, I dunno. you can't read their mind, you don't know what's up in there, you don't know! so I can't say, you know, society would be better off without people who are at all different levels of function and capability. I mean if we didn't have such awesome assistive tech and he weren't like, super rich enough to afford it, society would all think stephen hawking would be better off poofin out of existence. how many kids and adults are out there that are just as fuckin awesome, but their family is too poor or too uninformed or too who knows what, mercury in vaccines causes autism, to look into assistive technology to allow those people to express themselves. how many people just aren't lucky enough to get enough assistance to let them live good lives? I'd rather focus on making sure that assistance and resources are available to everyone who needs them than work on trying to test and 'cure' and selectively abort people who need resources out of existing in the first place
but I mean, that's kinda why I'm doing the whole social work thing, despite being god awful at reading emotions on faces which is a factor I think about kinda regularly
buuuut I also don't mean to imply that people are only worth how awesome/creative/smart/funny/whatever they are, everybody deserves a good life and good resources and to be happy
Wow, "autism shouldn't be celebrated, it should be treated as a global crisis" is pretty fucked up. Minus the fact that she wants money for support rather than eradication, she sounds like she falls right in line with autism speaks' ideology of autism as a burden on neurotypicals
Sounds like Autism Speaks, who "speaks" for autistic people yet don't have any actual autistic people on a decision-making level.
I would like money to help sort out my sorry existence
Like, hey, right now I am bed ridden for the day because I make a social mistake earlier
So, really, fuck anyone using it as a platform for whatever shit runs through their brain
Ugh. God, I know this feeling.
Realizing I said the wrong thing somewhere, and just getting that sinking feeling in my chest, and suddenly everything just kinda turns upside down and I don't wanna deal.
I kind of wish that severe autism could be 'cured', since many of them are unable to live life to their fullest. My brother is mid-level, able to live on his own, but only with constant visits from my parents and his workers, and that was with intensive therapy when he was very young. I've seen too many other autistic people who had even less resources, forced into sterile, isolated lives because they are severely affected by autism.
I totally understand why people on the high functioning end would dislike the fact that people want to 'cure' them. Kinda like the deaf community.
I totally understand why people on the high functioning end would dislike the fact that people want to 'cure' them. Kinda like the deaf community.
The deaf community is kind of crazy, though.
Deaf people have a long history of being institutionalized and eradicated. They have perfectly good reasons for not wanting to join hearing normative society.
I totally understand why people on the high functioning end would dislike the fact that people want to 'cure' them. Kinda like the deaf community.
The deaf community is kind of crazy, though.
Deaf people have a long history of being institutionalized and eradicated. They have perfectly good reasons for not wanting to join hearing normative society.
And that's fine, but denying children a cochlear implant because of deaf culture is not cool. And I know that doesn't reflect the views of all deaf people, I shouldn't have made such a general statement, but that's not the topic of the thread anyway.
I totally understand why people on the high functioning end would dislike the fact that people want to 'cure' them. Kinda like the deaf community.
The deaf community is kind of crazy, though.
Deaf people have a long history of being institutionalized and eradicated. They have perfectly good reasons for not wanting to join hearing normative society.
And that's fine, but denying children a cochlear implant because of deaf culture is not cool. And I know that doesn't reflect the views of all deaf people, I shouldn't have made such a general statement, but that's not the topic of the thread anyway.
what a vast oversimplification of a complex discussion about the validity of deaf culture and the fact that the 'norm' should be wider and more accepting rather than performing surgeries which may not work on an infant in the hopes of making sure they can be 'normal' rather than promoting more frequent usage of sign language, particularly by creating a spectre of some widespread denial of cochlear implants rather than some parents deciding that they would rather wait until their child can have informed consent about the procedure because they don't feel like their child's deafness is something terrible that needs to be 'fixed'
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YES.
And you're completely right. Honestly, I am so incredibly lucky that my mom raised me and not somebody else. She put so much effort into helping me function in society, I don't think I would have been able to function as an independent adult if it wasn't for her. (I've told her this and how appreciative I am.) And she is still ridiculously patient with me.
Like, I get the whole mindset, of "oh just let autistic people do what makes them happy and don't push them to deal with stuff that makes them uncomfortable because it's really really miserable," but seriously- my life is way, way better than it would have been if my mom hadn't worked so hard on me. She has her faults, like everybody does, but she is a fantastic parent and I wish more kids had moms like her.
