Being Autistic - Blog Posts

The other week, in my Autism Awareness lesson, we were talking about when we were first diagnosed. My teacher asked the boy next to me and he said that he was angry and confused, which was understandable. The girl next to me said that she was confused and had to search it up on the internet. When it was my turn, I said that I wasn’t bothered about it and just went back to watching TV. The boy next to me asked me what age I was when I was first diagnosed and I said about 8-9. He then said, that because I was so young, I didn't understand what it was and that was the reason i didn't care. But I did know what it was and didn't care because I knew it wasn't going to change anything. I was still going to be the same person. I felt a bit angry when he said it because he didn't know what I had been through. anyway, that was a new story for you. Goodbye.

Diary Entry #25 (one mostly about something not trans-related... yay?)

I was stimming so much at work today. Or maybe ticcing or whatever bc I couldn't stop. It exhausted me more than actually working my shift. I wasn't feeling any particular way, I just got a bad stim/tic day just for some random reason ig.

My main tics/stims rn are sighing really deep, cracking my elbows, and inhaling hard with my nose. It probably looks really weird but I can't really help it. I guess that'd be more of a tic than a stim? I don't know if you can have tics without tourette's, i think I read that somewhere but like. i'm not sure.

I worry that I'll freak people out more whenever I pass as male or even as a trans male. I think it's worth the price of being seen as myself, it's just a minor concern i have. I'm really talkative and I worry about freaking out women. I don't act like a creep obviously, but I do appear autistic to most people and I am aware that people can be uncomfortable with me, even though I look like a girl.

If anyone with tics/stims can help me out here that'd be appreciated. I don't really know the difference.

Diary entry #19

You ever have a blorbo who literally takes up like 99% of the space in your brain and you have no clue why?? This guy does!!

Edgar George Zomboss (Plants vs Zombies) is my current guy that lives in my head... and I don't know why? He's literally awful in every regard but like I can't stop thinking about him for whatever reason. The main reason I'm reading the pvz comics and playing the games are because of him. The autism goes insane sometimes.

I literally have two fanfics in the works with him as the main character or at least someone very significant. What is wrong with me!!!!

The brainrot I have is severe. I literally see something like idk, a guy in a brown suit, and my brain goes "pvz reference???"

I think when I get to have a life outside of my grandparent's house maybe I'll be a little less mentally ill about my fav characters. One can hope.

Diary entry #8

MOOOOMMM!! August is making fake scenarios in his head to get mad on purpose again!!! /ref

I have terrible intrusive thoughts, and sometimes they turn into fake arguments in my head; basically I think like this -

Transphobic thing I saw once -> having more thoughts and counter arguments to that transphobic thing I saw -> thinking about my grandparents suddenly, what they'd think about it -> they would side with the transphobic thing every time -> oh god now there's a fake argument that's making me mad again

Like I saw a Josh Hawley (conservative Missourian dickhead) truck the other day, and I started to think about how my grandparents like Josh Hawley and all the terrible things he said, annnnddd then I had a fake argument again. Goddammit.

I'm terrified of conflict, so I kind of plan it out in my head beforehand which just makes me angry and scared so it doesn't even help! I just shut down whenever I get in an actual argument with my grandparents, I just start crying.

There is no point in these fake arguments, it just pisses me off at work because that's when I have time to think.

But anyways my day was mostly normal besides that.

I hope that made even a lick of sense, I don't know if I'm coming off right.

Diary entry #7

My grandma isn't gonna teach me to drive anymore, because she says I'm not improving. Now I'm gonna have to pay for a driving class and I went down a horrible spiral where I was thinking about how worthless I am.

I'm on my period and it feels like the world is crumbling around me. If I don't get out of my household frankly I don't know what the fuck I'm going to do, so I have no choice but to pay a thousand bucks (literally) for driving school.

I screwed up and almost caused an accident, that's why she said I wasn't improving. She's been driving for 40 years, and I've only been driving for like a month or something. She says there's nothing she can teach me anymore. My brain was foggy because I'm on my period, I barely ate anything, and I was shaking from too much caffeine. I really didn't want to drive but I was an idiot and did it anyways. I fucking hate my life. It's times like this where I wish I wasn't autistic because everyone else in my life functions normally and I can't do anything right.

I have to get out of my house. There's no other option. If I can't do it, I don't think I can wait any longer than I already have. They aren't abusive, but they let me live in conditions where I'm not living as myself and it's killing me. I just need to be a man and I can't.

I can't live a second longer in this body that's not mine. I wish I had some resources to help me get out of here, but I'm mostly on my own. I'm not being abused, so I can't escape by calling services to my house, but I just can't live like this. Sorry this post was so depressing, it depresses me too!

The hate filled thoughts that flow while I'm looking at myself in the shower are killing me. I want to be rid of my female-gendered features, every last one of them.

