Part 4 of a 5 part series about the ways harmful practices can be made to sound appealing and how to spot the differences between helpful and harmful approaches.
Sensory sensitivities are a huge part of being autistic (and sometimes ADHD, too). They can range from kind of annoying but manageable to debilitating and meltdown-inducing. They can fluctuate from day to day and situation to situation. They can seem to pop up one day out of nowhere and disappear just as quickly.
Sensory differences are dynamic, which can make them unpredictable and disruptive. Not many people want to live that way, so working on sensory desensitization with someone who has a lot of sensitivities sounds like a thing that could help. Fewer meltdowns and able to do more things? Yes please!
But as you might have guessed, there’s a giant problem with that: reducing sensitivity isn’t really a thing you can do TO someone. At least, not without inducing a trauma response or two. You can certainly get someone to learn to ignore their own body signals or pretend to be fine when they’re not, but that’s not a sensory thing. That’s a dissociation thing.
“Sensory desensitization” is usually code for exposure therapy. Exposure therapy has its uses, but addressing legitimate sensory issues isn’t one of them. And it should only be done WITH someone who can fully consent and actively participate. Coercing and/or forcing someone to interact with distressing sensory input until they stop reacting is not that.
“Sensory desensitization” also operates under the assumption that people just get used to, or habituate to, the noises and sensations around them, even ones that bother them. But studies have shown that autistic people actually don’t habituate to sensory stimuli the way non-autistic people do. It may take way longer to happen, or it may never happen at all.
You know what can and does happen? Sensory sensitivities can just kinda…change. All on their own. We grow up, our hormones change, our stress levels change, our environments change, and our sensory profiles are affected by all of those things (and more!). Sensitivities can just disappear, naturally, without any intervention. And that’s about the only thing I’d ever refer to as real sensory desensitization.
But sensory sensitivities can go any which way. Maybe new ones rear their ugly heads. Or maybe something bothers us at a level 7 one day and 2 the next, then goes all the way up to 11 next week. And then there are the ones that just stay pretty much the same, all the time, forever.
I could not handle pants for a long time as a kid, but then somewhere along the way, I could. I really couldn’t tell you when it happened. There are some foods that used to make me gag that no longer do, and there are some that I still just cannot handle. I have never been okay with things that stick to my hands, and that really hasn't changed since as far back as I can remember.
You know what all these sensory sensitivities have in common? Someone made me “tolerate” them at some point, often repeatedly. And none of them changed (or didn’t) because of repeated exposure, but because of my natural development. All I got from forced exposure was this lousy tendency to disconnect from myself.
Sensory desensitization is just not a thing we should be trying to do to people. Sensory *integration* is a real thing that can help people, but that is a whole different animal that requires more than just exposing people to stuff that bothers them. You’ll need an OT (Occupational Therapist) with the specialized training for that. Just make sure they’re not sneaking behaviorism tactics or exposure therapy in there either (yep, the words “sensory integration” can be used to misrepresent what they’re doing, too).
It is a far better thing to help someone learn about their own sensory profile and how to manage their sensory needs than to make them ignore their own body signals. Alexithymia is not #goals.
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talking to a friend about getting back into art and i think the #1 most important piece of art advice i could ever get or give is just "figure out what is FUN to you"
like i think there is sooooo much emphasis on how to build SKILL in art but a lot of it really treats art like a job or like video game grinding, like it's this thankless job that you have to work at in order to reach a Threshold and i know it's not EASY to make yourself have fun but like
imo a solid 70% of the reason i create art is because the Act of Drawing is fun to me. it's fun problem-solving and planning and putting down lines and playing with colors and tools. it's fun to depict little scenes in my head or to create outfits or to find ways to fill the canvas. never forget that creating can be fun. sometimes it's hard and sometimes you have to battle through your own blockades to get there but the ultimate goal should always be to ENJOY it, to find what you enjoy doing and then do it forever. improvement will follow enjoyment.
i think especially with all the debate about ML image generation it's more important than ever to embrace FUN. if you're only focused on the end result it's so easy to get in your own head- to think about what doesn't look good or what skills you don't have yet or to compare yourself to other artists. but photography didn't kill the art of drawing and AI won't either because, simply put, there will always be people who want to do the physical act of making art because it's fun to do! using paints and markers, splashing colors around, doing shitty pen doodles, using the symmetry tool in your art program to do abstract mandalas that are just squiggles formed into patterns. do art like you're 5 and you've been handed markers to pass the time. do art like you're bored in class and you're keeping your brain entertained by drawing stick figure comics in the margins. do art like an absent thing, do art because it satisfies your brain. the goal is not to make something beautiful and perfect, the goal is to make something because your hands need to make and your body needs to make.
