#autistic adult trying to figure out how to function in a confusing world that makes no sense

[arafelartist]

What's your thoughts on the questions "how are you doing today?" Or "how has your day been"

For me, as an autistic person, I find this particular question frustrating. If you are asking me about my day, I am going to take you literally and tell you about my day. And why wouldn't I? Thats what you asked. You reached out and inquired in what I assumed was a kind check.

But no. This is some weird politeness more akin to a rhetorical question to most people. If anything all your supposed to say is "I'm good" or "I'm doing ok"

You are almost NEVER supposed to respond to "how are you doing today" with anything negative. Because then it drops the mood. But why would you ask someone if you didn't care about how they are honestly doing. Sure, it may SEEM genuine but it often isn't and thats annoying.

This is just my personal opinion due to my own interactions and communication style. It by no means covers any other autistic persons experience as every autistic person is different.

#arafel artist #arafel fischer #arafelartist #arafelfischer #arafel #actually autistic #audhd #actually audhd #autistic things #autistic adult #autism #autism spectrum disorder #tumblr rant #autistic adult trying to figure out how to function in a confusing world that makes no sense

[noperopesaredope]

Persephone Retelling Idea

So I was watching a video essay on Lore Olympus and its flaws, and there was a part where the video creator talked about how, in Persephone retellings, Demeter is always villainized whilst Hades is glorified. I thought about this for a bit, and realized two things:

1) The most likely reason we want Persephone and Hades’ relationship to be mutually loving is because we hate the idea of a girl being kidnapped and forced into an unwanted marriage for the rest of eternity whilst her loving mother watches on helplessly. That’s why we make up versions where Persephone isn’t suffering: because it’s horrifying otherwise.

2) It would be so much more interesting to see a retelling of the myth that portrays Demeter and Persephone’s relationship as healthy and loving, then exploring their shared grief over being forcibly separated from each other 6 months a year. That would be fascinating to me, and focus on the love and loss between a mother and daughter. It could be bittersweet and beautiful.

That’s when I ended up writing this comment (then putting it in a Google Doc for later):

I have an idea for a Persephone Myth retelling that I think would be pretty fun without really villainizing anyone (besides maybe Zeus because I hate him? But he's like, not even really in it, so there's that). It mainly focuses on Persephone and Demeter, and is slightly based on my relationship with my mom as I've started getting ready for college (particularly as an autistic young adult who needs supports to function). It also later takes the idea of the Dread Queen Persephone as she girlbosses her way into a true goddess. 

Basically, Persephone is a young adult goddess (still hundreds of years old) who has a great relationship with her mother, but is still trying to figure herself out, and slightly wants to leave the nest. She isn't quite sure how to be independent in the big wide world, and she's a bit nervous. So for now, she likes to spend her time talking with her nymph friends about life and stuff. 

Meanwhile, in the underworld, Thanatos is...busy...with a situation, so Hades is forced to temporarily take over the role of death, a job he is very reluctant to do. Why doesn't some other underworld person take care of it? Because shut up. So, Hades takes the list of people he needs to take down (to the undERWORLD THAT IS!!! *Airhorn noises*) and just kinda comes out of the earth, snatches people out of their bodies, and dips, taking them along with him. Unfortunately, one of the Fates "misspelled" a name, so instead of taking Persebhone (or maybe Kora, because Persephone’s name might be Kore for the first half), he accidently ends up taking Persephone, not realizing who she is since he really needs to get out more often. 

So Persephone finds herself in the underworld after Hades abruptly dropped her off there and went to his palace. She goes to the trial place where souls are typically tried, and the judges are surprised when they realize that she is an immortal god. They assume she got lost or something trying to visit Hades, so they send her over to his palace. She sits in the waiting room for a bit, where they are serving out underworld pomegranates as refreshments. Persephone doesn't know about the rules of the underworld, so she eats one. Dun dun dun. Then she has a meeting with Hades, who is confused until she starts explaining that she really isn't supposed to be here and why. He understandably panics at this, aware that Demeter will definitely kill him. 

Meanwhile, Demeter is having a panic attack, because she doesn't know where her daughter is. The other gods are trying to comfort her, but nothing is working, and in this arc of the story, during the parts where we see what's happening in the overworld, we will explore themes of mental health, depression, and what it is like to have a missing child. The other gods will also be having a sort of mystery thing where they try to find the missing goddess. 

Meanwhile AGAIN, Hades is trying to figure out how to contact the other gods to sort things out, but the exit to the underworld is blocked or something (basically, no one can leave rn), and he can't communicate with the other gods. They are kinda trapped rn. So he tries his best to keep Persephone calm and comfortable because NOTHING IS WRONG AT ALL- (he does break the truth to her once he realizes it really will be a few months until he can contact the others, but at first he will pretend that things are mostly fine) 

Persephone herself is feeling very overwhelmed in this crazy new place, and is more than a little stressed out. But as time goes by, Persephone finds that she really likes it in the underworld, and can find some type of beauty in it. She also discovers new parts of herself with each person she meets. But this first arc mainly explores her trying to find a place in the world without that type of support that Demeter gave her, and wondering how her growing desire to stay in the underworld will affect her relationship with her mother. 

Eventually, we get a beautiful reunion between the two, but tragically discover that Persephone eating the pomegranate seeds have permanently tied her to the underworld. So then they need to figure things out about how to live independently from each other as Persephone starts living in the underworld officially and growing into a potentially badass Dread Queen of the Underworld, Demeter tries to cope with Empty Nest Syndrome (I actually love the idea of exploring a character in her changing situation), and Hades tries to get used to living with another person and also secretly attempts to handle his new guilt complex over accidentally trapping Persephone in the Underworld.

I have a lot more ideas, but that's the basic premise.

Hades and Persephone's dynamic will be so much fun. It isn't quite romantic so much as it is besties or something (I'm gonna make them slightly close in age, since Demeter is the 2nd oldest out of the siblings, and Hades is the 4th. Zeus was also pretty young when he freed his siblings. So Hades would be a bit young around the time Persephone is born. Not super young, but young enough to seem more like an older brother or something). They are so socially awkward that they end up becoming basically friends. Since Persephone basically lives here now, Hades wants to at least make her feel comfortable and welcome, so he hangs out with her sometimes, and eventually even invites her to start helping him out with underworld stuff. They just work together well and get along pretty great in all honesty.

Persephone and Demeter's relationship would be the main focus of the story, as well as Persephone's coming-of-age. Demeter, as I mentioned above, is a mother who is dealing with grief from her child going missing, and later deals with the pieces of trauma that come with that (which she will refuse to acknowledge at first), then dealing with Empty Nest Syndrome as she has a bit of a personal crisis over that, possibly even a bit of a mid life crisis. Then she needs to deal with the realization of how happy Persephone is as she becomes an independent adult. I love the idea of working with this woman as she goes through this nonsense. She’s dealing with a lot. I love this version of her that I have in my head.

Persephone is also conflicted and unsure of herself as she begins to develop mild independence anxiety during the first arc, and her own little identity crisis during the arc after she and Demeter (temporarily) reunite.

Basically, young adult leaves for college for the first time as she and her mom both have mental breakdowns, while the young adult's cool new roommate and accidental kidnapper tries to learn social skills in the background. It's fun (and low-key funny in certain ways).

That's my idea. Yeah.

Hopefully healthier than Lore Olympus.

--------

So, I may or may not make a small webcomic using this idea. The art style will likely be simple because not only is said art style still in the works with no fully fleshed out, overcomplicated character designs, but I want it to be relatively easy to work on and write with ease. May make this, may not. Hopefully it could be fun though, since I love Greek Mythology, and I find retellings of it to be fascinating and fun. Tell me what ya’ll think of this concept, and if it sounds interesting.

#lore olympus salt #sorry dudes #i love the art style #it's just really unhealthy #persephone #persephone retelling #hades #demeter #greek gods #greek myth retellings #greek mythology #ancient greece #mythology #retelling #greek myths #myth retelling #anti lore olympus #story concept #story idea #please don't steal #just adding that just in case #coming of age #coming of age story #persephone and hades #demeter and persephone #persephone and demeter #mother daughter relationship #they love each other so much #leaving home #the underworld

[drummergirl231-2]

Happy Autism Awareness/Acceptance Day 2020!

To me, true awareness and acceptance go hand-in-hand. I still don’t mind the word “awareness,” since most people, even people who think they’re spreading Autism awareness, aren’t totally aware of what it is or what it’s like. But I also love calling it Autism Acceptance Day, because that’s what we need more than anything. 

To spread some awareness, I’d like to address some misconceptions about Autism and share some other thoughts I wish people knew/understood.

1. Autists/Aspies do not lack empathy. 

I found this thing and it explains it super well so I’ll just leave it here:

Imagine a scenario where you say something totally innocent and it triggers the person you’re talking to. They start flying off the handle at you and you don’t know why. But because they’re angry, you are, too. But since you don’t know why they’re angry, you don’t know why you’re angry, either. It’s crazy overwhelming and confusing. And you want to fix whatever you did because you don’t want this other person to be angry or hurt, but you don’t know how, because their all-consuming rage makes it really hard to think and try to put yourself in their shoes. Also, you’re scared on top of it all.

That’s what having high affective and compassionate empathy and low cognitive empathy is like. It’s not that we don’t care. It’s that we care too much, and all the super specific nuances of socializing are things we have to learn one at a time, through either our mistakes or others’ mistakes. These things don’t come naturally to us, but it’s not like we can’t learn. If I were to compare math to socializing, it’s like you all have calculators or other doohickeys to do all the math for you and we just have paper and a pencil... and no eraser. 

2. Autism is not a mental illness to be “cured.”

Now don’t get me wrong, I am ALL FOR people finding ways to help us be able to deal with the world better, whether that’s a better diet, items to block out sensory stimuli or items that stimulate, or counselling that can help us navigate social situations and talk through anxiety and/or depression. But those things don’t “cure,” us because Autism isn’t a disease or something wrong with us. Autism gives us different challenges, sure, but neutotypicals have their own challenges. 

The symptoms typically associated with “low-functioning,” Autism don’t necessarily have to be a part of Autism. Many non-verbal kids grow up to be verbal. That doesn’t mean they stopped being autistic. There was a celebrity mom years ago who claimed to “cure” her son’s Autism with a gluten-free dairy-free diet. He’d been so trapped in his head, he couldn’t engage with the world around him. She altered his diet and one day he laughed at Spongebob, and that was a turning point. He became able to interact with people and react to things on TV. It was a huge breakthrough. But he was still autistic. If you were to have plopped me down on a rug as a toddler next to a toddler like this celebrity’s son before his altered diet, you wouldn’t think I was autistic at all by comparison. But I was, and I am.

Autism is a different neurological blueprint, and yes, brain-healthy diets and detoxes can do wonders for us because it seems like our brain type does make us more susceptible to negative effects from neurotoxins. But if you think someone has lost their Autism just because “the bad parts,” went away... no. That’s not how it works.

