This brilliant video by Mica, @PonderfulYT, is as clear an explanation as you’ll find of the neurodiversity movement, neurodivergence and neurotypicality, and their relation to disability: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iicSLx19pc

And it’s not just good because Boba tries to steal the show! 😻

#NeurodiversityMovement #neurodiversity #neurodiverse
#neurodivergence #neurodivergent
#neurotypicality #neurotypical
#disability #disabled

#ADHD #anxiety #aphantasia #autism #bipolar #BPD #BrainDisease #BrainInjury #cPTSD #depression #dyscalculia #dyslexia #dyspraxia #hyperphantasia #LearningDisability #OCD #PTSD #SDAM #Tourettes

How to cope with #ADHD & #CPTSD in a neurotypical world when you clearly do not fit in.

Https://mysticscapes.medium.com/adhd-coping-6a13d0e7c027

#ActuallyAutistic #PTSD #MentalHealth #MentalIllness #MentalHealthAwareness #MentalHealthMatters #AUDHD #ADHD #Neurodiversity #Neurodivergent #Neurodivergence #Mastodon #Twitter #Threads

Sometimes you gotta take the necessary steps for your protection. It is what it is.

https://mysticscapes.medium.com/no-contact-order-f761a74ab14

#PTSD #CPTSD #MentalHealth #MentalIllness #MentalHealthAwareness #MentalHealthMatters #DomesticAbuse #DomesticViolence #Autist #AUDHD #ADHD #ActuallyAutistic

Good morning & happy #Monday #Warriors!! 💜🖤🌟🌸🦄🌈🧚‍♀️🎵✌️🎶✨️🌮🍕🎨🫠☕️

Busy day today. Gotta adult as my vacation is over!

#MentalHealth #MentalIllness #MentalHealthAwareness #MentalHealthMatters #ActuallyAutistic #AUDHD #ADHD #Neurodivergent #Neurodiversity #Neurodivergence #PTSD #CPTSD #Twitter #Mastodon #MondayMorning

My work involves engaging people online, which also means I regularly get argumentative and critical comments. And because it's part of my job to educate, "just block and move on" isn't necessarily the appropriate response - sometimes a disagreement is a teaching opportunity.

I find it really difficult to judge how much to explain or defend when people are critical because I want to give them the chance to learn/understand, but I don't want to come across as argumentative. A lot of the time I have to get my partner to look at comments and help me decide what I should do about them.

I also find criticism really intensely distressing, so I get so immediately triggered that it's hard to think straight or make a rational judgement. I end up reacting defensively because I'm upset and then only realising afterwards that I handled it badly. Or I again have to get my partner to help me cope with the triggered emotions because they're too overwhelming to handle alone.

Anyway, today I got an upsetting critical comment. My partner isn't well atm so I couldn't go to them for help. But I managed to make myself slow down and not respond immediately (even though I was really triggered and wanted to!!).

And then I thought carefully about what they had written, and what my job does and doesn't involve. And I realised that they didn't actually ask a single direct question - just gave a bunch of complaints and criticisms. So I didn't try to argue or explain why they were mistaken. I just wrote a short, polite response saying that they could ask me if they had any specific questions, and letting them know of the procedure they could take to make a formal complaint.

I'm proud of myself. And tired.

#actuallyAutistic #cPTSD

Good morning & happy #Monday beautiful souls!! 💜🖤🌸🌟🦄🦄🦄

#MondayVibes #MondayMotivation #MondayMorning #MentalHealth #MentalIllness #ADHD #AUDHD #ActuallyAutistic #BPD #BorderlinePersonalityDisorder #PTSD #CPTSD #MentalHealthAwareness #RecoveryPosse #Unicorns #GreenVelvet

(Reposting this because it turns out the server was broken the first time...)

I've spent 20+ years in a state of near-constant dissociation because of trauma. About six months ago I suddenly snapped into crisis and I've basically been in that state of continuous crisis since then.

