"In our first episode of the Autism and Intimacy podcast, Candice shares the diagnostic criteria for autism spectrum including what symptoms are often expressed but not in the DSM V. She and her husband Chris also talk about a recent communication issue they had and how they have learned to effectively tackle her issues with both sensory overload and communication mishaps. Enjoy!"
@actuallyautistic
Do not complain. If you never lived on the street for a while, if you weren't admitted to a psychiatric hospital for a while. If you didn't spend some years living in boarding houses, eating little and badly. If you didn't have a year of your life that you barely remember what happened or what you did and you ate every 3 or 4 days. If you didn't spend 6 or 7 long hours suffering from extreme anxiety attacks before going to the hospital to get an injection. If you didn't spend years of your life without sleeping more than 3 hours a day. If you did not experience dangerous situations because you got involved in affairs and jobs without thinking about the risks. If you didn't travel to other countries in a precarious way because you didn't realize it was dangerous.
That's all part of being bipolar, autistic, and gifted without knowing it, without having a diagnosis for many years of your life. It is part of having tried to be what one cannot be and not being what by nature one cannot help being.
All of these things and many more that I don't like to tell are part of this neurodivergent inner world that gave me a deep major depression when I couldn't take it anymore and from which it took me almost 10 years to recover. Although I can't really talk about recovery because the person I was before that has already died and what I can be now remains.
It's not fun to live like this, it's not funny, cool or an adventure. It's a complete shit life. The only thing that sustained me was that as compensation, nature granted me a high intellectual capacity and great resilience, without which I would not have survived even early childhood.
The wisdom that one accumulates by learning from suffering goes hand in hand with the need for solitude and silence and is the mother of low sociability and a strong awareness of the absurdity of life in general and human life in particular.
Don't get caught up in the alienation that rages in the world. My plans for my future years are to move further and further away from social life. And once I can retire, dedicate myself to what I like for the rest of the trip.
If the world and its herds run in one direction, go the opposite way.
Please stop with the euphemisms. We know what we are, we don't need it explained to us. It is patronising when people try and define our identity for us.
Newest episode of #InTheKaleidoscope went up on Monday. A podcast wherein ND parent (me) and NT adult child (her) discover stuff about each other.
We got to a really interesting place. I'm fascinating with what I'm learning about her. And she says she always wanted to be autistic. Well, we didn't have that word back then. But she wanted to be like me. To have a brain like mine. Which I guess is a usual thing for a kid to want? To be like their parent? But how much she wanted it surprised me. That she even noticed what my brain was like surprised me. Anyway, give it a listen.
Diving into the concept of jivanmukta (living liberation) for my first Coop Dharma newsletter (reader supported, sliding scale at https://chickenyogi.com/coop-dharma ) Looking forward to diving into this topic and seeing how it applies to neurodivergence.
Hiya! I know I've been somewhat incognito since joining here, but now I'm launching a project that will show more of who I am.
It's a podcast I started with my daughter about being a #neurodivergent parent with a #neurotypical child. We talk about how the world was when I was raising her a million years ago and the things I wish I'd known then that I know now as a newly self-discovered #ActuallyAutistic person.
If anyone wants to give it a listen, I'd love to know what you think! There are four episodes so far. We are just getting started.