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literal actual rant: mentions of uni/neurodivergence/future planning
aka dont mind me <33
i am ranting!! i am raving!!
im literally gonna fuckin punch something
i HAVE to take this stupid fucking “personal growth and project management” class to graduate and the ONLY person who teaches it is
the definition of a neurotypical fuckin old ass boomer dude
he thinks “just breathe in and out for a couple minutes everyday” solves everything.. doesnt even call it meditation in his own book that he wrote that i had to buy. just breathe :)
problems with executive function/procrastination?
oh just space things out!! work daily towards your goals!! you know what’ll make you happy? productivity and future planning!!
shut. the. your. fuck. up. now.
i am not opposed to,, planning,, nor productivity.. i actually enjoy it
just MY version
if i see ONE MORE THING THAT HE TREATS AS SOME KIND OF MIRACLE THING TO “get your life on track kiddies! :)”
im gonna scream
i had a mild panic attack just reading the syllabus
im gonna vomit i hate it here
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Having ADHD is a lot like being only able to travel with a hot air balloon. When the wind is right and the weather conditions are ideal, you can effortlessly go wherever you could possibly want, with almost no energy seemingly spent. And when the weather just Will Not Do That, there's nothing you can really do about it. Advice from people telling you to just fucking Grow Up And Learn To Steer don't believe you when you say you've got no steering wheel. Your explanations of navigating different wind directions at different altitudes make no sense to them.
So you just gotta accept that some days the wind goes your way, some days it won't. You can either exhaust yourself fighting the wind, accept that you're going nowhere at all today, or that the direction you are currently going is not the way you planned to go. Why am I in Uruguay.
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You knooooowwww... >.>
The only difference, technically, between a school in the Zone? And on Earth? Is the American government won't recognize your Zone diploma...
Not accredited. But like..... I'm JUST SAYING? If you didn't try to pass your school off as some Big Ivy League type? Pulled the "oh yeah, you'd never have heard of it, it's local." And the COMPUTERS say it's legit?
How many people will dig deeper?
If you legitimately have the knowledge, you legitimately have the knowledge. Not YOUR fault you left out the whole "extra-dimensional" part. It makes folk nervous! And nervous folks get stabby.
So like? If you were ALREADY planning to "Move" as you euphemistically put it? Talked it over with your VERY concerned folks and friends? Who do NOT like the look of the steady but concerning rise of Anti-Ghost Powers That Be? Who finally put their foot down and reminded you that you are a TEENAGER and it's NOT your responsibility to fix the world?
Well...
Fuck those guys, I guess. You'll miss the old house, but Team "Taking our ball and going literally anywhere else" makes some good points. Why ARE you putting up with this?
And honestly, you've never SEEN your dad have so much fun. Him and the Reality Realtor just sorta... Vibe. Himbo to Himbo communications. Smatters of advanced physics. Fudge. It's great.
They move the portal. Collapse the old one in a way that makes it impossible to recover or recreate. You... kinda don't want to ask. They had that "mad scientist glint" in their eyes.
And while everyone's checking out brochures to different realities? You? Head off to the nearest College. It's the Zone, so technically you could go to any of endless billions. But you'd like your education some time this century.
Cue! Danny Fenton! Entering?
Academia's wet dream. A sprawling CITY of a college. Where the classes are on EVERYTHING and the price is FREE. People have Obsessions okay?? They NEED to teach. Debate and discuss! Study! Right papers and read them! It's been going on a while! And what happens when you find a subject that's NOT covered?
YOU COVER IT!
It's like if New York was a College. Good fucking luck find the dorms. Sleep on the floor like the rest of us, you casual.
Danny was Not Prepared ™.
He loves it though.
Classes on aeronautics next making the perfect sandwich, shoved next to historical basketry, stacked above alien slam poetry. But only on Tuesdays! Ever shifting. Breaking his Fenton Born Adhd in to a fine PASTE to be smeared upon bread. Happy mental stimulation chemicals go Brrrrrrrr
If it wasn't wildly inappropriate, he would LICK IT to claim it as his then wrap around it and gaurd like a territorial cat. He thought he HATED school! Turns out he just hated high-school. College though? College, or at least ZONE College, is fuckin AWESOME.
He's sit in SO MANY random classes just cause.
Picked up and dropped them at a whim. When they no longer sparked joy. He's been a flighty bitch and for once? No one CARES. No one says "you HAVE to commit and stick with this FOREVER once you choose this" and? It just? It's so FREEING! He's learned so MUCH!
He's probably gonna come back!
Which? Is how a deeply, DEEPLY weird aerospace engineer from supposedly bumfuck NOWHERE, end up working at Wayne Industries. He's.... a lil crazy behind the eyes. Ha ha... CONCERNING ™!
Dude sleeps on the lab floor. Has weirdly spotty knowledge. Can be an unprecedented genius one second and not know who the current president is the next. Doesn't know what DAY it is. Forgets to eat. Tried to make a fusion reactor out of the break room toaster before Sandra from accounting distracted him with pictures of her cat.
It's like he wanders through life blissfully unaware that he is both terrifying and about three seconds from killing them all. Then FUCKING TRIPS because he forgot to tie his shoelaces again.
Who hired this man?
WHY!?
I mean, we KNOW why. Probably to put him on a watch list. But? He's like a terrifying murder puppy! Built like a tank! That's stoned out of its mind half the time. And have you HEARD his college stories? That CAN'T be legal. Was this guy raised in a cult!? Aaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!????
@hdgnj @legitimatesatanspawn @babbling-babull @dcxdpdabbles @hypewinter
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