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unproduciblesmackdown · 3 years

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last few prompts

April 28th: If you could give advice to someone who just found out that they are autistic, what advice would you give?

idk that i have any Advice really but more just a Perspective lol, which is along the lines of like, that it's inherently good and helpful to have this language and lens for understanding this aspect of yourself, where it hardly has to necessarily be like "oh if autistic people have this information they can learn how to essentially Be More Allistic" but it's like, maybe prior to realizing you're autistic the most apparent General Pattern re: the situation is these seemingly negative "well what's wrong with Me" ones where other people don't seem to vibe with / Get / like you, and you might be having these difficult experiences that other people don't understand and might react badly to the way you're trying to move through it, or you have these traits / behaviors / tendencies / whatever that again other people dislike or consider Inconvenient or unsympathetic but you can't exactly shake them, And Such, basically like, you'll have Been autistic the whole time but what's most noticeable might be ways other people react negatively to you and/or how you might be having these negative experiences but seemingly the best thing to do is try to make them invisible to other people b/c you Can't expect help/support but Can expect people to react to this as you just being Weird / Difficult / Unreasonable, where basically the Negative Experience of allistic people's reaction to / treatment of you has to be compounded into another Negative Experience when the only way you can really understand that situation is "i guess something's wrong with me and the only way this can improve is if i manage to Act Right / Be Normal or whatever," which of course you can't, even when people can mask hard / a lot. and The Point here kind of is that having this different understanding of what's going on, even if it's hardly guaranteed to somehow be the key to navigating the world in an Ideal Way without any of the negative experiences of allistic people being what's "normal" and what situations you have to deal with because of it, you don't then have to have that Compounding of those less than ideal experiences where you don't really have any option but blame yourself or any "solution" but to try to Be Normal, which doesn't work, but you know. just knowing like "oh okay, i'm autistic, and now here's all this information / discussion of that experience via other people who share it" which can lead to that whole shift in your relationship with yourself and your understanding of what's even going on in your experiences and relationship with Other People in general that doesn't have to be that dead end of like, the only way to understand what's going on is one where you beat yourself up further over whatever experience involved other people (or situations engineered for/around other people) beating you up.

saw a quote from an autistic person the other day (about being both autistic and trans) along the lines of like, "if everyone hates me already, i may as well be happier with myself" re: having that better relationship with / understanding of yourself regardless of how it affects your relationship with Everyone Else really. and personally i'd sure like, be thinking at times like, i guess it's on me to figure out how to Be Likable / connect with others better or whatever, and you know, not like everyone doesn't always have to think about How they interact with others in whatever way, and that awareness / possible conscious efforts/changes in that regard are sure hardly bad, but when it's about stuff like trying to be allistic when you're not, cishet when you're not, and such, that's not going to actually lead to anything better. and realizing i'm autistic and how i've been able to learn about that (including plenty of "oh of course i already Knew About this sort of experience, but never heard it discussed at all / from this perspective" ways) sure has been a Positive Factor which yknow. hasn't led to me like oh nice finally i have all these friends and connect with / am understood by people / have The Normal Experience now or whatever, and yknow, trying to be "likable" and Connect Normally or whatever pretty much is just an unhappy experience, whereas it's always solidly positive to simply be like, oh epic, yeah i'm recognizing yet another aspect of my life that before was only just like, well i'm hearing about what's supposedly Normal for Everyone but that's not really how it is for me, and there's nothing more to work with than that, so it's seemingly just another point of alienation / isolation / something that's an obstacle to being treated normally or whatever. while also that, yknow, in Not trying to be Likable / Personable / Accepted / Etc Whatever the Normal Way, that also meant just like, yeah it sucks being isolated no matter what but sometimes that's how it is and you can at least have that improved relationship with yourself and a way of moving through the world / your life that doesn't put more of this unnecessary strain / effort / drain on you for no reward, and like, you don't have to talk yourself into whatever connection with anyone who seems willing to talk to you, or have it be this whole Performance where you can't be yourself anyways, or write off your own boundaries or whatever helps you be comfortable as simply unreasonable or counterproductive or whatever, so that's also good, namely, Less Bad.....the real distillation being that, regardless of whether understanding yourself better as an autistic person improves Interpersonal/Social Situations for you, it's automatically better to have this improved perspective on your own experiences and improved relationship with yourself

