part of being autistic is slowly realising that you actually live in chronic pain and all your random little physical blips and errors might actually be caused by a chronic illness???

No, but seriously, no one told me that it doesn't hurt their elbows when they shake sauce bottles... it doesn't hurt their wrists and hands to write.... it doesn't hurt their feet to drive.... they don't randomly "lose grip" on objects or find keyboards or controllers difficult to hold... I was under the assumption this was all relatively normal?

Part of the reason I didn't realise this is because I don't always realise I'm in pain. My autism already makes me hyposensitive to pain, but because my "neutral" is to always be in like a 3/10 pain state, I don't always know that I'm in pain...

I have an update to this post. I finally went to the doctor and talked about my joint pain. Talked about how my wrist and fingers get hurt easily and are weaker. Talked about my knee injury that has been causing me pain for multiple years, talked about how I can't stay still when laying, sitting or standing because different joints will start to hurt, etc.

So he gave me a blood test for the obvious stuff, rheumatoid arthritis and something else I can't remember. Those tests obviously came back negative.

So he told me that the blood tests didn't show anything and he basically just went "whelp, idk what else we can do lol" so that was an experience.

I'm gonna keep doing my mobility and joint strengthening exercises at home as they seem to help but I still have no idea what is actually wrong so that's fun

part of being autistic is slowly realising that you actually live in chronic pain and all your random little physical blips and errors might actually be caused by a chronic illness???

No, but seriously, no one told me that it doesn't hurt their elbows when they shake sauce bottles... it doesn't hurt their wrists and hands to write.... it doesn't hurt their feet to drive.... they don't randomly "lose grip" on objects or find keyboards or controllers difficult to hold... I was under the assumption this was all relatively normal?

Part of the reason I didn't realise this is because I don't always realise I'm in pain. My autism already makes me hyposensitive to pain, but because my "neutral" is to always be in like a 3/10 pain state, I don't always know that I'm in pain...

Like how my jaw clicks and dislocates and my teeth always hurt and nearly every joint hurts??? That's not normal???

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh haha

Autism and Dreaming

Hello everyone, I'm back with another poll - my second poll! Today I want to gauge how many Autistics and other neurodiverse people dream, and what kind of dreams you have. Dreams have always been a special interest of mine.

Comments are encouraged!

I would love to know the differences between dreaming and Autism, ADHD, and other neurodiverse people, and hear some of your dreams / stories if you're comfortable going into more detail!

I suffered parasomnia until my mid-20s (night terrors and sleep walking) and used to have frequent nightmares.

Now, I rarely remember my dreams, but it's better than the gory nightmares I used to frequently have.

Although, with my sleep study coming up, I'm interested to find out if I still have parasomnias.

I only occasionally remember my dreams (I only remember the ones from early morning when I'm half awake. Never any other time of time of night).

They are almost always nightmare-adjacent and the scary parts are always social blunders, being late for work/being fired OR being abandoned lol

Some of my main advice for restricted eating (coming from a place of semi-experience, not a professional. I struggle with mild restrictive eating behaviours):

1. As suggested before, focus on one food at a time rather than the whole food group.

2. Try preparing that food in different ways and see how it changes the texture. Try air frying, puree-ing, mashing, eating with other foods.

3. Don't get too hung up on a single food if you really can't tolerate it. For example, I have never been able to eat sultanas/raisins. Whether they are by themselves, in a cookie or in a savoury dish I always pick them out. And that's okay! You don't have to eat foods that you absolutely hate. Many people, including neurotypicals, have specific foods that they cannot eat no matter how hard they try.

4. Try and "hide" the foods you don't like much. If you hate cauliflower, try it blended into a soup or a pasta sauce, where the texture no longer becomes an issue. And don't worry if you are "making it unhealthy". Eating a deep fried broccoli is still eating broccoli (just as an example).

5. At the end of the day, remember that the most important thing is to eat SOMETHING. If you make a plate of food with veggies and you can't eat it today? Heat up some chicken nuggets. Eat a piece of chocolate cake. I don't care what it is just eat something. Don't ever skip an entire meal just to punish yourself.

Exposure to new foods is scary and hard. Take things slow, one bite at a time. You don't even have to swallow it at first. Just try and desensitise yourself to the idea of the food. Then you can slowly work up to eating it :) And if you can't eat it, no biggie! Try a different food and come back to this one later on

A new study finds that nonautistic trans people experience alexithymia at an elevated rate, just as Autistic people do.