In a way it's a good thing, because the constant dissociation was obviously. a bad thing. and now some of my ability to dissociate has been ?broken or changed in some way. Everything is very scary and confusing and desperately sad all the time. But previously when I've had "crises" they last a few weeks or maybe a few months and then I pull myself together again and get back to dissociating, and convince myself (and everyone else) that that's a success. So I'm sort of glad that's not happening yet this time. I hope that something can change permanently, although I don't know what or how.

I think writing about things that I feel and experience is probably important, partly because I have always been very reluctant to do that. Most of the time when there's something I've always avoided it turns out I should have been doing it a lot more. So I'm here to try and push myself to acknowledge and process emotions and experiences and stuff, and also to keep track of myself doing that.

And doing it somewhere that's theoretically public also seems important, because so much of my dissociation has also been about avoiding or denying how cripplingly lonely and isolated I am, and simultaneously avoiding any interactions with other humans as if they're mortally dangerous. So I'm going to post and tag things and maybe if I end up communicating with other real people it would be okay and not kill me.

#cptsd #dissociation #actuallyautistic

Anyway the most recent development is that I've spontaneously regained the ability to read novels. It's been at least five years (I think possibly much longer) since I comfortably read an entire novel. I don't know why.

The other week we were away from home and I speculatively took a book out frm the library to bring with me. I don't know why, because I hadn't read a book in so long, but I guess I somehow knew that the time was right? While away I started reading it, and finished it in less than 24 hours (it was a really good book). Since then I've finished another and started a third.

When I was a kid I would read constantly, I always wanted to have a book with me because I worried about being bored or needing a distraction. I think it became an avoidance and comforting thing because I would use reading as a way to avoid noticing how scared I was all the time, so it turned into a negative association. Then as a teen and adult I learned to use TV more as my default distractin-from-anxiety, and just. stopped reading. because I had forgotten that reading can be for enjoyment. I guess I forgot that most things can be for enjoyment, or forgot what enjoyment even is maybe.

And now I've read several books, and also in the last few weeks I've watched much less TV, and I don't know why or what it means. Pre-crisis I would want to have TV on pretty much constantly as distraction. I think maybe the dissociative break has meant that distraction doesn't work very well anymore? The horror and sadness are always there no matter what, so there's not much point trying to be distracted.

So I'm spending more time in silence without background noise. Which means that I'm able to read more - because I can't read with TV on (although that's what I used to do as a kid, and I used to insist that I was paying attention to both at once, when really I was using them both to desperately avoid paying attention to anything at all).

#cptsd #dissociation #reading

I've spent 20+ years in a state of near-constant dissociation because of trauma. About six months ago I suddenly snapped into crisis and I've basically been in that state of continuous crisis since then.

In a way it's a good thing, because the constant dissociation was obviously. a bad thing. and now some of my ability to dissociate has been ?broken or changed in some way. Everything is very scary and confusing and desperately sad all the time. But previously when I've had "crises" they last a few weeks or maybe a few months and then I pull myself together again and get back to dissociating, and convince myself (and everyone else) that that's a success. So I'm sort of glad that's not happening yet this time. I hope that something can change permanently, although I don't know what or how.

I think writing about things that I feel and experience is probably important, partly because I have always been very reluctant to do that. Most of the time when there's something I've always avoided it turns out I should have been doing it a lot more. So I'm here to try and push myself to acknowledge and process emotions and experiences and stuff, and also to keep track of myself doing that.

And doing it somewhere that's theoretically public also seems important, because so much of my dissociation has also been about avoiding or denying how cripplingly lonely and isolated I am, and simultaneously avoiding any interactions with other humans as if they're mortally dangerous. So I'm going to post and tag things and maybe if I end up communicating with other real people it would be okay and not kill me.

#cptsd #dissociation #actuallyautistic

I was merely pondering the possibility of ordering a supermarket delivery, at some nonspecific point in the future, and it gave me a bad anxiety attack from which I'm struggling to calm down.

Do any of my #ActuallyAutistic and/or #Anxiety and/or #PTSD #CPTSD friends find that the tyranny of choice in a regular supermarket is a struggle, but that this is magnified many times over for an online shop?

I think that what makes it so much worse for me is that the items aren't neatly laid out in a series of rows online. You have to go looking for them in menu upon menu.