3. Not everyone is “a little autistic.” 

When I was newly diagnosed and trying to process it, someone told me something along the lines of, there there, we’re all a little autistic. But that’s not true. There are a lot of traits associated with this brain type, and yes, a neurotypical person can have a few of them. That doesn’t make them a little autistic. To be considered autistic at all, you’d have to have a large number of quirks plus social delays (not associated with excessive technology use), odd or repetitive behaviors, unusual and intense interests, communication struggles, and unusual sensory processing. Suppose you’re white. If you are white, this should be easy to imagine. Say an African American just told you about some of the challenges they’ve faced, whether it’s race-based bullying in school or racial profiling later on. Would it be appropriate to say, “There there, we’re all a little black?” NO. One, it’s false. Two, while all people struggle with stuff because to be human is to struggle sometimes, the struggles of different groups of people are totally different, and you can’t say you know exactly what it’s like or pretend everyone’s the same. We all have equal dignity and worth, but beyond that, everyone’s different. Don’t pretend differences don’t exist. Just value them.

4. Autism doesn’t have a “look.”

When I tell people I’m autistic, this is usually what I hear: “Wow! I wouldn’t have guessed! You don’t look autistic.”  ...What does that even mean??? Is it supposed to be a compliment? Because if it’s a compliment I “don’t look autistic,” then that’s kind of an insult to other autistic people. Or do they mean it like, “I don’t believe you’re really autistic because I have a preconceived idea of what an autistic person looks like and you don’t fit the bill so I’m not going to give you grace if you act weird?” I don’t know. Y’all say weird things too, sometimes, ya know? But Autism doesn’t have a look. There is a sort of distant intensity in our gaze sometimes... and I can legit see it when Jim Parsons plays Sheldon Cooper, but when I see an interview with him as himself, it’s gone. It’s not a fixed feature of our faces, and a talented NT could totally put it on.

5. Autism presents itself differently in boys and girls.

You know how not a lot of people know the symptoms of heart attacks in women because mainly people only talk about what a heart attack is like for men? It’s kinda like that with Autism, too. Typically when you hear about Autism, you’re hearing about the signs and symptoms in boys. Even most pediatricians only know to look for the way it presents in boys, which is how so many girls don’t get a diagnosis until later in life, if ever.  One difference is that, for whatever reason, girls tend to be better at nonverbal communication and taking hints. We’re mimics. Chameleons. We take on the mannerisms of those around us and who we see on TV as we force ourselves to adapt. Verbal boys might speak at unusual volumes or with an unusual voice, rhythm, or cadence, but verbal girls learn to mimic the speech patterns of others. Our special interests/obsessions aren’t typically seen as strange given our age and sex. For example, a six-year-old autistic boy might be fascinated by WWII. I was interested in fetal development. People thought, “What’s so weird about that? She’s a little girl who loves babies.” We often play with Barbies or other dolls long after our peers have stopped. It helps autistic girls process social situations. When I was shamed out of liking Barbies, I started writing stories in notebooks or in my head. Autistic boys usually struggle with social communication from an early age, but autistic girls usually don’t have any major communication struggles until adolescence, when relationships, platonic or romantic, get way more complicated.  Since little autistic girls can mimic their neurotypical peers, and since some doctors only know how to look for Autism in boys, we tend to fly under the radar, causing that huge gender gap in diagnoses.

6. Mental illness is common with Autism, but NOT part of it.

I read an article by an autist in the UK who struggles to get help for his anxiety or depression because therapists have brushed him off, saying “Well, that’s just part of being Autistic, so it can’t be helped.” NO! Just like neurotypicals can be mentally healthy or unhealthy, Autistic people can be mentally healthy or unhealthy. Just because something is common for us doesn’t mean it’s how it’s supposed to be, or that it’ll always be that way, or that it’s part of who we are and we need to embrace it. People with mental illnesses should be embraced (literally or figuratively, depending on what they’re comfortable with). Mental illnesses should not be embraced. Ever. Because autistic kids and adults often face abuse, bullying, discrimination, and are ostracized, anxiety (especially social anxiety) and depression are common for us. In more serious cases, especially in autistic teens and young adults, dissociative disorders can develop. What’s worse, it doesn’t take much looking to find the dark corners of the internet where people, autistic or not, are encouraged to embrace their developing dissociative thoughts and feelings. I once saw an interview with someone who found healing from a dissociative disorder, and she gets emails every day from others with the same disorder she had who regret some of the things they were talked into doing while living with the condition and  who want to find the healing she did. She said many of them are autistic and under the age of twenty-five. Autistic people with mental illnesses shouldn’t be talked into believing their mental illnesses are a part of them, or not mental illnesses at all, or something to celebrate and cling to. I reject the notion we should have to settle for being ill in any way. We deserve to be as healthy and whole as anyone else, and it makes me sick there are so many internet predators preying on us in this way, and that there are therapists who think Autism and mental illness has to be a packaged deal.

7. If LGBT people were treated the way autistic people are by the media, it’d lead to outrage. But it seems like no one is outraged on our behalf.

We’ve seen the news stories, haven’t we? A couple invites the news over to their house, upsetting their autistic child who then has a meltdown, the meltdown is filmed and aired, and the parents are just like, “This is what our life is like because of Autism. And it sucks. Pity us.”

There was one video I saw... I’m just so enraged by it, even after two years. A mother was praised for her open honesty as she vilified her autistic son and complained about how he ruined her life and how hard it is to go out and have people stare. I’m sorry, hard for WHO??? I don’t even want to go into the details. I know only sharing this much doesn’t make it sound like that bad of a video, it’s just... ugh. Guys. It’d be a whole separate post. I can’t deal with it right now. 

If parents went on the news after their kid came out to them as gay, and wept and begged for pity and said some of the things this woman said of her autistic son (wondering what she did wrong that made her deserve this or that led to this or saying she doesn’t believe in God but finds herself praying anyway that God’ll “fix him”), America would call them the worst parents ever. But parents of autistic kids who do this are praised for their openness and vulnerability as they publicly shame their child.

Another time, after a mass shooting carried out by a teenage boy, the news reported that he was autistic and that might have contributed to the attack (there they go, combining mental illness with Autism as one and the same again).

If a pedophile were arrested, and they said on the news, “And we just got word that he’s gay, so that may be why,” there’d be a riot. But the news can pin autists as mass murderers and no one bats an eye!

All of May last year working at a clothing store, I watched as various departments filled up with pride t-shirts to get ready for June, and I couldn’t help but think,

Where were the Autism acceptance t-shirts in March to get ready for April?

I probably shouldn’t be so surprised with the media painting us as life-ruiners and life-enders. 

I know it’s a vile and disgusting thing for me to be jealous of LGBT people in this way, especially since they have their own struggles, too. I just wish society had our backs and celebrated us instead of wanting us “fixed,” for their own convenience, ya know?

8. Almost all of us hate Autism Speaks, and those who don’t are probably just new. XD

I used to be all “Light it up blue!” as well (even though that seemed weird to me, given blue lights might be overwhelming to some people on the spectrum). But then I read something on their site that made me feel really betrayed, and down the line, I learned most autistic people hate them... some because they saw them say the opposite of what I saw they said. Basically we all have different opinions but Autism Speaks spouts whatever information their donors want them to (sellouts), and that donated money doesn’t go towards helping us, but toward more fundraising or research on how to prevent people with our brain type. I guess they’re not fond of the artistic and scientific advancements we bring to the table. They should change those puzzle pieces from blue or multi-colored to white with black specks because they want a world that’s vanilla. 

9. Some of us still like the puzzle pieces, even if we hate Autism Speaks.

I’ve talked about this in a fanfic, but I’d love it if we could redeem the puzzle pieces, because they’re still a good analogy if you assign a different meaning. Autists and NTs are puzzling to each other, no sense denying that, but the more time we spend together, the more we start to understand each other. Also, Autism does have a lot of pieces, and figuring out I was autistic was like solving the puzzle of my life. The missing pieces came together and things became clearer and made more sense. Also also, some autistic people are really good at puzzles. And then there are autists like me who aren’t necessarily good at puzzles, but get totally absorbed in working on them anyway (my parents have been doing some puzzles during the quarantine lol they’re traps! TRAPS I SAY!!!).

Nevertheless, I understand why other autistis don’t like the puzzle pieces and prefer the rainbow infinity symbol, and I quite like it, too. It’s very pretty, and the way the colors fade together is a nice symbol of how it’s a spectrum.

It’s a sign of the infinite possibilities in our lives when we’re empowered, because we can do and have done good and great things in the world.

#autism acceptance day #autism awareness day #autism #asperger's syndrome #self-advocacy #I'm like hecka impressed if you read all this

[star-anise]

Thank you! My actual question is, what is trauma? Particularly trauma that doesn't stem from a single Traumatic Event (TM) -- like, trauma that comes from years of being treated as a "gifted" child, or from developing a disability slowly and quietly rather than in some big accident, or other non-obvious sources. What is trauma, what does it do to someone, why can two people go through the same shit and one comes out traumatised and the other does not? This is a big and vague question I know.

Yeah, “trauma” as a concept is kind of confusing because people think that to be traumatic, something has to be dramatic. And it doesn’t. In point of fact, when my province did its public messaging campaign for trauma-informed care, they completely replaced the word “trauma” with “toxic stress”.

This is gonna get long. For further reading, I’d suggest looking at the Child Trauma Academy’s Trauma and PTSD Library. And it will sound at the beginning like I’m answering some different question than yours, but I promise, I am.

The root of trauma is in the stress response system. When our body interprets something as a threat, it activates the stress response system; our system floods with adrenaline, heart rate goes up, breathing quickens, the brain diverts energy away from centres of higher thought and into immediate physical motion, your liver releases glucose your digestive system slows down, all that stuff. This is called “arousal” but it means stress arousal, not sexual arousal. And then, after the threat has passed, your body works to return you to normal; it releases cortisol to calm you down, your heart goes back to normal, your digestion goes back to normal, you are calmed and soothed.

The first major cause of stress after birth is being hungry. The stomach hurts; we’re in pain; we become stressed and cry. And ideally, someone will come, pick us up, and feed, rock, soothe, and make noises at us until we stop crying and become calm again. If we receive adequate care--that is, if we experience thousands of repetitions of being alarmed and in pain, having the pain go away, and being soothed--our brain records a basic set point of “most of the time I do not need to be alarmed, but when I am alarmed, it probably won’t be for long and I’ll get what I need to calm down again.”

Our brains don’t differentiate well between physical and emotional pain, between something that happens to us and something that happens to others. What makes a baby scream in hunger is the same basic mechanism as what happens when someone experiences a dramatic trauma.