Adding my favorite stims that I do!! Idk if some of them are technically stims but I figured I’d add them anyway :) also I’m autistic btw

Listening to music, swinging on my web swing (doing both rn!), snapping fingers (this is a new one but it’s pleasing to my brain), walking and dancing at the same time (hard to explain, but I kinda do an interpretive dance while I walk?? It looks strange but it brings me joy), spinning, singing/lip syncing, bouncing leg, fidget toys (slime/putty, infinity cube, magnets), chewing gum/chew necklaces, flexing my stomach, blinking fast, humming, cracking knuckles, sighing, inhaling (with nose), touching soft stuff, pacing, and more I can’t really remember right now. Some are more situational, but I enjoy all of them!

stimming is a self-soothing behavior that can be used to calm down feelings of stress, anxiety, overwhelming emotions, or physical discomfort. stimming is a natural, and healthy behavior, and it is important to allow others to stim when they need to. i am a nonspeaking autistic AAC user, and i stim a lot because it is a helpful way to regulate my emotions, and a way for me to express myself. stimming is a beautiful, and essential part of who i am, and i am proud to call myself a stimmer!

Welp. Reddit is dead, and I’m not sure if anyone is willing to reanimate its corpse. Reddit was the only place I could be myself, vent about my issues, stuff like that. Tumblr doesn’t fill the same void in my heart, but it’s decent enough. Hope I can make friends here. I’ll miss my moots over there. RIP aspiememes, traa, and many others. I feel like this collapse will have terrible consequences.

TLDR- i am so sad

I hate how so many people I know think it’s weird that I use a scale to help me cook and bake. It helps me use the exact amount of ingredients and helps me decrease a lot of mess caused by my shaky hands. I wish people would stop telling me how to do those things just because they think I could do it way faster.

Yesterday I was supposed to meet with my case manager, since we’ve never met. I had the address and even confirmed in the morning it wasn’t a Telehealth visit, like the additiona automated call I received the day before said it was. I arrived early and waited in the office. And waited. And waited.

Then I received a message from my wife saying that the case manager was at our house. She never said it was in home. I couldn’t handle anything else after that call.

I cried so much. I never ended up meeting her because I was 25 minutes away from home.

We will eventually reschedule.

Why is life so challenging?

I’m neurodiverse and I have some of the best friends who are also neurodiverse. Best thing about not being in school and having to find friends there? Neurodiverse adults are everywhere and many are realizing that they are special instead of weird because of it.

I’m not going to lie. The neurotypical world is hard to fit in because it wasn’t made for us. But having friends and who are like you make it easier to deal with the NT world. Plus, we tend to have the cooler hobbies and jobs and past times and collections.

We need to talk more about Autistic, ADHD and Neurodiverse Joy

As a kid I felt hopeless because the only narrative you ever see about Autism is the loneliness, the otherness, the bullying and the struggle. I never once saw anything about the joys of having autism or that autistic people can actually have nice things in life. It was all doom and gloom. The world tells autistic and neurodiverse children that their lives are going to suck because of the way their brain is, because of something they can't control and had no say in, and it's wrong

I'm Autistic and I fell in love. I'm Autistic and I have friends, good friends, who love me back. I'm Autistic and I do feel joy and togetherness and peace. THAT is the message we need young Neurodiverse kids to hear. No more shows about our hardships, more stories about our joy please

This is really helpful!

Autistic overload is like internet bandwidth.

If you're struggling to understand why you are good on some days and bad on others, one way to think of your brain is like internet access.

Some people have direct access, so any information incoming is fast, easy to process and unless they start being really silly and downloading 20 movies at once, not too much is going to interrupt their experience.

Autistic brains are more like public internet access. It's not that greatly connected in the first place, it can't handle large data packets, and if you're not careful you may get some unwanted information downloaded.

If you're accessing this when not much is happening, you may not get a bad experience. Not much is draining the limited bandwidth and processing times are faster.

The next day, however, you may get a completely different experience and even just connecting is impossible.

So, it's okay to sometimes switch off that access and just recover for a while.

Here’s where I am today

Wish to know where your needs fall on the spectrum?

Take the test here.

This test is NOT for diagnosis.

Where your needs fall can change throughout your life and even day to day.

If being too giving is wrong, I don’t want to be right. I currently don’t have enough money to give to all the causes I care about. Included in my “When we have more money” list is so many causes and people I want to help. It’s also why I want to help people in my future work. I’m a helper because someone has to be. My mom taught me that the meaning to life was to love, and that includes those less fortunate.

one thing I've noticed with being autistic is my innate sense of justice

people tend to be so passive to awful injustices and say "well it is what it is"

but I can never see it that way

how can people be so dismissive of other human beings and their lives? how can we reach equality when every person has such a selfish point of view?

it's really horrifying, and yet we're considered the ones with no empathy