sbroxman-autisticquestions:

Social skills can be a foreign language to us: We can learn it, but what comes natural to you doesn’t come natural to us. Don’t call us rude if we prefer to be alone, don’t laugh at our social struggles, we’re trying, and any ableist reaction isn’t going to help us

What you can tolerate may be intolerable to us: We process things differently. We often can’t cope with certain sounds, too much visual information can drive us into overload. Certain textures can also be intolerable. We’re not exaggerating if we say something is too loud, we’re not lying if we can’t cope in a busy area

Meltdowns are not tantrums, and we may need time to shutdown: I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, meltdowns are not tantrums, we are not doing it intentionally. We are doing it as a fight-or-flight response. And likewise for shutdowns, don’t question if we go non-verbal, and please understand we may need time alone

Stimming is generally a coping mechanism: This is a trait commonly mocked by ableists. We use stimming as a way of coping. It may look weird to you, but we do it for many reasons. To keep us focused, to calm us down when feeling overloaded, to express emotion

Special interests aren’t weird or dangerous: If I had a penny for every time an allistic person implied my special interest was unhealthy and should be discouraged, I’d have quite a lot of pennies. It’s only weird to you because you don’t understand the joy it gives us. And you may worry that infodumping about one topic could discourage people from talking to us. I can’t speak for all autistic people on this, but I for one would rather be friends with someone who accepts my special interests, at least then I’m being myself

rewby:

hey so i know that dismissing all the “this is just like when ___ happened in ___ book/movie/tv show” posts as “white privileged liberalism” is real popular right now but like

a lot of autistic ppl process real life events through fiction

and comparisons are the only way we can understand the severity of something

(heck my four year old brother is autistic and he only speaks referentially he literally can’t understand something you’re saying unless someone has said it in a tv show)

so like when i say “oh this is just like when umbridge took over at hogwarts” what i mean is “this is a funny thing to say, yes, but im also contextualizing my experience in a way that means i can understand fully the emotions and social context involved because i’m autistic and don’t understand these things like allistics do”

(allistics are welcome and encouraged to reblog)

candidlyautistic:

transcoranic:

wetwareproblem:

After what happened yesterday, I’ve decided to teach you the single most important thing you will ever learn about dealing with autistic people, especially under stress:

A meltdown is a defensive response, not an aggression.

Meltdowns happen because we are in pain - either the direct sensory pain of too much light or too loud noise or terrible textures or what have you, or the emotional pain of just being overwhelmed by so much input we can’t handle it, of being told were horrible burdens who can’t love, etc.

Meltdowns are born of pain.

In particular, they’re what happens when we can’t escape that pain. Y’all know about the fight-or-flight response? Well… that’s what a meltdown is. And all of those stories of autistic people destroying things or hurting themselves or lashing out at people? That’s what happens when “flight” is no longer an option. That only leaves “fight.”

We’re trying to defend ourselves from things that are hurting us, and you won’t let us. You stand between us and an escape from pain. That’s what makes us lash out, as surely as if you cornered an animal and poked it with a stick.

So how do you prevent this from happening? Simple. Find out what’s causing us pain, and give us an escape from it. Too much noise? Give us earplugs or a quiet place. Too-bright lights? Maybe we need sunglasses or a darkroom. Draining social expectations? Let us be alone for a bit.

Just let us escape the pain. That’s all we need.

(The implication of this, of course, is that people who think autistic people are inclined to violence? Are people who hurt us and keep us in pain. They’re abusers. This is something that has held up literally every time I’ve heard someone talk about how terrible and violent we are, and then describe their interactions with us. Every. Single. Time.)

May I add that if you don’t personally know the person who’s having the meltdown, or even if you do and you haven’t worked out another plan ahead of time, here’s meltdown intervention 101:

Don’t

• Do not touch them unless you’ve specifically worked out a plan with them beforehand
• Do not stand close to or crowd them, especially if they are on the floor or in a corner
• Do not prevent them from stimming unless they’re hurting others or seriously hurting themself, even if they’re disturbing others
  
• Do not yell at them, I can’t think of a single situation where this is a good idea
• Do not try to move or relocate them unless they are in immediate physical danger or you’ve worked out a plan beforehand
• Do not force them to speak or communicate, these take a lot of energy and can be very stressful or impossible, even for someone who’s normally verbal

Do

• If you can, try to get other people to leave the room while the person calms down. 
• Move slowly, the person having the meltdown is already in fight-or-flight mode. 
• Speak clearly and use simple sentences, most autistic people have poor auditory processing all the time, and trying to understand what you’re telling us during a meltdown can be difficult or impossible.
  