Toddlers are basically putty in a lot of ways.
Well see, if it's coming from someone who really doesn't understand how to interact with someone who is AS, then "keep your distance and take it easy on them" is probably a pretty okay approach, at least until such a time that they have a better idea on what they're dealing with.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
There's the really, really bad social skills I used to have. (Talking for excessive amounts of time without making eye contact or staying in the same room as the person I was talking to. Or alternatively making so much eye contact it was creepy.) The jumping/bouncing uncontrollably when I get excited and picking at my nails when I'm nervous. (I also used to bang the kitchen cabinets over and over and over again until my parents put special locks on them.) And the way I get completely obsessed with things I like to the point where it can take over my life. (I was obsessed with dogs. I asked everybody I met if they had a dog. I asked to pet every dog I saw. I had a million toy dogs. I made my parents take me to dog shows. I made my parents tape dog shows so I could watch them over and over again. I pretended to be a dog, sometimes when it wasn't a socially acceptable time to do that. Then my parents got me a parakeet. You can probably tell what happened next, based on my avatar.)
The thing is, though, my mom trained most of that stuff out of me or at least taught me how to mask it as just a little "quirk." So if you talked to me in person, I'd seem normal, just really picky about things. Because the sensory issues are the only really, visible, present autism-like trait I have at the moment. And having sensory issues doesn't make a person autistic.
But you know what? I don't *seem* like I'm dyslexic. My writing is organized and largely error free. I read faster than most people. I come across as pretty academically intelligent. I mean, sure I'm horrible with directions. But being bad at directions isn't a sign of having dyslexia.
I don't seem like I have a learning disability because I've spent almost two decades working to make sure my learning issues don't negatively affect my life. I've been through tutoring, special education, I use about a million coping mechanisms to mask my deficiencies, and I don't read anything out loud if I can help it. So now, bad directional skills are the only problem that is visible to the people around me. That doesn't mean I'm not dyslexic, though.
My early childhood shows indications. I had a spoken vocabulary of about twenty single syllable words until I was about three. I seemed to be able to understand other people, so doctors wrote me off as just shy. At about three and a half, I started talking about Ankylosauruses and Parasaurolophuses. My family discovered that if we were talking about dinosaurs, I was able to speak in complete sentences, and the problem was getting me to shut up. But I wouldn't make eye contact with people, I never wanted to cuddle, never said hello and rarely said goodbye, and never really tried to make friends with other kids, etc. It was all put down as shyness by paediatricians. I was always clumsy. I got a bike at age five but couldn't ride it without training wheels until I was seven. When my parents pushed me into sports, my lack of coordination really stood out. I was and remain strong but very awkward.
When I was about eleven, back in 1992-1993, I started going to a child psychologist. Those conversations were super painful, but she systematically made me aware of the things that I was doing that seemed odd to people. Lack of eye contact. Never adjusting my posture in conversations, keeping my back straight at all times. The way a conversation for me was me info dumping on people and then considering the conversation over, with no back and forth between me and the other person. The way I needed to lower my volume, because my natural speaking voice didn't take circumstances into account much. The way I never said hello to people - I argued that with her on that, on the position of 'if they already see me and know I'm there, why do I need to say anything?' The need to avoid using repedative movements. The way I needed to hide the fact that someone touching me really, really bothered me. The doctor explained to me that I had a way of making statements that seemed to come out of the blue; they made perfect sense to me, but I learned how I needed to break them down, and set up groundwork and context for the point I was going to make. At the same time, I also had a tendency to take the scenic route in getting to a point - I might think that something was relevant to a situation, but other people wouldn't see the connection. That really frustrated me - if I explained it, it was weird, and if I didn't explain it, that was weird too. My eleven year old self thought that was just stupid.
But: those sessions helped a lot. I made friends, I became much better able to act normal, even if it's still in a very learned way, rather than a natural way. You know how in movies or TV you sometimes see a machine or alien watch humans and then try to replicate their behavior? That's how I still feel most of the time. By late 1993, I was able to stop going to the psychologist. The next year, I found out about Asperger's when the psychologist sent my parents what amounted to an information packet on Asperger's. A letter with it basically said "new standards have come out, I read this and immediately thought of your son." There was no prompt to return unless my parents thought that I was backsliding, and I was never formally evaluated for Asperger's. The way that my family and I have looked at it over the years has been along the lines that since there were no pharmisuitical treatments that it didn't really matter what I had, what mattered was how I dealt with it.