The really big, important step, is when the body goes back to normal. When you are calmed and soothed. The parasympathetic nervous system kicks in; the body releases cortisol; heart rate, breathing, and blood pressure go back to normal; digestion resumes; higher brain functions go back online. 

Trauma is what happens when this doesn’t occur--your body tries to soothe itself, but it isn’t enough to fully work. Maybe the stressor is still present so the stress response keeps happening; maybe there aren’t enough resources to become soothed by. Instead the body is alarmed to the point of exhaustion. An aroused stress response is an incredibly taxing state, sucking down resources at an enormous rate while preventing the generation of new ones. So for an adult this could be a big shock that they can’t get over; for a baby, it could be not being fed, not being soothed, or being in constant pain. 

Trauma is, basically, a stress response that wakes up easily and then takes a long time to settle down again after. It’s the brain trying to anticipate a dangerous world where something bad happens and you need to be quick to respond to it, and maybe be prepared for a long siege where you need to maintain that response for quite some time. 

It works differently for kids because we actually need a lot of help to cope with stress initially. We spend a long time helpless, unable to walk or talk, completely dependent on a caregiver to eat and handle threats. The repetition of being soothed by a caregiver slowly builds up the neural capacity to deal with threats. We use our sense of connection with other people, and our own mastery over the world, to help deal with with stress. This is why hurt children want to be soothed by their caregiver, specifically, and why that caregiver kissing an injury to make it feel better works. Rejection is painful because on a basic level, our brains associate it with not having the resources to handle pain.

So there are a lot of thing that can either deprive a child of adequate resources to handle stress, or create a stressful stimuli too great to be soothed. Which are kind of the same thing, except: there are harmful or inadequate environments that would be guaranteed to over-stress and fail to soothe a vast number of children; and there are children who become so stressed they require a level of soothing much greater than what would be adequate for most other kids. An almost universally neglectful environment might be infants in an old-fashioned orphanage, where babies are fed on a rigid schedule, rarely held, rocked, or soothed, and not responded to when they cry; those suckers are almost guaranteed to fuck up any infant raised within them. (If it survives.) Meanwhile, a child that is difficult to soothe might for some reason have levels of pain it would require painkillers to take away, or might be distressed by things their caregiver doesn’t know to control, like an autistic child who is distressed by the fabric of their blanket or the electric hum of household equipment, which many neurotypical people would never guess could be distressing.

So some of those predispositions might be genetic, but then they get compounded by early life experience. For example, my nephew was allergic to his infant formula; he screamed way more than your average baby and was much harder to soothe, until his parents and their doctor figured out what was going on. After that, he was a much happier baby. If they hadn’t figured out what was going on, and he’d spent maybe a year being constantly distressed with nothing to soothe it, it probably would have moved his stress response system a little closer to “easily activated and hard to soothe”.

You know how when plastic gets hot, it gets all melty and can be put into a bunch of different shapes? And then when it cools down, you can flex it a little but not reshape it entirely? That’s what is meant when neuroscientists say the brain is plastic. When we’re born, our genetics play a little into the shape that our brains take, but our environment has just as much ability to shape our brains. The brain can be optimized for learning English or learning Chinese, to being happy and easily soothed or for responding to constant, unremitting stress. And as we grow older, the plastic cools off. A lot of your stress response system’s basic set point is decided by the age of 3, and much harder to change thereafter. The window for learning any new language easily and flawlessly closes in elementary school; after that, as we age, it gets harder and harder. The adult brain solidifies, so it can flex but is hard to totally reshape.

Part of childhood trauma is also the failure to learn skills during a critical period for learning them. If a child isn’t exposed to any language by the age of 7, they are deeply unlikely to learn how to speak naturally and fluently later in life. And almost everything that differentiates adulthood from childhood is a learned skill, including staying calm, paying attention, solving problems, making friends, and socializing. They’re like muscles; they have to be used for them to grow from their initial promise, their basic genetic gift, to being large, strong, and capable of doing things.

So the younger you are, you see, the more subtle a trauma can be; the stress response system is so much weaker when we’re young. It is shaped not just by huge things, but little ones: How predictably we’re fed when we cry. Whether the adults around us are grieving or fearful. If we’re allowed to feel safe when we leave the house. If the people we encounter are friendly or hostile. Whether we can reliably meet the standards for being considered “good”. How often we encounter rejection.  The hope is that, as you age, you can handle bigger and bigger stresses, because stress response is to some degree a skill; I can handle a skinned knee more easily than my 3-year-old nephew can.

But both genetics and that early life set-point can determine how likely we are to be traumatized anew by later events. If your stress system is already prone to being aroused way before other peoples’, and much slower to calm down, you’re much more likely to both be stressed by new events, and to fail to calm down totally after. The stresses pile up. Your stress response system, bless its little heart, thinks that the response to more stress is MORE VIGILANCE, and it takes a lot of very deliberate work, environmental change, and possibly medication to calm it back down again. (A frequent medication for traumatized children is clonidine, which reduces blood pressure, because it helps reset their bodies to “less stressed”)

And then if our bodies leave us in a state of chronic stress, we can often fail to do the things that help us recover from it later. If a child is constantly stressed and anxious, it may make it harder for them to make friends; then when they’re pushed off the swing at recess while the teacher’s back was turned, they’re less likely to have friends who will notice or react with care, concern, or help. If they feel totally embittered by school as a whole, they may be more likely to drop out, meaning they don’t have the educational qualifications that would give them home, food, and medical care. It can be a really vicious downward spiral.

So: 

Trauma from big shit as an adult is essentially the same as trauma from little shit when you’re a kid. To a baby, social isolation equals death, and it takes a long time to learn otherwise. 

Two people can experience the same thing and have very different reactions because of combination of genetics and life experiences

 One of those differences can be perception of threat, so they are more likely to find something distressing than others

Another can be difficulty with distress tolerance and self-soothing, so they are much less able to return from distress to a feeling of wellbeing and calm.

Adverse early experiences can set you up for a negative downward spiral

Lack of positive shaping experiences as a child can leave you without important skills for health and growth, and those skills can be much harder to learn later in life.

#staranise original #trauma #child neglect tw #child abuse tw #batbetbitbotbut

[collectivedreamscapes-moved]

That thought that was too complicated to word earlier.

We are aware that people all respond to trauma differently. We’ve known this for some time now. We’ve told other people this a lot. Because it’s not good to compare your trauma to someone else’s trauma.

We have heard from time to time that because of processing and sensory issues, sometimes things that don’t cause trauma with NTs can cause trauma to autistics. just... because of those basic differences in how the autistic brain handles things. How true this is we’ve never looked into because we didn’t think it was something we needed to worry about.

Now... we’re kinda starting to wonder.

We been through some shit, no lie. Not even gonna try and downplay the level of shit we been through or that it started before we were even born.

For a long time we thought our father was our primary abuser. Because we could remember some of the things he’d done. We grew up thinking it was discipline. Discipline shouldn’t leave bruises behind. Especially on a seven year old.

Those are things we’ve always known, have never forgotten. Our dad beat us. Never been a question. The whole family, extended as well, knew he did. His words were he wanted his kids to fear him more than anything else in this world. Yes... he did say that, more than once.

The rest of the shit he did we didn’t learn for years.

(it always feels like cognitive dissonance that our dad abused us far more overtly and specifically and yet we hate our mother and don’t hate him. we don’t forgive what he did, but it comes down to our father loved us our mother did NOT and we could feel it even then. they both HURT us, damaged us, but the intent was very different and our dad has since TRIED to apologize. our mother NEVER has.)

For a long time... we believed our mother was the safe parent. Because she wasn’t as physically aggressive the way our father was. So it would confuse us that in journals and diaries over the years the most common phrase (other than just feeling like we don’t fucking fit anywhere) was that we hated our mother. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense. (ironically, when our mother read our diaries she was far more concerned with her nine year old daughter hating her rather than the wanting to die part, go figure.)

That was before we knew a lot of things or understood what really counts as abuse.

Over the years we have learned that in some ways, our mother was FAR more abusive. We have learned that children who grow up in abusive homes often ally to the less violent parent because of a NEED to feel there is someone they can trust.

Our mother used that. She would twist things to make us question our reality so badly. Some days we didn’t think we could trust anything we thought we remembered. She made fun of us. She belittled us.She manipulated us. She toyed with us.

My mother has always been about appearances and how the outside world perceived her family. She had this ideal image that was supposed to be projected. Very often we were the problem child who marred her perfect little vision.

Our parents had a rocky marriage at best. We would hear their fights through the floor of our bedroom. They would each use us as a sounding board for shit no kid should be dealing with, would try and sway us to their side. We were left feeling like we were always in the middle of some tug of war and we were supposed to know how to fix what was wrong, or we would have to choose a side. It sucked and left us believing we always had to take care of everyone around us.

We got good at that. Too good.

But here’s the thing. So much of before we were in middle school is piecemeal recall. What things we can recall often didn’t happen IN our home. At school. Around the neighborhood (because we used to wander a lot. so much.). It’s hard to remember things that happened at home at all through the years. We can remember the layout of the house. We could draw it right now if we wanted to. We remember we played musical rooms. We know that we would rearrange our whole room periodically. We can remember things that happened with our brother. We remember random things. We can’t directly recall most of the abusive situations. We know people hold them. We also know so far, no one cares to share them.

Here’s the thing. When we think about our mother in those years, beyond the art crap she would let us do... what we most recall are things like, her yelling at us repeatedly about changing the cat boxes because we had no concept of time and our sense of smell does NOT work like it should. We remember for every nice thing she did there were half a dozen other things we couldn’t understand why she’d do but hurt us. We couldn’t understand why something always rang false with what she would say to us. We knew she treated our siblings differently, but we didn’t know why. She was always telling people ‘that’s just how she is’ or ‘she’s in one of her moods’. She was always belittling what we felt, more worried about how the family would be perceived.

(one notable trip to the base ER for yet another fall because we were clumsy af and had numerous sprained and twisted ankles and wrists and such over the years, she commented ‘god i hope these doctors don’t think you’re being abused’ and we recall looking at her and thinking ‘god forbid someone get a clue and know the truth right?’)

we remember ending up in the ER and having to be held down by two nurses and a doctor (we assume we’d started to have seizures) to give us a shot bc our idiot mother figured we’d grown out of a penicillin allergy (that she shares and is very much an adult and still fucking had) and gave it to us anyway even when we questioned the wisdom of taking it. (the doctor made sure WE understood, not just our mother, that taking that shit could kill us.)

why are we even going over all of this? because of what happened when we woke up, that reflexive hitting our own hand and telling ourselves to ‘stop that’. because we could picture our mother doing that to us. 

(this woman would hit hard enough to bruise her own damn hand okay? she once broke her finger trying to hit the dog for wiggling too much while she was trying to unravel the chain and missed and hit my brother’s Tonka truck instead. and that was the dog. she burst blood vessels in her hand giving my brother a ‘spanking’.)

