As a child (in middle school), I was denied the right to rest when I was so physically exhausted and burned out it made me sick.
Continue reading Autistic Burnout -The Silent Killer – Recognizing, Preventing, and Recovering from Burnout
When I’m overwhelmed, excited, or have extra energy flowing through me, I find the predictable rhythm of my voice and familiar sounds to be grounding and relaxing.
Continue reading How do you overcome shame about vocal stimming?
Often, rather than sorting through all the information required to make a choice. It is much simpler (in that moment) not to choose (which technically IS a choice), or go with a safe familiar option. Continue reading Autism & Choices: Why Making Decisions is Hard for Me as an Autistic Person
I, like many Autistic People, experience stomach issues and stomach distress. There are a multitude of reasons, and triggers, for my tummy troubles.
Today I’m gonna share about my experience of being Autistic and having problems with my stomach, and digestion, and why I think so many Autistic People also struggle with this. Continue reading Autism & Food – My Autistic Experience with Eating, Stomach, and Digestive Problems
One of my main stims, since I’ve been a very, very, young Autistic Person, has been revolving around music: singing, humming, dancing, rhythmically making up lyrics to things- rhythmic stimming.
A lot, throughout my entire life, has been stimming with music, which is literally one of the main reasons I picked the name Lyric, because music is such an integral, and important, piece of my life. Continue reading Rhythmic Stimming – Stimming with Music – My Autistic NeuroDivergent Experience
As I have said in previous videos, as an Autistic Person, I feel that there are experiences I encounter in the world that are more intense for me than they are for people whose brains work differently than my own. For example, my sensory experience.
Sometimes things that I will encounter, in the sensory environment, such as bright lighting, certain types of smells, sounds, and physical sensations on my skin, can literally trigger my fight, flight, or flee response.
Most often the first response to a sensory overwhelm, for me, is to run, “Get away!”
Continue reading Autism & Eloping – My Autistic Experience with Running Off
Sometimes when I am unable to get away from other people, or the situation that I am in, or event that has triggered my meltdown, then I will go from flee to fight, and have a meltdown, where I may become air quotes, “combative”, “aggressive”, “defensive” -because I feel as if I am in danger, and cannot flee and get away from the danger, so then it switches to “defend myself and fight”. Continue reading Autism & Learning to Recognize Autistic Meltdowns Before It’s Too Late
It was August 23rd, 2016, when I went in for the first part of my autism assessment, an in-person interview with myself and the person who would be reviewing my childhood history and medical records.
By the end of August, all of the interviews would be concluded, and by early September 2016, at the age of 29, I would be diagnosed Autistic.
At that point in my life, being almost 30 and having such a bombshell of a piece of information dropped upon me, I skimmed a 13 page (actually 14 page) diagnostic report, but was very overwhelmed, and couldn’t process the report in front of me. In fact, I threw the report into a paper shredder, and destroyed the report.
However, recently, more than five years later, I’m feeling more ready to face the information that was in front of me all of those years ago. Continue reading Late NeuroDivergent Diagnosis – Diagnosed Autistic at 29 – Reading my Autism Diagnostic Report
I didn’t find out I was Autistic until I was 29, and my ADHD wasn’t diagnosed until several years later, however, autism and ADHD are both lifelong neurodevelopmental differences.
This means I was Autistic and ADHD my entire life, growing up, as a child, and I will be Autistic ADHD, my brain will be the same, the day I die.
There were obvious manifestations of my brain difference as a child growing up, many of which were labeled as “behavioral problems” and dismissed, or I was constantly scolded for acting in a very Autistic ADHD way.
Continue reading Things I Got in Trouble for Growing up as an Undiagnosed Autistic ADHDer
Learning I’m Autistic has helped with some things, and made them easier. I am studying facial expressions and body language, to learn what some of that stuff means. I’m learning it in a very unnatural way, and I hear some people picked up on that naturally in life, which is hard for me to fathom… but I’m learning it.
I’m capable of understanding these things, it’s just like learning a foreign language to me. Some things, however, haven’t gotten any easier, because some things might be more difficult for some of us.
Continue reading The Challenges of being Autistic in a NonAutistic World
