Subtitles are a great example of an adaptation that helps more than (in this case auditory) disabled people.
When I had small children I stopped watching anything that wasn’t subtitled because I couldn’t control my noise environment. Either too loud to hear when the children were playing or had to keep the noise down when they were sleeping.
It gave me a great appreciation for assistive technology in general.
Or maybe put it on one of those super low-to-the-ground tables that they have in some places in Japan where you kneel at the table instead of sitting at it.
“I saw photos of Caitlyn obtaining her scuba diving licence at age 10 in the Philippines, playing tennis in Scotland, modelling in Singapore, camping in Wales, riding helicopters in New Zealand, skiing across Japan, honing rifle marksmanship in Birmingham, driving at age 13 at Mercedes Brooklands, and hiking the Great Wall of China.”
She’s done more things than I have, and I’m probably an adult.
God damn, I feel you. Both my parents are autistic. One has asperger's syndrome and the other possibly ADHD-C and maybe something else too.
Both wanted to know if I was autistic, got me diagnosed and didn't bother reading the diagnosis. I was left with that I "should ask questions more often." They also just made up an answer of their own. My mother pretended I was normal, but punished me for every mistake with verbal abuse and threats of physical violence. Though not to teach me life lessons, but because she couldn't handle things not going according to what she had in mind. My dad projected his asperger's and anxieties onto me because he feels alone. Even though we don't share the same dysfunctions on the spectrum. I don't get overstimulated or meltdowns for example. He did nothing to raise me except for income. All interaction was by my initiative. He didn't want me, but was stuck in an abusive relationship with my abusive mom.
I worked my ass off despite unknown executive dysfunction and 15 consecutive years of depression. Clawed my way out of a cult (summit lighthouse) and did shitty jobs just to teach myself some responsibility regardless of the task. And now? I failed uni once, and am about to fail it twice. Blaming myself for being a lazy cunt the first time. The second time I, put my study on hold to get help. Turns out, I got an outdated unhelpful diagnosis as a kid. Now I am on a waiting list for possible ADHD-I after struggling to get taken seriously by my GP for half a year.
I'm trying to shake my gaming addiction and try to get my brain to learn to "do stuff" despite my 3 forms of neurodivergency and history of abuse. Thank fuck for mental health professionals. Dr. K. has had a major impact on my turn around. As well as some manosphere content that makes me want to beat my past enemies out of pure petty spite. Fuck those assholes.
If I had gotten a proper diagnosis, and parents that weren't so fucking autistic themselves, I probably would have been spared the developmental damages enhanced by the neglect. I'm a one trick pony, and not even good at it.
I am so angry at my folks for having made me on a whim. Then my dad wanting to abort me. My mom considering it, but not doing so because I was a girl. My mom believing girls don't "get" autism. They understand nothing about the world, and never face their problems. Now that they are old, they are struggling with loneliness and uncertainties. And it all falls on my sister and I to try and "save" them. We raised ourselves because our parents are too autistic to be functional people with functional friendships and functional life goals. And now we have to raise them. It's like we have adult children with special needs we didn't ask for.
It's hard to hide the dissappointment when trying to teach them how to overcome some of their issues. Even though I spew enough salt to defrost the roads to hell, I do understand that their problems stem from neglect and trauma too. We try to help them by trying to combat their loneliness. We try to teach them by being scrict, but with the goal to help them understand why some things are not okay, and how to communicate with us. Sticking to practical easy to understand steps. All the while we try to help ourselves navigate life because no one taught us. Teachers not giving a shit either.
All this lack of understanding and actions to meet my special needs(TM), resulted in a 28 years of mostly misery and a massive loss of potential. I was extremely observant and terrefyingly rational. Learned how to reason and bargain before I could count to 10. I conciously changed my way of thinking when observing a conflict between my internal struggles, and what my enviroment portrayed. All in favor of my religious upbringing. I was 4 or 5 at the time. I could take apart anything and put it back together in working order. I wasn't a smart kid, but man would it have helped me if those traits got stimulated.