April 29th: How do you feel about shoes? Are they good sensory? Bad sensory? Are there certain types of shoes that you find more or less comfortable? Do you struggle with replacing shoes when they’re worn out?

it kind of depends, but i think generally i always find closed toed shoes to be kind of a hassle and less comfortable than like, sandals that are most just the soles strapped to your feet in whatever way, although i'll yknow, use closed toed shoes for whatever Practical Advantage they might afford, and usually like, if they're comfortable enough i might not be super bothered, but between the potential they feel too tight or whatever and like, socks not always being all that comfortable, it feels kind of similar to other potential Clothes Issues i have where a lot of the discomfort can just come from like, i don't like the awareness of whatever right against your skin, like, just more sensitive to that Pressure as well as Texture i guess, so while those elements can be like hell yeah an enjoyable stim experience, other times it's like, this shirt collar is too small / close to the neck, this Texture isn't soft enough, i gotta push up long sleeves to not be against the wrists / sliding down the forearms / getting in the way of bending my elbows, i don't want any shirt to be like, great news, this is gonna bunch up under your armpits / at the elbows, i prefer short sleeves to long, or sleeveless even, or shorts to longer pants, or sandals to sneakers........but beyond that i've never been too particular about shoes, like, have generally been kind of limited in options like. what shoes are here even in my size, and from there it's sort of like yeah i'm looking for comfort here but for me it hasn't had to be a huge deal, but that's also in part just b/c i never really replaced shoes too frequently and yeah it was like "well if it works i'll just wear these shoes until they don't fit / they're worn out" or whatever

April 30th: What would you like your overall message for autism acceptance month to be?

idk things that other people are saying already & better, but you know, that idk if you know you're autistic, genuine congratulations, and that knowledge doesn't have to be "ideally" treated like it's beside the point or best ignored or whatever, i.e. even if it's like "well i haven't really paid attention to that potential lens on my life / identity and i've been making it through so far," that's no reason to Not learn about whatever or connect with other people, even though it's like, the seeming message is always like "wow the more Not autistic people can be, the better" where it might apparently be extrapolated that, if you're autistic, the less relevant you regard it the better. which kind of leads into you know, the Acceptance part of things, accepting that autistic people always exist, it's nothing inherently bad, it's not a disease (where people need to be "cured" and they aren't autistic, they just Have autism and it can and should be separated from them, we can and should make people less autistic, there can and should be less autistic people, ideally none), it doesn't make anyone less human / reduce their humanity / worse as a person or anything like that, there's inherent value and joy in every individual's existence, and re: whatever seems to be a negative about being autistic it's like, actually examining and interrogating that, What does that negative effect stem from, how are people regarding and treating autistic people, what kind of support are autistic people getting or not getting. and you know, re: allistic people, just a great basic step to stop listening to allistic people talking about being autistic over what autistic people are saying, and like, even if you consider like "yeah okay i think autistic people should get to exist and possibly also that being autistic isn't inherently bad" like, also to think about how Supporting this perspective could actually play out in theory / in practice.

just as a p.s. to everything like well naturally didn't keep pace with these prompts Day To Day lmao but i enjoyed it, as time goes on i learn And talk more about being autistic pretty steadily lol, including just during this month, feels relevant to that first prompt in this post lmao like This Particular Exercise just mostly talking to myself with the highfives from a couple ppl i've already interacted more with, and it's always helpful to have it broken down into more particular questions vs it just being like "well gosh where to even start" or, you know, that i wouldn't've posted any of this stuff Unprompted, which, god forbid lmao but like i said i've enjoyed it at least and it's helpful to even casually try to kinda shake things out and put it into words, even though i will do so v verbosely and not too coherently, we don't have all day or an editor where this stuff can be honed down for no particular reason.......anyways yeah glad to talk about things. shoutout to autistic pride day eventually on june 18th

#30daysofautismacceptance #2021

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