hmmm...
Age first?
Person first?
Identity first?
I could use your input. I am planning... Or getting my mojo up for...
My first livestream on subStack. Something like "Ask an [Old Autistic Fart Anything]"...
What's proper... for an #ActuallyAutistic #AutisticElder
@Psychonaut Pleased for you, Duncan. Acceptance for self realisation of autism makes a huge difference in how we autists see ourselves. #AutisticElder @theautisticcoach @actuallyautistic
@hauchvonstaub Well, some things can seem unconnected, but aren't. #AutisticElder @actuallyautistic
@Susan60 @BernieDoesIt @olena @actuallyautistic
I shutdown often. As a survival strategy it is safer than meltdown.
Behind the calm persona I present is cacophony & unrelenting chaos. Trying to describe what it’s like - living with amplified & unfiltered sensory experience, made survivable by hyperlexia, ott pattern recognition & careful routines - to someone who doesn’t perceive & resonate with it immediately is just too hurtful. It’s often frightening & lonely in here. Sometimes joyous. Always intense.
Imagine if we all learned to recognise differences & respect consent. We don’t need to understand someone’s experience in order to respect their choices.
It’s ok being us.
❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜 #AutisticElder
Anyone who experiences sensory sensitivities or lives with someone who does, please read this piece by the lovely Bec Shaw.
The distress she describes has been my experience all my life also. My triggers are certain high frequencies - from radio (the transistor radios of my childhood are THE WORST!), tv (ads!), music (electric guitar! brass! violin!), machinery (metal on metal!) - even at volumes so low as to be inaudible to everyone else these sounds are absolute torture to me. My response to them is uncontrollable. I will do Anything to escape. (This happens with fragrances also. It’s so fun being me. Never embarrassing 🙈.)
I don’t call it misophonia. (Sounds like fear of miso & that is just silly.) I see it as a sensory sensitivity that sits within the wide range of what it is to be human.
I want us to be able to safely name these things, & then to respect & accomodate each other’s experiences.
This is a start.
@actuallyautistic #SensorySensitivities #Misophonia #AutisticElder #neurodiversity
My colleague Marion Hersh joined Doug Blecher on his #Autism Stories podcast to recount the history of our #CalmSpaces project - by and for #AutisticElders -, the importance of the sensory environment and also her other project about recommender systems for #blind, partially sighted and #Autistic people.
#Podcast
https://www.autismpersonalcoach.com/autismstories/episode/2cf93776/autism-stories-marion-hersh
Calm Spaces website & forum
https://calmspaces.org
#ActuallyAutistic #neurodivergent #AutisticElder #AutisticOver50 @actuallyautistic
We already have #AutisticOver50 and #AutisticElder /info
wtf is the name of that autistic group on here?
And was it a profile bot thing or a hashtag?
It's a group thing you tag (somehow!) that then @s the rest of the people following it?
(Do I count as an #AutisticElder if I'm over 30 years old?)
bwahahahah tis ActuallyAutistic, of both!
#autism #autistic #autisticMasking #AuDHD #AuHD #ADHD #ADHDbrain #AskFedi #AskMastodon #Tech #TechHelp #TechSupport #Hashtag #HashtagSpam #ThankYou #Nerds
What if this approach is seriously arse about. And we can do better.
#Hypersensitivity to and #avoidance of certain flavours & textures is part of our #sensory profile for many #ActuallyAutistic folks. As with all of our sensory issues, the ways we devise to deal with them come at a cost, socially, emotionally & physically. Being pressured to let go of strategies that have protected us can feel life threatening. Especially if we don’t understand where they’ve come from & how they’ve helped us (hard to do when our various unusual behaviours are examined in isolation from each other & each set pathologised with an unhelpful diagnosis).
In my experience, we can change the habits & routines that protect us only when (i) we feel safe & (ii) it is our choice to do so. In our own ways, at our own speed, on our own terms. This profound need for autonomy gets pathologised as ‘demand avoidance’ but it’s another manifestation of the strategies for survival that we develop & cling to for dear life. Take this from me & I will die.
How about, for kids & adults ‘with #ARFID’, we approached interventions by starting with respect for autonomy. This means learning about how this person experiences sensory pleasures & discomforts around eating & taking them seriously. Then developing options for change that can be chosen by that person, or not. At their own pace.
It worked for me. As in so many areas of my life, this is the only approach that does.
Like so many folx who grew up undiagnosed I learned to be ashamed of my struggles (in denial about them, intolerant of their manifestation in others) & embarrassed about my gifts. Wish I’d understood my #neurodivergence, & that of my family members, when I was parenting kids.
