Notices by Kevin Davy (pathfinder@beige.party)

@clacke @littlescraps
Indeed, although long term storage is often the problem

@littlescraps
So many times, this. But, this is also where cereal comes into its own. Sometimes it's all I can do, but at least it means I've eaten.

@actuallyautistic

To anyone who may need to hear this.

If you've come to dread your birthday. If it's become the day that just reminds you of all those you've lost. But, especially if it's become simply a reminder that it was always the day when who you weren't and perhaps who others wanted you to be, was always celebrated and never who you were. Then it's alright to simply ignore it from now on.

You don't have to celebrate it. Or at least care that it is being celebrated. Just pick another date to celebrate, a date that means far more to you now and the journey that you are on. The day your egg cracked, or you finally began to transition, as a #trans. The day you were finally diagnosed, or a time when your self-realisation became overwhelming and concrete. It doesn't really matter. Just pick a day that makes sense and make that your special day. For that day really will be about who you are and always were and you can finally have the celebration you deserve.

#Auti-Birthday
#Autism
#Actuallyautistic
#Neurodivergent

This post has been brought to you by us finally have a vaguely summerlike day.
I am thinking about starting a project, if I can find the right experts here on Fedi. I want to bio-engineer actual flying monkeys, like those from the wizard of Oz. Not only do I feel that they would make great housemates. But I could then stand on my balcony pointing at those filling the air with their petrol driven torture devices, whilst screeching, fly my beauties, fly.
I would then be able to have the great satisfaction of watching the noice wielders being lifted into the air and torn in half.
This, I can't help thinking, would benefit the community and be a boon to all mankind.
Thoughts?

#Autism
#ActuallyAutistic.

@everyday_human
Surely, we're all here to help each other, to learn about our autism and with the things that can help us to adapt life to our needs. Between us we have a fairly sizable data set. 😀

@devxvda @actuallyautistic
With faces, I'm not entirely sure whether that's because we don't pay attention to them because we know we won't remember, or whether it's just the whole eye contact thing and we just don't like to and because it doesn't actually mean that much to us.
And yet, if someone showed you a series of photo's of people's faces and asked you if they weren't a certain person, there is probably a good chance that you would answer correctly. A bit like me with sound. The memories are obviously there, just not in a way we can access.

@CynAq @actuallyautistic
Oh God, the mimicry of a strong accent. I can't count how many times that dropped me in it as a child. I couldn't stop myself, the way I can now for some reason, and it was almost always taken wrong.

@actuallyautistic

Autistic brains be stupid. Well, obviously not stupid, they just seem to work, or not work, in mysterious ways.

The main one that has always got me, about mine, is that I have no memory for sound, absolutely none. I can't remember a song, or a sound. I can't remember what my parents sounded like and none of my memories carry, for want of a better word, a soundtrack. I can remember what I was thinking and what others were saying, but not hearing them say it, nor any other sound. I also don't dream in sound, at least as far as I know. All my dreams are silent.

And yet, and it's a big yet. I have an excellent memory for voices and sounds. Like many autistics I have near perfect pitch, at least when I'm hearing others sing, or music playing. Just don't ask me to reproduce it, because I can't. If I meet someone I haven't met for a while, then I will almost certainly not recognise their face, or remember their name, but there is a very good chance that I will recognise them from their voice. I am also very good at detecting accents. Even the slightest hint of one in, say, an actor pretending to be an american, will get me searching Wikipedian to see if I am right about their actual nationality.

So, if I can tell the sound of a Honda CBR engine two blocks away, or a voice, or an accent buried deep, I must have the memories to compare against. And yet... nope.

So, as I said, autistic brains be stupid.

#Autism
#ActuallyAutistic

@Adventurer @actuallyautistic
There are many things that can create this. Not just stepping on the toes we didn't even realise were there. But also the fact that we aren't conforming to their expectations of how we should be acting, let alone reacting.
Group think creates expectations that we can rarely meet, even if we remotely wanted to. It also makes us vulnerable to being bullied, or exploited because of it. To the group, difference will always be the enemy, or the victim. And we are different and so can't help being and appearing different, no matter how much we might try.
Perhaps the best we can often do, is to develop a tough enough hide to withstand this. Or a big enough "fuck you" attitude, that it doesn't make us worth tackling.

@actuallyautistic

No matter how well I learnt to mask, no matter how well I learnt to get on with people, if not in any deep and meaningful way, at least superficially. There has always been one skill that I have never mastered and that is simply the ability to not upset people and especially without having the slightest idea how.

Or that I didn't for a long time, anyway. It was only when I realised that I was autistic and that the way I looked at the world was in some ways substantively different from the way many allistics looked at the world, that I began to understand something. Allistics tend to find validation externally, through feedback from the group or the part of society that they identify with, whereas autistics tend to find it within themselves, in their own reason and sense of worth and value.

Now I must stress that in many respects this is a generalisation and obviously there will be a lot of variation and degree in how true this is. But in its more extreme forms, it could very well explain many of the experiences and difficulties that I've had.

Because if someone's self-worth, the value they see in their life and actions, is almost entirely based on their interactions with the dynamics of the group they identify with, or the society they live within and not from their own judgement, then this could lead to certain choices and reactions that are quite frankly alien to someone like me and that I could easily end up in conflict with and all without really trying to.

For example, if the value of a child reflects back on its parents. Then in the extreme case the values and behaviour expected from that child, are not those of the child, but of the parents in terms of the group the child is meant to be representing them in and how well it is doing that. So any sense of divergence from that or criticism of that child, no matter how slight that might be, could easily be seen as an attack on the parents and reacted to accordingly, irrespective of how reasonable or just it was.

Equally, of course, worth, praise, or rewards, can also become divorced from any sense of reality. All that matters is that you, whether that's through your children or not, are being valued, not whether there is any justice to it. Because the truth or validity of it, is not based on how you see yourself, but only on how others see you. And in the extreme case, it doesn't even matter how they came to this view, as long as they have it. So worth can become something to be manipulated and played for and how you really are and how you actually feel about yourself becomes almost irrelevant to this process.

That people could even be this way, that everything could become how you're being perceived and anything that effects that negatively can be something to be attacked, is still something that I struggle to understand. It is so foreign to my nature. But, it certainly explains so many of the times that I've upset people, because I wasn't playing this game, or seeing the world the way I should and didn't even realise it.

#Autism
#ActuallyAutistic

@LazaroDTormes
This site has all the ones used professionally and which together especially will give you the best idea.

https://embrace-autism.com/