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White Light posted:Ah! I read an article about something called aphantasia, which they also referred to as Mind Blindness. I usually associate mind blindness with not being able to read social cues, but never thought it had anything to do with affecting visualizing mental images before. Hey just so you know as you navigate online autistic spaces, a lot of us don't like aspergers/aspie as a descriptor these days, for a few reasons but for me at least the biggest reason is he was a nazi collaborator. It's fine if you want to use it for yourself as a label, but it's kind of uncomfortable to use it as a blanket term for everyone autistic who might be reading. Organza Quiz fucked around with this message at 02:03 on Jan 2, 2023 |
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Jan 2, 2023 01:52
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I cat sat for a friend for Christmas, got to chill and hang out with cats  And in addition to the nazi thing with Asperger, it's just not accurate for some of us; I was diagnosed with autism, not aspergers, and, well, *taps the literal minded sign*
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Jan 2, 2023 03:46
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I spent christmas with my family, and the biggest stressor outside of my sister was having to travel the breadth of the country to get there. I spent nye with a friend and it was chill, would recommend.
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Jan 2, 2023 06:25
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I spent time with family for Christmas and all I got was a mild knee injury (falling after trying to avoid stepping on my cousin's small dog) and a cold.  So I stayed home for New Years, even though I wasn't planning on going out anyways.
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Jan 2, 2023 22:19
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Love Christmas personally, except for the fact it’s the time of year I tend to ruminate and remember passed loved ones the hardest. This year in particular was hard and I can’t really put my finger on why. Having to entertain for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years this year wasn’t great either. I just want to crawl in a hole for a month.
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Jan 3, 2023 03:55
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Cloacamazing! posted:As far as I know those are unrelated. Aphantasia is about being unable to visualize things in your mind, autism is about being unable to understand social cues. I can easily do the first, the second takes lots of effort. I am glad to hear! Thank you for the response 🙏
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Jan 3, 2023 16:07
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Personally, I can read social cues sometimes, I'm just not always sure what I'm supposed to do with the information. I've been struggling the last couple of days and I'm not really sure why. My mood feels ok but that's often a bit disconnected. I had trouble not wanting to shower yesterday, and instead of the chores I had planned to do, I cleaned the hair out of the power head of the vacuum cleaner. Today I've been up for 4 hours, still haven't showered, but I took apart the remote control for the air conditioner to clean the contacts so that the buttons would work properly again, and took the toilet seat off to adjust and tighten the fittings so that the seat doesn't drift sideways on the bowl. That's when I realised I'm in "fix things" mode which is a kind of self soothing I do. I don't know if I'm doing demand avoidance (avoiding things I really want to do) or if something else is getting to me that I'm not aware of, that is causing me to need to soothe. It's pretty annoying only being able to see some of the picture.
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Jan 4, 2023 08:42
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Recently I decided to open up more about my private life after keeping poo poo for myself for about 45 years. Things like autism and my childhood (bipolar alcoholic dad who ended his own life eventually and my unstable not too bright mother). Most of the time I don't regret telling people about this kind of stuff but there are always some misserable shits who (indirectly ofcourse) respond with vibes like oh you think you are something very special don't you I know I shouldn't waste energy on these assholes and they are always pretty dumb persons with bland lives and opinions but it can really bother me (mosly in hindsight when evaluating the social interaction in question which is what I do like a lot autistic people seem to do) and I am still doubting between personal vendetta, direct confrontation or just entirely ignore it because i am most of the time not a big baby. Stoca Zola posted:Personally, I can read social cues sometimes, I'm just not always sure what I'm supposed to do with the information. Yeah, same for me. Monstaland fucked around with this message at 09:11 on Jan 4, 2023 |
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Jan 4, 2023 09:07
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Stoca Zola posted:Personally, I can read social cues sometimes, I'm just not always sure what I'm supposed to do with the information. Not sure if this is how it works for you too, but when I get like that, it's usually because I'm having Unidentified Feelings about something and haven't properly processed them. Slumps go away once I figure out what is going on and how I feel about it.
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Jan 4, 2023 09:50
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Stoca Zola posted:Personally, I can read social cues sometimes, I'm just not always sure what I'm supposed to do with the information. The biggest problem for me is usually feeling like "How was what I said any different from what they said five minutes ago?" Usually because there's this ill defined line you shouldn't cross, and everyone else knows where the line is, and it takes me a lot longer to get to know people and work out where their lines are.