It's that time where we read studies again. This latest is about Complex PTSD and #LGBTQ+ people. This study shows we're more likely to fit criteria for #CPTSD than standard PTSD.

https://rdiscovery.page.link/GEYzhwN2szMBmUjm7

I'm trying to put together a short list of the basic concepts that are essential to understanding the #ActuallyAutistic experience of life. These can be helpful for explaining things to allistics/neurotypicals, but also for seeing ourselves from our own perspective instead of how we are failed NTs. I think it's just a few (albeit big) concepts. Here's my basic list:

- #DoubleEmpathyProblem
- #SocialModelOfDisability
- #Monotropism
- #VariableCompetency
- #CPTSD

#AskingAutistics Do you have your own short list of concepts for understanding or explaining #autism? What are the big ideas that shape your experience of #autistic life?

Tonight's trauma healing technique: a spot of interpretive dance!

I've always been really disconnected from my body, and hated dancing because I'm so bad at it. But just lately, I find a spot of interpretive dance to a song reflecting my current emotions real nice.

That means moving my body in whatever way feels right, whether I'm echoing the lyrics in my movements or just how I'm feeling. And it doesn't matter that I'm "bad" at it, because the door's closed, and so are my eyes, and if I bump into furniture a lot that's just part of it.

If I want to dance but can't make myself get up to do it due to ADHD and PDA or whatever, I just put on a song and wiggle a lil bit in bed until I'm feeling it enough to stand up and dance with my full body. And even if I don't--bed dances count too 🧡

Do you dance for your mental health? What does it look like for you?

#Dance #TraumaHealing #CPTSD #MentalHealth

Spotify tried to pull a stunt on me with the Barbie Girl song. Just because it's popular for the mainstream doesn't mean it was ever anything that would resonate with me. My family was too focused on survival for that shit. The cable, the brand name dolls, the whole nine. That's not my life. #cptsd

always fun to remember that chronic trauma significantly reduces your lifespan AND makes it harder for you to do the things you want while you're still alive

#CPTSD #PTSD #TraumaHealing #MentalHealth

Autistics are the real experts.
Nothing about us without us.
(PMM)♧
@Neurodivergent Socks 🧦page🧦🙂♾️ (Facebook)
🙂🧦♾️☘️🖖♥️🫖☕🎶🧦
#Autistic #ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD #ADHD #Autism #CPTSD #GAD #AutismAcceptance #stimming #stim #Overwhelmed #ExecutiveFunctionDisorder #ExecutiveDysfunction #RejectionSensitiveDysphoria #RSD #Hyperfocus #Hypervigilant #SensoryOverstimulation #SensoryIssues #SensoryPain #Speechless #mute #PathologicalDemandAvoidance #PDA #AutisticInertia #BrainFog #Daydreaming #Focus #AutisticBurnout #ReactiveAttachmentDisorder #RAD #MajorDepressiveDisorder #MDD #Depression #Suicide #Suicidal #Alone #Dysgraphia #Dysthymia #Dyscalcula #Dyslexia #Dysphoria #Dysplasia #Dualistic #Anxiety #SocialAnxiety #Overthinking #BlackAndWhiteThinking #PersistentDepressiveDisorder #PDD #EmotionalDysregulation #ChronicFatigue #ChronicPain #NervePain #Insomnia #Parasomnia #Nightmares

Anyone else here love The OA? This quote hit hard. #cptsd #traumahealing

my old therapist used to say: you have done many brave things in your life. this is simply another one.

tonight I am thinking: you have been hurt by your mother many times in your life. this is simply another one.

#CPTSD

It's not the "tone" of Masto to promote oneself, but if I don't congratulate myself, I'll be sad that "no one did." Grabbing the bull by the horns wherever I can. #PTSD #cPTSD #recovery

w o o f

just had a rich, intense dream about the ex I still never really got over despite it having been 15 years

we kissed and it was a whole thing and it's gonna take me a while ti shake the feels

but the whole second half was me helping him with his trauma and administering field EMDR 😂

I even advocate in my DREAMS lfmao

#trauma #CPTSD #PTSD #MentalHealth #OnceAnAdvocateAlwaysAnAdvocate