Talk about special interests. Do you have a special interest? What is it? Feel free to infodump.
Before I knew I was autistic and realized that special interests are common with us, people (including myself) thought it was a little weird that I had such intense obsessions. Others didn’t seem to be as fixated about things as I was and it made me stand out a bit when I wouldn’t stop talking about roman mythology or homeless people, or whatever my interest at the time was. Finding out I was autistic and that this was normal for us really helped me to realize that my obsessions were okay and I wasn’t weird for having them.
For as long as I can remember I've always had an obsession with one thing or another. Sometimes they were normal and age appropriate (Scooby Doo, Harry Potter, the TV show LOST) and sometimes they weren't (homeless people, prosthetic limbs, my 55-year-old boss.) They usually last a few years before they disappear, usually when there is nothing more to be learned on the subject or a new interest develops. Some of are a bit more awkward than others; such as my homeless person fixation. Which my parents found endlessly annoying because apparently a 10-year-old who talks about nothing but homeless people is embarrassing.
Harry Potter/Snape/Alan Rickman has been probably my greatest and longest lasting special interest. There’s such a good community and always unnoticed or additional information to go over. I have several secondary special interests, though right now my love of all things British may be tied with HP for top interest. I’m also really into the Lion Guard (though I love all things Disney the lion guard is most important right now). I also love squirrels. Interesting fact about the fox squirrel, which is the most common squirrel in north America, they range in weight from 1.2 to 2.2 pounds though they can weigh as much as 3.5 in preparation for winter. Another squirrel fact: squirrels are nearly immune to rabies. And my final special interest is the British foster care system (which I suppose would fall under Britain).
I love collecting things relating to my special interests. Which my mother usually yells at me for as she clearly doesn’t understand how much I need these things. I own a bunch of lion guard stuff which my mother says is immature but whatever. The lion king was my favorite thing when I was a kid and I think it’s great that Disney has brought it back for the next generation. I love collecting books in general but I have a bunch of British fostering memoirs. In fact, I just received 6 more books on Tuesday and I’ve actually read them all already. They were so good, I just couldn’t stop even though I should have as I had an important paper to write for school but the books arrived on the day I had to write it and well, I’m not very good at controlling my impulses when it comes to my special interest. I will say that I did manage to get the paper done after I read two of the books (the latest by Cathy Glass and Casey Watson if you’re interested). I also have a ton of Harry Potter stuff. The best of which is a life-size cutout of Snape which is fucking awesome. Here's some of my Harry Potter collection:
Talk about Autism Speaks. Do you support them? What’s your opinion about their policies?
Basically, my opinion of autism speaks is the following: I do not, nor will I ever support autism speaks. They are not a charity they are a hate group. I could never support an organization that claims I’m broken, that claims I am less of a person for being autistic, that claims I am an epidemic. I wish the organization was dismantled and replaced by the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN). Autism speaks does not and will never speak for me.
Reasons why autism speaks is an awful organization:
- They ignore the opinions of autistic people to focus on the opinions of parents about what it's like to live with autism.
- Until recently autism speaks did not have a single autistic person in a senior leadership position, in the past their only autistic board member quit because of their views
- They have supported dangerous therapies and treatments such as ABA, MMS and the Judge Rotenberg Center.
- Less than 4% of funds raised go to autistic people. Most goes to campaigning and research in a cure.
- The #Mssng campaign because autistic people are somehow missing the parts that make us human.
- They compared being autistic to being kidnapped, or having a fatal disease.
- They sympathize with parents that kill their autistic children.
- Biggest spreader of the misinformation that autism is a childhood disorder that we somehow grow out of.
- The ‘I am autism’ video which makes statements like ‘I will make your marriage fail.’ and ‘I have stolen your children.’
Talk about traditional media. Have you been influenced by autism themes in the media? Have you had to correct misinformation about autistic people that others got from the media?
I don’t really have a lot to talk about on this subject. In general I don’t think there’s really a whole lot of representation of autistic people in the media. It has gotten better in the last few years but there’s still not enough representation. I’m sure most autistic people have gotten the comparison to rain man or Sheldon Cooper at some point. I’ve got this on multiple occasions and it’s always a bit awkward explaining that ‘No, I’m not like rain man and in fact Kim Peek the guy the movie was based on isn’t even autistic.’ I’d say the only way I’ve really been influenced by the media in relation to my autism is it got me to start rocking. I didn’t used to rock (or if I did I don’t remember) but rocking seems to be one of the main ways autistic people are represented and after trying it out I realized it’s basically the most soothing thing ever.
Talk about community. How are you treated by your local community? Do you participate in any online communities? How have they reacted to you being autistic?