It's been twenty-three years or so since I first saw the psycologist. All of the underlying conditions are still there. I still find eye contact difficult. I need to remain aware of when I'm info dumping. I still need to work hard to emulate the rules of social interaction. People touching me, for any reason, really bothers me. As an adult, I wear plain black cotton t-shirts, black dress pants, dark blue jeans, and loose fitting cotton dress shirts of various colors. All of my socks are of the same brand, and they're all black. I still can't figure out what people are feeling by looking at their faces most of the time. If my daily routine or plans get thrown off I feel really uncomfortable and miserable - part of the reason I almost never take sick days at work is because I'm more comfortable being sick and following my routine than I am feeling sick and breaking my routine.
In some ways, I've found ways of channeling my tendencies. For example, I obsessed about castles and fortifications, but only in learning their names and where they were. Now, learning about their history, learning about why they were built the way they were, learning how people lived in them, and taking vacations to go visit them has become a thing for me. It turns out that my natural speaking voice and ability to confidently info dump work really well when I'm speaking to large groups. Since I still can't read people effectively, I'll frequently ask if anyone has any questions, and that works out really well. An interest in sports stats (despite being basically unable to sit through and watch a game in any sport) helps me in fantasy sports. I've been able to find work that involves noticing breaks from patterns and that benefits greatly from being able to memorize hundreds of small units of data.
I'm confortable with being who I am.
Example: If I'm listening to someone but I wish to leave the room for whatever reason, I'll just go "I'm still listening!" while walking into another room, so it doesn't seem like I'm suddenly brushing them off.
That one was fixed fairly quickly, though. My mom just kept reminding me that she can't hear people talk to her unless they're in the same room and facing her. (She's got some hearing loss.) Eventually I caught on.
I have no problems listening to people while not actually facing them, which is sometimes interpreted as me ignoring them. I have occasional situations where I have to explain that I'm still paying attention even though I'm facing away and working on the computer.
What is it with people and standing behind me to talk so I have to turn 180 degrees?
wishing it wasn't so hard to, you know, do the thing that so many other people do
see:
-holding a job
-making important phone calls
-doing anything outside of a set and narrow pattern of activities, really
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and then not opening those envelopes for days, even weeks, out of anxiety over dealing with their contents
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Just hearing you say these things brings to mind a couple of scenes from the film, where Max has near meltdowns when reading Mary's letters, among other things.
I've mentioned it already in this thread, but I can't help but bring it up when it feels appropriate.
Yesterday he sent me a link to a post he found on Reddit. I know, I know, but there's good stuff to be found everywhere. It was a pretty interesting personal description of the working of this poster's mind during a social outing. It's not the easiest read, so rather than share it outright I had the idea write a piece, using extracts from the post and comparing his experience to my own.
I think it turned out pretty good. It's interesting to compare how autism effects people at different points on the spectrum. I'll probably end up doing more stuff like this in the future.
Here it is.
Also here's the original post.
So much this.
During a recent business trip, my coworkers invited me out to a bar. I agreed, because I felt it was probably the socially appropriate thing to do. But the change of plans was very off-putting, the bar environment was loud and filled with people in close proximity, and any patience for either was exhausted during a banquet earlier that evening. I spent the next forty-five minutes with my back to the wall, counting down the seconds until I felt that it was going to be probably ok to leave.
http://www.mprnews.org/story/2015/04/01/autism-services
but they're listening to every word I say
A writer at the Washington Post takes a very dim view of this, and I'd have to agree. "Awareness" doesn't do crap and like she said it's a way for an organization to promote itself- see how Susan G. Komen slaps pink ribbons on everything and funds bonuses instead of cancer research.
Although that "half of babies born in 2025 will be autistic" statement might be uh, a just a tad on the hyperbolic side. Just a tad.