And we started to wonder... all those splits that aren’t from explicit abuse and the LARGE number of kids in our system... learning about being autistic (and yeah, the signs were SO there even as a two and three and four year old)... how much damage this woman has actually done to us.

(and this is where we have to say... we sometimes remember way more than we think we remember and at the same time so much less. like what did actually happen at home after we almost drowned in canyon lake? got not a clue.)

We used to think it was just... the extent of what we’d been through. Except... it didn’t feel right. Especially because of the Mountain Caves. And the people who stay there. Because they don’t function in a way that would lend itself to being able to take care of themselves. We used to say that all of them were... not quite right in the head. That there was some damage or deficiency in every single one of them. We have wildchild, who often has to be kept in a straight jacket to keep from clawing her face to ribbons and screams and bangs her head. she’s never talked. ever. and she doesn’t scream all the time. but it’s the only sound we’ve ever heard her make.

How many splits have we had for the sole purpose of appearing normal because whatever we were doing was unacceptable and wrong? We have a lot of nonvebal kids. We never really thought about it because we ARE multiple and we have been through some shit and trauma can do that.

We just wonder... how much of the way our system grew came from just trying to find ways to LOOK more normal. Because of our mother. How much of our system’s development was because of being autistic and having a mother who... hated us and everything about us?

And now we feel like we’re trying to say the only reason our system is so big is because of being autistic and that’s not what we’re saying. I’m not sure what we’re saying now... We’re not looking for something to blame. We’re not trying to say we weren’t abused or we were just ‘too sensitive’. That’s not what we’re saying.

I don’t know what we’re trying to say. It made sense a few minutes ago and now it’s just... confused and tied up in half a dozen other things. and it still comes down to we may never know. Trying to untangle things now is impossible. And we already knew our mother was a bitch. None of this changes anything.

Except that... if we’ve spent years, decades even, stopping ourselves from doing things a certain way because we internalized our mother’s reactions... how the hell do we stop doing it to ourselves? How do we stop telling ourselves what we’re doing is so very wrong or bad? how do we stop ourselves form feeling guilty when we give in because it fucking helps?

#lotta us #abuse cw #trauma cw #this took a long damn time to write #and i think we're more confused now than less

[stimtoybox]

Hello, so I'm not sure if this is allowed here but, I'm about to get my autism screening and my good friend who has thought themself to be autistic much longer then me still hasn't gotten theirs and I'm worried they'll resent me for getting mine so soon especially as they're the only reason I looked into autism traits and connected some pieces of my brain confusion together. Anyways how would you advise I help them and myself not feel like this towards my likely diagnosis?

We’ve kind of moved to a “stim toy with neurodiversity discussions” blog, so I don’t see this as being too far off topic. I was saying yesterday, in fact, that for a stim toy blogger, I’ve spent time talking about intellectual property, respiratory protection, different types of plastics and cleaning products! So I might say, as a joke, that all is good if you don’t ask me about cars, but for all I know, one day an ask about cars might be relevant to what we’re doing here…

If you think I can answer your question, I will try to do so. With the understanding that I am not a psychologist - just a random internet person (who has not got it all figured out) trying to be supportive via words, one who’ll probably screw up here and there. I absolutely take it as a compliment that folks think I might provide useful answers.

First: anon, I am so glad you are getting your screening! I’m crossing my fingers that you get the conclusion you want and the support you need. I also think it’s incredibly fabulous that you care so much about not alienating your friend.

(Also: if they say you’re not autistic after this screening, but you still feel the word fits because it makes better sense of who you are in the world, that’s good enough for the vast majority of autistics. It’s absolutely good enough for me.)

But I am going to tell you one ugly truth: we can’t change how other people feel. By this I mean that you can go about supporting and including your friend as much as possible and they still might resent you anyway. Sometimes we cause other people pain, not from anything bad that we’ve done or a mistake we’ve made, just from the circumstances of our lives. Part of becoming an adult, I think, is coming to terms with the idea that we’re not innocent, that we still leave a wake of people we’ve wounded behind us, no matter how much we try to be the kind of person that doesn’t. Accepting this doesn’t mean that we don’t try to be kind to others; it means that we try not to beat ourselves up for those times when we can’t not cause others’ bad feelings.

I think there are absolutely ways you can lessen the possibility of this resentment, though, and they’re all worth trying.

Under the cut because post length, I talk about the importance of checking in and just asking your friend how they’re going and what they need from you.

The most important thing, I think, is to check in with your friend. Ask them if they’re okay listening to you talk about your screening, both in the lead up and afterwards. They might see you as a source of explanation as to what it’s like, and be relieved to hear your story. They might not be able to bear hearing it at all. Ask them. We autistics like it when people are direct about finding out what we do and don’t want, so be forthright:

“Would you rather me not talk about my screening today?”

“Would you like me to not talk about my diagnosis right now?”

“Is it easier for you if I talk about this less often?”

“I know it might be hard to hear me talk about this because you’ve had to wait for so long, so would you rather I talked less about it?”

“If this is hard for you to hear, can you let me know?”

I know this seems a little weird, to put things so clearly - it’s not social skills the way NTs teach them. But those skills don’t work for me. I’m not the best at figuring out if someone is into what I’m saying or just putting up with me. So ask, because we don’t need to be subtle with each other. I know I’ve annoyed people by talking on and on about whatever thing; I’ve also been on the receiving end of an enthusiastic autistic infodump and not knowing what to do about it other than sit there and try and do the socially approved thing of subtly redirecting conversation (a skill I don’t have because I’m also autistic). I wish I’d had the actual functional social skill of just saying to my friend:

“Hey, do you mind if we talk about [interest we both have in common] instead?”

So make sure your friend knows they can do this. (And that you can do this with your friend, for that matter.) That, if they’ve had enough of your talking about your screening, they can change the topic, no problem, and that you understand why they need to do so.

If your friend says yes, they don’t mind, try as much as possible not to dominate conversations with your experiences about your screening. (I know this is hard. I know. How do you not talk so much about something so big in your life, especially with someone who understands what it means?) If you can, try to talk about it for a while and then follow up with topics that centre on your friend. Ask about their special interests; try to explore their life, too.

(And this is why we make it clear that we absolutely welcome their stopping us if they’ve had enough, because not talking too much about things is hard!)

In addition, I’d ask your friend if they wish to talk about their own wait for a screening. It might be easier for them to talk to you about yours than to go over their pain of waiting/not being supported in getting a screening. They might wish to talk about their situation as much as yours. Keep asking to find out what they’re comfortable with.

Try and express sorrow for their situation, too, if they wish to talk about it.You don’t have to say anything more than “It’s so awful you’re going through this” or even just “that sucks, mate”. Those simple expressions of feeling make the world, anon. They keep us going when everything is hard. They’re underrated and forgotten but they are so important because they make us feel so much less alone with our struggles.

I would suggest that you don’t try to solve your friend’s situation, as much as that feels like a good way to approach the problem (by removing it). When I express a problem to most allistics, they immediately try to come up with a solution. Never mind the fact that I’ve probably thought of it, or tried it, or their offering is terrible, or there just isn’t a solution to come up with - they try and solve my problem, even though all I want is for them to acknowledge my situation (and make me feel less alone in it) by telling me it sucks. This problem-solving approach is seldom anything but alienating (and it does build resentment). If you do think you have an answer for their problem, ask them first if they mind you offering a suggestion. If they say no, they don’t want this kind of help, don’t offer it. Even if your solution seems brilliant, anon.

(The problem, with offering solutions, is that they make the person offering feel like they’re helping, but they mostly only frustrate the person with the problem. I wish allistics had the empathy to realise it is kinder to ask first if their thoughts on a solution are wanted, but I’ve never known them to do this. Again, asking people what they want and need is an underrated social skill that I think society needs to better value.)

When you do talk about autism, try to include and affirm your friend. Affirm their belief in their self-diagnosis through your own experiences. If you’re talking about your sensory overload, and how that’s an aspect in your diagnosis, ask if your friend experiences this, or how they cope with it, or talk about the time you know they experienced it. In going through a screening, you’ll be getting more confirmation of your own traits and a formal label to put to them. You can use that to show your friend that you don’t doubt their autism - that you’re in this together. Include them as much as you can as an autistic in discussions about autism by validating their experiences.

In all honesty, anon, the best thing you can do is ask your friend what they need from you. You can even straight up ask your friend something like this:

“I know my going through my screening first must be difficult for you. Is there anything I can do or not do to help you with this?”

Asking what people need is empathetic. Allistic empathy works on the assumption that we can read what they need and infer a response based on that reading, but the truth is that we can just ask. While allistics might find that confronting, we autistics don’t need to play that game, especially not amongst ourselves. We can just ask. And we should.

I know that just having someone ask, if I were in that situation, would go an awful long way to keep any resentment from flowering. It’s so much harder to resent someone when they’re showing that they care how you feel.

Anon, remember that it might be hard for your friend, but you do have every right to explore who you are. You have every right to find the label that helps you make sense of you. You don’t have to and should not feel bad about taking care of your own needs, and it isn’t your fault (or theirs) that things have happened sooner for you. Life is pretty unfair for all of us most of the time, so you shouldn’t feel bad that, for once, it’s a bit less unfair for you.

That you’ve even sent this ask says a great deal about how much you care about your friend, and that’s something you should hold onto. You care, a lot, about helping your friend get through this.

I really hope everything goes well for you, both with your screening and your friend. The absolute best of luck to you, anon!

- Mod K.A.

#ask #text #not a toy #off topic #anon #discussion post #autism discussion #diagnosis discussion #communication discussion #empathy discussion #long post #very long post #mod K.A.

[rontra]

Hey Rontra. Sorry is this is too personal, but I was recently diagnosed with autism (high functioning) and even though it didn't tell me anything new per se, I've been trying to wrap my mind around it. Do you have any tips for getting through the transition period?

Hi there friend!Omg yeah getting th diagnosis can be super weird even if it’s not necessarily new information, I totally get what you mean lmao

Even tho it’s personal I don’t rly mind talking about it at all; just remember that this is a suuuuper individual experience and you might not relate to my thoughts on it at all–and that’s okay! I’m happy that you decided to ask for advice, but if mine doesn’t apply to you, that’s okay–and I’m sure there’s other posts out there that can add to this you might relate to more (but I’m on mobile so sadly can’t help much there djfhshs sorry). This kind of advice is hard because everyone’s so different xD ahhhhSpoilers: my tips are very mushy and sentimental ;9

But this DID get long so I’m gonna cut the post fbdbdhdhhs I’m very chatty ;v;

So for context’s sake: I was also diagnosed with autism relatively recently–at 20 years old (am 21 now). While I don’t know how old you are, I’ll assume that you’re an adult or close to it as well–which to me made the diagnosis feel really weird and time-displaced! Like I wasn’t “supposed” to be diagnosed so late, bc it’s “supposed” to be noticed in childhood and thus I’m somehow not “allowed” to relate with other autistic people (obviously, that’s not a correct line of thinking). I felt like, even though it totally makes sense and it’s def the appropriate diagnosis for me, it was weird–definitely difficult to sort of keep up and get my head around it. Everything in hindsight of my life makes 100% sense through this lens, and yet, it felt surreal. Not WRONG; but it was complex.

