Just read a short article on Autistic Fawning and now I think I need to go have a long hard think about that one. Just reading it made me want to cry. I…don’t like looking at that.

#ActuallyAutistic #LateDiagnosed

The fact that, as Autistics, we do see things differently, that we’re not really in the mainstream, and we’re kind of looking at it as an outsider, often, gives us the ability to see it from a different perspective than the people who are in it.

As in, we can see where the trauma is, we can see where the broken systems are, better than a lot of people who are in it. 1/2

#ActuallyAutistic #Autistic #Neurodivergent #Neurodiversity

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As Autistics, we often learn at a very early age to simply numb our experiences, to numb the perceptions of how bad it really is. Or we fight the signals and everything feels like you’re battling the world constantly, all the time. Either way, it takes an extraordinary amount of energy. It’s exhausting. 1/4

#AutisticBurnout #BurnoutRecovery #Burnout #ActuallyAutistic

Another invaluable skill to fully recover from autistic burnout is 𝙨𝙚𝙡𝙛 𝙖𝙩𝙩𝙪𝙣𝙚𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩. You can develop the skill of attuning to what your internal state is in the moment, of what your needs are, what your emotions are, what your desires are.

Because you can't go towards something that you want if you don't know what it is you want.

#AutisticBurnout #BurnoutRecovery #Burnout #ActuallyAutistic

Rest is more than sleeping. Anything that gives you energy counts as restorative.

Here are more than 80 ideas of activities from real Autistics, to feel good, so you have the energy to cope when things happen that are more challenging to deal with: autismchrysalis.com/restorativ…

#ActuallyAutistic #Autistic #Neurodiversity #BurnoutRecovery

Is it burnout or is it a midlife crisis? -->

If you're wanting to make big changes in your life and worried that what you're calling a burnout is really a midlife crisis, here's how you can tell the difference: youtube.com/watch?v=rA9YAClq5i…

#AutisticBurnout #Burnout #ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD

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I only forget to breathe sometimes when I'm very focused on something.

#ActuallyAutistic

It is bonkers to me how different I feel today.

Like, obviously I woke up autistic every day of my life, but today I woke up officially autistic. I woke up a zebra not a broken pony as my favourite metaphor goes. I could scream for joy, or do the snoopy happy dance (which I am just now realising is the socially acceptable version of happy flailing that I’ve developed).

Oh how wonderful it is to feel free.
#ActuallyAutistic

Getting enough energy back to keep masking isn't true burnout recovery. Really getting out of autistic burnout means reducing the dissonance between the version you've presented to the world and your inner experiences.

For more on this topic, check out my video: youtube.com/watch?v=E2jv3iSInk…

#AutisticBurnout #BurnoutRecovery #Burnout #ActuallyAutistic

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The single most impactful thing that a supporter can do is to believe the person in burnout, and to say so not once, but repeatedly, in simple terms: “This is real. This makes sense. You’re not making it up.” 1/3

#AutisticBurnout #BurnoutRecovery #Burnout #ActuallyAutistic

They say, "If you meet an Autistic person, you've met one Autistic person." True, it's a very diverse condition. But the implication, when flipped around, is that the Autistic person *also* never meets anyone like them. And it's impossible to describe how alienating & painfully lonely such an existence is to folks who, by nature of being within the realm of normal social functioning, categorically don't experience it.

#ActuallyAutistic

Gar nichts. Denn spätestens wenn in diesen Videos gesprochen wird, stört Hintergrundmusik sehr.

Oder anders: Das ist nicht barrierefrei, denn für manche Menschen gibt das dann Geräusch-Matsch, und sie verstehen gar nichts.

(Ich zum Beispiel.)

#ActuallyAutistic

This.

youtu.be/7tlQeZkH55k

We're born with Autism, ADHD, AuDHD, but we don't get a diagnosis unless we can't cope anymore.

A rant by #MyFavouriteJo

#Autism #Autismus #ADHD #AuDHD
#actuallyautistic

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A comment I got in one my recent conversations around the 5 stages of Burnout and Recovery workshop: “Our internalized ableism tells us that we can’t allow things to hurt or to be hard. I often have to remind myself that my disability can actually be disabling.” My response to this --->

#AutisticBurnout #BurnoutRecovery #Burnout #ActuallyAutistic

Ich brauche eure Hilfe, gerne teilen ...

