You ask, what is your favorite thing about being Autistic? I’ll tell you mine – please tell me YOURS?

Transcript

 NeuroRebel here, and this week I have a reader requested topic.

You ask, what is your favorite thing about being Autistic?

Thank you so much for this one. This is going to be fun. You’ve just asked me, an Autistic Person, to share about some of my favorite things.

Hopefully I can keep this video precise, concise, and to the point let’s dive in.

The sound should be a bit better, now that I have my microphone. Executive functioning fail. I was off my routine, because I haven’t shot a video in a while and I forgot my microphone because.. Yeah, I’m a mess sometimes.  This video is about my favorite things about being Autistic.

To jump right into the brighter sides of things, I would say one of my number one favorite things about being Autistic, very easily, is… and there are two sides to this coin.

Actually, like with many of these things I’m thinking about, actually, now that I’m going to share with you, there are two sides to these things.

That I am a sensory being. And what I mean by that is many autistic people, myself included tend to be very into our sensory environments, because our senses and sensory experiences are often different and can be very intense.

As I said, this is a two way street. Some of that intensity can be bad and very unpleasant, but at the same time, there are certain, almost delightful forms of sensory overload.

That I thoroughly enjoy.

For example, Rollerskating – spinning and twirling fast on my wheels, or I love rollers rollercoasters though  not all autistic people are going to love these things, but part of my sensory experience, the way my senses are tuned, individually – because each and every Autistic or NeuroDivergent person or neuro-typical person for that matter has their own unique sensory profile.

A lot of us NeuroDivergent folks, or those of us who have sensory processing differences, our senses can be more or less sensitive, often compared to the average or typical range. Lots of air quotes here, with those phrases.

I love the ways in which my senses are heightened, making certain activities and sensory experiences extremely pleasurable.

Like once all of this, not being able to touch things in stores is over, I really look forward to rubbing my face in soft fabrics again and running my hands through fabrics in the fabric store.

Because right now I like walk through stores, trying really hard, not to touch things and keeping my hands to myself because I can’t engage in sensory seeking because  I’m trying not to go to stores at all and  not allowed to touch things.

Something else I really love, as part of my Autistic experience, is some Autistic people experience our world, and our emotions quite intensely. That means,  when I’m happy and when I’m joyful, I am very extremely joyful and sometimes I get really happy about things that other people seem to think aren’t that big of a deal and, “Oh, that’s such a little deal. Why are you so excited about that?”

Well, you know what? I’d rather be excited over all of the little things in life then live a life where very few things give me joy. I get to have lots of joy throughout my day when I am delighted by something that someone else thinks is small or silly that I get excited about.

I get to have more joy. Why you hate it? You know, you’re just jealous of all this joy I got over here.  Haters gonna hate.

But you know, that is a two-way street, like I said earlier. That joy is really intense, but so are the depths of the sorrow. I may not always show or express certain things.

Especially, the harder emotions. I tend to shut down and implode in word on myself when things get hard.   People around me would potentially not be very aware, if I am really spinning inside, because I internalize and collapse in, on myself so much,  because of how intense those emotions are.

There’s not a lot of in between, but I still wouldn’t want to give this up. It’s something I love, even though there are hard parts.

Something else I love about being Autistic, once again is one of those “yeah, it’s great, but  it also kind of sucks sometimes” kind of things.”

This is why I get really frustrated with the diagnostic criteria around Autism and all of the medicalization of Autistic people,  or any NeuroDivergent people- ADHD, Dyslexia, Dyscalculia, whatever it is.

When they medicalize us, they only look at our weaknesses and they only look at these things as weaknesses.  Some of these things, that are listed as weaknesses can also be tied to, or part, of our biggest strengths. If we change the way we look at things a little bit.

So example: if we look at the medical book, the “obsessive thinking” and the “fixations” and the inability to let go of things and having “narrow interests that are of abnormal intensity and focus”.

This is described as a very bad thing, with all of the medical language, in Autistic people.

It can be troublesome to be stuck on something if it’s not helpful to be stuck on something, like a problem that cannot be solved, or if you also have anxiety you can get anxious and really ruminate on things.

This is also, in my experience, been one of my biggest strengths, as an Autistic Person.

I look at the world and I’m looking for problems and they stick out at me and they jump out at me. Once the problem is in my head, it’s very hard for me to let that problem go.

That is frustrating, if it’s a problem that can not be solved, but a lot of problems with enough “obsessive thinking” air quotes, and determination, and stubborn people who don’t, can’t, or won’t let things go… sometimes, even really tough problems, can be solved, but they wouldn’t have been solved if somebody would have just dropped it and said “the problem’s too hard to solve, there’s no point.”

I have had this skill be a torturous thing in my life, at times, but I can’t deny how much this has  helped me, as a human, and is also very essential to my personality and who I am and how I work, think, and act in the world.

As a person, my guiding question in life, since I was a very small child, and one of my very first words was “Why?” And not lost has changed, even though I recently turned 34.

Okay. I’ve answered the question “what do I love about being Autistic?”

Now it’s your turn! Whatever medium you’re communicating and following on, whether it’s social media, or the NeuroDivergentRebel . com blog page – I would love to know what you love about being Autistic.

Actually, let’s broaden this conversation to a wider NeuroDiversity conversation.

NeurodDvergent humans, what do you love about being NeuroDivergent?

Let’s include our neuro siblings, neuro kin neuro family, neuro cousins. I’ve heard a lot of terms for this. I love all of them, I think… yeah. Let’s include them in this conversation too.

What do you love about being a NeuroDivergent human?

Also keep those questions coming.

This was a really good video topic.

Video topics, suggestions, questions.

What do you want to know?

I’m really grateful for your contributions. I couldn’t do this without you.

A huge, special, thank you to each and every single human who interacts, shares, contributes, and is a part of this great NeuroDivergent Rebel community and space.

I am so grateful you are here.

And also to throw out that special shout out to those of you who are subscribing on YouTube, Patreon,  Facebook supporters, as well  -for doing that little extra, to help support this blog and helped me create this content. I put out new videos every Wednesday, with transcripts and closed captioning, because of your support.

I’m really grateful for all that you do to help make this blog, the quality blog it has become. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Whether you’re a subscribing monetarily, or sharing, or commenting, or whatever you’re doing – you are so important to me. Thank you.

I will see you next week.

Bye humans!

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