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Jan 4, 2023 13:24
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Bobby Deluxe posted:I find sometimes I can read cues, but allistic people lie when you call them out on things, and as with the classic double empathy problem, I get blamed for rules everyone else seems to know. God yeah that second part resonates really strongly.
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Jan 4, 2023 13:46
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Cloacamazing! posted:Not sure if this is how it works for you too, but when I get like that, it's usually because I'm having Unidentified Feelings about something and haven't properly processed them. Slumps go away once I figure out what is going on and how I feel about it. Yeah that is exactly what I think is happening but I'm having a little trouble pinning down specifically what it could be. Actually maybe it is just a lot of little things that have started to add up, and that queue of unresolved issues is getting a bit too long. There's a lot of things going on that I don't feel like I have control over at the moment, and maybe that feeling is preventing me from acting on the things that I do have control over. When I was working, I had 10 weeks of term time then 2 weeks of holidays (actually unemployment) which always let me feel like I was recharging my batteries, but this last year in particular even though I'm not working, that break never comes and it feels like the pressure never eases up.
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Jan 4, 2023 13:50
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Perestroika posted:Oh huh, I never knew toe walking is something associated with autism. I used to do that all the time up until my late teens, and still do it sometimes today (though less often since nowadays it puts me at risk of bumping my head on doorframes It's hard to do in work boots, but I tend to walk that way barefoot for sure. I wouldn't stop just because most people today don't. My wife and all her friends took that test several pages back. I was like 115/227 with 65 being "the minimum score at which autism was considered" my wife was 62, she has sensory issues, mine are more social. I'll have to investigate further. This has been an interesting thread, some of my relatives exhibit a lot of the traits, my cousin in particular.
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Jan 18, 2023 22:04
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SSJ_naruto_2003 posted:It helped me to take this before I went but it sounds similar to what she's going to do. so i just yesterday considered that i might have autism and uh
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Jan 19, 2023 07:35
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Don't panic! Having a name or label for how you've always been is kind of like someone pointing out that you're now breathing - being aware of it doesn't make it bad, but thinking about it can be annoying until you get used to it again. Keep on breathing! I think I used that same test to confirm my suspicions and maybe all that's changed for me is I am a little more aware of situations that are likely to overwhelm me and take I measures to make things easier for myself, instead of trying to power through. Just giving myself more wiggle room for if things don't go perfectly well, in general. And I'm trying to be more aware of clumsy or wrong communication that rubs my partner up the wrong way. It never bothered me that I didn't fit in with other people, and it just turns out that I do fit in with some people, we're just all autistic.
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Jan 19, 2023 11:44
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Stoca Zola posted:Don't panic! Having a name or label for how you've always been is kind of like someone pointing out that you're now breathing - being aware of it doesn't make it bad, but thinking about it can be annoying until you get used to it again. Keep on breathing! Yeah I mean figuring this stuff out helped me a lot. (along with my mom telling me I was recommended for testing as a kid but they didn't because she knew I was just 'special') It makes it easier to understand why I feel the way I do about stuff, how I react in situations that are loud and uncomfortable, etc
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Jan 19, 2023 23:05
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im not panicking I'm just like kinda in shock still because i didn't let myself even consider it as a thing for like 20 years. i just decided i wasn't on the autism spectrum and then never reexamined why until recently, and the only reason was because i was a kid and already didn't like having ADHD so I didn't wanna have another thing, then forgot that was my initial justification for denying i had it i acted like it was out of the question for so long and have been looking for other explanations to all of these things for so long and feeling like it was all just stuff i was doing wrong or couldn't figure out & not ever considering that I'm just kinda like that. it's more relieving than anything because it makes so much poo poo make sense. im trying to get in to a dr now to get an actual evaluation, i should be able to see one sooner or later but it's nothing else explains things as well at all
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Jan 20, 2023 05:59
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FirstnameLastname posted:im not panicking I'm just like kinda in shock still because i didn't let myself even consider it as a thing for like 20 years. i just decided i wasn't on the autism spectrum and then never reexamined why until recently, and the only reason was because i was a kid and already didn't like having ADHD so I didn't wanna have another thing, then forgot that was my initial justification for denying i had it be aware that your mitigation techniques such as 'making eye contact every 11 words during a conversation' and 'wearing gym shorts and a tshirt every single day but its weather appropriate because you're there in july and not january' may be reasons that they think you aren't autistic
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Jan 20, 2023 06:01
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SSJ_naruto_2003 posted:be aware that your mitigation techniques such as 'making eye contact every 11 words during a conversation' and 'wearing gym shorts and a tshirt every single day but its weather appropriate because you're there in july and not january' may be reasons that they think you aren't autistic Yeah a lot of adults mask because Social Norms and such.
