Autistic Experiences - Tumblr Posts - Page 3

Why does everyone dismiss autistic people?

Every time I mention the fact that I’m autistic in a conversation, text etc. and need answer after I get so freaking dismissed with dumb responses.

Like me: “the boiler is broken how do I fix it?”

Person: “fix it”

Me: “how??”

Person: “just fix it”

They answer always a quarter of what I need and in a dumb way. I NEED INSTRUCTIONS I CANNOT TELEPATICALLY UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU MEAN

Also, also.

They treat you like a dumbass, yeah I know the problem, I have explained it to you at length. WHY DO YOU THINK I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT IT WHY DO YOU THINK I NEED YOUR EXPLANATION AND WHY WHEN I RESPOND YOU TREAT EVEN MORE AS IF I WAS DUMB

Making what is obviously a joke and getting yelled at because, your tone was wrong. I was using a *joking* tone.

Obscure autistic experiences that I didn’t realize were autistic experiences

(These aren’t diagnostic criteria for being autistic, just things that autistic people relate to more often than allistic people do)

• Making PowerPoints for fun (peak entertainment when I was 12 years old fr)

• I can’t eat my dinner, it’s too hot outside

• Someone has shown up to my house unexpectedly; I have to ignore them until I mentally adjust to the fact that they’re here

• Stop giving me light, tickly hugs—I need you to crush me

• *in a friend’s house* Ok I have no idea how formal or familiar I am supposed to be so I’m just going to not touch ANYTHING and wait to sit down until I’m invited to do so

• Getting yelled at for “not playing correctly” (??)

• “Who’s your celebrity crush” uhhh idk I only watch this one movie from 20 years ago so I don’t know any current celebrities

• Motion sickness. All the time.

• No one else follows the RulesTM correctly! I hate group projects!

• Having constant stomachaches and headaches from overstimulation, but the doctor says you don’t have a physical problem so obviously you’re faking to get out of school

• How does everyone else just know how to do that?

• Practicing “normal” conversation before going out in public

• Touching all the soft fabrics in the store until you find that one Bad Texture and now it’s burned into your skin and you are going to die

• I made a joke and everybody looked at me strangely and now I can’t figure out what I did wrong but I think they thought I was serious?

• On the opposite side: I said something totally sincere and now everyone is laughing so I guess I join in?

• Wearing the same shirt over and over and over and over

if i’m not autistic but struggle significantly with mental illnesses that make it difficult to function and suspect a learning disability, do you think i would also be able to access some of these accommodations?

this would sadly be dependent on whether you have some kind of diagnosis as they do require documentation of a disability and also possibly what your schools disability office decides they can offer based on that.

i was told quite a few of my accommodations, such as extended assignments/attendance flexibility, are typically available for people with conditions that are episodic in nature (i also have ptsd along with other comorbid conditions + some chronic physical health issues). i’m not sure what accommodations would look like otherwise or what can be offered for disabilities aside from what i personally have. i obviously can’t give a straight answer but i’d say its worth a try to ask about!

in my experience you’ll usually have to meet with someone from the disability office to discuss your diagnosis, how it effects your day-to-day/where you struggle with school, and then decide which accommodations are applicable to your situation. it could be helpful to take some notes beforehand on anything you might want to bring up.

hope this helped! i wish i could give you an easier/more complete answer but they like making these things difficult :/ wishing you luck!!

Went from a mature kid who acted more like a grown adult, to a mature-ish young adult who acts like a little kid from time to time.

The only thing that stayed the same throughout this whole ordeal was my love of collecting plushies and dolls.

You're fun to hang out with

You're fun to hang out with

But never to know

You're easy to talk to

And easy to let go

You speak from your heart

You speak with little thought

You keep talking and talking and talking

Until you've realized everyone's gone

Your heart is full of love for the world,

but the world's love has been filled

with contempt for people like you.

nothing hurts more than hearing someone describe your favorite animal as “the thing that nightmares are made of”

"if i'm real, i was you, someone else, the same."

can't believe i wrote that,,,

If I'm real, I'm someone else

"I'm a fool constantly trying to communicate the details of whatever I'm thinking. Words from people turn into what I cannot find yet want to say. They are the same and they are not. Mine are trapped inside me, trying frantically to get out. I don't know all my own words, swallowing them, repulsed to come out. I choke 'I'm sorry, I know everything' but no I am not sure that I exist actually. If I'm real, I was you, someone else, the same. Crudely put, being understood; how did you learn this?"

