Another university joining in on Quiet graduation ceremonies!! 🎉 Yay! And a quote from the legend that is Dr Luke Beardon (a wonderful autistic autism researcher, lecturer at Sheffield Hallam and author of some brilliant and succinct books about autism that I highly recommend).

My university promised their first Quiet graduation this summer after so many requests from students when they heard about Nottingham Trent’s first Quiet ceremonies, but then they absolutely failed to follow through. Quiet graduations help people who, for all sorts of reasons, cannot access the usual big, busy and high energy ceremonies but want to have something official.

Many people don’t know that ME/CFS often involves similar increases sensory sensitivities as neurodivergent conditions like autism. But also, people who cannot tolerate big crowds of people, being up on stage in front of everyone, clapping, or any of the other aspects involved in a regular ceremony can benefit from this option too.

I did my own thing in the end as I couldn’t see a way to access my own ceremony. I couldn’t even enter the venue on a normal day due to the soundscape (loads of echoes and noise), so how would I handle that with masses more people and noise?

@actuallyautistic #ActuallyAutistic

From: @tomkindlon
https://disabled.social/@tomkindlon/113478282813836986

Excellent new online “leaflet” on autism and mental health (link below) by the UK Royal College of Psychiatrists.

Uses neuroaffirming language, explains the differences in terms, and everything is wonderfully succinct and up-to-date (as far as I can tell).

I particularly like the section “What support is available for autistic people?”. It is brutally honest about lack of resources in many areas of the UK, but at least it informs the reader of what is possible and SHOULD be available. It even talks about health passports, safety plans, reasonable adjustments and Access to Work. Some great explanations of how mental health conditions are likely to differ in how they present in autistic people.

A great resource to give to a mental health practitioner or anyone involved in your care because of the dedicated section “Information for health and social care professionals”.

Brilliant 👏

https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/mental-health/mental-illnesses-and-mental-health-problems/autism-and-mental-health

@actuallyautistic #ActuallyAutistic
#Autism

💜 The kindness of neurodivergent people 💚

#ActuallyAutistic #Neurodivergent

Another case of an autistic person being branded a "terrorist" this time a UK activist who was engaged in property damage against an Israeli weapons manufacturer.

""She should be at university now. She'd got a place to start this autumn, her first year at university," said Clare of her daughter, who has been diagnosed as autistic."

#Autism #autistic #neurodiverse @actuallyautistic #ActuallyAutistic

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgmvxgkwg17o

@actuallyautistic

I am considered buying a weighted blanket, as I have heard many find them extremely beneficial. However, I have a few questions and wish to consult the autistic hive mind. So please only reply if autistic, with actual experience of this.

I have COPD and getting too hot in the night, isn't good for my chest. So how hot do these things get?

I am also a very restless sleeper and move a lot in the night. Not being able to do this, tends to not do me any favours. So, how restrictive is that weight upon you.

Lastly, how thin are they? Because I am a snuggler and like a decent amount of material to do that.

Any other remarks and comments, would be welcome, as would boosting for reach.

#Autism
#ActuallyAutistic
#AskingAutistics

Stop saying “I’m autistic” as a way of excusing when you abuse other disabled people just because you don’t actually care.

@actuallyautistic #ActuallyAutistic

i found this on tumblr, so accurate tbh

#ableism #disabled #chronicallyill #chronicpain #chronicfatigue #actuallyautistic #neurodivergent

i am 'not disabled enough' for the judicial system but for my doctors i am 'too disabled or the right amount of disabled', no wonder i had to find a lawyer

@actuallyautistic

The event of this week, and if you need to know what, there's no hope for you, has led me to realise again how insidious and dangerously stupid one of the myths of what autism can be like, is. That we can be robot like and unfeeling. Over-rational, logical, the rock in a crisis, in the unfeeling way that we can cope and react. Because we have no empathy, no way to understand, or connect, with anything and especially the emotions or feelings that others are experiencing at that moment.

NO!

