@dpnash@neurodifferent.me cover
@dpnash@neurodifferent.me avatar

dpnash

@[email protected]

Home: Part of an amazing #Polyfidelitous family (3 adults, 4 kids)

Work: #DataEngineering currently. #WebDevelopment and #DevOps in the past. #Chemistry a long time ago.

Long-time developer of the HYG + AT-HYG star catalogs (https://github.com/astronexus).

I'm also on a more general server, c.im, @dpnash, so if I seem familiar, this is probably why. I post about #Neurodiversity here now and use the other account for other topics.

Both accounts will have cat pictures.

He/him.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. View on remote instance

Autistrain , to ActuallyAutistic group
@Autistrain@neurodifferent.me avatar

I received a message with a link to a local newspaper speaking about autism.

  1. As always they need education on the topic

  2. I had to kindly explain the article about the promotion of aspie supremacy. What bring us to point 1.

We need to better educate journalists on the topic. I see all the time bad and pathologising articles on the subject of autism. It's like autistics aren't human or we have to be cured. It's not fine at all.

On aspie supremacy:

Elon Musk’s Autistic Anti-Patterns
https://oolong.medium.com/elon-musks-autistic-anti-patterns-5a96111ef28f

Mad supremacy:
https://criticalneurodiversity.com/2024/02/19/mad-supremacy/

@actuallyautistic @neurodiversity

dpnash ,
@dpnash@neurodifferent.me avatar

@zigi_now9 @Autistrain @actuallyautistic @neurodiversity Cosign.

There was a period in my childhood (roughly age 8 - 12) where I was starting to run headlong into some pretty bad spikes in my Assigned Spiky Profile at Birth, and so I started to believe that exceptionally good spikes actually meant something, in more than just a "yeah, I do these things pretty well" sort of way.

Started to believe.

The TL;DR was a strong but short-lived interest in IQ tests and similar things, which I was (fortunately) nudged out of by family members at first and then by greater exposure to other people's strengths, weaknesses, and overall life experiences.

catswhocode , to ActuallyAutistic group
@catswhocode@mastodon.art avatar

@actuallyautistic @actuallyadhd Another question for both groups: do you find you have "spiky intelligence"? As in, you might be amazing in some areas like math, programming, etc., but struggle with executive functions. I'm good with a lot of artistic fields, but definitely struggle with organization, finances, navigation, etc. My wife and I compensate for each others' challenges.

dpnash ,
@dpnash@neurodifferent.me avatar

@catswhocode @actuallyautistic @actuallyadhd > As in, you might be amazing in some areas like math, programming, etc., but struggle with executive functions

That's eerily close to what happened in my younger years. I was very good at most STEM-ish things, but my first career in that area soon taxed my executive functioning and/or dexterity, neither of which I got very much of, to a point that wasn't manageable, despite very clear strengths in some other ways. I ended up needing to change careers to something less demanding on those fronts.

> I'm good with a lot of artistic fields

The TL;DR for me is my brain can art, my body can't. I've always struggled in creative arts classes with good (or at least, passably interesting) ideas that I couldn't get my hands to work with well enough to be enjoyable.

dpnash ,
@dpnash@neurodifferent.me avatar

@catswhocode @actuallyautistic @actuallyadhd For me, it's less of a problem of perception and more one of dexterity. There is always a nonzero chance that I won't get my hands or fingers (or some larger body part -- think dance and other performing arts) in the right place at the right time, and practice does not consistently get this down to a usefully low level. (Key word: usefully. Just about every artistic field tolerates some degree of mistakes and outright errors in execution. None of them consistently tolerate the amount of "being off" that my body generates all the time.)

dpnash ,
@dpnash@neurodifferent.me avatar

@OtterForce @EVDHmn @catswhocode @actuallyautistic @actuallyadhd > That internalized at some point and became I can’t do things I’m not good at.

Observations over my life, thanks to a Very Spiky Skill Set Assigned At Birth™️ that made quite a few popular activities essentially impossible (not merely more difficult than for most people):

  1. "Getting good at X" is a trap for most X out there and for most people contemplating doing X. Even in circumstances where skill levels are highly relevant, "good at X" can look like anything from "reasonably experienced with X" to "highly skilled at X" to "completely world-class at X", and it's very easy to end up with totally unreasonable expectations.

  2. "Getting to a point where you enjoy the activity for its own sake" is a much better target to envision.

  3. Spiky Skill Sets mean having quite a few activities where "getting to the point where you enjoy the activity for its own sake" may require more skill than you can reasonably expect to get. (This is not a disguised version of "getting good at it." It's based on subjective satisfaction, not some measure of skill level deemed to be "good" by some criterion. But many activities do require some baseline level of skill to obtain that satisfaction.)