I keep accidentally making my characters autistic

I’ll just be writing a scene and suddenky I look back and find a full blown diagnosis, and it keeps happening.

At this point, I’ve just gone along with it, adding every symptom, comorbidity, trait, experience, and trauma related to autism to like the majority of the characters in my writing.

It’s a bit hilarious how obvious it is in hindsight, giving a character something akin to a meltdown and then masking and expecting the character to not come off as autistic.

Although, as an autistic writer who commonly projects my experiences onto my characters, I can’t really help it, it was sure to happen eventually.

Banner by @ alwaysribbit

YES! THIS!

When I was in elementary school, I tried talking to a group of kids at lunch and I’d consistently be ignored or unheard, but one time, they all turned a glared at me.

I was shocked, surprised by the reaction. I shut up and cowered, secluding myself. I thought I had done something wrong to deserve that reaction, that I had said something wrong.

So I prevented myself from speaking at all unless I have planned out my exact words perfectly in my head. Perfectionism and anxiety kept me from socializing with my peers. I analyzed my words everytime I went to speak, though it often took so long that once I had perfected my sentence, the topic had already moved on. So I just stopped trying at all, resorting to daydreaming and silently listening in on other’s conversations to entertain myself.

My dad often told me: “you are doing the world a disservice [by not socializing]” I took insult to this, thinking he was blaming me for struggling(even if it was I that had to out effort in to help myself and stop self-isolating), but now as I look back, I understand what he really meant. He loved my personality and self, and he wanted the world to see me for the beautiful person I was, but I kept failing him by locking myself away.

I didn’t really notice my loneliness until the pandemic when I was truly alone, no one to call or hang with. I used discord to help make some online friends for a few months and it helped—typing slowly and rewording your messages wasn’t frowned upon and taking time to respond was normalized in chat-based media.

I didnt talk without scripting my words for a long time. It wasn’t until 9th grade(when I was 15yo) when I rambled about Amphibia for literal hours to my therapist and friends that I finally managed to break out of the habit. Since Amphibia was my hyper fixation at the time, it was one of the few things I was confident on to not get wrong or accidentally offend someone when talking about.

I’m not good at catching subtler social cies, but I am sensitive to signs of awkwardness and irritation, so I feel incredibly punished whenever I get an upset response from people after I say something or communicate something, especially when it’s unexpected because I’m confused why I got that response and fixate on it.

Even now when I have friends and can talk confidently, my social skills are still stunted and I am scared to talk to people IRL even when I know them because I’m scared to disturb them or upset them by accident.

Banner by @ alwaysribbit

People underestimate how much it fucks you up to be subtly excluded as a kid. I would try to talk to my classmates and be met with disinterest or annoyance. The one friend I had, who I clung to and nodded along to his every word, had other friends he liked just as much or more. And his other friends didn’t care for me at all.

I look back at pictures from the time and see how separated I was from them. I remember knowing I was different. I remember posing questions about the world to the girls playing next to me and realizing that they had never asked the same ones to themselves. That the ways we thought couldn’t be more different.

I kept myself amused with my own fanatical stories and musings in my head. I would wander the playground on a circular path, imagining a friend and being sorely disappointed when it didn’t feel as real as I’d hoped.

There was a bubble separating me from everyone else, thin, and nearly invisible, but with a pearly sheen you could catch under the right conditions. I knew it was there, they knew it was there, and it changed me

I hate being bad because of fear.

Sometimes, because of my OCD and trauma, I’ll avoid certain stuff. This can be hard to explain to others so it often leads me to lie or come off as passive aggressive when I’m asked to do a task/go somewhere/touch something that I’m scared of.