Like, hey, right now I am bed ridden for the day because I make a social mistake earlier
So, really, fuck anyone using it as a platform for whatever shit runs through their brain
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you and I hella disagree on this point. human beings aren't 'burdens' no matter how 'functional' or independent they are
why am I not shocked to follow the links in the header and find she is a managing editor of a site that is anti-vaccine and believes mercury is a contributing factor to autism
like sometimes it is possible for me to forget, because even with my neurodiversity I can live on my own, I can mostly function independently, even if I suck at it sometimes, that there are legit people who think the world would be better off if neuroatypical people just didn't exist because they can never live "independently", because sometimes they're incontinent or they're non-verbal, how about a post from one of the people I'm friends with who is occasionally non-verbal and has been institutionalized before and has had incontinence issues in the past, someone who has been told that their family would be better off without the 'burden' of their existence by both their family and their medical professionals, who was told that they would never live outside of a care facility
I would actually argue that everybody is a burden in some respect. Like, I was something of a burden as a child because I struggled with reading and needed extra time and money poured into my education. But at the same time, living in a world where you need to read if you want to earn a living was an enourmous burden on me. I had to work three times as hard as everybody else to have a chance at living as an independant adult, and that had a psycological impact.
The important thing is that we need to work together to relieve the collective burden of our individual existances.
Every article Ive seen linked today gives the impression that Downs=Autism
Yeah I don't really think of that as "burden," I think of that as sort of the collective existence of humanity and society. Sometimes people need more and sometimes people need less and in the end it should all, in theory, balance out. Except that there's an awful lot of people who believe 'fuck you, I got mine, if you would just act NORMAL' and well there we are on that
but I don't fundamentally disagree with what you're saying, just the word burden I do not care for, etc etc etc blah blah blah
Yeah, the word isn't that great, but I think it's really important to recognize how taxing it is for people to deal with different things. Burden sums it up nicely in one word, which is important to me because I recieve a lot of pressure acedemically (and from my dad and sister) to be concise.
Also, fun fact: this is what my writing looks like au-natural, without a spell check fixing everything for me. (I won't have computer access until late Saturday and have been relying on my spell-check-less phone since Monday.) I'm using words I'm more familiar with/can spell phonetically to cover as best I can in the meantime, (like I wanted to use sucsinct instead of concise, but I CLEARLY can't spell the first.)
I don't need anyone's help hating myself
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Oh wowsers she is a terrible person hands-down then. Maybe mercury is a factor (it's certainly not good for you) but there sure as hell isn't any mercury in vaccines.
Is it because they can't say "fuck you" to your face
They sure as hell didn't choose their lot, I sure as hell didn't choose mine
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Or some other way to imply it would be easier if they didn't exist
That's not a shitty way to think of someone at all, nope
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well when you say it THAT way it's hard to be mad at you
but yeah, I dunno. you can't read their mind, you don't know what's up in there, you don't know! so I can't say, you know, society would be better off without people who are at all different levels of function and capability. I mean if we didn't have such awesome assistive tech and he weren't like, super rich enough to afford it, society would all think stephen hawking would be better off poofin out of existence. how many kids and adults are out there that are just as fuckin awesome, but their family is too poor or too uninformed or too who knows what, mercury in vaccines causes autism, to look into assistive technology to allow those people to express themselves. how many people just aren't lucky enough to get enough assistance to let them live good lives? I'd rather focus on making sure that assistance and resources are available to everyone who needs them than work on trying to test and 'cure' and selectively abort people who need resources out of existing in the first place
but I mean, that's kinda why I'm doing the whole social work thing, despite being god awful at reading emotions on faces which is a factor I think about kinda regularly
buuuut I also don't mean to imply that people are only worth how awesome/creative/smart/funny/whatever they are, everybody deserves a good life and good resources and to be happy
Sounds like Autism Speaks, who "speaks" for autistic people yet don't have any actual autistic people on a decision-making level.
https://thecaffeinatedautistic.wordpress.com/new-autism-speaks-masterpost-updated-62014/
Ugh. God, I know this feeling.
Realizing I said the wrong thing somewhere, and just getting that sinking feeling in my chest, and suddenly everything just kinda turns upside down and I don't wanna deal.
Just the worst.
I totally understand why people on the high functioning end would dislike the fact that people want to 'cure' them. Kinda like the deaf community.
WoW
Dear Satan.....
um
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Deaf people have a long history of being institutionalized and eradicated. They have perfectly good reasons for not wanting to join hearing normative society.
what a vast oversimplification of a complex discussion about the validity of deaf culture and the fact that the 'norm' should be wider and more accepting rather than performing surgeries which may not work on an infant in the hopes of making sure they can be 'normal' rather than promoting more frequent usage of sign language, particularly by creating a spectre of some widespread denial of cochlear implants rather than some parents deciding that they would rather wait until their child can have informed consent about the procedure because they don't feel like their child's deafness is something terrible that needs to be 'fixed'