• Try to eliminate overstimulating things in the environment like clocks with second hands, cathode-ray tvs (fucking pain boxes), flashing lights, or strong smells.
• Remember that many autistic people also have trauma. Some common triggers (things you should avoid like the plague) include being restrained (don’t grab any part of their body) and phrases like “quiet hands”
• Be patient and wait for them to calm down

It may take more than an hour for an autistic person to calm down from a meltdown. During this time, give them the option to go to a quieter and less-stimulating space. Offer alternate methods of communication, like allowing them to type on a phone, write on a pad, or nod their head in response to questions. Don’t force them to do anything. Meltdowns are exhausting and many people are unable to do things they normally find easy. 

If you are allistic and any of this seems wrong to you, I would like to politely invite you to shut your quiznak. Yes, especially if you are an “””Autism expert””” 

DO NOT CALL THE COPS, FULL STOP

autisticliving:

Abolish the narrative that autistic people are defective neurotypicals. We have no missing pieces. We are not broken. We are all whole, complete human beings.

goldenheartedrose:

differentblogtitle:

for some reason people think if you’re diagnosed late, and you’re a neurodiversity advocate, and you love being autistic, then that must mean you don’t “suffer” in any way shape or form as an autistic person. because - you weren’t recognized as autistic until late so it must not be that bad, and being an ND advocate and loving being autistic doubly means you have no troubles as an autistic person. 

well all those people are wrong. 

I suffered my whole life as an autistic person. Everything - trouble I had in school, social situations being painful and beyond difficult, struggling to speak, never having any friends, being ostracized - sometimes bullied, doing things I knew others perceived as weird and erratic, being developmentally behind all my peers in so many areas, being sensitive to stimuli, being unable to do so many things because of this, having meltdowns and shutdowns, unable to start or complete basic self-care tasks, not understanding things, burning out, developing severe OCD & mild depression as a result, so many things … too many to list. 

I stopped suffering though almost the second I got my diagnosis, the second I discovered the autistic community and neurodiversity movement. Why? Not because all those autistic things magically disappeared with a diagnosis, that would be absurd. But because of this: I understood things about myself I never had understood my whole life, I found strategies of coping with things and adapting my environment that I never knew could possibly exist, I found a community of people I could relate to and found friends, and I found out all my life what I had thought about me that made me broken actually made me part of this larger, thriving, beautiful community of people who saw themselves as part of this amazing tapestry of diverse neurology. And my biggest problem - my rock bottom self-esteem, my confusion, my pain over thinking something was wrong with me - was solved. 

being late diagnosed, being a neurodiversity advocate, and loving being autistic doesn’t mean you got to jump on this train so easily because you never had any problems as an autistic person. it’s means you desperately, with completely joy and relief, jumped on that train cause you had been suffering for far too long. 

This. Oh my god this.

chavisory:

So, two things I think are both true:

1.  The autistic community does need to not “distance ourselves from mental illness,” in the sense of not feeling the need to distance ourselves from mentally ill people in a broader fight for human rights, dignity, and autonomy.  Horizontal oppression is wrong, autism and mental illness often co-occur, we share many similar experiences of marginalization and abuse, etc. etc.

2.  It is important, however, that professionals and healthcare providers especially understand that autism itself is a developmental disability and not a mental illness, because, y’all, I have had autism treated like a mental illness, and things got very, very bad.

Not because autistic people deserve to be treated better than mentally ill people.

Because I was being treated for the wrong thing.

Because I needed to be told the truth, and I was being told not the truth, and it took some very heavy tolls in time, money, energy, relationships, and trust in the people around me.

I do not think that that is pedantry.