I guess my local community is okay. Generally I don’t leave the house unless I have to. I only go out for specific reasons and don’t really enjoy ambling about. On average I’d say the local population is decent, there’s always a few creeps and weirdos but generally they’re okay. I don’t really do much in person interaction outside of my family. The only in person communities I regularly interact with is the occasional atheist or LGBT meetups. I suppose school would count as a community but I don’t really talk to people and I don’t hang around there longer than I have to.
The vast majority of my social interaction is done online. I’m in groups for pretty much everything I am. There are plenty of autism, trans/queer, atheist, communities available online. It’s nice to be able to interact with people who are like me. I also participate in groups relating to my hobbies and special interests. I’m lucky that my interests are fairly common, should I desire interaction, there’s usually always someone willing to discuss things.
While I am out as autistic it’s not exactly something that comes up very often. People’s reactions are usually okay. Occasionally I’ll get some ableist comments but I’d say the vast majority of people are decent.
Talk about music, art, writing, and other forms of creativity. Are you a creative person? What do you create? Do you include autistic themes in your creations? Does your creativity help you to deal with your autism?
I’m kind of creative. I can come up with interesting ideas and concepts that are a bit out of the norm but for the most part I think my creativity level is pretty average. I have no musical or artistic talent, My creative talent lies with writing. I love to write poetry and short stories. I also like writing my blog. With my blog, documenting what’s going on helps me to work though and organize everything in my mind. I find writing to be very therapeutic; it has definitely helped me in the past, to get my thoughts together.
Mostly I like writing poetry, I haven’t written anything directly related to being autistic but I have explored themes of being different. Usually my poems are of the sad/depressed variety, I don’t really like to write cheerful poetry.
Talk about employment and your career. What do you do to support yourself? Are you on disability? Was it hard to get or maintain?
Currently I am an unemployed student. At this point I have a challenging time even keeping up on my schoolwork and I can’t imagine how badly it would go to try to add a job on top of it. I did manage to keep a part-time job for nearly five years before my erratic behavior/autistic burnout resulted in my termination. Ever since I went through my autistic burnout/horrible depression my tolerance for any sort of stress has gone down considerably and I just can’t handle things as well as I used to.
As of now, I can’t work and I’m in the appeal stage of getting on disability. It is such a long and strenuous process. It has been over three years and they continue to deny me. They keep saying that while I have significant impairments and I am disabled, I’m not disabled enough to receive any benefits. This is absolutely ridiculous and I believe the system needs some serious improvements. Getting disability benefits should not be such a hassle.
Thankfully I have great parents who allow me to live with them for free and my wonderful mother is currently covering most of my expenses. I do manage to get some money by doing house/pet/babysitting and my grandmother always gives my some money for helping her out with house cleaning and taking her shopping and to her appointments and things. It’s not much but it’s enough to put petrol in my car and have a bit of an emergency fund for when my car stops working, which happens quite often.
Talk about your family and support. Who in your life has helped you? Have medical and mental health providers served your needs? Do you feel like your family is supportive of you being autistic?
Generally my family is pretty supportive. They accepted my diagnosis very well and none of them have claimed that I can’t be autistic. They respect that I don’t really like people, or going out, or large groups and they usually let me skip out completely on busy-ish events (weddings, graduations, dinners with extended family). For events hosted at the house, they encourage me to make an appearance, even if only for 15 minutes or so, and then they’re fine with me hiding out in my room. Usually they’re cool with my stimming unless I’m making a lot of noise. The exception is my constant rocking which my mom says ‘drives her up the wall.’
Sometimes my parents get irritated with me about things that I really can’t help. I’m often berated about how I take things too literally or nitpick their use of language. And my mom frequently says things like ‘think!’ or ‘use your brain’ when I ask questions about things they think should be obvious. With me you have to be specific and they still don’t seem to understand that I need specific instructions. Vague statements like ‘the garbage is full’ don’t register with me as a task needing to be done. This is a very common interacton:
Mom: The garbage is full
Me: okay
Mom later: why haven’t you taken out the garbage like I asked?
Me: *confusion ??? Because you never asked me to.
I can’t tell you how long it took me to grasp that this was an instruction and not just an observation. Still, if I’m not really focusing on what they’re saying I’ll miss the hints about things.
Obviously, by the fact that I wasn’t diagnosed until I pushed for it at 22, there has been some oversight by the plethora of doctors and therapists I’ve seen been seeing since I was three. I attribute this partly due to me being AFAB and the reluctance of doctors to diagnosis autism in girls. However, other than my lack of diagnosis my therapists and doctors have been remarkably competent and helpful. I’ll talk more about my therapists/therapy on the 16th and perhaps 21st.
Talk about relationships, both platonic and romantic. Do you have anyone special in your life? Have your relationships been affected by your being autistic? Have you found it hard to make and maintain friendships? Do you have a lot of friends or very few?