I think a lot of that stemmed from those two decades of suppressing the traits associated with my autism; things like downplaying or ignoring hypo- and hypersensitive sensory experiences, actively suppressing stims, and expending 90% of my day-to-day energy on just trying to slip “under the radar” in social interaction(let alone do well at it, God forbid). It wasn’t something I did out of conscious self loathing or anything like that; I actually assumed everyone grew up this way, and the world was just supposed to be a fuckin incomprehensible mess of unpleasant sounds and obscure subliminal social cues that people drop just for fun and sometimes things just swirl together into a big mess and you can’t focus and you can’t talk and this is just how the world IS. That we all grow up feeling like aliens and we’re all just pretending. That specific feeling wore off as I grew older and more prone to feeling directly isolated (so now IM the only alien), but the idea that “the world just Is Like This” stuck. It was HUGE to me when I realized that neurotypical people don’t usually relate to that mess. And, more importantly, that all this time-and-energy-consuming self-discipline was suddenly unnecessary, because those things had a reason and they had a meaning and they were mine. That’s weird. It’s good but it’s weird. To take in that those things have patterns and explanations and other people feel them too is overwhelming and beautiful and weird.

It’s weird as hell to feel like some kind of spy in a foreign country trying to blend in with a culture you don’t understand for 20 years, or some kinda alien, an animal in a cage doing tricks for a faceless crowd, only to have that moment where–it’s OKAY and things MAKE SENSE. It’s mine and it’s good and i don’t have to work so hard to be “like them” because I’m not. I can’t be.

I can’t be! Even when people call me (and you) things like “high functioning” it’s measuring my ability to be “like them”–which is something I can’t be. It’s measuring how I function compared to a neurotypical person, and it feels moot, because I’m NOT. It’s a measure of how good I am at pretending to be neurotypical. And guess what: after 20 years, I’m pretty damn good at it! :p

It makes sense, but it’s scary. Because I can finally get to know me, the autistic person–the person I’ve been subconsciously smothering for 20 years. That’s scary, and exciting, and comforting, all at once.

So after all that rambling, here’s one tip: lean into that. Hard. Indulge in something that makes you go “wow, this is pretty autistic” (whatever that might entail for YOU; I get really into obnoxiously elaborate organization systems for my hobby supplies, as one example) and just…let yourself enjoy it. Try a bunch of stim toys if you haven’t had the chance. Find a friend who has an hour or five to spare and tell them about your special interest, if you have one. Explore how you feel when you’re treating yourself to this kind of thing. Feel it all the way through. Take your time to get to know it.

I didn’t really go out and do research and look up more than I already knew–I focused way more on what I was feeling and how this new set of facts interwove with that, that it all made sense and for the first time I was in control of that and could indulge it consciously in a very pleasant way. I am more at peace than I have been in a long time because I’m expending less energy suppressing myself, while simultaneously spending more time being gentle to myself and indulging those autistic traits to bring an overall soothing. I think reviewing your own history and figuring out what makes your autism tick is super helpful in making you comfortable with it–finding what things appeal to you and utilizing those tools fully with the “armor” of your diagnosis. Before, I was often worried because “other people don’t do this” or “doing that is weird”–now, I do these things (stimming, accommodating for my sensory needs, etc) without feeling as bashful about it, because I know now that this is part of my experience with autism. I have that word, I have this diagnosis, and I can use that as my shield against those 20 years of pressure and shame. And if someone thinks my stim or my avoidance of certain touch IS weird–well, that’s their problem, lmfao. I spent 20 years suffering; I’m going to take full advantage of this new flourishing beauty.

To me, this experience isn’t about learning something new (as you said; it’s not new information)–but leaning into it and embracing what was there from the start. If you’re like me and have spent most of your life suppressing these things, indulging them may help you transition through the “whoa” into the “this is good” :p leaning into it HARD was def one of the best things I did hahahaha

another thing I did a lot was just reflection–I’ve spent a lot of time going over my own behaviors, reflecting on the past through this new lens, that kind of thing. I’ve been exploring my own mindset and how my brain works all over again, and connecting the dots to my diagnosis like some huge constellation chart, and it’s one of the most soothing things I’ve ever done. Maybe it’s because I’m big on organization :p Just kind of training myself to apply this new sexy word to it was important to me. To be able to say “oh, I do this thing because autism” or “hey I’m autistic too” and use these terms in a real way helped make the diagnosis and how it applies to me “real” to me as well.

People (neurotypical people, that is) talk to me about “acceptance” and “coming to terms with” and such–and they’re saying the right words but they don’t mean the right thing. They say it like I feel bad about autism. They’re saying it like autism is bad. It’s not. This wasn’t a difficult diagnosis to get–its not really one i struggled to cope with receiving. But they’re right that it is about acceptance, and it is about coming to terms–it’s just a far gentler thing with a different emotional starting point. I was learning from scratch how to take care of myself, with a whole new box of tools and terms to help me; it was flourishing, it was thriving. It was not a scary new disease or some threatening Autism $peaks rhetoric; it was merely understanding, and accepting, and giving myself positive things I’ve been keeping away for too many years.

Step 1 to managing my difficulties is understanding them. Step 2 is being kind.

Upon receiving this diagnosis, things may simply seem to make a lot of sense. Maybe you don’t really feel like it’s a “big deal” the way people around you seem to. It might just be that perfect moment when a puzzle piece clicks into place and it was always meant to be there. That dissonance between other people’s behavior and how you feel might be confusing too (I had this!).

Now, you probably understand things in a new light. It’s a good thing to become closer with yourself. Be nice to yourself and explore your experience of the world with a new light–you don’t necessarily have to do anything huge with that new info, but acknowledging it and naming its root and learning to use it to be kind to yourself in the future is cool. Don’t pretend like it isn’t there; name it, in your head, when you notice a trait in yourself that stems from it. Let yourself know what those things are and what they come from, and make adjustments where necessary to accommodate them. Be kind to yourself and don’t worry.

It’s good. You are good. You have always been good. Thank you.

[ramblefishworld]

Blender Mechanics and The Constitution of the Nervous

I don’t know if this is a good way to explain it, but I wake up each morning suddenly, with the sensation a blender is whirring on the low setting in my mind. Almost every night, after hours of pseudo sleep that includes foot thumping, random flailing, and irresistible desires to itch or remove and replace my socks—I wake up having gotten around 3 hours of sleep with this grinding, whirring sensation of mental work and social confusion about the day that lies ahead, and turns my thoughts into mush.  

This grinding, whirring, crunching sensation is autism--cajoling me into a day of navigating crunching social anxiety, sensory challenges, and organizational struggles. At times, the experience of anxiety is the result of the sensation of my mind grabbing and dealing with way too many details at the same time like specks of static electricity, so that things literally start looking alike.  I can’t keep certain details out.  At other times, the anxiety relates to total confusion about people and what they are experiencing or desiring from me, how to handle situations, communicate needs, or address conflict, and many other things.  The result is that my mind is in this constant state of clutter and moving around the details— breaking up and chewing up the information with this sort of metallic feeling of urgency, which according to my Physician’s Assistant, translates to occasional blood pressure surges to 170.  

This blender phenomena In my opinion is at the crux of autism experience:  the functional anxiety I’m riddled with is physically painful, socially confusing, and totally related to the experience I have with practical living, such as having a hard time keeping up with finances, dates, assignments, and making decisions that make sense. The issue is that the world is organized in a way that doesn’t make sense to me, either practically or socially—while the world is organized by things I just don’t get (socializing and relationships and getting along), that keep me awake and wondering and asking myself what to do—the world that makes sense to me is quiet, colorful, organized, compulsive, internal, repetitive, weird, complex, confusing, and solitary.  

I tend to be an extremely forgetful person, on a monthly basis losing things like my phone or glasses. People don’t understand the nuance that It’s not that I make those kinds of mistakes because I’m anxious and get all bewildered and befuddled.  I’m anxious because I make intellectual mistakes, because I have these experiences of memory and functional challenge, of facial recognition and organization, of processing information and of understanding conversations or their implications.

I was actually happy recently when someone recognized what happens to me during a conversation. Chuck and I were out to dinner with a couple, and about halfway through the night the guy looks perplexed and asks:  “You’re not understanding about half of what I’m saying, are you?”  He was absolutely right.  I follow conversations piece meal, with the utmost effort, using my intuition and piecing things together, and very often misunderstanding the gist of conversations completely in terms of what they were about or what was important about what was said, or whether that person wants something of me.  It’s not that I’m not hearing, but that I am not understanding what people are saying.  The words literally sound like spaghetti and I am unable to differentiate one word from another, and I will go away having no idea of what we just talked about.

There is no way to describe the effect of this syndrome on a person’s anxiety level, because life essentially becomes a conflagration of misunderstandings, in which I think I have followed what you’ve said, but chances are I’ve missed the main point of the conversation because the words themselves do not make sense to me. And even when a person understands my condition, all my relationships still comprise of this element of misunderstanding, because I just can’t figure out what people are trying to get across with their words, body language, or the entire gyst of our interactions.

There are so many other social and sensory realities to autism, which can’t be addressed by changing or medicating us, but by changing the way systems are organized and their flexibility for dealing with differences in how we navigate the world and process our environments.  Without education, it may be hard for individuals to understand why an autistic person may have trouble approaching people, may have strange behaviors or tics, or may have unusual ways of pursuing interests or unusual ways of experiencing the world.  But with tolerance and social acceptance, and with adaptations for the particular way we do things and allowing us to be ourselves, I keep hoping the anxiety can be at least partially assuaged, because it takes just so much energy to process and address social anxiety.

With all this said, it came to me  that the adrenelline rushes blender on low sensation I experience multiple times per day and night may be a part of my constitution, and I may have to deal with the discomfort of it—

on the other side of that nervous energy, though,  is creativity, alive and electric— The truth is I’ve spent  hours days and decades channeling my most valuable energies into worrying about social things, even as an adult—, how I should respond to criticism, whether I’m dressed right, how to interpret a glance, who to cc, who to call, who to text, when to enter a room or a doorway or office, or ask a question or interject a thought.   I can channel my energies into so much more if I can basically get my mind rid of this kind of negative social self feedback, which create mazes for me, spiraling and vast.

I think whether autistic people are or are not doing ok depends in large part on how well we adapt and integrate so that the experience of difference is not alienating and anxiety compelling but invigorating, so that that whirring, metallic gut feeling of fear I have in the morning propels creative work rather than self evaluative angst, based on prior experiences of marginalization.  If creativity is the end goal—whether the objective is a painting or a code review—and society can buy into that then I guess it could be a different paradigm for how to deal with anxiety.  