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Jan 20, 2023 06:38
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My undergrad Japanese professor: “In Japan, people often converse without making eye contact and/or facing one another. Please practice this with a partner.” Me: “Unmask for a few minutes, got it”
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Jan 20, 2023 08:42
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I never learned eye contact right. Sometimes I remember to look at peoples eyes/face. Usually while they're emoting or saying something they think is important.
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Jan 20, 2023 08:58
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Quaint Quail Quilt posted:I've seen some evidence that toe to heel walking was natural during medieval times and only fixed sole shoes and boots are making people heel focused. As far as I understand, landing on your heel when walking is totally natural, and it's the reason we have big fatty pads on our heels. The thing that shoes messed up is running, where you definitely do want to land on your mid- or forefoot (try heel-striking while running barefoot it is not comfortable at all).
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Jan 20, 2023 16:49
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Anyone have any tips on emotional regulation? I find Twitter and other social media to a lesser extent seem to trigger anger and hurt over some stupid drama. Yes I know the answer is stop going on Twitter but as a creative person I kinda need social media unfortunately. I find CBD helps but others may not live in weed legal places or don't wanna try it.
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Jan 20, 2023 19:07
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SSJ_naruto_2003 posted:be aware that your mitigation techniques such as 'making eye contact every 11 words during a conversation' and 'wearing gym shorts and a tshirt every single day but its weather appropriate because you're there in july and not january' may be reasons that they think you aren't autistic Violet_Sky posted:Yeah a lot of adults mask because Social Norms and such. I'm pretty certain stuff like this is why i never got diagnosed in the first place. I was diagnosed adhd at i think 8 or 9 years old & got good at masking (w/o knowing what it was called) and avoiding getting negative attention early in my life because bullying and w/e when i was younger but then if I'm not making the effort I'm a totally different person like i could always understand when someone's upset and why even if it's not a thing that upset me, i could understand when something 'stuck out' and to not do it/stop doing it and any time people were like "wtf are you doing" about something, I'd make a concerted effort to come across as "normal" enough to just seem weird autistic kids got bullied reeaallllly bad when i was in school and i already got bullied bad and didn't want that, and thought i was different enough from them that i didn't have the same thing (usually they had really, really heavy symptoms and were more-or-less nonverbal, it seemed cruel how the school would force them into regular classes at a ratio of like 1:30, because people would just be awful to them and it would escalate as the bullies found out their triggers and would just torment them non-stop) i always thought it was adhd and that the rest was just me being weird and not an actual thing
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Jan 20, 2023 19:51
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FNLN gets his Diagnosis that is
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Jan 20, 2023 20:14
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Violet_Sky posted:Anyone have any tips on emotional regulation? I find Twitter and other social media to a lesser extent seem to trigger anger and hurt over some stupid drama. Yes I know the answer is stop going on Twitter but as a creative person I kinda need social media unfortunately. I find CBD helps but others may not live in weed legal places or don't wanna try it. You can do things like get browser extensions that turn off trending topics, that might help. But Musk has really done a number on recommended tweets, so the long term solution is probably to shift your focus to a different platform. Dance Officer fucked around with this message at 12:38 on Jan 21, 2023 |
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Jan 21, 2023 12:36
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Violet_Sky posted:Anyone have any tips on emotional regulation? I find Twitter and other social media to a lesser extent seem to trigger anger and hurt over some stupid drama. Yes I know the answer is stop going on Twitter but as a creative person I kinda need social media unfortunately. I find CBD helps but others may not live in weed legal places or don't wanna try it. I only post art and follow artists on twitter. If someone retweets non-art stuff but otherwise posts nice art, I turn off retweets. If they consistently post non-art stuff I unfollow them. My feed is drama-free and full of nice art.
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Jan 21, 2023 21:40
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The problem with 'just uninstall social media' is that so many autistic people need to use it to self promote whatever deal they have going on. There's one person twitter is determinedly recommending to me, and my heart breaks for her, every other post is her complaining about the abuse she's getting, but the issue is she's a sex worker and using twitter to promote her onlyfans. There are a ton of people who seem to be on twitter to promote themselves but hate it. I use it to promote my podcast, but honestly it's a massive anxiety spiral. I feel like the more followers I get or the more I engage, the more likely I am to say something dumb and attract the worst people on the site to make my life hell.