Frage an Schleswig-holsteinische Eltern:
Welche Erfahrungen hast du mit dem Förderschwerpunkt Autismus in SH gemacht?

Hat der Förderschwerpunkt dein Kind in der Schule merklich entlastet und/ oder dich als Elternteil?
Wenn ja in welchem Kontext oder warum nicht?
Wie war das Prozedere bis dahin und wie war die Zusammenarbeit mit Amt, Schule, Förderzentrum?

#actuallyautistic #Förderschwerpunkt #sh

Apparently some Anthropic researcher is going around explaining LLM language tendencies and styles by comparing them to autistic people.

Unacceptable. *Very* not cool.

We've already had enough of this crap, being compared to computers and robots. We aren't fucking language models. We are living, breathing, multifaceted *human beings* who happen to have a different wiring plan than the majority of other human beings. Learn the fucking difference and stop comparing us to automated, unfeeling, unthinking, non-conscious, unnuanced, unnatural systems.

#autism
#LLMs
#AI
#GenAI
#ActuallyAutistic
#Anthropic
#Claude

When you don't have the energy or the words to explain autistic burnout to the people in your life, this free guide will do the explaining for you.

autismchrysalis.com/explaining…

#AutisticBurnout #Burnout #ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD

Es nervt, wenn ich eine Email schreibe und damit meine Kommunikationspräferenz deutlich zeige, und ich bekomme ein halbes Dutzend Anrufe zurück. Für andere Leute geht das auch deutlich über ein Ärgernis hinaus, es schließt sie konkret aus. Wäre schön, wenn es in unserer Gesellschaft ein Selbstverständnis gäbe: wenn nichts anderes vereinbart wurde, wird für die Antwort dasselbe Kommunikationsmittel verwendet wie für die Frage.

#ActuallyAutistic

There are five key, holistic, interrelated solutions specifically for the challenges that we face as Autistics and AuDHDers, especially when you've struggled for decades. They are --->

#AutisticBurnout #BurnoutRecovery #Burnout #ActuallyAutistic

One of the things I'm struggling with is how to describe the groups I work with (editing, author coaching, etc.)

I work with people are neurodivergent,, have a chronic mental or physical illness, consider themselves disabled, or queer.

That's a mouthful (a handful if I'm typing?).

Wondering if I can condense that into: I work with people whose brains and bodies operate differently and/or who describe themselves as queer.

Thoughts?

Help an #ActuallyAutistic #Queer #Disabled person out?

Autistic people are famously fond of logic, and data.

We’ve also repeatedly ‘failed’ in tests designed to evaluate our empathy.

Tests which I found more interesting as a ‘spot the assumption’ exercise than serious research – or at least, serious research into what the studies professed to be about.

(I wrote a thread on it, "Have you wondered where the claim that autistic people lack empathy came from?", link: mas.to/@KatyElphinstone/116070…)

⬇️

#ActuallyAutistic #Neurodivergent #AutismResearch #Empathy #AutisticThinking #CriticalPsychology #Logic #Reasoning #Neurodiversity #DoubleEmpathy

Is empathy a less reliable basis for morality than people tend to assume?

A thread on empathy, morality, and autistic reasoning ♾️

Empathy works a bit like a spotlight. In its traditional sense, it often illuminates only a certain bit of the landscape (the bit that’s in front of us, or that we choose to see) but not all of it.

That's a problem if we confuse that with morality, or 'goodness'.

⬇️

#ActuallyAutistic #Neurodivergent #Autism #Empathy #Morality #SocialJustice #CriticalPsychology #AutismResearch

How to fake eye contact.
A tutorial for autistics.

I occasionally get asked by autistics for help on making eye contact. Here's what I typically tell them. -->

#ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD #Autistic #Neurospicy

Internalized ableism is so pervasive in our society that it’s affecting you in ways you’ve been trained not to notice. Ways that you may be discriminating against yourself, and giving yourself a harder time than you really need to. 𝘼𝙣𝙙 𝙞𝙩'𝙨 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙛𝙖𝙪𝙡𝙩.

It's the CAN'T culture: The C̲apitalist, C̲olonized, A̲bleist, N̲eurotypical, and T̲raumatized culture, the society we live in. It's not you.

#ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD #Autistic #Neurodiversity

Here's what I think is cool about being Autistic. The more I study neurotypical people, to try to understand them, the more I see them as employing socialization as a strategy, precisely like any wild animal has an array of strategies for their survival and flourishing. To my mind, a strong majority of Neurotypicals haven't stepped outside a straightforward definition of "success", as (Darwinian) biology would define it: reproductive success, and there are basically no holds barred to get it. At the end of the day it's just about strategies, where honesty is a kind of a dirty word. Truth must serve strategy to them, in order to obtain "success".

To the Autistic, honesty isn't a dirty word; it's a natural state which has its own virtue.

There's a famous meditation teacher named Ajahn Brahm, who was asked what sort of person attained the deepest meditation, the easiest. Ajahn Brahm has instructed and talked to multitudes of meditators, and answered: "Those who are pure-hearted."

@autistics #ActuallyAutistic

What if you stopped blaming yourself for things that aren’t actually your fault?

What if you stopped pushing yourself so hard, getting on your own case, denying yourself accommodations, discriminating against yourself in ways that have been so normalized you don’t even notice you’re doing it? 1/2

#AskingAutistics #ActuallyAutistic #Autistic #Neurodiversity

"What is it about these people?"

A thread on abused women, autistic people... and a question asked backwards.

Researchers have spent a great deal of time trying to work out what kind of woman is especially likely to end up in abusive relationships. Which personality traits make women susceptible.

They've also spent a huge amount of time (and money) pondering over what it is about autistic people that makes them not fit in with other people.

A thread 🧵

⬇️

#ActuallyAutistic #AutismResearch #Trauma #DomesticAbuse #VictimBlaming #CriticalPsychology #SocialModelOfDisability #DoubleEmpathy

1/13

Many of the things that would help a neurotypical person in burnout are the very things that cause autistic burnout in the first place. And that’s why the recovery path is also different.

#AutisticBurnout #BurnoutRecovery #Burnout #ActuallyAutistic

There are five stages of Autistic Burnout and Recovery. I go over all five in a workshop that you can access for free: autismchrysalis.com/autistic-b…

#AutisticBurnout #BurnoutRecovery #Burnout #ActuallyAutistic

Nach 53 Jahren versteh ich erst richtig, warum ich meinen Geburtstag nervig finde 🤣
Da rufen Verwandte an und wollen Smalltaken 😬 und man weiß nicht wann! Und das schon morgens!

Nun, dass ich da nicht drauf steh, wusste ich schon, aber jetzt begreif ich das Warum.

Das heißt aber jetzt, ich muss eigentlich nicht den Geburtstag an sich doof finden 😉

#Autismus #actuallyautistic

one of the "cool things" about executive dysfunction is feeling like you can't do X because you need to do Y, and then not doing Y either

#neurodivergent #actuallyautistic

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A common experience with later identified Autistics who start figuring out all the sensory stuff that they've been shutting out, is that instead of things getting better, everything is more annoying.

There might be this idea of, “I thought this was supposed to feel better.” What I would like to say is: don’t worry, this is a part of the process. It’s the early part. 1/3

#ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD #Autistic #Neurodiversity

• yes (28%, 21 votes)
• no (72%, 54 votes)

Anxiety or fear?

youtube.com/watch?v=mZPS8qRJq7…

#ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD #Neurospicy #Neurodivergent #ND

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As you're recovering from burnout, if you're doing it in a way that's trying to deconstruct the reasons that you got into burnout in the first place, and form new patterns for the future, you might find that you'll still sometimes recognize that you've kind of reached your limit, that you're tired, you need to rest, but you're gonna push on anyway. 1/2

#AutisticBurnout #BurnoutRecovery #Burnout #ActuallyAutistic

Genuine recovery for autistic burnout requires two things happening at once: 1) unlearning the old messaging and 2) building new ways of operating designed for an 𝙖𝙪𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙘 nervous system, instead of borrowed from a world that wasn’t built for you.

#AutisticBurnout #BurnoutRecovery #Burnout #ActuallyAutistic

The way I see it, sustainable recovery is just as much about unlearning ableist crap as it is about learning skills for a healthy Autistic life.

In my 𝘽𝙚𝙮𝙤𝙣𝙙 𝘼𝙪𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙘 𝘽𝙪𝙧𝙣𝙤𝙪𝙩 course, I propose a holistic approach to addressing five major areas that I have found are essential for sustained burnout recovery. 1/2

#AutisticBurnout #BurnoutRecovery #Burnout #ActuallyAutistic