  4. Pay attention to the concept of opportunity costs in this context. Be completely willing to walk away from activities (especially recreational ones) that are starting to look like the ones described in 3. above, and give yourself permission to focus on ones that look like something you are more likely to be able to become enjoyably skilled at.

dpnash ,
@dpnash@neurodifferent.me avatar

@OtterForce @EVDHmn @catswhocode @actuallyautistic @actuallyadhd This brings me to a second point: dealing with NT people who don't experience this, because they have More Normal and Less Spiky Skill Sets.

There is a presumption in NT skill acquisition that goes like this:

  1. It's OK to not be good at things for a while. Everyone fails a lot at the beginning. It's how you learn. Give yourself some grace and keep practicing.

  2. After enough of practicing and learning, you'll get enough skill to enjoy the activity you're trying to learn.

  3. remains true for people with Spiky Skill Sets, and (especially for younger people with less overall life experience) is just as critical to remember. Unfortunately, 2. does not remain true. There will, almost by definition, be some activities that are on one of the "negative" spikes and won't be accessible to someone who has that particular negative spike.

The disconnect here regularly leads to conflict with NTs who confuse "unwilling to try activity X" with "afraid of failing at X in the early stages" (i.e., not recognizing the validity of point 1. above). The issue isn't being afraid of doing poorly at the start; it's one of never really being able to enjoy the activity at all, regardless of the effort put into it.

Zumbador , to ActuallyAutistic group
@Zumbador@mefi.social avatar

@actuallyautistic
I'm visiting family, and wow am I deep in autistic denial territory.

Some of my younger relatives have approached me, asking about neurodivergence because I've been so open about my experience as a late realised autistic person. They're wondering about themselves and their parents.

The older people though, are unable to have that conversation. There are jokey, sidelong half acknowledgements that "there might be something going on" with them, but otherwise it's High Masking At All Times.

What I find difficult to deal with is the rather toxic judgemental attitudes.

So-and-so relative is "so picky about his food, he thinks it makes him important" or "how ridiculous, he doesn't like the too bright light in the bathroom" and all the while I can see them struggling to deal with the exact same difficulties they're judging in others.

It's so ingrained, I don't know if there's a way for them to find self acceptance.

dpnash ,
@dpnash@neurodifferent.me avatar

@Zumbador @actuallyautistic > "...otherwise it's High Masking At All Times."

Likely contributing source for older people ("older" in this context can easily be as young as 35-40, but it gets worse the older you are): massive amounts of social stigma with the term "autistic".

It took me two years since an official ASD diagnosis in 2019 before I could apply the term to myself, and even now, 5 years later, it's still not emotionally neutral, the way that saying "oh, I've got brown hair" or "yeah, I get migraines too" would be.

The main reason? Suspected (still unclear how definitive) "autistic" diagnosis in the early 1980s that really screwed up my family of origin, and led to a lot of misguided and actively harmful treatment from them (both senses of the word: medical and interpersonal) for years.

dpnash ,
@dpnash@neurodifferent.me avatar

@Zumbador @actuallyautistic Some additional context, by age range:

If they're older than 40, they probably associate the term "autistic" with people who have to be shunted off into separate classrooms because they're too "fragile" for or "incapable" of dealing with "The Real World".

If they're older than 55 or so, they probably associate the term with people who don't even get the separate classrooms, but just get institutionalized indefinitely.

If they're older than 70 or so? Good grief, they actually personally remember the existence of lobotomies. (It's unclear how many autistic people were subjected to them, but I'd be astonished if the number was zero.)

dpnash ,
@dpnash@neurodifferent.me avatar

@ScottSoCal @punishmenthurts @Zumbador @actuallyautistic I was hyperlexic and good with numbers as a little kid, which at least made school easier than it might have been otherwise. But that was more than matched by not caring for most of the other things other young kids liked, with a bonus level of dyspraxia making otherwise common activities difficult or impossible. School was a pretty dang lonely place for a long time.

theautisticcoach , to ActuallyAutistic group
@theautisticcoach@neurodifferent.me avatar

The problem with saying "autism is my superpower and it's not a disability" is:

  1. it devalues people who don't have "superpowers"

  2. it helps take away our disability accommodations when people LOUDLY scream that autism isn't a disability

  3. Helps the Autism Industry's narrative that we can be used to help companies profit

@actuallyautistic

dpnash ,
@dpnash@neurodifferent.me avatar

@theautisticcoach @actuallyautistic When I was a kid (at least suspected of being -- in the 1980s when "actually autistic" meant "irrevocably broken", but that's a rant for another day), I had a grand total of one aspect of my neurodivergence that could plausibly have been called a "superpower". That was an ability to remember large amounts of factually related and connected information, and draw on it very quickly. Most of the rest of my characteristics were (and are) more kryptonite than superpower, at least in a society that isn't very accommodating to them.

This one "superpower" saved my ass all the time in school, and made most intellectual work through about a bachelor's degree a lot easier. But even that came with a few serious tradeoffs: lots of transactional, "hey can you help me with this?" sorts of relationships, people using this one skill to disregard area of my life where I needed support, and ending up in trouble in lines of work where this skill was important, but not the only thing that was necessary.