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Jan 21, 2023 22:21
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whydirt posted:FNLN gets his lol it turns out it's rly hard to get a diagnosis as an adult in wa but it's more so I'm not doubting myself after growing up in the era of the self diagnosed internet autism epidemic of '05 but I'm pretty sure of it. it's so nice knowing why my brain isn't normal but that it isn't busted. i was driving myself insane these have been the best few days I've had in a long time because I'm not fighting myself on everything and just go with it it's crazy how much of a difference that little shift in how i look at my own behavior is
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Jan 22, 2023 08:26
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FirstnameLastname posted:lol Definitely. Now that my mother has read some books on the subject, she actually remembers a lot of stuff she didn't really notice when I was a child. We've always told the funny story of how I was asked after a birthday party if I'd liked it, and I said something along the lines of "It's nice, but the people should go", which, yes, probably summed up how I felt about my home getting invaded by half a dozen screaming toddlers. I actually have good memories of later birthday parties, because my mother, being a very organized elementary school teacher, always planned those birthdays in detail together with us, so they had this structure of "The guests are going to arrive at that point, we will unpack presents, then we will eat cake and then play those four games.", and that made them easy to handle. And we actually talk about the many misunderstandings we've had (which I didn't even know about). She now knows that I didn't ignore the signs that she wanted my help with something when I was a teen, and that outright telling me "Help me with the dishes" works better. I know that instead of sneaking off to my room, I can just say "I'm taking a break" and they'll understand what it means and won't stop me. Made this Christmas a lot easier on all of us I think. Well, except for my father who leaves the room whenever the subject comes up. Can't win them all.
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Jan 22, 2023 09:01
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whydirt posted:Our autistic 4yo is hyperlexic and has special interests in letters, numbers, shapes, and Japanese characters so his handwriting is better than mine. hey so I've got hyperlexia and was similarly stubborn get your kid a lot of books colorful print and stuff, cool textures, stories, poetry, lists, graphs, charts, grids, cool geometry stuff please most important part: make sure they get how to use the internet responsibly before they use the internet - you will probably not be able to keep them away from the internet, but if anything will, it'll be books + music; for me reading usually feels more rewarding than watching a TV show from how quickly stimuli comes in. it wakes me up, it is hypnotizing to me how my brain will connect to words like plugging into the matrix it feels a-ok to just words. sound is great too as long as it's good sounds, constant lowlevel non-droning background noise, so that the noise floor isn't really low and doesn't spike whenever anything happen is the trick, like streams, breezes, music, it is relaxing and makes it much easier to not get locked into reading i went to college to learn just that btw ur welcome words tho words are closer to going for a drive in feel than in any way a sleepy or calm thing - i will be Wired while i read. I'll be wired from thinking about sentences, ones I've written, read, thought of, word free-association (Play that with em btw try it just "what's the first thing that comes up when you think of [word]?", spoken or written - they will probably love it along with wordsearch, crossword, etc. kind of things, (typing was/is The Ultimate Stim for me, because of the muscle memory/tactile/linguistic/spatial overlap alphabet is primarily QWERTY format in my head and arranged under the finger groupings lol) also things like "what can i spell with these letters in it", spelling stuff out loud, Scrabble, you get the idea: if it spells it sells ) without something to read or otherwise mentally stimulate them they might get stressed easier, probably will. that part of my brain never entirely shuts off, it's always going. always. my internal monologue is words/text, sound/voice is too busy to represent coherent thoughts for me. I'll remember the way someone sounds separately from what they say, i can remember what someone sounds like forever, and remember what they say, but when i think of what they said, i read it in my head, i don't hear it, it's visual. the two are distinctly not connected in a novel (hehe book) way cognitively and this allows me to run through thoughts really really fast, which makes it easy for anxiety to go wild if uncontrolled - watch out for that because if their brain works the same that will probably be close to what they're experiencing, it was like that when i was a toddler. I don't know if i was able to do any higher level thinking until I could read, because once I learned to read, I didn't have to try to learn anything regarding the written or spoken rules of languages and it became how i think on the spot. When I'm calm I don't have any issues speaking, and as long as it's not too noisy/busy i can comprehend what someone's saying fine. My favorite music is hip-hop because language+patterns+rhythms+repetition. I've always loved memorizing rap verses because they have a sense of being established and fixed things the way something written is that normal speech lacks Listening to a lot of hip-hop absolutely helped me "get" intonation and prosidy. I'd always spoken in a flat, dull affect but noticed i could follow every little rise and drop in a bone thugs or biggie track i knew, and as long as I'm conscious of it, I've got