The Over/Under On Autistic Reactions
Someone on Twitter asked fellow autistics whether or not they feel they overreact. It got me thinking about that word, and who or what decides what kind of reactions allegedly are “too much”.
Out of the 4288 posts across 16 sources in the 25 years since March 2000, these 40 posts were published on medium.com between April 2018 and December 2018.
#ActuallyMonotropic?
I’d meant only to come back to Medium to talk about one way in which I think we end up with late-diagnosed actually autistic adults, but while browsing the autism tag (which they seem finally to have purged of all the t-shirt and pirated ebook spam) ended up learning something new.
How Late-Diagnosed #ActuallyAutistic Adults Happen
Recently, I had to go for a new psychodiagnostic evaluation by an Oregon Department of Human Services contractor as part of the state’s disability determination services for Social Security benefits purposes. I’d mostly been avoiding thinking too much about being autistic because there are too many other things that need to be done right now.
Autistic Camouflaging Is Not Always Conscious
I’m not suicidal (I have my days where if the world ended I might not do more than shrug, but I’ve no interest in hastening the event), but buried in the Discussion section of a new study on suicide among autistic adults is a look at camouflaging that concerns me.
The Catch-22 Of Being #ActuallyAutistic But Late-Diagnosed
There are two ways to get Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits, more or less.
On Stimming And Smoking
When you are actually-autistic but late-diagnosed, you think a lot about whether or not you’ve been stimming for all those decades, or were suppressing your stimming because it didn’t match (as I’ve discussed before) society’s background radiation of conformity.
A Checklist Check-In
Completed and submitted my combined Social Security Disability Insurance/Supplemental Security Income application online, although I still have to go into a Social Security office to submit additional material, because heaven forbid they let you upload PDFs to your actual application.
Misadventures In Conformity And Burnout
It was a bad sign. Immediately upon leaving my apartment to go host visiting hours at The Belmont Goats, the brightness and heat of the afternoon sun of the ongoing heatwave was like suddenly being slapped across the face. I’d already announced we would be open. There was no turning back.
Where Are My Autistic Superpowers?
In addition to this Medium experiment (from which I’d been somewhat absent until the last couple of weeks), awhile back I tried a related one on Tumblr, where there’s an entirely different autistic community. It didn’t last long, and I wiped the few things I had posted or reblogged.
Stray Thoughts About My Autistic Past
One continuing obstacle for me is the question of trying to look back over four decades to see if I can find signs of being autistic, or signs of how no one ever noticed that I was. It didn’t help when exactly the wrong person bluntly questioned my contention that I never knew there were diagnosable reasons behind difficulties I’ve had.
Communications Breakdown
There’s not really any form of communication that I enjoy, per se. I suppose that I’m most comfortable with the sort of mass, meandering aimlessness of my Twitter feed, but that doesn’t exactly translate into utilitarian conversations such as those in the workplace, or, really, those involved in finding work to begin with.
Hyperfocus Versus Task Switching
I’ve been getting down in the dumps a bit lately, wondering why so many autistic people seem to think that being autistic comes with some set of “superpowers” when I feel like no one ever provided me with that particular handbook. I even bailed on a brief experiment in following autistic people on Tumblr because of it. It probably also partly explains my general absence here on Medium.
Collated Responses #10
My weekly roundup of responses I have posted to other people’s posts here on Medium, for those who don’t feel like scrolling through the Responses tab on my profile.
When The Helpers Don’t Believe You
Today was not a good day. Today was the third time in a little less than a year that someone I’d turned to for help waved dismissively at some past or present part of my diagnostic story.
Collated Responses #9
My weekly roundup of responses I have posted to other people’s posts here on Medium, for those who don’t feel like scrolling through the Responses tab on my profile.
Does Social And Performance Distress Make Us Seem Unfeeling?
I’ve been thinking a bit lately about that whole thing where autistic people are said to be lacking in empathy. It’s not something I’ve spent much time on, but here on Medium, at least, there’s a fair amount of pushback against this idea from actually-autistic people. I’ve pushed back against it myself.
Flashback: Who I Was At Four Years Old
I received the following Montessori evaluation in June 1974. I received my autism diagnosis in October 2016. How do they relate? I don’t know, really, but I wanted to share it here.
Collated Responses #8
My weekly roundup of responses I have posted to other people’s posts here on Medium, for those who don’t feel like scrolling through the Responses tab on my profile.
Mood Tracking For May 2018
Last month, I posted a comparison of how my daily average moods were working out between March, the final month at my six-month job placement which I left due to the psychological damage it was doing, and April, my first post-job month. Today I add the full month of May to the mix.
