#neurdivergence

[mmishee-art]

Another hiatus. I apologise for this habit, keeping a consistent online presence is something I'm really struggling with these days (this extends to my friendships, I'm so sorry guys).

What I'm going through is called Autistic burn out. It's something that is still being studied, but the accepted symptoms are different to regular burn out. Essentially, I've been masking for my entire life (and even that was a functioning much lower than is considered normal or productive tbh) and my body suddenly couldn't take any more. From what I hear, the longer you masked, the bigger the recovery time. So. That doesn't bode well.

More troubling is the advice. There are strategies for ADHD, there are strategies for Autism. As far as I've seen so far, the advice for AuDHD (having both at the same time) is "GOOD LUCK!".

I've been trying my best, and there have been moments when I've been able to function at some level, I could make art and talk to my friends or talk to literally anyone, but then inevitably life has a bump and I'm back to where I started, my bubble needs to shrink back down and I go into hermit mode.

This is going to keep happening, I think. I don't know how or when it'll get better, I think this is going to be a long process of learning and healing. It's extremely inconvenient to say the least.

I'm trying to take advantage of times when I have more energy and functioning to reach out to friends and make art, cause it's looking more and more like I only have a tight window to do it.

At least when I can get on medication things might be a bit easier. But for now, I'm researching and journalling and testing and resting, I'm trying my best. Its just that my best right now is a really really low level of functioning.

#personal #update #autism #audhd #adhd #neurdivergence #autistic burnout

[itsybitsybatsyspider]

me and my roommates are making PowerPoint presentations about our current hyperfixations to keep each other updated on our interests.

There's not a single neurotypical in this household.

#hyperfixations #adhd #autism #neurdivergence #dbh

[i-totally-have-adhd]

I'm starting the process of seeking an autism diagnosis, and so far it's gone OK. I have an appointment on 7/7 to talk to my PCP, who is young, and female and seems very open minded. I am hoping that the long list of bullet pointed symptoms works to convince her that I'm autistic.

My ADHD makes me chatty, and I have lots of friends, have dated a lot, and have many things about me on the surface that don't make me come across as "typically" autistic, or at least, autistic in the way most health care professionals are expecting to see. They first of all are not very familiar with autism as a disorder outside of young boys. I'm a 46 year old woman with a full time job and a lot of friends, so this won't be easy.

I think though, that all the evidence I've amassed from the last two months or so of absolutely obsessive research into autism and how it presents in women and girls and afabs, will help convince her.

I just wanted to touch on masking for a moment, because I'm not even sure my PCP will know what that is, but I feel like I seriously started masking my autism about 30 years ago, when I started high school. That's when I looked around me and realized other girls didn't act like me, and furthermore, if I wanted any friends or any acceptance, I would have to start acting like they did.

That's when I changed the way I spoke, the subjects I talked about, and didn't bring up any of the "weird" thoughts I had. That's when I started pretending to be carefree and charming and light hearted, when inside, a hot day, or a confusing social situation would send me into a meltdown. No one thought I was autistic, let alone myself.

Masking my ADHD was easier, as people expect women and girls to be flighty and distracted and daydreamy, They're just being silly girls right? But autism. That made me a tom boy. That made me blunt, and awkward and too loud. That made me have strange anxieties, and strange thoughts about the world that made me seem weird to other children, so I started masking heavily. I always put on a happy smile when I met people, made charming jokes and engaged in hours of chit chat and small talk, collapsing in exhaustion afterward. All I wanted to do was talk about sex, or true crime, or science fiction, or psychology, but I contented myself with talk about fashion, and boys and pop singers and popular shows.

Now, at 46, this mask will be a detriment to me getting diagnosed. I constructed it too well. No one believes me. I don't even know how to behave like an autistic person. To me, doing so is social suicide, and will open me up to derision, mockery and exclusion.

Idk where I'm going with this, but needed to get it out there. Masking sucks, and I hope I can get diagnosed despite having a carefully constructed mask.

#autism #asd #autism spectrum disorder #diagnosis #adhd #neurdivergence #neurodivergent

[mychemicallyimballancedromance]

Friendly reminder that pathological demand avoidance does not mean you're lazy

It's a can't, not a won't

:))))

#imballanced.thoughts #autism #neurdivergence #pda #pda autism #pathological demand avoidance #demand avoidance

[drivenbydopamine]

Did you just spend $50 on 12 dish sponges because everything about them is exactly perfect and it took you nearly 2 months to find them online because you don't even know where the one you have came from? Or are you not autistic?

