Autism Spectrum - Tumblr Posts
People underestimate how much it fucks you up to be subtly excluded as a kid. I would try to talk to my classmates and be met with disinterest or annoyance. The one friend I had, who I clung to and nodded along to his every word, had other friends he liked just as much or more. And his other friends didn’t care for me at all.
I look back at pictures from the time and see how separated I was from them. I remember knowing I was different. I remember posing questions about the world to the girls playing next to me and realizing that they had never asked the same ones to themselves. That the ways we thought couldn’t be more different.
I kept myself amused with my own fanatical stories and musings in my head. I would wander the playground on a circular path, imagining a friend and being sorely disappointed when it didn’t feel as real as I’d hoped.
There was a bubble separating me from everyone else, thin, and nearly invisible, but with a pearly sheen you could catch under the right conditions. I knew it was there, they knew it was there, and it changed me
I grew up with undiagnosed ADHD and ASD. The adults in my life (not naming names for privacy) didn't want to admit that I was neurodivergent due to the stigma. I had issues at the time to put it lightly, and I was only diagnosed as an adult. At school a teacher of mine put me in the special needs class with no permission from my parents (which is illegal in my state). My parents were livid and had me pulled from the school. In my experience there, as a little 3rd grader, I was treated like a toddler. I was a normal kid, I was just prone to outbursts and I struggled in class. They strait up babied us and gave us looooong condescending talks about not getting upset at people and being quiet. Years later I expressed my distaste for how crappy special needs education is, and an ex-friend thought I was horrible for it. This is because they thought special needs students = little dumb babies that don't know what they are doing. we are not friends anymore obviously.
point is: ITS ALREADY HARD BEING NERODIVERGENT EVEN AS AN ADULT, and our education system is NOT preparing them for the real world. All the special needs class does is to shut the poor kids involved up so they are "not in anyone's way". They don't actually teach you how to cope with your outbursts in a constructive way, they just want you to shut up so the "smart" kids can learn. I am lucky that I got help as an adult for my ADHD and ASD, but most people are not so lucky. It disgusts me.
as someone officially diagnosed with autism YOU DO NOT WANNA BE DIAGNOSED WITH AUTISM THEY ARE GOING TO MAKE YOU READ A BOOK ABOUT FROGS AND PLAY WITH TOYS AS PART OF YOUR ASSESSMENT THIS IS NOT A JOKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
relationships
if i were to describe my personal relationships with other fleshy pink meat creatures, It would be that everyone i know is a judgemental biological flesh computer jotting down and computing every mistake i have ever made. with this, the fleshy meat computers calculate how hate-able and like-able i am, and is set to explode if i exceed my "being a crappy person" debt. my social life consists of me trying to disarm ticking time bombs where i can't tell what time they are all set to and then i mentally crucify myself for every little mistake i have made my entire life.
psychonauts theory/analysis/headcannon: an analogy on neurodivergence?
spoilers for psychonauts, the rhombus of ruin and maybe psychonauts 2 these games are amazing please play at least the first game. the first game is only like 10 USD on steam and it is often on sale for waaay less. it is a very good underrated game. also TW: mentions of childhood abuse and personal experiences. you have been warned.
I will mostly talk about the first game. Yes i am aware i am probably overthinking it. I think we all know the first game isn't the most accurate to mental illnesses. The original game came out 18 years ago and was meant to be a dark comedy game rather than a sensitive depiction of mental health. I am not going to go into that aspect because time have changed since it released and I think it is redundant, but if you want my opinion I thought most of the jokes were hilarious. the first game wasn't meant to be a good depiction, so i take it for what it is and laugh along with it. I think the fact I relate to some of the characters makes it funnier personally.
but no, today I want to bring up a head cannon/theory thing: being a psychonaut is a metaphor for being nerodivergent. bear with me, here is my reasoning.
1- Raz's opening speech in the first game. "you were born with a special gift, but the people around you treat it like a curse. your mother is afraid of you, and your father looks at you with shame in his eyes" "back home your powers make you a loner, an outcast, a circus freak, but in this dojo, in this psychic dojo, they make you a hero." no explanation needed, this speech touched me in a way even if it is a bit corny. This bit here establishes that being psychic is still very taboo in this universe, as if being psychic is seen as something wrong with you rather than just an aspect you were born with. In this point in the games timeline, being psychic is slowly becoming less taboo and more of a valuable asset to society.