no issues blending in fine with normies while speaking. This had a huge effect on my ability to socialize and my self esteem around others. ty big poppa r.i.p. baby baa-by - something similar might work for your kid, i just figured I'd mention that it's funny either way lol I am not good at passively listening to people speak, and I will just remember the general intonation of someone's voice and then realize that I haven't been processing anything they've said. I can't ever remember people's names when I meet them, i just remember face and sound. I'd recommend having established routines to transition away from reading mode in a controlled way so it's not start/stop because that abrupt mental load/unload can be unpleasant at best, if not even difficult/upsetting when it's sudden because you're either suddenly engaged in IRL with the same intensity as you were reading, or you're still wanting to finish the chapter or whatever and totally swallowed up by it, and that will make sleep/naps difficult like i was saying. you probably will not ever need to worry about the transition into reading lol don't get annoyed with them for reading btw and let em re-read stuff if they want. if they're rereading something it's prolly something they like or are fascinated by i Never napped at school, but it was because i wasn't ever comfortable enough to relax, not because i didn't want to or couldn't, i remember laying there just waiting every day and it was awful i didn't know how to recognize tension in my body at all, I didn't know how to recognize when something was too harsh or loud or bright, or that it wasn't what everyone else experienced teach them how important it is to try to understand the signals their body is trying to send, hungry, achy tired, etc. and to communicate about them with others even if you can't quite understand what they're trying to communicate, or even if they don't know what they're trying to communicate. the important thing is that they know that they can do that and develop the habit of analyzing and describing how they're feeling. sensory stuff is weird. making that connection, being able to recognize and describe how they feel both mentally and physically, will be very important to avoiding upset or escaping it when it doss happen. IT IS VERY easy to forget simple stuff like that when your brain processes whole paragraphs of text in big chunks as an internal monologue this is something that you'll never be able to fully Get, but the way they will think about things will change depending on if they're thinking about it through the same part of their brain that they read with - not thinking about stuff with that part when you want to, and thinking about stuff with the part when you don't are both going to feel stressful, but the second one is the one that will make it really really easy to deeply overthink something without noticing why. it's not like an on/off switch it's more like having a muscle get locked up and stuck cramping. the trick is to be c a l m and s l o w. if they get all worked up about something that they explain in a giant breathless run-on sentence, that's that happening. if they're breaking down about something and can't talk? That part of their brain is running a million miles an hour and all the poo poo they want to say is just kinda buzzing by without being catchable, overload the trick is gonna be to slow down and not go past whatever spot they're at untill they are ready to start the next bit - if something's got them upset, f.ex. make sure they can describe how they're feeling, and what is upsetting them, before they move to describing how they're feeling about the thing upsetting them. the order doesn't really matter, just slowing thoughts down to be sequential instead of parallel. try to teach them to work through things that are confusing with other people before trying to figure it out alone, or they will get bored of waiting for peers/etc to catch up on things and then just start doing their own research without even mentioning it. that might sound like a good thing but it's not really, not as the go-to when they're younger - MOST problems with school are probably going to probably be social and sensory, not academic. make sure you remember that and try to make sure they understand how /important/ it is to build skills to cooperate with others and manage your emotions. a brain like that in the control of a kid is like having your kid diving a brand new ferrari 488GTB that you've never ridden in in your life and will never be able to I'm not saying this in the self congratulatory ooh smartybrain sense, I'm saying it is SUPER EASY TO WRAP AROUND A TREE GOING BACKWARDS right when everything was fine because your mind can get going SO fast and intense about something that it just gets lost deeeep in the weeds where it's disorienting actually coming back to reality afterwards. it can get high centered on a median curb tryna take a uturn and be stuck and not know why and LOSE THEIR poo poo over it it will be confusing this is going to be a thing your child will have issues with - but will also be the thing they will use to make sense of the world and to have a clear description of what is different for them, so that they can make sense of it and so that they can explain what their experiences are like, what helps and what doesn't, what they need help with, etc: they will need to find the things, and need help to find the words for the things and learn how to recognize the things when they happen and what causes them etc. they will be able to comprehend complicated stuff very very soon and you will be like "it keeps going?" and it's gonna just get faster and more complicated for like ten-fifteen years straight and you are going to be like "how do you know all this stuff" alllll the time because your child is an information processing machine that you can not keep pace with but that's okay because you just have to help them when they're having trouble and most