#Autistic #Autism #Sensoryneeds #iykyk #Don't mess with a good thing #I don't like change #neurdivergence #neurodivergent things #undiagnosed autistic

[hussyknee]

Are there actual valid anti-psychiatry arguments that aren't peddled by morons who think the fact that they had a bad experience means psychiatric drugs are a blanket Big Pharma conspiracy for everyone and their cat? And that anyone who says "hey they actually work for some of us and what you're doing is further stigmatizing life-saving medical intervention" is evangelicizing?

Like man, I don't judge if you self-medicate with whatever works for you, as long as it doesn't ruin your life or anyone else's. I'm not educated enough on drug use to comment on any of that. And I know intimately how horrible the mental health industrial complex is. I was put on SSRIs ten solid years before my bipolar was diagnosed, and God knows what that did to my brain, but the doctors refused to take me off them even when I was having unbearable side-effects and withdrawals. When I finally quit them on my own I was repeatedly labelled "non-compliant". Even when my bipolar was diagnosed, my doctor insisted on putting me on Lithium. I still can't express exactly what made me so averse to it, but he wouldn't put me on anything else and I kept quitting it and becoming suicidal. Every therapist I've had up until the last couple of years has been useless, and my last stay at a psychiatric institution left me more suicidal than when I went in.

It took me 11 years to find a decent doctor who would work with me and find me the cocktail that finally stabilized me. Who I could trust enough to endure that first horrific month of Venlafaxine until the side-effects completely stopped and it turned out to be the thing that stabilized my PTSD. Another year and half before I found a doctor who took my ADHD seriously and helped me find a medication for it. Which involved having my bipolar triggered repeatedly until we found one that wouldn't. I didn't find a therapist that actually helped me until last year, and even though she was good, her own limitations triggered me so badly I had to find another one a few months ago. I have medical PTSD up the wazoo.

I had to do all of that while my bitch of a family took my seeking medical and psychological help as a personal affront against them and God. I still have to tolerate my Born-Again Bible-thumping mother telling me every day that the doctors are pumping me full of poison and I just need to find God with her.

And it was all worth it because do you have any idea what it's like to finally not feel like an exposed nerve? To no longer feel like your brain's been doused in lighter fluid and set on fire when triggered? To not be a helpless ship on the eternally roiling, storm-tossed seas of my brain chemicals? To feel like a person instead of bleeding, human-shaped wound?

After all of that, some hippie bitch on the internet decides that me calling out her anti-psychiatry bullshit is just *checks notes* "an evangelist for Big Pharma who thinks my SSRIs cured me".

I'm open to good faith conversation about anti-psychiatry because I have also read Foucault yes, and I don't know how neuropharmacology works even though I do believe in the provenance of clinical trials. But if you're just trying to self-validate your personal medical trauma with the kind of tinhattery pulled from my mother's Church WhatsApp groups, you're welcome to go flush yourself down the toilet with it. Your shiny little theories have a body count, asshole.

#mental health #mental illness #neurdivergence #medical abuse #psychiatric abuse #medical gaslighting #medication stigma #religious abuse #ableism #disability #psychiatry #knee of huss

[nicxxx5]

why are my parents so weird when i want to talk about my autism? like they want to act like it just doesn’t exist?? LIKE MY ENTIRE LIFE FINALLY MAKES SENSE I WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT HELLO???

#autistic #actually autistic #autism #asd #autism spectrum disorder #neurdivergent #neurodivergencies #neurdivergence #ableism #tw ableism #i'm calling it that with them not wanting to discuss it #stop ignoring me #late diagnosed autistic #i don't get why my family wont talk to me about it #my life finally makes sense #stimming #hyperfixation #special interest #routines #sameness #social difficulties #poor social skills #vent #vent post #daily autistic struggles #daily life #daily struggles #autistic community #autistic experiences

[daughteroffreyy]

The way how i have adhd and i KNOW I do yet i still get so surprised every time I experience an adhd trait. Like holy shit, I’m so bored it hurts and I’m having trouble being on time again.. OH WAIT

#adhd #adhd inattentive #neurdivergence #dave #audhd

[studyinginthestorm]

Hi! I'm Miyah (well not really, it's just a nickname) and I'm super excited to start this studyblr!

