Two+ years after stepping into a diagnostic center saying 'i want to see if pills work with this shit'. Almost exactly two years after getting #ASS and #ADHD diagnosed. Five shrinks. €1500+ in unrefunded costs. I FINALLY got one so far as to say 'ahh you want to try medication?'

Dude. I mentioned that. Every. Visit.

This grotesk setup of saying 'make another appointment' to a person who is practically screaming that making appointments is a huuuge problem...

#ActuallyAutistic

While I think @bitprophet gives good general advice for people labeled "gifted" in this post*, I (who was labeled thus as a child) also find it completely disconnected from my own experience.

I'm autistic. I felt all my life like I'm failing socially and at, well, life in general. I've had special interests I wasn't immediately "good" at and still pursued.

"Practice failure"? Why? It's not that I need to seek out opportunities for that.

#ActuallyAutistic

*https://social.coop/@bitprophet/111047763822035024

Proud of myself.

You see, I just managed to call my dentist and make not just one appointment, but two!

Health insurance wants at least one checkup per year, and I've been struggling with making such an appointment for months. (Literally. Months. Not kidding.)

And since their appointments for dental cleaning go so fast, I made an appointment for this year AND one for next year. All set and locked down in my calendar.

Big relief. And for me, an accomplishment.

#ActuallyAutistic

First day of *gestures wildly* everything, apartment viewing and dinner yesterday done. My tummy has not been well since about Sunday 😬 today and tomorrow is packed at work with events with like so many people (50 today, ~400 tomorrow). It's entirely possible I crash soon. Fortunately tonight is free and SO will solve dinner. So there's that at least.
#ActuallyAutisticStruggles #ActuallyAutistic #ActuallyAutisticAtWork

JFC
Thank you for the massive support over the past day. Needless to say you shouldn’t be hearing from me (about my needs) for the rest of the month ❤️💜🤎

#disability #blm #BlackMastodon #disabilityaid #mutualaid #vancouver #pwd #actuallyautistic #Housingforall #Crowdfund #vanpoli #canpoli #CanadaDisabilityBenefit #C22

I even hate biographies against Elon Musk, not only Elon himself.
Walter Isaacson apparently didn't took time to learn about autism and empathy. 🤬
#ActuallyAutistic

Medication giving me a good night sleep by turning off my undiagnosed #adhd head pretty well so far. Unfortunately #actuallyautistic executive dysfunction seems to keep me in bed for much longer than I'd like. An improvement sure, but damn still someway to go.

#ShameBombs
#ActuallyAutistic

The other day, I finished breakfast and cleaned up the kitchen. My mother-in-law came through and distracted me for a bit, but I recovered and completed what I expected to do. I was halfway down the stairs when I realized that I had left one dirty bowl on the counter.

I was mortified. The pounding shame that I felt in that moment was not rational. My face burned and my mind way spiraling into a very negative space. While I returned to the kitchen to rinse the bowl and put it in the dishwasher, some part of me recognized that my emotional response did not fit the present situation. So I decided the heat was sparkles and turned my shame bomb into a glitter bomb.

I'm going to try doing this more when I get these bursts of shame, especially when I am doing things I love doing and I am just being myself. So much glitter. Could get messy.

Does Sweet Tooth have an autism subtext? I've just finished watching the series but not the comic book.
#ActuallyAutistic

Me, sitting in the office with my noise-cancelling headphones, dark glasses and baseball cap (to cut out the ceiling lights): If you don't have homemade sensory processing, store-bought is fine. #ActuallyAutistic

#accessibility isn't just about physical stuff. it's also about neurodivergency

This morning's example a Captcha asking me to select all the images with motorcycles.

Only 1 of these images has a motorcycle. They WANT me to say that 4 of them do. They do not. That is a lie. The other 3 are scooters.

a) my #ActuallyAutistic 🧠 WANTS to answer correctly
b) by lying (to get past it) I'm training image recognition software to do a WORSE job which will negatively impact people down the road.

My biggest disagreement with life in general, and I now believe this is the fundamental difference between how my brain operates and how the average NT brain does, is how things are prioritized.

In my brain, things are prioritized per their material utility. If something has immediate utility, a visible benefit to someone, or if it's solving a pressing problem, they are on top of the importance list. It may sound like a callous way to put it but health related, life saving action is categorized in the "high material utility" bin for my brain.

In addition to this prioritization, I also tend to equate difficulty of a task with its perceived importance. "If something is very important, then the stakes must be high also" my brain says. On the flipside, if I know something is trivial to accomplish physically, it's not "important" in my brain.

In the life made by NTs for NTs, most "very important" things are trivial to the extreme. Bureaucratic paperwork, deadlines, remembering birthdays, most jobs are just mindless busywork to me, with no perceived importance whatsoever, but somehow they seem potent enough to stop the world in its tracks for the majority of people.

This creates enormous stress for me, and is responsible for most of my burnouts in my 40 year life. The dichotomy between my sense of priority and that of the world around me.

When I was still in my PhD program, the work I did, the information I and my team uncovered were the priority for me. The integrity of the work was paramount. Increasingly, through the feedback I received from my advisor, I started feeling like something was wrong and the real thing to focus on should have been how I marketed my research and my efforts rather than the work and the results themselves. This led to my burnout and me leaving before I defended my dissertation.

I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts on this topic. Do you also think your version of what's important is fundamentally different than the world's?

#ActuallyAutistic @actuallyautistic

I find that I am much more able to be myself (unmask) on here than I am in person. 🤔

#ActuallyAutistic
#Neurospicy
#Emotions

I've found that not only do I have favorite #television shows I watch over and over again, but I have specific favorite episodes of those shows that I watch more than any of the others, usually to trigger specific #emotions—good cry episodes, episodes that make me feel pride and joy for a character's triumph, etc.

#ActuallyAutistic

Every now and again I come across a Facebook memory pre-Dx that hints at my Autistic/ADHD side.

This was today's XD #ActuallyAutistic

I with some frequency complain about people "peopleing", so I think I should mention the good cases like today where people are accommodating/nice.

For work I need at times to provide feedback on peers, and I hate the system with a vengeance both in general and since they ask for specific examples for what people have done which is really hard with my #SDAM (as I mostly don't remember specific situations).

#ActuallyAutistic [1/x]

There aren't nearly enough spaces out there for #ActuallyAutistic people to get together to speak, affirm, and listen to each other's experiences .

There are even fewer that are neuro-affirming and and diverse.

Even less are free.

Join us

@actuallyautistic

https://www.theautisticcoach.com/autism-discussion-affirmation-circles

I've decided I need a rocking chair. I've always found them incredibly soothing. I now realise after finally comfirming I'm #ActuallyAutistic they are a stim for me.
Time to get searching, I do like old wooden ones but they are not comfortable. It needs to be something I can really melt into.

Good morning and a good start to your week #ActuallyAutistic comrades!

What can I answer for you today? AMA

@actuallyautistic

I’m outside getting high because it will force me to stop working on Sunday night. Sometimes hyper focus is a little bit of a curse.

#ActuallyAutistic