I know that avoidance is unhealthy and reinforces the cycle of anxiety, but it’s so hard to fight against and I hate being so scared and shaking and just having to act fine and stay stiff and quiet because I “shouldn’t act anxious” and am “scared of nothing” according to my mother.

Though, when I promise to do something or accept a task that I then avoid and never do, it upsets people, reasonably. I hurt other people to avoid my own fear and I don’t know how to help it.

I take therapy, anxiety meds, exposure therapy and I’m getting much better but it’s still so hard. I wish it could just stop and I could follow instructions without having irritational fear making me break rules and promises.

I don’t want to be a bad kid, I wish I could be the best kid out there, but that’s just not possible right now with what’s being asked of me.

Banner by @ alwaysribbit

Yep

Chat, is painting a lamp for 6+ hours autistic?

I get a lot of people telling me how great it is that I’m learning about myself, how proud they are etc. for me recognizing that I’m autistic and trying to help myself. While this is still preferable to the people who just flat out deny it it’s not helpful.

No one in my family has any concept of what I’ve gone through, they’ve never seen me have a meltdown, they just think it’s cool self discovery which is absolutely minimizing the way I’ve struggled my entire life and it’s incredibly invalidating.

All I want is for someone to apologize, to say that I shouldn’t have had to figure this out by myself at all, to say that they’re sorry I did, that the system failed me and they did too. So for all the self/late diagnosed people out there I am sorry, you shouldn’t have had to figure any of this out by yourself, you should’ve been recognized in childhood and had adequate support, no matter how well you masked people should’ve asked more questions.

Because self diagnosis is necessary but it’s also very lonely and heartbreaking to learn that you weren’t broken and you could’ve had help from the beginning if someone had just acknowledged what you were going through.

Autism isn’t my tragedy, not being seen as autistic is. I lost so much of my childhood because no one wanted to spare me a second glance and for all the other autistics out their with similar experiences I’m so sorry, it sucks and it’s okay to grieve what could’ve been.

Recently I rode Saw the Ride for the first time and was having the time of my life in the gift shop looking at the Billy plushes and some guys came in debating what Billy was and what his name was and I was fighting the urge to start infodumping because I was just this little kid in his school uniform staring at them like

Stimming Can Be:

Mrs Speechie P

Real

Today I had a dentist cleaning/checkup and I didn’t cry.

Not that anyone cares, but today I completely emptied out and organized all of my dresser drawers (I have 2 dressers) and my whole closet after procrastinating for years. I found socks in my sock drawer that were from when I was about 5. I’m kinda proud of myself.

When you finally get the courage to tell someone you have autism and mfs be like “no ur not” like oh shit mb????

Hello Tumblr :)

My name is Lee and though I’m not new here this will be my first time actually sharing anything and being an active part of the content creation on this site.

A bit about me; I’m British, mixed ethnicity, nonbinary, and I love making creative representations and illustrations of my struggles with mental health and neurodivergency - specifically ADHD, ASD, and depression. I’ve created this blog with the intention of helping myself process, visualise, and document my experiences as well as with the hopes of sharing them with people who might find solidarity in them.

Hope to see you around <3

"I wish there were some way to look without looking / when you look, you sign a contract / that lets them look back

Looksee \\ cmartine

I always thought I was observing without participating. It turns out they're more the same thing than I'd ever realised.

Anyone else know this feeling?

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I think everybody can understand this feeling of comfortable detachment to some extent - for some people certain situations are simply more comfortable if they are able to distance themselves, whilst for others (like myself) this desire to be present but not active is more constant.

I've always preferred to observe than to participate. It might be due to my introverted nature, or maybe (as some people have suggested) my love language is quality time, but I always feel most loved, most at peace, and most myself when I'm able to be near but not 'a part of' the action. If that makes sense.

But recently I've found that even observation can leave you vulnerable; refraining from participation doesn't save you from perception. Its frightening to think I exist to others in their thoughts and memories and senses. As I spend my whole life observing others are also capable of observing me.

I wish there were some way I could see without looking. Some way I could still feel connected to others in that comfortable way, without exposing myself to their perception. I wish I could observe the world and all its warmth from the safety of my bed. Where none of it can observe me back.

How hypocritical of me.