I'm currently in 10th grade but I struggle with procrastination and anxiety but that's been a lot better since I got diagnosed with and treated my ADHD earlier this year.

In all honesty I love looking at aesthetic notes and study tips since they not only help me deal with my anxiety but also help me overcome my procrastination, odd right? And of course this has lead me to the studyblr community!

I'm hoping to share some tips I have for studying and planning and see your guys awesome ideas too, god knows that I could use them.

So a little bit about me, aside from how I got here:

I'm absolutely in love reading YA fantasy, especially if it has dystopian themes and my top recs are Harry Potter, Circe, Percy Jackson and Carve The Mark. I would not survive without coffee and if I could I'm not at all eager to, I can't help it, I love the taste.

I adore physics and computers which naturally means that those are my favourite classes and I'm hoping to continue learning Python soon, as well as picking up playing piano again.

Though those goals are a bit further into the future since I'm currently working on my book, and you guessed it, it's a YA fantasy! I am ridiculously excited about it and yes I love writing and hope to publish my books one day.

I've been writing stories since I was 7, though not very consistently these last 2 years, and I've loved words since before I could say them. Check out my main blog, @theadhdravenclaw for stuff about writing and ofc feminism!

Some studyblrs I love:

@studyquill (the aesthetic and Hermione vibes? Yes please) @myhoneststudyblr @studylustre @learnelle @corirella

#studyblr #introductory post #study blog #study motivation #productivity #study tips #student #study hard #neurdivergence #actually adhd #adhd and school #adhd school #adhd study tips #adhd studyblr

[systemofthestars]

(some) House of The Dragon ND/Disability Headcanons/canons

Aeamond Targaryen: ADHD, Partial Blindness & PTSD

Alicent Hightower: C-PTSD

Helaena Targaryen: Autistic, ADHD, & C-PTSD w/ heavy dissociation caused by her visions.

Rhaenyra Targaryen: ADHD & PTSD

Viserys I Targaryen: ADHD, chronic wasting diseases

#house of the dragon #media #neurdivergence #nd headcanon #aemond targaryen #alicent hightower #helaena targaryen #rhaenyra targaryen #viserys i targaryen #our post #headcanons #adhd headcanon #autistic headcanon #ptsd headcanon

[queer-for-science]

Something neurotypicals don't realize is that they stim, too. The difference being that they really only do it noticeably on rare occasion when they're really, really nervous and stressed. Something else neurotypicals don't realize is how often we are really really nervous and stressed.

#neurdivergence #neurodivergent #neurodiverse stuff #neurodiversity #stimming #neurotypicals

[palesunss]

does anyone have any advice on getting a job that wouldn’t be too much for an autistic person? i’m having trouble finding places and/or asking about applications (if the application isn’t online). maybe places i could consider?

#autistic #actually autistic #neurdivergence #pls i need a job #advice

[adhd-mode-activate]

Sorry for the very long post :)))) I just have many Thoughts today and want to type them out

Sometimes I forget that other people didn't grow up in a neurodivergent house

Genuinely. I know some people had good homes and some had terrible ones growing up, and some were in between and you still don't know what to do about it. And I remember that and I do my best not to assume and when I hear of some of the things others had to go through growing up I want to envelop them in a hug and invite them into my own home.

but I forget that not everyone has the privilege (or chaos) of a neurodivergent home. While I'm the first in my family to get diagnosed with anything, no one in my family is neurotypical and we know that

my growing up years didn't consist of "well you can't have ADHD" or "You can't have learning disabilities," it was my mother's orderly, potentially OCD personality trying to learn how to raise a highly creative ADHD bundle of chaos. Sometimes we had really bad days. Or even weeks. Elementary math for a little while consisted of me crying as we spent three hours trying to work through flashcards, and I don't remember what we finally ended up doing to teach me math. But I do remember my father teaching me how to work with negative integers using Uno cards. And spelling for a while was a combination of pain, confusion, and rote memory, but my mom slowly learned that I don't read words as individual letters but groups of letters bunched together in no particular order, and taught me how to make sense of those little groupings and break them down. Now I can break down the names of all the chemicals in vitamins and I have better spelling skills than most other people in my field of study. But there were delightful days too. There were days when my siblings and I spontaneously grabbed the camping tent from the garage and set it up in the back yard and did all our school work outside. Some days when my parents looked at me and my siblings and went "yeah no there's no way you're learning anything from a textbook today" and my mom would reorganize her carefully created schedules so we didn't have to do anything. And then sometimes we'd pile into the car on a random Tuesday and go to the zoo or to a museum or even to the library and we'd wander around and laugh and whisper and exclaim and learn in a different way