Yes, many of us do prioritise our logic, or ability to reason our way through situations and circumstances. And yes, through years of masking, especially when we didn't know that we were autistic, we learnt tricks to cope. To deal with overwhelm, to deal with intensity, and to cope. Mostly, I can't help thinking, through learning how to disassociate ourselves from these things, of persuading ourselves that we couldn't be experiencing them. Or by pushing the debt, the price to be paid, somehow into the future, in order to do what needed to be done.

But, that's not because we were never experiencing the emotions, or that we are not empathic. But, that we experienced them too much. I believe that we connect far more than most, and I certainly won't say all, people. We experience too much, not just through our senses, the way the intense world theory explains so well, but through the ways we connect with the very world itself. We see the connectiveness, we bond deeply with objects and things, even things that the world has decided are irrelevant. We connect in ways that most have forgotten how to do, immersed as they are in the illusion of the human world and what it means. We connect spiritually and emotionally. We see and understand and feel things that don't always have words to explain them, or explanations that make sense. We feel, so, so much.

This isn't because we are better, or worse than anyone, just different. Specialists, in a sense, in how to do this. In this world, it comes at a hell of a price and cost. In others, we come into our own. And at the moment it means that we are hurting, weeping for the future and the children born into in. Weeping for the world and those caught up in it and what it and we will become. That we might not show it, that we might be trying to help others to cope, doesn't mean that we aren't. That we are being logical and just trying to get on with our lives, doesn't mean anything, beyond that this is perhaps the only way our experience and the world has taught us how to cope. Inside the pain is only too real and the fear and the uncertainty. And yet also the hope, those of us who have always been beyond the raggedy edge of humanity, whether we knew it or not, have always known how to nurture that, always in our own way. It has always been an essential part of us, as misguided and unlikely as it has often seemed. But now is the time to remember hope, whether we can see it or not. These are going to be "interesting times" and we need it now, more than ever.

#Autism
#ActuallyAutistic
#Neurodivergent

So back to hinting.

Definition = Telling people they should do things in ways you know they'll understand, but need take no responsibility for them having done it.

What's not to like?! 😁🤷‍♀️

No wonder it's such a cornerstone of our culture.

#ActuallyAutistic

⬇️

Hinting = a clever way to get people to do things but without taking responsibility for having told them to.

#ActuallyAutistic

A little 🧵
⬇️

A bit nervous. I'm going to meet my ex wife for a lunch date. Our divorce was amicable, we simply drifted apart. What makes me nervous is that we haven't met in several years and now I have big news. I'm going to tell her I'm non-binary and autistic. These certainly affected so many things in our relationship and I simply need to tell her and discuss a bit. She's a relaxed, tolerant person so fortunately that's not the issue.

I'm wearing my every day accessories, that is several bracelets, rings, two necklaces and my nails are painted golden. My glasses are noticably flashier than last time. Let's see how quickly she notices different details...

#NonBinary #GenderQueer #ActuallyAutistic

I made a meal that required putting the oven-safe stir-fry pan into the oven.

I'm not used to this cooking technique. The way I usually use the stir-fry pan, the handle does not get hot.

So of course I forgot and burned my fingers.

Then I failed to apply the lesson to the stir-fry-pan lid and burned the fingers on my other hand.

[thumbs up]

#ActuallyAutistic

Diary of an ASD Squirrel. Day 377 , Friday 08/11/2024

Got up just after 7am as I had to call the doctors surgery bang on 8am to see if I could get a GP’s appointment for sometime today.

Called at 1 second past 8 & was 3rd in the queue!
Managed to get on the list for a phone appointment - ‘some time this morning’. The Dr finally called around 12:15pm !

Did my chores & gave the dishwasher its monthly maintenance clean.

Finished off the morning playing NMS (they are running a heavily cut down version of Expedition 2 for the next 2 weeks) with one ear on the game & one ear listening for the phone!

Simon (the AWOL plumber) called around 11:30 to say he would be over just after lunch.

Had a bag of crisps with a cherry juice for lunch in anticipation of a pizza that never came.

Played a little more NMS , finished the first of 5 phases.