Perhaps BOTH trans and Autistic people have trouble knowing our feelings because we're used to dissociating from them due to trauma?

Alexithymia is the clinical term for the inability to recognize or name one's emotions. Clinicians have long assumed that Autistics lack the ability to know how they feel, when in reality most of us have continually been silenced all our lives for feeling the wrong thing.

Many people discuss alexithymia as if it were an innate characteristic of being Autistic. But this study suggests that any group that is told that how they move and present their body is "wrong" may cope with that by detaching from their body and its internal states.

If alexithymia is really dissociation due to trauma, we can expect to see a high rate of it among chronic illness patients as well as fat people, since both groups also have their internal feelings invalidated a ton.

Unfortunately, the authors of this study conclude that if a trans person can't name their emotions, that might be because they are subclinically Autistic. But that assumes that alexithymia is caused by disability rather than being a means of coping with having one's body othered.

I think my experiences of alexithymia are both innate and acquired. I have always struggled with interoception, which makes "what am I feeling and how do I describe it" beyond challenging. I also know that trauma - particularly the emotional neglect and invalidation - contributes significantly to why it's a *problem* instead of just a quirk to adapt to.

The combination of not being able to perceive certain sensations and not being given the tools and validation needed to *label* those sensations has resulted in just an absolute mess. Emotional regulation is difficult-to-impossible if you can't figure out what you're feeling (physically and emotionally) and have to essentially troubleshoot your feelings by brute force. I've definitely learned how to better label and communicate feelings when I can identify them, but I still frequently do not perceive the thing to start with (hunger or sleepiness are examples of basic sensations that I usually can't really "sense" even with practice, meditation, and intense focus on my internal sensations).

I've thought about this a LOT lately, because I've been trying to learn these skills both solo and with a therapist. (Therapist does not understand at all that the way I experience sensations is different and gets confused by my confusion about my feelings, but that's a problem for another day.)

I don't believe alexithymia is *only* dissociation due to trauma or a lack of emotional education (not that I think that's what you're saying, just want to clarify), but I do strongly believe (and may elaborate on more later) that many of the "symptoms" and traits we associate with autism are responses to trauma rather than innate, and that's also reflected in how often those traits show up across other stigmatized and stressed populations.

I look at many of the people in my life who obviously display a lot of traits and aspects of autistic experiences, but have never pursued a diagnosis nor identified with a label because they're, for lack of better phrasing, too well-adjusted. People who don't feel like there's something Wrong, perhaps those who grew up in a supportive environment or who didn't internalize stressful experiences as trauma, or who managed to find a community and niche they fit into smoothly as adults, don't usually seek out explanations for their weirdnesses.

(I have more thoughts on like, are we particularly susceptible to processing "normal" levels of stress as traumatic? I know many of my core Bad Memories are like, completely normal things that other people I've talked to also experienced and had no lingering issues with. Tangentially and more personally, is there some reason I can identify more granular emotion labels like "frustration", "despair", "glee" but NOT the so-called top-level labels like "angry", "sad", "happy", which have always felt way too vague and undefinable?)

Adding - any time I think about the role invalidation plays in our experiences, I think of this piece called "Scarred", and specifically get "These carrots are too spicy" echo-looping in my head.

We are used to ignoring our own bodies. “These carrots are too spicy” we complained as a child, only to be told no, they were sweet, that the music wasn’t too loud, nobody can hear lights, what you are experiencing is invalid. We heard: you are invalid. You do not experience the world the same way as everyone else, and therefore, your experience is wrong.

I want to talk about grammar on AAC.

Using proper grammar can make it a lot easier for people to understand what you mean, but sometimes, it can be difficult for us to use proper grammar when using AAC. The limited space and time on our devices can make it challenging to construct grammatically correct sentences. And let's be real, typing out every single word and punctuation mark can be time-consuming and exhausting.

I understand that grammar is important. However, I wish that people would recognize that difficulty with grammar doesn't diminish the value or the validity of AAC user's (or anyones) thoughts and opinions.