Collated Responses #7
My weekly roundup of responses I have posted to other people’s posts here on Medium, for those who don’t feel like scrolling through the Responses tab on my profile.
Introversion, Autism, And Avoiding Stigma
I find fascinating the suggestion that introversion might have some relation to autism because before my diagnosis the elements of introversion resonated with me, and I found it a useful tool to manage certain social stresses, both in terms of how I dealt with them internally and how I justified my reactions to the world and to other people. Introversion was my only toolkit.
Collated Responses #6
My weekly roundup of responses I have posted to other people’s posts here on Medium, for those who don’t feel like scrolling through the Responses tab on my profile.
The Difference Between Autism And Cancer
I was thinking today about a couple things I’ve posted as responses to other people, and how they actually might connect in such a way as my response to the one actually ends up explaining my somewhat intense reaction to the other.
Today I Learned About Autistic Burnout
More accurately, I learned of autistic burnout last week, but set it aside for this week as something to read up on. It turns out to be useful new knowledge as lately I’ve been thinking a lot about life post-diagnosis as compared to life pre-diagnosis.
Meta: Why I’m Not Following You On Medium
Now that I’m a month into my experiment in using Medium as part of my mental health regimen, I thought I’d take a moment to explain, among other things, why I’m not following you.
A Series Of Unfortunate Events
This week began in stress. It began with difficulty. “Today,” I wrote on Twitter on Monday while linking something I’d posted here, “is hard.” This post is long. You won’t read it. That doesn’t matter; I needed to write it.
Collated Responses #5
My weekly roundup of responses I have posted to other people’s posts here on Medium, for those who don’t feel like scrolling through the Responses tab on my profile.
The Exhausting Social Hussle, Part Two
Not more than a few minutes after waking up this morning, there were messages from a local talk radio station wanting me to come on before 9:00am to talk about relocating The Belmont Goats. I ignored them, and only responded later on when I was actually up and about.
The Exhausting Social Hussle
I’m completely drained by this weekend, which has not been my typical weekend.
Collated Responses #4
My weekly roundup of responses I have posted to other people’s posts here on Medium, for those who don’t feel like scrolling through the Responses tab on my profile.
Instagram’s Algorithm Hates Me And My Autism
Back in 2016, when Instagram announced it was Facebooking itself by abandoning the simple chronological feed and instituting an algorithm, they proclaimed that the move would “show the moments we believe you will care about the most”.
Mood Tracking For April 2018
Mid-month, I posted an early comparison of how my daily average moods were working out between March, the final month at my six-month job placement which I left due to the psychological damage it was doing, and April, my first post-job month.
So Apparently Autism Comes With Fatigue?
Coming out of a Sunday afternoon crash, I suddenly for the first time wondered if there were any links between autism and fatigue. I think that I mostly had just assumed that if my diagnosis had any bearing at all on my routine fatigue it would be as an aspect of my anxiety. But then, I finally asked myself, why does it hit even on days when my anxiety levels are not particularly high?
Meta: Medium And My Mental Health
For a week and a half now, since not long after beginning to use Medium as a place to learn about and express my own thoughts about my autism diagnosis, I’ve been plagued by a technical issue that seemingly manages to poke just about every button I have that in any way relates to rigidity or a lack of control: the Highlights tab keeps disappearing from my profile.
Collated Responses #3
My weekly roundup of responses I have posted to other people’s posts here on Medium, for those who don’t feel like scrolling through the Responses tab on my profile.
The Worst-Ever Bathroom For Sensory Processing
I don’t seem to have the same degree of sensory issues as do other people writing about their autism, but I felt the need to mention that this bathroom pushed nearly every wrongful sensory button. The curved floor, the tiny and perpetually-repeated tiles, the lighting, and the infinitely-regressing smoky mirrors all combined to make me feel like the room was constantly in motion. Leaving this bathroom was like walking off a ferry (I seriously cannot ride ferries) and needing to get one’s legs back. It’s quite possibly the single most nightmarish room I have ever been in.
Collated Responses #2
My weekly roundup of responses I have posted to other people’s posts here on Medium, for those who don’t feel like scrolling through the Responses tab on my profile.
I’ve Been Tracking My Mood
Toward the end of February, five months into a job placement via Vocational Rehabilitation that had so degraded my mental state that for the first time in my life I was suffering what my psychotherapist deemed “depressive episodes” (excepting two minor incidents more than twenty years ago), I started tracking my mood several times a day in an app called Daylio.
Collated Responses #1
My weekly roundup of responses I have posted to other people’s posts here on Medium, for those who don’t feel like scrolling through the Responses tab on my profile.