Simon rolled up at around 15:30 & we got the job the job sorted together - my back is gonna hate me tomorrow there was stretching & bending & all kinds of stuff it likes to bitch about!

So hopefully that is the central heating sorted for this year - it was in desperate need of a clean, but now I know how to do it ‘properly’ it won’t have to cost the better side of 200 quid next time!

Simon thinks he’s coming back next year but I’m seriously considering finding a new plumber.
It’s not even the delay that really pisses me off, although if I was working then that would be more of an issue, it’s the lack of communication, a text or a phone call costs nothing.
An apology would be nice too.

So Mrs S has a gob on with the pizza place we use so we had to have a Chinese on pizza night. Hey ho.

We’ve started binge watching an old Trevor Eve series - ‘Waking the Dead’ the pilot was not bad if a little dated!

Final Thoughts.

I’m too relaxed with folk &, unless they have gone truly beyond the pale , I let them get away with murder!
I need to toughen up a bit!

Thank you to all those who are helping me on this journey, in a myriad different ways. I am thankful to each & every one of you! 🫂 🫶🐿️🖖

@actuallyautistic
#TimsASDjourney #ActuallyAutistic #Neurospicy #TheMammutMoves

"Advertising falls flat with autistic people."

Does anyone have ideas as to why?

🤔

#AskingAutistics
#ActuallyAutistic
#Neurodivergent
#AuDHD

How dare you use autism awareness by promoting ABA? Go advertise your conversion therapy somewhere else!! 🤬🤬🤬

#FediBlock #ActuallyAutistic @actuallyautistic #autism

Inhaltswarnung: politics, emigration, disability Zum Öffnen/Schließen klicken

yesterday was so stressful...

i had to get some shopping done because i could not do delivery and i needed stuff. i left at the time when school gets out and returned during the second commuter wave, so it was heavy traffic going and coming. it was overwhelming but the one single thing that pushed everything over was the siren passing by. despite having earplugs and holding my hands over my ears it was just too much. ...

1/?

#actuallyautistic

@actuallyautistic #ActuallyAutistic

I feel like a good rule of thumb is that if you're quantifying over an entire group of people you should be temperate in the claims you make. This goes extra if you're not a member of that group.

Well I voted

Involved an absolutely convoluted multiple station process inside of a town hall. Plenty of chatter echoes, and random applause at first time voters. Kiddo and I were both near meltdown. Had to break out the "special needs" card for them a few times because they were unable to keep still and had to run around. Folks were accommodating once they realized what a struggle it was for us three.

I'm convinced absentee ballots should be, if not made widely available without requirement, at least legally allowed for anyone neurodivergent or anyone parenting someone neurodivergent. Without question. Should be considered accomodation. Having to follow a long snaking line and act in a certain manner is not something everyone can do.

#ActuallyAutistic #AutisticParent #ParentingAutistics #Voting #IVoted

#actuallyAutistic and #alcohol
https://youtube.com/watch?v=RZsL6gnSgao&si=6o5lRbiQ9xPWZsej

First I thought I needed a suitable AC/DC transformer, then I thought I needed a replacement power cable, then an ethernet splitter, and now a really long blue or green ethernet cable, and sometime soon... Bluetooth? Wi-Fi? Looks at two lonely, unplugged but not unappreciated computers.

#ActuallyAutistic

Some autistic people find making phone calls extremely stressful and unpleasant and will avoid them at all costs.

Please don’t try and force your communication preferences on others.

image: anon
#ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD @actuallyautistic

I’m having an autistic recovery day. I need to recover from travelling away on the weekend and being around so many people. I used to think I was lazy but now I know better #ActuallyAutistic

I’ve been reading about “stimming in autism”, which up until now was very confusing to me mostly because that’s the one point kept being repeated in the community being a must for an autistic individual. And I can’t relate to that at all.

Then I came across something that describes the purpose of ‘stimming’ is to deal with extra energy. Then it kinda hit me, I’ve never had the need to stim because I’m a low energy person in general.

I get overwhelmed with activities when they involve raising heart rates (yes, THAT too). I like quiet things, dead of night etc. Once at a time in my life, I was pretty sure I could hear flow of electricity.