of their trouble is probably going to be from too many complicated conflicting rules and definitions for things and they're gonna fall into ruts because they will be very stubborn and very rigid about things the way you get through those is by slowing down but they will not want to slow down, they probably don't even see what they're tripping on - brain moving Too fast but the internet: this is gonna probably stress you out lol so i was on rando chatrooms and playing EverQuest at like 8,9 y/o in a guild ppl all thought i was a full grown adult. my avoidance of weirdos targeting me was through blind luck alone. since i was still a dumb little kid in most ways except linguistically, even though i avoided creeps, i still got into conversations that kids in elaborate trenchcoats shouldn't be involved in, whether inappropriate or just too serious/upsetting/etc. and still ended up with pretty awful poo poo happening to me because i was able to read and write before i could think really it was REALLY easy to get in over my head, and could've been way worse because being able to read and comprehend things quickly made me think I was "adult", everyone told me I was a genius, and because when you're able to read and write as well/better than whoever you're talking to at that age lol, why would you not feel like you have it all figured out? but then you're 9 and reading about like, the mfs that got eaten by sharks when the s.s. Indianapolis sank, or the Oklahoma City Bombing, and then u get nightmares that militiamen might kill you with a truck bomb or that you'll fall thru the bottom of the tub and be eaten by sharks like DEEP and COMPLICATED and VERY VIVID fears can be generated V E R Y rapidly while reading in that way and they stick. make sure you're talking about what they're learning and reading about and what they're thinking about and feeling because they will be learning stuff really fast like really fast really fast; i could finish a 100pg goosebumps book in 30 minutes in first grade, I'd go reread those things multiple times a day i read the entire fourth harry potter book in one sitting in fourth grade i got 99.98% on the English WASL and was not trying to even pass, I'm not saying any of this to brag or to say how smart your kid is but that they will surprise you and those surprises might suck for you and them or maybe not but they're going to happen in fifth grade we were tracking our pages read on this lil map of the U.S. where 1pg = 1mi and i averaged 2000 pg/week over the entire school year while Also talking to people on the internet a bunch every day like the amount of reading that your child is and is going to be capable of will come off as pretty much a superpower to anyone who doesn't get it - those people will tell your child they're amazed by it. it's good to be proud of cool stuff you can do, you don't want to act like it's nothing special because it's incredibly special but you don't want to let people around them lean into it too much, because that will encourage them to lean on it as well if they do that, it will mess with their self esteem hard when things first are academically challenging because language will be effortlessly easy - ive never had to study for a single spelling quiz in my life and i don't remember ever missing a single word once yet BOMBED every class that got hard for a little while afted 5th grade because i was not familiar with having academics actually being challenging and did not understand why it was suddenly difficult and i was behind on stuff because i hadn't learned how to actually study, I just knew how to do things and didn't know how to do others Even if they're not as gifted with f.ex. math, just the reading comprehension is going to give them a step up for years most likely, as well as things like science and history and so you realllly want to make sure they learnthe value of being able to follow instructions when necessary and when to learn how to do things that way when needed even if they've got an easier way because of things like f.ex. learning a trick for doing long division in their head and then having a ton of trouble showing how they got the answer for any of their work because they didn't learn how to go through it on paper and the steps they use are totally different and don't translate cleanly to paper because they're just chopping it up spatially/geometrically in their head having the ability to come up with solutions like that is super super useful, BUT depending on that ability to navigate parts of life it's not well suited for, or simply not having a method to approach things that ISN'T letting whizbang brain crap out some stuff that sounds smart enough is mentally/ emotionally exhausting & confusing. then when things are difficult for the first time and you have NO idea how to process them and the same thing is ramping up in difficulty every week and everybody tells you how smart you are all the time (don't tell them that btw. I mean, tell them, but don't act like the reading means they're a genius - even if they' are straight-up smart as poo poo:) please remember to emphasize/encourage the importance of all of the other parts, because the reading and writing stuff will be solid no matter what and they will not have such an easy time with the rest and some of it will likely be very confusing and frustrating or embarrassing for them and you really want them to have a healthy understanding of what they're capable of and what will be difficult and how that feels and how to approach and manage it before they actually get to it any time you can. remember they will most likely not see any of this until after it is pointed out to them, may not ever be able to see all of it, and there's good odds that they will battle you for attempting to help because none of it will be as clear to anyone as I'm describing, it will happen in-between other parts of your life and there'll be stuff you won't notice unless you're watching for it there's