LehtoriTuomo , to ActuallyAutistic group
@LehtoriTuomo@mementomori.social avatar

Someone asked whether I ever played Doom. No, not really. I told that I've never liked first person shooters and then it hit me. I never liked them as there's too much going on. In fact, I've never been a big fan of any types of shooters, the only exception being Cannon Fodder. Now, with the new-found autistic perspective, it makes perfect sense. Sensory overdrive all the time equals no fun. How about my fellow autistics, any fans of shooters?

@actuallyautistic

dpnash ,
@dpnash@neurodifferent.me avatar

@LehtoriTuomo @actuallyautistic Nope, not here. I played a lot of old-school (8-bit max) video games in the 80s, a few of which were first-person-shooter-very-light-and-low-res*, but by the time Doom came out 10-ish years later I had long since given up on the genre. As much for the "too much is going on all at the same time" as for any simulated-violence concerns.

Easily 90+% of all video games and computer games I've played since then are turn-based, again, because the "too much is going on all at the same time" in other styles was seriously Not Fun Anymore.

  • example: Battlezone, from 1981 or so. Very much a first-person shooter, and yet downright sedate compared to almost anything of that type released after about 1990.
dpnash ,
@dpnash@neurodifferent.me avatar

@LehtoriTuomo @actuallyautistic "More than just running around and killing shit" was, honestly, a huge part of the appeal of the classic game Adventure for Atari. You know, the one where you are SpongeBob SquareKnight and the dragons looked like ducks. You did have to run around with your (very pixelated) sword and fight the dragon-ducks, but there was an actual open world (tiny, by today's standards, but utterly unlike anything else before the original Nintendo console) that was at least a much fun to explore as any of the actual game mechanics.

Adventure was one of maybe 2 or 3 Atari 2600 games I was still playing regularly when the console and controllers began to die in the late 1980s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_(1980_video_game)

loops , to ActuallyAutistic group
@loops@neurodifferent.me avatar

@actuallyautistic @actuallyadhd @neurodiversity @autisticadvocacy

Can you help me out? I’m looking for some sources to share about workplace accommodations for neurodivergent folks, and I’d like to be able to recommend more than the typical big-magazine articles. I’d prefer to share resources that have actually been made by / with ND folks 😅

I know they’re out there. I’ve read them. I trusted my ability to search them back up again too much 😅. Do you have any links you can push my way?

dpnash ,
@dpnash@neurodifferent.me avatar

@cybervegan @loops @actuallyautistic @actuallyadhd @neurodiversity @autisticadvocacy Them: "Everyone's a little bit autistic"
Me: "Did you have a parent who told you that you were a little bit incapable of loving them or a little bit unable to have healthy social relationships?"

dpnash ,
@dpnash@neurodifferent.me avatar

@cybervegan @loops @actuallyautistic @actuallyadhd @neurodiversity @autisticadvocacy For some additional context:

This isn't just stuff people hear as kids (although there's plenty of messed-up shit that happens in childhood as well).

I experienced the first of these (minus the "a little bit", of course) when I was 39, and the second when I was 44. I had a severely messed-up family that did a strikingly good job of hiding how they really felt about aspects of my being ... until they knew that revealing them would be devastating.

youronlyone , to ActuallyAutistic group
@youronlyone@c.im avatar

When you're you do look younger.

I voted earlier today. We have two, one for Barangay (Town) and one for Sanguniang Kabataan (SK or Youth Council).

The election rep handling the ballots asked for my ID because he had to confirm my age.

  • SK (Youth Council) is open for 15 to 30 years old voters.

I look like I'm in my late 20s.

While he did not ask me for my age, better to confirm it with an ID to avoid election fraud, when people ask me, I used to say, "I stopped counting at 30" (now it's 28). It's half-joke, the other half is the truth, people do mistake me to be in my late 20s.

Many , for some reason, look half their actual age once we enter adulthood. I'm not aware of any scientific explanation regarding this, but it has been observed.

For me, this was not the first time. I was always mistaken to be underage (under 18) until I hit 25-27. It was always funny whenever I was with friends or colleagues because they all reacted. 🤣

It was a 5–10-year gap. Now it's a 20+ year gap. Maybe one day, there will be a 30-year gap with my actual age.

How about you? What's your experience?

@actuallyautistic @actuallyautistics @autistics

dpnash ,
@dpnash@neurodifferent.me avatar

@youronlyone @actuallyautistic @actuallyautistics @autistics I’ve gotten old enough I don’t encounter this as often as I used to, but…yep. When I was 46 went to a coworker’s birthday party and told someone there about how my kids were growing up and one of them was finishing up his second year of college. He was trying to figure out how that was possible, because he thought I was about 35 instead.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • kbinchat
  • All magazines
    •