#actuallyautistic
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watching some art history, Treasures of Ancient Greece by Allistair Cooke, and thinking my usual stuff about it, “the Greek thing,” and “western civilization,” it’s glitzy, but it’s not going anywhere good.
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#IWatchTooMuchTV

Y'all. I'm looking at the cover proof for the print editions of "You Are a Strategist: Use No-BS OKRs to Get Big Things Done" and I for real cannot wait to hold a copy in my hot little hands

Print release date is coming very soon!!!

A great comback to people saying you should "act normal" to someone with autism is, "I'm already acting normal; I'm acting my normal self."

Normalize being yourself.

allistics: A change is as good as a rest!

autistics: A change requires re-evaluating every choice I ever made about this thing and also every other choice based on that choice, and so on, because I need a standard, optimized routine that lets me re-use all my old decisions so I don't have to figure them out from scratch again every time. Change is exhausting!

When I live in the real world of “here’s how I actually function”, and “here’s what I actually need”, I don’t feel as bad and I can use all the energy for doing other stuff or resting.

That thing where you remember you have to "warn" a co-worker, who's document you are reviewing, that the wall of text and comments isn't because they did a horrible job, but just how my brain works :-).

Most of my co-workers know by now that this is the result when they send stuff to me... :-) (And some have said they do send stuff for me to review for that reason.)

#actuallyautistic I am looking for work

Oh god, the Shitner is on blue sky. Gonna block his ass. With April just around the corner. #actuallyautistic

Question for other #ActuallyAutistic people and also #ActuallyADHD:

[Long post due to lots of context]

When there is a change to my routines - even if it’s an expected change that has been planned for days or even months in advance - I can feel something like “anticipation” until I’m back to familiar routines. This is also true when starting a new routine until it feels familiar.

The “anticipation” is strange as it manifests as if it’s anxiety with all the physical signs, but the word “anxiety” does NOT feel right to me at all.

I know it is definitely related to “uncertainty”. And that’s true even when I have a very good idea of how the change in routine will pan out (i.e. I have low levels of uncertainty, not always high). So this also excludes catastrophising MOST of the time because I already know nothing awful will happen.

If I can’t predict how the change of routine will unfold then I find my brain tries to calculate ALL the possible outcomes - good, bad or indifferent - and try to prepare for as many of them as possible. This response seems learned; I’ve been in situations when I’ve had an unexpected routine change in the past and been unprepared which led to awful outcomes. After those events, I have often reflected and seen that it might have been possible to predict what happened and prepare to a reasonable degree. So that’s what I do now. If this is catastrophising, then it ALSO includes the BEST possible outcomes and everything in between. So it’s not straight forward, anxiety-driven catastrophising which is focused only on the negative.

I really wanted to learn more about autistic “anticipation” as it relates to routine changes, or even “anxiety” in response to routine changes (even though anxiety doesn’t sound like the right word for me), but I couldn’t find much online.

So, do any of you have any good online resources that could help me understand myself better when it comes to this? (I may want to share a resource with a neuro-affirming therapist in future so an online resource would be great.) Could be blogs, articles, videos, etc. I’m not great with podcasts unless there is a full transcript.

Or, do you have any personal insights that you could share with me that might help me understand this better?

Key to note here: I can understand the anticipation or anxiety if something potentially bad might happen (classic anxiety / catastrophising) but I ALSO feel this way when I KNOW the routine change should bring about normal life things, just slightly differently. I.e. nothing bad and there are even benefits to the routine change! So this is the part I am most stuck on and wanting to change… if it’s even possible.

Phew! Long post. Please feel free to ask any clarifying questions. Alexithymia is common for us autistics so this question might not be easy to understand, and that’s okay

#AskingAutistics @actuallyautistic

There is a man who was deported to an El Salvador concentration camp for a tattoo….of a rainbow autism awareness ribbon symbol in solidarity with his autistic brother.

I expect tattoos in support of any diversity are getting called ‘gang’ tattoos.

https://youtu.be/7gJFeOFUC70

Got to hang out in a sensory store yesterday. It was nice, I'm from the South and so never actually got to have that kind of amenity at my disposal. They even had a chill out room type thing, though I didn't take advantage because I prefer to be completely alone and am hyper paranoid about being watched/seen as weird. I even made a few new friends.

Leo was happy as well; I learned that he likes those ceiling projector thingies, so I'll be buying one for him next month.

Peeriodic reminder:
Not everything you see on here is truth, be a bit curious with the news sources you’re citing try not to spread misinformation and outright bullshit.

Also can we please add content warnings I know this shit is important and emotive but still #actuallyautistic #adhd peeps of which there are many on here tend to hyper absorb all this stuff and it can be very disregulating.

Anyway much love everyone you are all awesome, beautiful and courageous stay strong

Yawned in public without covering my mouth. I guess this is also unmasking.

#ActuallyAutistic @actuallyautistic

My ‘you’re nearly 50’ health MOT has turned up high cholesterol so my GP wants me to try to bring it down with dietary changes. Between only having access to a microwave & toaster (and zero food prep space), my diet requirements for managing my #POTS, trying to up my protein intake due to #perimenopause, the fact that often I struggle to make myself eat at all and the limitations of my #ActuallyAutistic safe foods this is a bit of a ‘mare.

But we do what we must

Went to an escape room for work (that's a first LOL). Was entirely over stimulating. Too many people, lights, sounds, puzzles.

Puzzle solving was good , but there was just too much going on. #ActuallyAutistic

#actuallyautistic
#ActuallyAutistc
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question for Samefoods people: have you heard of the peasant stew, and what would you think? It changes, but not completely every day.
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The idea was in a French farmhouse, I think, that the leftovers go in a pot that stays on the stove all the time, so there's always a hot meal.
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In theory, not the safest, I suppose you'd have to change it weekly or something.