[telashar]

Better help post to my counselor 7-29-2017

I am so sorry about how long this is.  Once written I thought about not sending it to you or somehow boiling it down for you.  But I think I really needed to get all this out.  But I think I also really want someone to understand me.  So I have decided to send the whole thing to you.  I know it is long and most likely a big rambling that in the end you might not get anything useful from.  But I kind of hope you do.  So good, bad or ill here it is. (oh and I certainly don’t expect quick flash of insight, brilliant, glib or other response that deals with all this. Though brilliant flash of insight is always welcome.) ……….. I have been busy and thinking.  In part I tried a council before you and that was not work.  I takes quite a lot for me to talk about thing for a few reason.  First is the whole exposing yourself thing, revealing inner personal things. 2nd It take quite a bit of effort to even think of what to say and how to express it.  It all becomes jumbled and confused, it’s hard to explain.  I know believe this is related to the autism.  So first I have to figure out what I need to express and then I actually have to explain it in such a way to minimize confusion. It can cause confusion when people expect to hear one thing and you're saying another.   For example there are times what I feel in response to a situation is not the same as what most people generally feel.  For example after I learned my husband was cheating and we were breaking up, came over to get some of his stuff.  When he was leaving his car got stuck in the driveway (lived in Michigan and it was winter.)  Well he was trying to get it out with no success.  I couldn’t stand watching him struggle, so I went out and helped him push the car out of the driveway.  Everyone one of my friend were totally surprised I did this and everyone of them said they wouldn’t have gone out and help him.  And I understand their responses, I mean this is the time most would be throwing his stuff out in the snow, yelling and screaming at him and in general doing whatever to express their hurt, anger and pain at the person that just hurt them in the worst way.  So how do I explain to them what I did? So it was very hard to explain to them how it was far worse for me to watch him struggling then to just go out and get him out of my driveway.  Of course it can be explained and expressed but it take more effort than if I had just left him in the driveway because that is what people expected because they understand anger far better than anxiety. And anxiety is what was more powerfully me at that moment. 3rd There is the actual communication issues.  When writting I am a horrible speller and I tend to think far faster then I write so I can end up something hard for the other person to read.  If I am talking I have issues with eye contact, stumbling over words, not hearing tones correctly, not speaking in the correct tones because I don’t hear them.  All those typical autistic kind of issues. This all mean even the act of seeking help can greatly increase my anxiety and I can will hit a point of burn out where I need to withdraw.  And the last therapist didn’t work because I would go through all this and she responded with the equivalent “un hun, go on” We that doesn’t work for me, I need more feedback, more direction in the feed back.  For example she might respond, ‘That is to be expected, as it is normal to feel that way.”  but a response like that can leave me dangling.  I may not actually know what feeling she is referring to.  Also I believe most people feel comfort in feeling like the herd? but I don’t get any comfort from that.  Knowing others feel the same can help me in understanding others and that can be helpful when dealing with others but it doesn’t help me in dealing with me. (This is one of those areas that is very, very hard to explain. I have found other autistic people get what I am saying but i find more atypicals don’t.) I spent a long time not even understanding this myself.  I only learned I was autistic when my son was diagnosed in his senior year of high school.  So I have only known for like 8 years, which might seem a long time it really isn’t.  Everyday I still learn of new ways I am not like the majority of people and how it impacted my life and still does.  You know how teens feel like no one understands them, they are different, a freak, all those normal growing pain kind of things.  Well that is how my whole life has been.  I now know that is how all high functioning autistic people feel. In some ways I am fortunate in that I recognized the fact that I was different from most other people early on (I think 6th grade is when I really, really understood that fact.) I didn’t know how I was different or why I was different but I knew for a fact I was.  And because I knew that was a fact I was able to accept it.  In some ways that made my teen years easier than some of my friends.  I didn’t feel I fix in any better then them but I had accepted it so I didn’t even really struggle with trying.  Instead I just looked for those that I would naturally fit with and be myself in many way. (When starting a new school which I did a lot, I just looked for the freaks and geeks and found friend actually pretty quickly.) So how does this matter today? in many ways.  It is far harder to find the “Freaks and geeks” at 51 then 16.  All my peers are not gathered in one building for me to observe and spot the individual i can relate too.  And those I might relate too are most likely high functioning but selective in where they hang and who they hang with.  So if i go to a meet up that is focus on exercise I am less likely to find a kindred soul then if I go to a game convention.  But at a game convention most of the people are going to be half my age.  Now I am not opposed to young friends but does present it’s own issues.  In fact I do have one friend I see once a month or do.  She is my daughter's age but we click very well.  But she is harder to hang with because she has a far more active lifestyle.  Also it hard to talk with her about thing like my kids or even my divorce because she is at the beginning of things and I am at the end.  She in the flowering of her marriage and I have suffered the devastating end of mine.   Of course all the communications issue listed above make things challenging as well. I only figured out recently that even though I might my time at the meet-ups I have been attending, they were still causing social burnout because they also generated a very high anxiety state.  So I might have a great time but after say three event I would be burned out for a week or more.  This week was a good week.  Your response helped and seems to be the kind I am looking for, that is a positive.  I have finished 2 big projects at work, lowering stress levels, I went to fun game previous friday and then another on thursday. Went to the water park with my daughter (I love the water.) I had lunch with my co-works this just past friday. But still anxiety is up and this morning i woke up all emotional.  I was crying and obsessing about all I had lost.  My friends, my husband and the life I knew and understood (or at least I thought I did.)  I now know this is a response to anxiety.  So I have to step back and re-coup at home.  I also have to watch my buying habits because of late I think I am internet shopping in response to stress. What I don’t know is how long it will take me to re-coup. It can also make planning future events hard.  If I plan things but then end up burning out an cancelling that really doesn’t help much.  I am also not sure how much is going to lead to burnout.  New activities are certainly going to cause more anxiety than things I know but I really am not at the point of having any routine activities with other yet.  The only one I really have is once a month i go to an autism for adults support group.  So far it is the only activity that really, really helps me.  Even when there are issue at the  meeting I still feel “at home.”  I don’t feel like a fish out of water there.  And I can really be myself in many ways I can’t anywhere else. This all started with me wanting to just explain why it was taking me so long to respond to you.  I don’t even know if i have succeeding in do that I do now know I really needed to explain all this stuff to you.  I have spent  lot of time trying to get help in the past but because I didn’t know what what my needs and challenges were and those trying to help didn’t understand a lot of time was spent spinning wheels. Like with the last councilor.  I would tell her I was frustrated, that i didn’t know how to proceed, etc… but she just didn’t get it and couldn’t find an effective way to connect with me and thus couldn’t help. I can say that at least at this age I have learned to spot spinning wheels quicker. When I was 19 I spent a month in a nice psyche ward.  No one there had a clue of what to do with me and how to help, myself included.  Very typical, especially in the 80’s that no one recognized I was a high functioning autistic, mostly because I was female because I had a ton of red flag.  But it did mean that everything, including the med medication they finally settled on for me (we went through at least 4 different kinds) didn’t help me at all.  What did help and why I finally showed signs of improvement was simply the time out for a month.  I really suffering from extreme burnout for anxiety.  So having a month of being pretty free from most social interaction and l social interaction that did occur were very structured and controlled, it allowed me to destress enough to somewhat deal with the real world again I saw the same kind of thing happen with my son.  If I had know we could have gotten him better help and I think he would be at a better stage now.  If nothing else his high school like would had been better, I am sure of it.  So now I know not to wast time in a pointless direction or worse a direction that will only make things worse. I also think you should know how I found your response helpful and makes me hopeful.  You gave me something concrete to research, learn about and explore in maybe understanding myself better, (The  of needs i didn’t know about.) You asked direct question?  It gives me a way to respond when i am at a lost.  Direct question also tell me if you're getting what I am really saying or if some form of miscommunication is going on. Just restating what I said doesn’t mean someone is getting what I said but if they ask question about it I can then get a clue i they are in the same ball park as me. Finally, I promise some more direct answers. meet-ups I have attended:   DFW gamers social happy hours ( like these as it is fellow gamers meeting at various bars, just hanging and talking geek stuff.  I like these but they are random on when and how often they occur.  Plus most have been on the dallas side of area, a bit far for me.) Beginner meditation: Was good but organizer ended it and I haven’t found a replacement like it. Barnes and Noble board game meet up: Again like it, have been to one so far but it is only monthly autism adult support group: Best for me but only meets once a month (really wish it was more often.) Shadowrun roleplaying game: Just been to the first one, it went well and it meets twice a month.  It is a new group of people for everyone, so traditionally it really need to meet at least a few months before you know it it will continue or fall apart. (private home) DnD league playing at Game Store: This meets every thursday and i have been to 4 of these.  It is going well, so far it has been the same players and same GM. (this means it socially stable for me.) Events like this can be trying for me on a weekly bases if games, players or gm change all the time, like they can at this kind of event. i have been looking for some kind of craft class or group I could join but so far I haven’t found one.  Mostly it has been an issue of time and/or focus.  A lot of them meet during the day, while I am work.  And focus is often for young mothers learn crafts for kids and that kind of thing.  But I am still looking. REVIEW OF GOALS It is very hard for me to give you things I want to do or achieve.  As one of my big issue is that I really can’t find much that motivates me anymore.  Though in you asking it did make me suddenly realize in part why my creative energy is so low.  It that I have no one to share with.  Sharing creative energy really gets things cooking and I really do thrive in bouncing around that energy but currently I am doing everything in a vacuum.  I post to FB but get little feedback that way, usually some “like” hits.  But no really exchange on the project.  I thought maybe it was praise I was lacking but now I know it’s not that at all.  It is that back and forth, that sharing of excitement, of developing and growing the ideas that I am missing.  So when my battery runs out I have nothing to plug into and recharge it with. I really, really like what I do for a living.  I don’t always like the job but I like what I do.  I don’t want to move up because that changes what I do.  I don’t want to manage people or even project.  If I get bored in my career it is usually be cause what I am designing I can do in my sleep and it isn’t innovate or teaching me anything new.  In that case I usually have to move to a new job.  (If a company builds widget A and that is all they do, there comes a time you have to go to a company that builds widget B.)  Currently I work for a company that  does almost all custom work so all my widgets are different to some degree.  Plus it is in a growing field/technology so there plenty to learn and grow with, without going into management. Though I love to learn and I am always open to going to training, classes, and self learning I see no benefit to a higher degree at this stage in my life. In general I have enough work experience that a higher degree give me little career benefits (unless I want to move into management, which I don’t) So from time to time I will take a college course for personal interest but it’s not a goal thing. I thought about traveling, but to be honest my social anxiety is so high these days travel something I dread more than look forward too. I have a passport so if there comes a day the bug bits I think I could just take off but for now it just make me nause to think about going abroad.  