a bottom-tier autistic experience is being told throughout your entire childhood that you are just an overthinker when it comes to social situations and later finding out that your friends did, in fact, hate being around you and tried to communicate that through weird little hints
If a website has a paywall, like New York Times, DO NOT use the ctrl+A shortcut then the ctrl+c shortcut as fast as you can because then you may accidentally copy the entire article before the paywall comes up. And definitely don't do ctrl+v into the next google doc or whatever you open because then you will accidentally paste the entire article into a google doc or something!!!! I repeat DO NOT do this because it is piracy which is absolutely totally wrong!!!
for this disability pride month, i want to highlight a couple of things with autism and ahdhd, particularly in girls.
if your teen girl is staying up every single night until 3 am doing homework, and she's been at it since 230 pm when she got home from school... that needs to be acknowledged and addressed. thats not normal, even the insane amounts of schoolwork that a white rich school would require for students in those college level courses wouldnt require almost 12 hours of studying a night. especially if her grades don't reflect that level of attention.
if your teen girl forgets things constantly, if she makes mistakes in sending the right documents or doesnt buy what you tell her to at the store, she is not lazy, stupid or malicious. these are symptoms that need to be acknowledged and addressed, this is not normal brain behavior. there is something going on cognitively.
if your teen girl is amazing and lovely until she's explosively angry, she's not an evil person hellbent on ruining the family. this is emotional disregulation, she needs help. these are symptons that need to be acknowledged and addressed.
if your teen girl is talkative and likes being around you until she doesnt, and if she goes silent until she's allowed to go to her room and sleep off the grumpiness, she's not being hateful towards you. she is likely burnt-out socializing and needs to gain her energy back, let her be. this is a symptom that needs to be addressed and acknowledged.
if your daughter constantly needs to chew on gum, even after you berate and shame her for doing so, to the point where her jaw often hurts, this is not her being defiant. this is a symptom and needs to be addressed and acknowledged.
if your daughter walks funny, laughs funny, dances weird, cries too much at commercials that are overly dramatic, and you make her feel bad for displaying any of these traits, you're harming her. let her exist in this world without feeling the need to box in her behavior into "acceptable" mannerisms. unlearn what it means to walk, laugh, dance "funny" and examine why you feel the need to bully people who don't behave in ways you've approved beforehand.
if your daughter has had trouble making friends her entire life and if you often catch her talking to herself in rehearsing full on conversations, she is most likely exhibiting symptoms of autism and these need to be acknowledged and addressed.
if your daughter learned to do things early on and had an extensive vocabulary or skipped the crawling stage and walked immediately, or if your daughter never learned how to "play properly" i.e. she loved having toys but only to organize and line them up and refused to let anyone else touch them, your daughter is exhibiting symptoms of autism that need to be acknowledged and addressed.
if your daughter often refuses to acknowledge her tone or states that "i didnt say it like that" "i didnt say that" or "thats not what i meant" and if she repeatedly tells you "i dont understand what tone you're talking about" she is not gaslighting or manipulating you. she is not being stubborn, she is not lying. she is exhibiting signs of autism that need to be acknowledged and addressed.
if your daughter only likes to eat certain things, to the point that it affects her health, she is not a picky eater. this is a symptom that must be acknowledged and addressed.
if your daughter is black and white in her thinking, to the point where she will argue with you about things that she thinks are objectively unfair or wrong to her, she is not doing it out of spite. she is exhibiting symptoms that must be addressed and acknowledged.
if your daughter loses her shit at not being allowed to sleep in on the weekends, especially if you know she's been pulling 12 hour "study sessions" all week, she is not being spoiled and ungrateful. she is exhibiting signs of autism/adhd burn out and she biologically needs to sleep more than other people to begin with, let alone in the situation that she is currently in.
please stop demonizing the behavior of your teenage daughters and start looking at each individual situation as pieces to a larger puzzle. if your daughter shows a majority of these signs, please start looking at these behaviors as manifestions of the symptoms that are distressing your child in that moment.