no good guide on how to raise a kid who can absorb information that fast, i have looked, lol you are going to have to be on-your-feet as f even if they're being perfectly well behaved. it will be fun tho and they'll probably be a good poster, like me! and for real the Internet part please don't let em on there at all unmonitored for at least like 10 yrs also, don't shy away from interacting via writing with em btw, drawing, like, movement. if they communicate in a different way it's because it works or they feel like it or it's fun so just go along with it, they will like it even stuff like texting back and forth even in the same room or just writing/typing something when you say it to reinforce it. If it helps it helps and if they're anything like me they will process and construct thoughts very differently if they're written vs spoken or just thought in their heads. like, a lot. weirdly enough I'm unable to learn sign language no matter how hard i try but if it's anything like me they're probably thinking a lot lot more than they're saying out loud, all the time. they don't know how to express what's going on, even if they're able to communicate with you in a way that seems clear and like they're fully aware of what's going on, or experiencing the exact same things as you They might be able to make it sound like they know what they're doing when they're copying something that seemed to work. they are always, always trying to figure out what's going on. they might describe a complicated problem and be meaning to say something simple or vice versa because it's still basically babytalk. they might seem like they're doing something intentionally when they're not. stuff like that. it's confusing because it's confusing to live that way your child is bilingual, written/spoken, pretty much both parts are special and matter to them a lot more than to most people. there might be other parts to it as well. or just have weird conventions that they like 2 do b/c feels good  but it's not decorative, don't mistake it for that it's a different thing and they want you be a part of it and want you to get it so they can get it too they don't really know what it is, they're just grasping at what sticks out while tumbling around in a world of harsh sensory responses and confusing poo poo engaging across every way they'll respond to anything even a Marco-polo style back and forth tapping on a table, if you engage with them in it, it will help you understand them and connect with them, you'll be able to understand them better and help them know what's going on. your kid is like an autolinguist, any pattern will probably catch their interest if they get overwhelmed, let them calm down before reintroducing stimuli, ask them how they're feeling, if stuff is bothering them, if they like stuff. they might not notice things like that until you mention them - they do not know how to process it yet in a way that makes sense to them let alone isn't disruptive. always use a gentle voice, don't react with frustration it just feels scary and is confusing -or- is entertaining and makes being annoying funnier, it'll never ever work. always emphasize cooperation and working together, don't let yourself feel like an adversary or like you're just pushing them to do something you will -never - beat that stubbornness head on. don't try to. it makes it harder to not be like that. always please be really, really patient your kid is gonna move really fast in some places and slower in others and it'll be like wtf but the real problem is always gonna be going too fast even when it doesn't seem like it. It'll never be an issue to slow things down because if they need to, it's for a good reason and they need the time to understand what's going on you have a kid with a brain that is not gonna be like a n y o n e they know or you know and that will be hard for them and will likely feel very isolating entirely on its own, around people or not. it will be tough. it'll be okay tho i don't want any kid like me going through anything i went through and most of it could've been avoided by people knowing what i was going through who could help, so i just want to give you as much a heads up as possible that might not all be totally accurate for your child because brains, but i bet enough of it will that it help somewhere along the line so it was worth writing just in case. please let me know if there's ever stuff throwing you that i might be able to give some insight on though, rly. FirstnameLastname fucked around with this message at 00:46 on Jan 24, 2023 |
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Jan 24, 2023 00:37
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FirstnameLastname posted:lol I too remember the self diagnosed aspie era. Ironically that was when I realized I might actually be autistic after all. Also some psychologist said that when I was a kid I had problems with abstract thinking and would have difficulty in higher grades. I somehow got two university degrees so I guess I didn't?
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Jan 24, 2023 05:12
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Maybe I have/had hyperlexia… I was never evaluated for autism or related things as a kid. My autistic friends always described having poor handwriting growing up, but I was obsessed with writing “correctly” (i.e. copying characters from worksheets as precisely as possible). I read books constantly. I tested post-collegiate in reading level by 4th grade. As I’ve grown older, I haven’t put much stock into it, but it defined a lot of my childhood. I still get a lot of comfort out of reading… anything. I like forums because there’s tons of people chatting about any number of topics. Articles and conversations are great. Additionally, I. Love. Typography. When I was introduced to typography as a field, I latched on and have never stopped engaging with it. Words are cool. Grammar is cool. Letters are cool. Languages are cool!