I use to love camping but Texas has some many things that can kill you, snake and the like I am not sure I can reconnect with nature here. (I have always really, really hated snakes but at least in michigan if I encountered on I didn’t have to worry about any real danger. Not to mention scorpions, and the like you have here.)  So day trips are about all I am up to these days.  Plus camping is more fun with people and I have no one to camp with. I have thought about volunteer work but again couple of issues.  1st Social anxiety high so this could just ramp that up.   And there are thing I am not emotionally ert ipped to deal with.  for example I love animals but things stay with me.  so if I offered to help with the local reque I would have to deal with the emotional trauma of the evil, cruel and sad thing that happens to these animals.  But those things stay with me, I mean really I will remember them for life and they will haunt me. 2nd There is a jaded factor in me that I don’t know if i can get over.  I have volunteered for various organizations in the past but over time I have become somewhat embittered with them.  I see the waste and cons going on and find it hard to ignore.  Basicly I find I can’t drink the cool air any more.  For example I was a girl scout from 11 to 18 and then I was a Troop leader.  But as a leader I was the national council push cookie sales like made.  Basicly a troop meets 9 months out of the year.  The second month in the council will start the campaign at the leader meetings to get the girls ready for cookie sale.  Troops will then spend almost 2 months in cook sales and orders.  then when orders comes in they will spend another month on delivery, rewards and booth sales.  After that the council then spend at least another month debriefing leader on the sales.  So for the girls a min. of 3 months out of 9 are focus on cookie sales. For leader the focus is at least 5 out of 9.  What really kills with this is most troops could make more money in just 1 alternative fund raiser, like a 1 day bake sale.  Most of the money still goes to National and mfg.  As for national then spending the money back on the troops, well 5 months of that support is spent on cook sales promotion, paper work, and distributing.  They do help fund the camps but Girl Scout camp really isn’t any cheaper than other camps I sent my children too.  Plus only a small percent of girls actually go to the camps.  They don’t supplement the price of uniforms and badges like boy scouts do.  In fact you can often buy the uniform cheaper at a local walmart then you can from troop stores.  As to the so called skill the girls learn selling cookie.  Most could and more could have been learned by organizing small local fund raisers like a car wash.  In fact cookie sale has devolved into shelling to friend and relative and those in turn taking form into work.  The girls are not suppose to do door to door sales.  The forms are just line item fill so not really math or account skills are needed.  National supplies all the promotional and marketing.  So what I was a corporate level organization getting a free sales force, giving back the mim it could.  It had nothing to do with the girls.  And there is a lot of pressure for leader to play ball the national way.  So after a year as a local organizer I gave it up. I have encounter this with several volunteer organizations and I am now jaded about them.  I think it is because i trust and really believe in the good work line and i don’t know how to deal with realization that maybe the good work isn’t as good as I thought or the fact that those higher up are lying to those below.  I just don’t know how to see past that and believe once I see the neg. A very long way to say, if I found the right kind of volunteer opportunity I would be for helping but I am not driven to find one. Love: I am not driven to find a love of my life.  I thought I had that and then after 27 years I learned, not so much.  In fact not only was I not the love of his life he was able to lie to me, accuse me of things I never did, make me feel ugly and double who I am even down to the core of my feeling. As far as I can tell the love of his life is a woman 10 years younger then me, slightly dumber than me (barely graduated high school), into kinky Daddy/little girl S&M, her goal in life is to be a stay at home mom (yet when she had a baby, by her first husband, was willing to let the baby sit in a stinky diaper for ½ hour waiting for her husband to come home and change it and she ordered delivery pizza for her lunch on a regular basis), Knows how  use makeup, wants to do craft things but doesn’t does none of them.  I know in the end he dumped me because she gave him kinky sex and made him feel all manly because she would never beat him in anything he did with her.  But do you know how hollow that make one feel.  I mean if you meet my X you wouldn’t think he was that kind of man.  You wouldn’t believe he need a woman who can be perceived as less than him is what he needed to feel better about himself. And on the face of it all it seemed like we were a good match and happy with each other.  It wasn’t just me that was fooled to believing otherwise.  I use brag about him at work, saying how I choose wisely.  When I had a job with an hour community, he would make dinner.  He didn’t get on me about doing thing like house work.  In fact once a friend commented on the messy house and he pointed out that he was currently unemployed and by all right the messy house was his fault not mine. We did fight but no all the time and all the big stuff we seemed in agreement, religion, politics, money and kids.  We shared the same friends.  We did things together all the time, weekly games with our friends.  Social parties and hangout with them on regular basis.  Time to ourselves, dinner, movies, occasional weekend trips.  Separate activities and interests, like I crafted and he liked to play Wow and civilizations, paint miniatures, read some of the same books and read different ones and share.  The one failing most likely was sex.   Supported him in all he wanted to do.  First Navy, then school to get his journeyman but when he discovered he really hated that kind of work I support the change and he went back to school and got a degree in English.  I didn’t look down when he was under employed for 2 years and then unemployed for another 2 years.  I support the change to becoming a casino deals, which he was very excited about.  But that too changed and he found it soul sucking so he took a temp job tech writing.  I think he finally found a job he liked (unfortunately temp) so there were period of unemployment but I didn’t give him crap or blame him.  An I would encourage his writing fiction which I truly liked. But he never was motivated enough to sell it.  I personally think in the end he would have been happy as an editor but he has never pursue it. We had a sex life but I could have put out more often I just found doing it three times a week a bit hard because I was so tired after work.  but I was willing to work on it.  He said he was too but by the time we got to that point I didn’t realize it was too late because he really wasn’t interest in fixing things with me.  I of course didn’t know that.  I even did the Daddy/little girl thing with him.  there were some things I rather liked, really but what I could do was be manipulative.  I have learned that in the SM world the true power in the Daddy/Little relationship is in the Littles, they are very manipulative.  It is there way of making the dominate feel in charge and in control but really it is all about them the submissive.  This is something I am really, really bad at.  So even if there were thing I enjoyed I couldn’t really give him what he wanted.  He wanted to feel in charge of thing without really being responsible for anything.  An example is an effective Little know when their Daddy wants sex and when they don’t (that in itself was hard for me to know.) The Little will then pick her time for approaching.  See because the Daddy can turn the Little down but the Little can never turn the Daddy down. Also with en effective Little the Daddy never has to ask for sex either.  So the little knowing the Daddy wants sex will ask before he might desire too.  The turnly manipulative part is when she doesn’t want sex and the Daddy doesn’t she should then ask for sex knowing the answer will be what she truly wants.  But this also give her banked credit.  So down the line if there is a time she really wants sex but think the Daddy doesn’t she still might get sex because he will recall the times he has turned her down.  But what about when she doesn’t want sex?  Well in truth they are some of the best fakers and most likely the masters of fake it until you make it.  Plus they seem more driven in keeping the Daddy under control that weather they really want it or not matters little to them (kind of like a porn star).   Now this may not always be true but since this is what my x was into and I was willing to give it a go.  I did a lot research, so I read it over and over on the porn/daddy/little blogs and the like.  I also saw in person with other couples he introduced me to and I even saw it with him mistress in person with him.  ( spent a year of crazy trying ot make things work and agreed to a three way relationship. Yeah stupid, big mistake but I really, really was not in my right mind.  My friend really should have stepped in and discouraged it.  Many knew but I think in their own way they really couldn’t believe it and want to see us work.  They were open minded enough to see it possibly work but really didn’t look at if it was a healthy choice I was personally making.) Logically I think what really killed out marriage was all the years we didn’t understand I was autistic and he has borderline personality disorder.  On my side it means I could perceive myself but was poor as expressing how I perceived him. I am guessing he saw me as cold at time but I didn’t even realize this because I could not tell and he didn’t say anything.  There were likely times my tone of  voice alone might have cause him to take hurt and I didn’t know it. By the same token because of his BLPD he was looking for me to be a mirror, to reflect back how I saw him so he could know who he was but I was a poor mirror. I remember reading up on BLPD and crying because they would give examples how best to communicate with someone with BLPD and I didn’t see how I was going to do it.  It would be like telling me to save my marriage I had to keep eye contact with him all the time when talking but because of I am autistic eye contact if very hard to do and actually it can make it harder to listen to people.  So I could keep eye contact but not hear what was said or hear what was said but the person wouldn’t feel like i heard. So lose, lose for me.  This is the kind of issue I think lead to the down fall without me even seeing it coming.  I don’t think he saw it either in the end.  He was all emotion and reaction and that is why he really didn’t even want to try once he found someone that could meet reflex back the Big Strong man image he so wanted. So again a very long way of saying I am very, very damaged from my divorce and can’t see trusting anyone, let alone loving anyone again. Other goals It hard to come up with goals because I don’t know I am.  This is really hard to explain with proper impact.  I have always as far I can remember to the age of 4, known who I was.  I have self identity, self away, what I liked, what I thought, what i cared about and what I didn’t care about, how I thought and why.  I was sure of all these things, always.  What I didn’t know  was how I fit in the world, I often didn’t understand the world or the people in it.  It was something the doctor had a hard time with whenever i was in therapy.  Even when I hospitalized for that month after attempted suicide.  They would talk about self esteem, confidence, blah, blah.  The self harm really confused them back then (though I think they may understand it better now.)  As a cutter they believed it had to be from some form of self hate.  But it wasn’t, it was about anxiety relief. Somehow feeling physical pain and seeing the red blood soothe ed me.  I would physically and mentally relax. (of course back in the day I didn’t understand what drove it and I still don’t fully understand it, especially the addictive quality to it) but they really didn’t get it. I liked myself, I thought I was a good person, a good friend and not to hard on the eyes.  Yeah I was fat and wish I could lose weight but certain not worth killing myself over. (What is was overwhelming burnout that drove me to want to die.  It was just to hard to do anything to the point the thought of nothing was stronger thing living.  Again something I know know but I didn’t then and none of the doctor knew either.) But now after 46 years of know who and what i was at the core of my being I don’t know.  It is one of the most disturbing things for me.  I feel no really joy though I have had happy or content days now.  Food overall is bland to me, which is a big improvement from the ash it use to taste like when my world first fell.   We discussed the craft things, I not driven or excited by any project even when I do get an idea. I mean how do I set goals when I don’t know what I like or enjoy?  I can only guess and take a stab at it.   I guess in the end that is the overall goal.  Know myself again, know my center so I can move outward and onward. GOALS I DO HAVE: BUILD SOCIAL NETWORK KNOW WHO I AM AGAIN FEEL JOY AND PASSION AGAIN

[ourhealthyfoodblog-blog]

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New Post has been published on http://healthyfoodandremedies.com/2017/03/25/top-10-mental-illnesses-myths/

Top 10 Mental Illnesses And Their Myths

We’ve had several fascinating lists about bizarre mental disorders on this site, but no lists have been posted of mental illness myths. Mental illnesses, disorders and differences tend to be very misunderstood by the general public. This is a list of mental illnesses and a widely believed myth or two about each one. I’m sure there are other mental disorders with myths so widespread that I believe in them, too. Of course, you can tell me about those in the comments.