Now I struggle to keep up with basic life and lack a part of my ability to memorize events on top my autism(s). I barely have enough fight left in me, to bother communicating with nuance. But it helps thinking about who is part of "my tribe." Those are the people I'll fight for.
When I look at my autistic friends who are doing much better, I notice that they got proper guidence since they were young.
It's awkward. You have a problem that autism brings, but at the same time, you can't really use it as an excuse either and say "oh well, can't cure autism!" It's hard to keep looking for options and methods of compensation, especially when faced with so many dead ends. It leads to a lot of self-loathing too. It's easy to think you're screwed because you had a garbage start in life. But at the same time, that belief only drags you down. We can't change our past, or revert the damages. But we can still grow as people. And maybe pave a way for the next set of sad sods struggling with a developmental disorder.
The point of a diagnosis is so I can get the care and accommodations I need.
The reason I’m protective of the diagnosis criteria is not because I’m somehow enamored with the label, it’s because it’s fundamentally a resource allocation problem and you are stealing services that I need to function from me.
I was scared at what happened to me when I got really overstimulated, but I didn't do anything to avoid overstimulation because I didn't know it was an issue for me.
I also had no coping strategies for executive dysfunction because, again, I didn't know it was a problem for me, I was just conditioned to think I'm lazy.
I got this from a few friends lol. Apparently, it's pretty obvious that I'm autistic, but I had absolutely no self-awareness. I have a natural tendency to choose other autistic people to socialize with. I would think they were normal, authentic, interesting, easy to communicate with, and accepting. Meanwhile, I thought most people were inauthentic, shallow, hard to understand, and judgmental. Now that I know I'm autistic, I understand that:
inauthentic = social conformity amd social construction of reality
shallow = small talk
hard to understand = speak using "polite" indirect implications and social cues
judgmental = upset that I "ignored" their indirect politeness and broke social norms by speaking directly. Ironically, I was being judgmental of them, too.
I still prefer autistics because they're just my people and we get along much better, but have more understanding and acceptance of NT behaviors. Anyway, when I found out I was autistic, a some of them were like, "We thought you knew...it's pretty obvious."
was a bit of a running joke for years even before our son was diagnosted. but covid times offered the perfect period to hyper focus on researching his diagnosis. which led to reading all my old school records. finding all the vaugue language being used to dismiss my childhood behaviors that in his records, were used as the basis of a diagnosis. was an interesting "oh son of a bitch!" moment.
At this point in my life, i only put effort into maintaining two friendships. Both of which are a couple decades old now. One is ND at the very least. The other was diagnost as autistic about six months ago, to absolutely no ones surprise. We really do tend to drift into our own little social circles of peace.
I had a similar experience and I dropped out of high school at 14 for a GED because I couldn't handle it another day. And then college at 22. And then another university at 31. Now I still struggle with the most basic things because I'm only just figuring out why I didn't get to learn how to deal with trying to exist growing up. It's very hard and as an adult there's even less help. I'm very lucky to have an understanding partner and a good therapist because I have no other friends or family and I spiral often. If only someone had told me as a kid, I can't say I'd be that much different now, but at least I wouldn't be spending so much energy on trying to figure out what all went wrong back then and maybe I'd have some skills that makes functioning or communicating a little easier.
I've suspected it long before we met, but never really thought about it much beyond "yeah, I'm probably autistic. Anyway ..." and never talked about it either.
My partner was the one to first bring it up ten years into our relationship, thinking it was very obvious and said it explains a ton of peculiar behaviours I have that I never even considered to be related to autism.
I sometimes think I'm autistic but don't think it's worth getting a diagnosis. My boyfriend (almost 3 years now) said when we first meant he thought I was. He told me this a few months ago when I was going through an existential crisis of am I/aren't I. Full support. I suppose it helped that's he's ADHD and was in special classes when we was young. He only expects me to be me in all my awkwardness. Though, my sensory issues with too much sound, smells and sometimes visuals annoy him because he likes all that. Oh and I forget he can't read my mind when I respond to him internally but that's just a joke now. The differences will be there but it's the love and support that matter.
Autism
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