So my question to the #ActuallyAutistic community: do you think stimming is a must for autistic people? Do you relate to it? Anyone know of any low energy stimming that gets overlooked?

Thanks! Much love!! 💕 #Autism #Neurodivergent #stimming @actuallyautistic

Hello #Bridgerton fans, do you think Francesca is on the spectrum? Piano forte clearly is her special interest. She is ill at ease at social gatherings and doesn’t do so well with small talk. And she is at ease with the silent type, just being together. #ActuallyAutistic

Maybe we do have a super power...🤣

Why Advertising Falls Flat in Individuals With Autism https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-fallible-mind/201708/why-advertising-falls-flat-in-individuals-autism
#ActuallyAutistic #Neurodiverse

This is what I feel like and probably look like to others after spending ten minutes at a holiday party.

#AuDHD #ActuallyAutistic @actuallyautistic
image: @ThatSpicyAutisticFemme on IG

Good news: the triage appointment for my autism assessment came.

Bad news: they want me to confirm but haven't provided any information on how to do that.

It's almost like they don't want you to be able to confirm or get to the appointment...

#ActuallyAutistic @actuallyautistic

I’ve found this with a quick search but I haven’t read it. Probably not what you’re looking for. Are there ND authors who became parents? Maybe they wrote about it https://www.routledge.com/My-Mummy-is-Autistic-A-Picture-Book-and-Guide-about-Recognising-and-Understanding/Grace-Grace/p/book/9780367460235# #actuallyautistic

This is not incorrect, but not wholly accurate. Aspergers was very, very similar to Autism, and was often seen as a sort of "sub-category" of Autism, but was eventually dropped altogether, because there was not enough of a difference to justify the continued usage of Aspergers.

Autism was redefined and is now broken up into 3 support levels, with higher levels denoting higher support requirements. Aspergers was likely around that level-1 threshold, which is what most people think of as "high functioning," which is a common misnomer and likely why Aspergers was its own diagnosis for a time. But it is now recategorized as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

Please browse and follow the #actuallyautistic hashtag for more, accurate information from actually autistic individuals.

Where do my #ActuallyAutistic comrades hold trauma in their bodies?

@actuallyautistic

Hey all, I'm giving a talk about ASD and ADHD self-diagnosis, and I want some community feedback on a question. Do you agree with the categorization of symptome in this image?

If so, post a 👍, if not 👎, either way please comment on why.

Please only respond if you have one or more of ADHD, ASD, or OCD, or if you have relevant professional experience in one or more of those.

Thank you! 💜

---

#ADHD #ASD #OCD #Poll #SelfDX #SelfDiagnosis #Boost #ActuallyAutistic #Autism

I am not the author of the image, but want to discuss it in my talk.

https://neurodivergentinsights.com/misdiagnosis-monday/adhd-vs-autism-vs-ocd

Does anybody else feel like your simply being "chucked under the bus" or "left to get on with it" because your an adult and not a child anymore with autism?!

I do feel like It does.

I understand this might well create abit of a backlash, but it's not necessarily something I have seen talked about on here.

Please feel free to discuss.

@actuallyautistic #actuallyautistic

The rest of you, enjoy the internet. I'm going to sit here and twiddle my thumbs because every damn content provider out there has decided to make their site inaccessible to me by plastering it with ads and gifs in constant motion.

#AccessibilityMatters
#DisabilityRights
#Accessibility
#Disability
#UX
#UXDesign
#SensoryProcessingDisorder
#ActuallyAutistic
#ADHD

Is autism self-diagnosis valid? Yep. 💜

Hey all, after reading dozens of research papers, and meta-analyses, and living through it, I made a thing!

I'd love it if you'd check it out! 🥰

https://codeberg.org/alicewatson/asd-self-dx/src/branch/main

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Update: I've added *a lot* of new stuff to the project.

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@actuallyautistic #ActuallyAutistic #Autism #ASD #Trans #SelfDiagnosis #SelfDX #SelfDxIsValid #Research #Codeberg