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Jan 24, 2023 05:48
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oh yeah, i was reading like, way past age appropriate books at a very young age bc i just devoured any and everything book related. our middle school would let me go to the high school library once a week (the school was about half a mile away) to check out books starting in 5th? grade i don't read nearly as much now as i used to
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Jan 24, 2023 06:17
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SSJ_naruto_2003 posted:i don't read nearly as much now as i used to same, it makes me sad sometimes I just can’t get into fiction books like I could when I was young
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Jan 24, 2023 06:49
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e.pilot posted:same, it makes me sad sometimes I can reread a series but starting a new book or series is hard unless it's exceptional and grabs me right away.
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Jan 24, 2023 08:11
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Violet_Sky posted:I too remember the self diagnosed aspie era. Ironically that was when I realized I might actually be autistic after all. it sucked it really really sucked. it was like, i knew something wasn't right, but i'd see all those folks with like 800 self-diagnosed conditions and knew that was a mental health nightmare to even be in the proximity of and veered away but held onto that stigma gj getting ur degrees btw broken pixel posted:Maybe I have/had hyperlexia… I was never evaluated for autism or related things as a kid. My autistic friends always described having poor handwriting growing up, but I was obsessed with writing “correctly” (i.e. copying characters from worksheets as precisely as possible). I read books constantly. I tested post-collegiate in reading level by 4th grade. As I’ve grown older, I haven’t put much stock into it, but it defined a lot of my childhood. i love syntax, unnecessary line breaks, and how itty-bitty changes in how something's written can change the impact of it entirely and how writing is your thought transcribed spatially and speech is your thought transcribed temporally and neither will ever be fully accurate because thoughts do not have words they are assigned to the closest that fit one's understanding of both the word and the thought (as defined by other words) in the hopes that others will be able to interpret that message in the same way and understand what's being communicated by having the same or similar thoughts connected to those words when you think about language that way, it's wild that anyone is able to communicate anything at all a l s o h o w the really cool thing about writing to me (that people w/o whatever thing i've got can all appreciate) is that due to the structure and permanence of writing, it allows thoughts to be examined in a way that internal monologues and spoken language don't. you can't say something before you say something else or change what you say after you've said it, only when you are writing it. due to the inherent inaccuracy of language, the longer you examine a thought the more detail can be found or created, like the coastline paradox. every book, poem, speech, etc. ever written was started with one simple little idea that someone kept going back to and expanding upon and combining with other little ideas that they expanded upon like an edited, manicured linguistic fractal of sorts painting and drawing are the same without the words, all built from little patterns of brush and penstrokes communicating different details, that were all chosen because they were the closest fit to the artist's understanding of how something is perceived, and all become part of a larger structured thing based on those sets of simpler established patterns, rules, and conventions. somewhere along the line it can become something that communicates messages or imagery or ideas in a much more complex and precise manner than what any of the things it's built from could ever express on their own, in the exact same way letters form sentences that form paragraphs i like thinking about that when i look at cool art or writing, trying to find the root concepts it's built from that famous toilet with the signature f.ex is neat to me because it deconstructs that idea and takes a larger, complicated and completed thing without any meaning associated to it artistically, and had enormous amounts of artistic meaning assigned to it by essentially doing nothing with it except imparting the expression of "this means something" to it by sticking it on a pedestal and slapping a signature on it, without ever attempting to express what "something" it meant so when you look at it, your brain finishes the piece by expanding upon that and assigning some kind of meaning to it, even if you don't think it's art at all, its clever
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Jan 25, 2023 00:36
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FirstnameLastname posted:
I like all of this Ceci n'est pas une pipe sorta stuff
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Jan 25, 2023 01:14
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HopperUK posted:I like all of this its great and so is stuff like picasso or cool stairs illusion guy, that Campbell's Soul mf - that was just toilet+capitalism, melty clocks guy, rothko i was typing minimalism guy when i remembered that, I'm terrible with names lmao but where it's following all of fhe rules but with them moved around and used for different things
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Jan 25, 2023 03:31
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the more i think about it the more convinced i am that there's a lot of stuff i will not think about until i write or read it. ill feel it, but i won't think it - or I'll think it, but not feel it, until i can visually or maybe through the actual writing it part; is that an autism thing? it will be stuff that I'll know already but until i write it, it's fuckin difficult to label and navigate mentally. the closest comparison i could think of would be https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain but not as gnarly and not a total disconnection but stuff comes though too loud/soft/bright/much and doesn't get recognized by the other part until i write or read it sometimes. my thoughts just do not form the same, when stuff is overwhelming, they get all clumped up into a big thing that i can't say, or even make sense of myself sometimes. but then if i write it suddenly there's all this clarity and delineation and i can manage my thoughts like a human? been postin to self medicate my whole life lmao
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Jan 25, 2023 21:35
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