I personally don't tend to struggle with it, and I've always been skilled in both reading and writing. This gives me privilege, because when I share my experiences and thoughts as a nonspeaking autistic with high support needs, people listen. I've noticed that when its other people like me, but they struggle with grammar, the post gets so few notes and nobody listens.

This isn't okay.

I have learned so much from people that type in more simple or ungrammatical ways, and I guarantee you could too.

Stop skipping over AAC user's who don't have perfect grammar.

And anyone with any form of "incorrect" speech tbh. It's not only ableism but also racism and xenophobia. Not everyone has English as their first language and to be able to speak it at all is a huge accomplishment, even if words are out of order or incorrect. It's important to realise that AAC users, people with limited speech, and non-english speakers, go to a HUGE effort to try and communicate with us, and so we should put just as much effort in to try and understand what was said.

It’s even worse for people like who have difficulty speaking, use aac, and don’t speak English as a first language. I found it to be a special kind of hell because asshole therapists would literally nitpick the fuck out of my speech. Even if I were American, it’s still shitty to do that to a kid. As a young child learning English, this type of behavior didn’t exactly encourage me to speak English - especially when I got alternatives in communication cards, signed language (and later ASL in high school), and writing down what I wish to communicate.

Basically, I still have trouble speaking to this day because of asshat therapists.

part of being autistic is slowly realising that you actually live in chronic pain and all your random little physical blips and errors might actually be caused by a chronic illness???

No, but seriously, no one told me that it doesn't hurt their elbows when they shake sauce bottles... it doesn't hurt their wrists and hands to write.... it doesn't hurt their feet to drive.... they don't randomly "lose grip" on objects or find keyboards or controllers difficult to hold... I was under the assumption this was all relatively normal?

Part of the reason I didn't realise this is because I don't always realise I'm in pain. My autism already makes me hyposensitive to pain, but because my "neutral" is to always be in like a 3/10 pain state, I don't always know that I'm in pain...

Me with my legs now! Theyve been in ambient pain for 4 years and I'm *just* admitting to myself that it's chronic pain.

But as a Black male, I am only hired to do grunt/physical labor, my degrees and various training be damned. So I figure I'll just have to sacrifice my legs to afford life if nothing changes about my labor outcomes.

become best friends with your ten year old self im so fucking serious

become best friends with

your ten year old self im so

fucking serious

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

part of being autistic is slowly realising that you actually live in chronic pain and all your random little physical blips and errors might actually be caused by a chronic illness???

No, but seriously, no one told me that it doesn't hurt their elbows when they shake sauce bottles... it doesn't hurt their wrists and hands to write.... it doesn't hurt their feet to drive.... they don't randomly "lose grip" on objects or find keyboards or controllers difficult to hold... I was under the assumption this was all relatively normal?

Part of the reason I didn't realise this is because I don't always realise I'm in pain. My autism already makes me hyposensitive to pain, but because my "neutral" is to always be in like a 3/10 pain state, I don't always know that I'm in pain...

Someone in a fibromyalgia group said i was lucky to be autistic because i was "born uncomfortable" and i think about that every day

WHAT THE FUCK 💀💀💀

I'm so sorry someone said that to you, I am genuinely shocked for you 💀😭

part of being autistic is slowly realising that you actually live in chronic pain and all your random little physical blips and errors might actually be caused by a chronic illness???

No, but seriously, no one told me that it doesn't hurt their elbows when they shake sauce bottles... it doesn't hurt their wrists and hands to write.... it doesn't hurt their feet to drive.... they don't randomly "lose grip" on objects or find keyboards or controllers difficult to hold... I was under the assumption this was all relatively normal?

Part of the reason I didn't realise this is because I don't always realise I'm in pain. My autism already makes me hyposensitive to pain, but because my "neutral" is to always be in like a 3/10 pain state, I don't always know that I'm in pain...