So glad we can do better now. I wish the support systems whose funding rests on adopting pathologising diagnostic categories would catch up!!
@actuallyautistic #AutisticElder #AutisticParent #disability
Did you know how much money disabled people get, after many strict appointments and justifying their needs to uninformed ableist people? https://www.gov.uk/pip/how-much-youll-get
This is AT MOST. It takes a lot of appointments, waiting, explaining, asking, Mandatory Reconsideration, Appeal Tribunal, and luck that they believe you this time because you legalesed your way into the right side of respectability politics.
But ONLY SO FAR and no further, because, clearly, then you’re just “trying it on” to avoid work, and not for any other possible reasons, right? Like. Idk. Being unable, or perhaps, dis-abled from doing so.
Sorry if I didn’t get your condition, health status, disability, injury, illness, or infection in the hashtags.
IDK if there’s a limit, but your experience is real, regardless.
(Also my brain is like a strange car that is very fast but only at random times and sometimes on certain roads, but not the same road and times because idk. Vibes I guess??)
#MoneyMonday #PIP #Disability #Disabled #DisabledSocial #Autistic #AutisticAdults #AutisticElder #AutisticWriters #Autism #AutismSpectrumDisorder #AutismAwareness #Dyslexia #MECFS #ChronicIllness #ChronicIllnesses #Spoonie #SickPay #Ableism #Ableist
Umm. It's Christmas...
Tip your postman. Your trashman. And make an old #AutisticElder happy...
👉https://johnnyprofaneknapp.substack.com/
#ActuallyAutistic #ADHD #AuDHD #Neurodivergent #Neurodiversity
@actuallyautistic @actuallyadhd @actuallyaudhd @neurodiversity
Last call to sign up for my autistic burnout recovery course. We start tomorrow.
http://www.autismchrysalis.com/burnout
Learn skills to get out of burnout and stay out. To create burnout-free life.
#AutisticBurnout #BurnoutRecovery #Burnout #ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD #EnergyManagement #AutisticBurnout #AutisticParent #AutisticProfessional #AutisticAdvocate #AutisticAdult #AutisticParent #AutisticMom #AutisticDad #AutisticAwareness #AutisticAcceptance #Autism #ADHD #AutisticAdults #AutisticAlly #AutisticElder
@Tooden @pathfinder @samikelsh
In my experience our ability to regard fools kindly becomes totally, totally exhausted with burnout. Many of us never have a chance to find respite. For me it's taken 10+ years of recovery (post-retirement, living in a sensory safe place, lots of solitude & time with my cat, slow unmasking, & my close people increasingly understanding of my experience) to soften again.
I really believe, people are not our enemy. But we need to have access to safety in ourselves before we're able to hold our shame, sooth our hurt, acknowledge & be grateful for our anger, grieve our losses, recognise our interconnectedness & lower our defenses enough to respond more kindly in the world. #AutisticElder
I see lots of us here doing that work & I'm grateful. 💜
Want some autistic-friendly help in reducing anxiety? From an Autistic who gets it? My anti-anxiety course starts tomorrow.
Tomorrow's my #EnergyManagement for Autistics workshop. Let's talk what it really takes to get a reliable read on what your current energy levels are, and how to not overdo it. No fluff, no BS, and no shortcuts (sorry).
https://www.autismchrysalis.com/events/
#AutisticProfessional #AutisticAdult
#AutisticParent #AutisticAcceptance
#Autism #ADHD #AuDHD
#AutisticElder #ActuallyAutistic
Support an #ActuallyAutistic elder who creates content for free.
Your tip or subscription helps me share my #AutisticJoy. 🙏
✅Click here👉 https://ko-fi.com/autisticaf
#AutisticAdults #ADHD #AutisticElder #AutisticPride
Support an #ActuallyAutistic elder who creates content for free.
Your tip helps me share my #AutisticJoy. As a thank-you, pick one of my art pieces, 40" movie-poster illustrations... free. 🙏
Thank for kind comment. Always welcome to share. I hope it’s useful.
My purpose here is to offer insights from my long & winding path to self acceptance, to see how they resonate, or don’t, with others. I wish I’d had access to all the wisdom here, when I was younger. So glad you do!!
Support an #ActuallyAutistic elder who creates content for free.
Your tip helps me share my #AutisticJoy. As a thank-you, pick one of my art pieces, 40" movie-poster illustrations... free. 🙏