For someone my age, I believe I’ve had fewer romantic relationships than is common. With the exception of Voloyda, the majority of my romantic relationships have ended because my datemates think I’m strange, which I suppose I am. People say that I’m weird and I like to state that I’m perfectly normal for an autistic person. I’ve not seriously dated anyone since I received my diagnosis, but I’m thinking that when I do start dating again it might go a bit easier now that I was an explanation for my odd behaviors.
I’ve never really been able to make and maintain friendships. Especially when I was little, I just never really fit in and the other kids thought I was weird. As I got older and my social anxiety worsened, I stopped trying. By the time I got to high school, I didn’t talk to any of my classmates. It was to the point where I was talking to my teacher and a girl I had been in classes with for two years told me that up until that point she thought I was mute because she had literally never heard me say anything.
I don’t have many friends, I’m friendly with a few people online but my only in person friends are Theo and Voloyda. Theo’s been my BFF ever since we met in the seventh grade. We were attending a school for kids with ADHD and Asperger’s and we clicked right away. I’ve known Voloyda since I was 15, it’s kind of been the ten-year on-again-off-again relationship. He’s a good friend, for the most part, and he was a good partner when we dated. I had friends from work but those kind of tapered off after I got fired. I’ve never really been one to ‘keep in touch’ and it felt awkward trying to keep it going after everything that happened.
Though I don’t have many friends, I wouldn’t really say I’m lonely; I like being alone. I do wish I had a few more people to hang out with but for the most part I’m pretty content. People don’t get me and it kind of seems like a waste of time to expend energy trying to achieve and maintain friendships that will most likely end when the person deems me ‘too weird or boring.’
Talk about passing and/or being out. Are you out as autistic? How have people reacted? Do they treat you differently after they found out? Do you attempt to pass? If you do try to pass have you experienced autistic burnout from trying to pass?
I am out to basically everyone; family, friends, doctors, professors, fellow students. Once diagnosed I’ve never tried to hide the fact that I am autistic. For the most part people have been quite accepting and positive. There have been a few people who claim I can’t be autistic but the vast majority have been very accommodating.
Regarding my experience with attempting to pass/autistic burnout, about a year before I was diagnosed I was really struggling with trying to keep up appearances of being ‘normal’ and I genuinely felt like I was losing my grip on reality, I thought I was having a nervous breakdown. Things that had never bothered me before became such monumental tasks that I could not cope. I started having panic attacks/fainting spells at the drop of a hat, I started having instances where I could not force myself to leave the house, I dropped out of classes, my quality of work decreased and large amounts of time were either spent zoned out or hiding in the bathroom, I remember a specific instance where I ended up curled into the fetal position under a rack of clothes sobbing in the middle of my shift, I started withdrawing into myself and my special interest (which was quite inappropriately my boss). Basically, I was suffering from a combination of autistic burnout and severe depression, which came to a head when I was fired for my increasingly erratic behavior. My boss fired me and I figured the best solution was to go and stand in the busy road in front of the store and attempt to be run over. He pulled me out of the road (which certainly didn’t help me to get over him) and I ended up spending some time in the mental ward of the hospital.
It wasn’t until nearly two years later when I had gotten my diagnosis and done some research that I realized what I had been going through at that time was autistic burnout. After 22 years of trying to blend in and act normal, I said ‘screw this’ and stopped trying to pass. Receiving my diagnosis made me realize that no matter how much I tried I was never going to be normal, it was detrimental to my health to try to be normal, and frankly it seemed like a waste of time to try, so I stopped trying. I now rock and flap and chew and stim my way through life. It’s actually working out quite well for me. I’m generally much happier, though that is at least partially attributed to having a proper diagnosis.
Make yourself known. Tell the world your name and age. Talk about your diagnosis. Are you self or professionally diagnosed? Do you think self-diagnosis is valid? When did you realize/find out you were autistic? Post a photo of yourself if you’d like.
I’m Oliver. I’m 25. I’m autistic
After a lifetime of feeling different and like I was some sort of freak or losing my mind, I self-diagnosed at 21 after a lot of research. Shortly after that I pressured my mother into letting me see an autism specialist to see if what I suspected was true. It took several months to get into see the doctor and then an additional four appointments that spanned over another several months before I finally, at the age of 22, received the diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Realizing I was autistic helped me tremendously. It gave me great insight into myself and gave me a concrete explanation for all of my strange behaviors. No longer do I feel like a failure for things that are out my control.
I believe that a well-researched self-diagnosis is valid. Well-researched being the imperative part here. I’ve seen people claiming they are autistic solely because they fidget or are socially awkward. I think self-diagnosis in adults is especially important as many doctors won’t even evaluate us for autism. By adulthood we are most likely past the point in life where we would actually need a professional diagnosis. Until healthcare is more available to people they cannot be faulted for self-diagnosing.