Going to college made me realize how ADHD friendly my childhood was. In college you don't get a day when you feel like you're about to combust, you don't get to move your assignments around so that you speed through the topics you find easy and spend more time on the topics you find difficult and spread out your finals and final assignments over a couple of weeks to a month. I can't just ask my professors if I can write a poem instead of an essay as long as I get the gist of the assignment like I could sometimes with my mom. And I miss it. I miss it so much. I go home sometimes, but I've outgrown the daily rhythms of my family, and sometimes I desperately miss it. (a big part of my decision to get diagnosed, and my parents' support of it, was because we discussed the fact that I no longer have a world built to accommodate me, so I have to fight for that myself, and a diagnosis would help get me into a position where I could do that)

But I forget how rare a family like mine really is. Half my family has ADHD like me and the other half has their own way of viewing the world that I don't fully understand. We've all got varying degrees of social anxiety. We sometimes feed each other's anxiety and we sometimes help it. Sometimes we sound like we're speaking another languages because we've combined phrases from TV shows, movies, books, and words from other languages we know all together into our vocabulary. Sometimes we accidentally hurt each other, and sometimes we don't understand each other, but we all understand that we're different from each other and that's okay, and we are determined to break past cycles of extended family and communicate with each other and continue to build strong relationships with each other into adulthood.

And I know now not everyone gets that. And it just made me really sad thinking about that, remembering that as I was driving yesterday. So, I guess, all of that rambling and chaos and confusing semi-out-of-context explanation of my childhood to say...if you didn't have a home that taught you what it's like to be not only accepted for who you are, but truly welcomed for it, you can have mine. My mom and sister will gladly bake treats for you and probably embarrass me and make sure you're spoiled as you deserve.

And if you're neurodivergent and want to start a family of your own worried about how well you'll be able to raise a kid when taking care of yourself is hard enough....well, it's chaos. but it's a fun kind of chaos, and you'll be incredible.

#no filter #everyone is a fae until proven otherwise and don't trust them with anything especially personal information #sorry for this very long post #I had lots of Thoughts and didn't entirely know where to put them #i'm still not sure about putting them on tumblr but #oh well? #congratulations you get the weirdest combination of that I'll probably ever have #which means that soon I will be back to my usual self #aka #and I may be mortified over the existence of this post #but I think it's important so I probably won't delete it #hugs to all of you beans #and cool noncontact handshakes to the touch averse ones #long post #adhd #adhd life #neurodivergent #neurdivergence #autism #I am shamefully short on research into varieties of neurodivergence that aren't ADHD or autism so I cannot tag them #but if you want to reblog with others please do #my post #adhd mode activate

[misspermitted]

If one more person ignores my polite request to not be hugged I’m gonna politely stab a bitch.

#boundaries #why can people not respect them #autism #neurdivergence #neurodiverse stuff #sensory issues #its the neurodivergency

[thatdeadaquarius]

When you're tired and your mask slips a little around neurotypical people

Please tell me anyone else relates to those moments when your mask slips slightly, like you say a sentence weird, or you are just tired and dont do the right facial expression at just the right time, or your pause too long while speaking etc. and IMMEDIATELY everyone is asking whats wrong or whats going on or what you meant?? Or get upset a little??? Like??? Jesus fucking christ I have never related to a neurotypical thing LESS than this

#its the neurodivergency #neurdivergence #neurodivergent #neurotypical #masking #adhd things #adhd post #adhd tag #undiagnosed neurodivergent #undiagnosed something #growing up undiagnosed

[angelic-prince]

The ND urge to just Scream

#prince.txt #if i had more land and a not sore throat I would very much so like to scream rn thnx #neurdivergence