autism in girls is often treated as "bad behavior" that parents often try to "discipline" out instead of symptomatic behavior of a disorder that has gone unmanaged and unaccomodated for probably over a decade and half at that point. please treat your daughters with respect, love and dignity even in their worst times because that is when they need the most.
it doesn't help when you demonize your child as being purposely spiteful and hateful towards you, especially if you feel like you've communicated with them sufficiently and they aren't listening or compromising with you at the very least, because your children *do not* want to hurt you. your children are begging to be heard and you refuse to help them.
please research autism and adhd, especially how it can differ in girls versus boys, and please start treating your teenage girls with more love, kindness, and empathy.
[image ID: December 7, 2021 tweet by butchanarchy that reads,
If 1 in 4 adults in America truly are estranged from their families it is due to the fact that we have normalized a culture of abuse, not that “cancel culture” has gotten out of hand.
Cutting off someone you have kinship ties with, especially if they are a parent, is not something people do at the drop of that hat or when the mood takes them. It is something that happens when a mutually respectful relationship has shown itself to be impossible.
/end image ID]
I'm so glad some cultures have managed to hang on to siestas despite capitalism. eating a big meal and taking a nap in the middle of a work day is a basic human right, I'm not even joking
What if we were the opposites of each other but when you boil us down to the core we are inherently the same (and we were both autistic)
Once again, the failed prototype takes a backseat to its creator's magnum opus. That's how it always happens.
A frame, gifted to me for my birthday sat empty because I had no friends and no fun memories with which to fill it.
They were put there instead.
"This is temporary."
It wasn't.
I used to shine so brightly, the brightest star in the sky, blocking out so many others. I was the pride of the galaxy. Now that I'm older, I've burned out and essentially been replaced. I lay here, wasting away with little to show for the time I've spent living.
I was gifted a frame once again. This time, it had something in it. A photo of the stars, the way they were in the sky over the place I was born, on the very night I was born.
Their photo sits on top of mine. In my frame.
How fitting. How poetic.
"Don't act like they're the favorite. Or like they have special privileges."
They clearly are, and they do.
I felt almost numb about it at first. I didn't want to be bothered by it, but I was. The tears fell immediately. I can barely complain about it. It always ends in my words being brushed off or a full blown argument. Never an apology or even an admission of wrongdoing.
How dare you. How dare you do this. It's such a small act, but the hate and disrespect feel earth shattering. I know I'm being dramatic, and it hurts that much more because of it. I know I sound crazy for crying and complaining about it. After all, it's a picture frame. It's not the end of the world. It feels like it, though. I'm literally nauseous.
"You have to toughen up. You can't be a soggy little sad sack."
I don't want to toughen up. People who have to steel themselves often lose their compassion, empathy, and patience. That's one of the many things I hate and fear. Those emotions don't disappear. They only fester and ferment until they bubble over. You could've had juice, and then maybe wine, but no. Now you have vinegar, and you can't just keep trying to hold it in. It will escape whether you like it or not. You can't keep pouring more juice into a full glass and expect it to not spill.
I shouldn't have to toughen up about this. Something so stupid shouldn't be happening in the first place. They knew the pictures were coming. They could've bought a new frame. They aren't expensive.
"His picture is from an achievement. Yours isn't. What do you need the frame for? You have no achievements and you haven't since you were younger."
I wanted to break the frame as soon as I saw the picture. Life has been kicking my ass, and I managed to keep my cool until I came home that terrible night and saw that photo.
Why do I have to be the broken, failed prototype? Why do I have to be defective? It isn't fair.
When you have the side of undiagnosed autism that, a lot of the time, can't control your tone of voice but can still recognize others tone of voice so when you accidentally sound rude to NT people they start raising their voice too and it just ends in a door getting slammed while I'm just here like 😳😵💫😢🫤
Holy shit. The Israeli whistleblower story CNN just broke is insane. I cannot believe what I’m reading