This is absolutely true. Live with something long enough and you just get used to it. Like my leg randomly not holding my weight until I get my hip to pop by stretching it. Or the numbness in my right pointer finger and thumb thanks to the machete incident. Just things to cope with that I don’t think about until someone asks me about it.

hi ! you ! please don't blame yourself for the secondary effects of your disability. the weight changes are not your fault. the muscle atrophy is not your fault. the malnutrition is not your fault. the new/worsening mental health condition is not your fault. the low hygiene is not your fault. none of it is your fault!

are there areas of your self care that need improvement? of course, that's true for everyone! but it's hard to be kinder to yourself when you're disabled. sometimes we downright can't do things because of our disabilities. and it all snowballs and self perpetuates. that's not a moral failing - that's scary and difficult to go through!

you don't deserve blame, ridicule, or hatred. you just have limits. you just need support. and that's, morally, neutral. it's okay. you're not doing anything wrong, and i hope things get easier soon. give yourself a little more grace, okay?

sometimes its easy to forget that skill regression after a late diagnosis isnt my fault too

I'm looking up autism symptoms I need to confirm I don't have it.

OK here's autism symptoms that seem to correlate with me

I think most of these can just be chocked up to ADHD though.

I'm gonna tag @autistic-af here just for a little testimony of sorts.

Autism is from infancy. Some of the traits of ADHD and autism can look similar but the mechanism behind them is very different.

An example I use is "inability to maintain friendships".

I do not understand social interaction. I easily get ostracised from groups because I do not fit in. People just don't like me. Not because I'm doing the "social actions" incorrectly, but because I can't do them naturally.

My ADHD husband makes friends super easy. Life of the party. He understands how to interact. But he quickly becomes too much. His energy, randomness, inconsistencies etc mean he is ostracised because he exhausts people.

But from the outside we can both say "I can't make friends."

Your list above has a few autism specific traits. But it's your history and whys that you need to look into.

Yeah you're husband sounds more like me than you do I think I'm good :)

Glad I could help fix your existential crisis 😂

Thank you but the thoughts are never going away, they've just diminished now :)

Ask all the questions you need.

I have both autism and ADHD and they can interact off each other in very paradoxical ways.

A key factor to consider when looking at traits of autism and adhd is the internal motivation/cause behind certain traits.

As you said with the eye contact, you tend to not make much eye contact because your ADHD makes you restless. Whereas an autistic person will avoid eye contact because it fills us with anxiety and dread (literally makes my skin crawl).

An ADHD person might like to plan things out carefully to prepare for their inevitable forgetfulness or time blindness. Whereas an autistic person likes this carefully planned out so that we can prepare ourselves mentally. Like knowing which people will show up, where to park their car, because not knowing those specific things makes us anxious.

Taking things literally. An autistic person may take things literally because we struggle to differentiate tone and to "read between the lines". An ADHD person might take things literally because they were struggling to pay full attention at the time.

Then another factor to consider is some "autistic traits" aren't really autistic traits, just human traits.

For example, preferring to be alone. Yes it is true than many autistics like our own company. BUT many of us actually feel extremely lonely and isolated. We want to socialise so badly, but because of trauma or people not understanding us, we withdraw. That's a human experience.

And of course, it's mostly important to remember that both ADHD and autism are spectrums. No autistic person is EXACTLY like another autistic person. We are all different and all present differently.

Watch me wait for him infront of Joja Mart all day

yknow i was actually wary of the SU movie before it came out? i just don't have much faith in a series turning into "the movie", especially something as sprawling and nuanced as SU. but omg the animated musical SERVE <3 i'm such a sucker for the whole "10 new songs in 90 minutes" thing (when the songs are good, of course). i miss 2d animated musicals so bad </3

like, i get people wanting toh/spop/etc to have their own movies, just to explore those worlds more... but more than that, irrespective of it being a property i know or care about, i just want more 2d musicals. animation has such a unique chance to make movie musicals work, they inherently have that wonderful stylization that clicks so well with a world in which emotion can be poured out in song.

this is also just a stealth post about how i want more animated musicals in general, btw. whether its a show or movie. like we are going through what many people feel is this new "golden age of animation," and i'm just sitting here like. where are the musicals!!! where are the big feelings that just cannot be expressed with words alone!! where are the dreamlike scenes that float between imagination and reality where you can show who you truly are!!!

as an autistic person I am offended by the fact that no one thought to recommend Stardew Valley to me. It IS the autism game. Even more so than minecraft.... So, this is my recommendation for any autistic person who follows me and enjoys video games to try Star Dew Valley.

ADHD cousin and fellow Stardew enjoyer here, please be aware that if you have ADHD and get into Stardew it WILL become your personality for 3-5 years

Every time I think we've run out of things to match on something else pops up :)

I second this! Stardew + ADHD will take so much of your life lol