10

Antisocial Personality Disorder

The Myth: Somebody who avoids social interaction is “antisocial”.

This is mostly a semantic error, which is why I put it in tenth place. Many people refer to someone who is reluctant to participate in social situations as “antisocial”. In fact, these people are often pro-social, even unusually so.

Antisocial Personality Disorder is diagnosed in adults who consistently ignore the rights of others by behaving violently, lying, stealing, or generally acting recklessly with no concern for the safety of themselves or others. They are often extroverted and very much the opposite of the type of people who are so often called “antisocial”, who usually care very much about other people’s feelings. These people are usually just shy or have some form of autism, depression, social anxiety disorder, or avoidant personality disorder (AvPD). AvPD, which is diagnosed in people who avoid social interaction because of an intense fear of being rejected, is probably part of the reason for this confusion. The two personality disorders, after all, have pretty similar names, even if they are entirely different things.

9

Multiple Personality Disorder

The Myth: People with Dissociative Identity Disorder radically change their behavior and lose their memory of what has just been happening when they switch personalities.

Some people would say that DID itself is the myth, since it’s, suspiciously, much more commonly diagnosed in North America than anywhere else, but let’s assume for today that it does exist.

People with DID have anywhere from two to over a hundred different personalities that alternately take over their bodies. These alternate personalities (“alters”) usually, but not always, form due to childhood trauma. The alters don’t always cause huge, noticeable changes in appearance or behavior, so observers might not even notice their existence. Many people with DID (“multiples”) realize that various alters are present and know who those people are, even before therapy, which wouldn’t work very well if they had no memory of switching. It’s possible that one personality has no knowledge of what happened while one of their alters was in charge, causing a sense of amnesia, but they might be entirely aware of what is happening and just not actively involved. The group of alters can usually communicate to some degree, and might even work together to hide the fact that they are multiple. Some multiples prefer not to have therapy to choose one personality and stop switching, because they are perfectly fine living as a team.

8

Dyslexia

The Myth: All people with dyslexia are unable to read because they see letters in the wrong order.

This is actually two myths in one, but still only two of many myths about dyslexia. The first is that dyslexic people can’t read. Actually, most do learn to read, but if they don’t get appropriate help, they often learn slowly and stay well below their grade level in speed and comprehension. But even that’s not always true: many dyslexic children figure out how to cover up their difficulty reading until third or fourth grade or even longer. And if they are taught by someone who understands dyslexia, they can learn to read perfectly well.

The other half of this myth is that the problem dyslexics have with reading is because they see words backwards or out of order. This can seem to be the case because, in their confusion while they try to figure out a word, they mix up letters or sounds, and some dyslexic people confuse left and right or have a lot of trouble spelling. However, this is not the cause of their problem. Dyslexia is much more to do with a unique way of thinking than a problem with processing visual information.

7

Schizophrenia

The Myth: Schizophrenic people hear voices in their heads.

We all know about schizophrenia, and we’ve all read jokes about “the voices in my head”. But, contrary to what a lot of people believe, not all people with schizophrenia hear voices in their heads. Auditory hallucinations are very common in schizophrenic people, but they are more likely to hear voices coming from some object outside of their body than inside their mind. Plus, not everyone with schizophrenia experiences the same symptoms. They may have hallucinations (actually seeing or hearing things that don’t exist), delusions (believing unrealistic ideas), disordered thoughts, lack of affect (no appearance of emotions), or, in catatonic schizophrenia, even a lack of desire to move at all. Schizophrenia is a complicated disorder with a wide range of possible symptoms. (Note that alternate personalities is not one of the symptoms. We already covered that disorder.)

6

Autism Spectrum Disorders

The Myth: Autism is a devastating disorder that will stop someone from ever being able to function in society.

There are many myths and even more potential/disputed myths about autism, but this seems to be one of the most common. Many people hear “autism” and imagine children who are permanently in their own world where they can’t talk or interact with anyone else, who throw tantrums for no apparent reason, and who will never be part of normal society. However, autism is called a spectrum disorder for a reason: autistics range from people who are unable to communicate in any way with others, all the way to people who live ordinary, productive lives and just seem a bit eccentric to the rest of us.

Severe autism is not a life sentence, either. Even very low-functioning autistics can lead a perfectly happy life. There are also stories of low-functioning autistic children improving with therapy and almost entirely recovering from any autism-related problems they had, and many people and organizations are searching for a cure for autism. Unfortunately, those organizations pushing for a cure are usually the ones who spread this particular myth by only focusing on issues related to low-functioning autism, and almost entirely ignoring the existence of high-functioning autism and autistic people who would never want to be “cured”.

5

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

The Myth: People with ADHD are unable to pay attention to anything.

ADHD is a disorder that has been becoming pretty famous in recent years, so I’m sure you all know what it is. For those of you who aren’t sure, people with ADHD have trouble concentrating on tasks and can be hyperactive or impulsive. But it isn’t true, as it sometimes seems, that people with ADHD just can’t pay attention. Many of them can pay attention to something that they find genuinely interesting, the same way all of us are much more willing to be distracted from a dull task than an enjoyable one. And, in fact, some people have trouble focusing because they actually pay too much attention. They think about all the sights, sounds, and smells around them, not just the task at hand. They have to learn to deal with all the other interesting stimuli and keep most of their attention on what is important.

4

Selective Mutism

The Myth: Somebody with selective mutism is either refusing to speak, or has been abused or traumatized in the past.

This is the only disorder on the list that you may have never heard of by name before, though I’m willing to bet you’ve heard of it and its myths. I don’t know of another disorder with myths more commonly believed, not just by society as a whole but actually by professionals.

Selective Mutism (formerly Elective Mutism) is a disorder that almost always first appears in early childhood. Someone with selective mutism can, and often does, speak perfectly well, but doesn’t speak, and sometimes doesn’t even communicate in other ways, in specific situations. A very large number of parents, teachers and psychologists who work with selectively mute people believe that these people are choosing not to speak, maybe in an attempt to control other people. However, it turns out that most selectively mute people do want to talk, but don’t because they’re actually afraid to. An overwhelming majority of selectively mute people also suffer from social anxiety disorder, and silence seems to be one way that they cope with stressful situations. Punishing a child for not speaking, as many people who believe in this myth do, paradoxically makes the child even more anxious and therefore even less likely to speak.

But if you don’t know someone with selective mutism, chances are you still believe in a myth very common in the media: some children and teenagers stop talking entirely, or to everyone but one or two people, because they were traumatized or repeatedly abused. While some people do become mute after trauma, this usually lasts a few weeks, not months or years. Most people do not develop selective mutism in later childhood or because of any kind of trauma or abuse.

3

Self-Harm/Self-Injury

The Myth: People who intentionally cut, burn, or otherwise injure themselves are either trying to kill themselves or looking for attention.

Many people, particularly teenagers, who suffer from a variety of mental disorders cope with their inner pain by physically harming themselves, most commonly by cutting. Self-injury seems to be becoming more common and well-known these days, but myths about the self-injurer’s intentions have not gone away.

No matter what it looks like, self-injury is not a failed suicide attempt. Some self-injurers harm themselves over and over for years without having a single injury that would threaten their life, which would be an amazing record of failure if they were actually trying to die. Many people who self-injure are actually trying to avoid suicide by letting out their feelings in a (somewhat) safer way.

Many people also believe that self-injurers are just seeking attention. This is true of a few people, especially since self-injury is becoming more well-known and almost popular, but most self-injurers actively try to hide their injuries by wearing long sleeves or pants, or by cutting in a place that is usually covered by clothing, like their upper thighs or stomach. Some self-injurers desperately want someone to find out about their behavior so they can get the help they need, but even many of them are too frightened of another person’s reactions, and ashamed of themselves, to actually point out their injuries. Besides, even if someone decided to injure themselves to get attention, shouldn’t you be very concerned about be what problem could be causing them to need attention so badly that they harm themselves to get it?

2

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

The Myth: People with OCD are always obsessed with the danger of germs, and usually are very particular about neatness.

I can’t count how many times I’ve heard people say that they’re OCD because they’re very neat or careful about cleanliness. Most people seem to think that people with OCD are neat freaks and/or germophobes, not realizing that it’s a lot more complicated than that.

OCD is an anxiety disorder with two characteristics. First, people with OCD have recurring unwanted thoughts (obsessions), usually of something they find disturbing or not at all in their character. It’s common to have an obsession about germs or contamination, or of not having properly locked their doors so burglars can’t get in, but it’s also common to have thoughts about something terrible happening to their families, about hurting or even killing someone, doing something forbidden in a religion they strongly believe in, or any other undesirable idea. Second, these people think that doing some certain ritual will get rid of the danger. It could be washing hands, keeping their house in perfect order, checking that the door is locked, thinking certain words, avoiding odd numbers, or just about anything imaginable. Doing this compulsion doesn’t make the thoughts go away for very long, so the ritual is repeated.

Not everyone who has OCD cares about germs, or does the rituals that we usually hear about. Not everyone even has compulsions an observer would actually notice, since a lot of them are mental. And perfectionism or neatness? While some people with OCD are perfectionists, this is more associated with another disorder. If you liked the first entry, you’ll love this: the disorder is called Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder, and it’s actually a different thing. One major distinction is that people with OCPD consider their habits to be part of themselves and desirable, while people with OCD are often very disturbed by their disorder.

1

All Mental Disorders

The Myth: Mental disorders and illnesses are all in your head, and you can just get over them if you really want to.

This earned the number one spot, not only because it’s general, but because it’s probably the most damaging myth on this list, since it can stop people from getting the support they need. Some people still believe that mental illnesses are all imagined by their sufferers, or that people who suffer from mental illness can’t really be having that much trouble and/or just don’t care enough about getting over it. People are especially likely to be dismissive if the illness isn’t well-known, and so many of them, even common ones, are not.

The fact that the same symptoms have been experienced by so many different people should prove that are real — they can’t all be independently inventing the same symptoms. Any mental disorder, by definition, seriously affects the lives of the people who suffer from it, usually for the worse, or it would not be considered a disorder. And they are certainly not easy to get over. Most mental disorders are caused at least in part by a difference in the brain or an imbalance of chemicals. Even when it comes to the non-physical reasons, it’s very difficult to un-learn a thought pattern or habit — just choose any habit and try it. Plus, the disorder itself may stop someone from trying to get help: people with depression might think no therapist will be able to help them, and be too tired to try to find one, anyway. If we could overcome mental illnesses just by wanting to, the world would be full of much happier and more productive people.

#Mental Illnesses