2- Raz's family a little bit ago i made a list about how much i hated the interns from the second game and how Agent Forsythe's actions against Raz felt a tad forced. I do not feel the same way about Raz's family. why ? well for one Raz has known them his whole life, and that "psychics are bad" came from SOMEWHERE. It is also implied that a lot of the biggotry came from his mother more than his father oddly enough. i am about to say something that is not for the faint of heart. please be advised. are you ready ? Are you sure you are ready ? meat circus. OK good now take a minute to calm down from your traumatic flashback from reading those words and then continue. The end level of the first game depicted Raz's struggle with his father. Raz was constantly under the impression that he was hated because of how his parents talked about being psychic. then Raz's father told him what he REALLY felt about his son and what was really happening. this hit me hard. some nerodivergent disorders are genetic, like in my case ADHD. and when a genetic disability exists and the family does not know they have it, then often times it is harder to get help due to prejustice. it is the "oh we are normal! i acted just like you when i was your age!" mentality. my whole life i have been told that "you are not [slur for disabled that starts with R]! you just need to get better at school! stop being lazy!", and then later i would learn one of my parents was just like me and hid it for their own safety. i can totally see "fortune teller" as a kind of slur for psychics truth be told. imagine being told as a child you are not a "fortune teller" and that "fortune tellers" are bad, and you being told that makes you feel like something is wrong with you. You feel like no one in your family loves you. It could be that Raz's father hid his psychic abilities from Raz's mother so he wouldent be scrutinized, while also hurting about what happened to his family in the past. It was the "fortune tellers" fault he was like this, so how could he love himself for being one? A headcannon I have was that Raz's mother already had pretty problematic thoughts about psychics, so when Raz's father discovered he was psychic he hid it away due to how it hurt his family and how they could react. It is established that psychics can find out they are psychics way later in life, such as mila's memory of the orphanage burning down and her suddenly being able to hear the voices of the dying children. This is somewhat accurate to adult diagnosis in my opinion.
3- Whispering rock could possibly be a special needs camp note: there is a difference between programs that teach you how to cope with your disability, and programs that basically abuse kids. Fuck autism speaks, fuck ABA programs, and a big fat special middle finger to Judge Rotenberg Educational Centre (don't google it unless you want to be angry). this bit here is a little obvious, but i thought i should point out that in the end of psy 2, agent forsythe mentioned teaching raz's family how to use their abilities safely. as I mentioned, some people find out they are psychic later in life, which is pretty common with nerodivergent disorders. It could be that whispering rock is a way to teach kids how to cope early in life so they don't struggle with it worse later on. this one is a bit of a stretch i will admit, but i got something way stronger next up:
4- Dr Loboto Dr loboto came from an emotionally neglectful home. His parents would remove toys from him and he would use his psychic abilities consistently to act out. this is normal for an emotionally neglected kid. his parents did not want a child, they wanted a perfect "doll" to do as they wanted. they loved the idea of a perfect ideal family and not actually having a child. and so they lobotomized him. Lobotomization was very common in the 50s. It was seen as a cure-all for all mental issues. housewife acting out? being her in to get snipped. child acting out? ice pick procedure. 9 times out of 10 it would end up making existing issues worse, or cause said patient to turn into a vegetable, or even death. If you want a famous case, see president JFK's sister. This hits me hard personally in multiple ways. I can see this as being a reflection of how people would "cure" their autistic kids by getting them lobotomized, or how in the modern day we still try to "cure" kids by abusing them and hurting them. Sometimes it wasn't even nerodivergent kids, just acting out is enough for people to do this! One of the reasons why i was diagnosed as an adult was the fear of doctors and teachers wanting to dope kids up to keep them quiet, god forbid an 8 year old is a little energetic, adhd or not. dr loboto is a traumatized broken man that was forcibly given brain damage because his parents loved the idea of a child rather than the child they made. I am lowkey kinda proud that he became a dentist to spite his father.
overall, i have heard people mention that psychonauts is a metaphor for being LGBT. I can see it, but honestly i feel as though the metaphor for nerodivergence is more strong. truth be told: we have a very similar history of bigotry, gaslighting, and abuse. we are siblings you and I, and our brotherhood will last generations. We are brothers and sisters and neithers in our pain. anyways that is my theory, let me know what yall think! I know i can come off as a little aggro but i genuinely would love to hear your thoughts!
"you should be yourself! get out of your shell!" "ew not like that"!
I just told my partner of over a year that I've been looking into both an autism and an ADHD diagnosis.
It did not go too well.
Nothing has changed. My 165-195 range of raads-r scores didn't suddenly make me a different person just because he knows now. I think we're still together but I want to scream.
This, this, so much this! Autism is a spectrum and traits vary between each individual! I have traits from both columns, but that doesn’t make me less (or more) autistic than any other autistic person. I wish more people would understand this.
What does “The Spectrum” mean? Do some people have “more Autism” than others?
I covered these topics in a comic to help explain the extremely individual and incomparable nature of the autism spectrum!
Instagram // Twitter
one of my beloved friends (very autism) was in.. not denial but ignorance sounds mean. but that abt themself last time you brought up the raads r test so i sent it to the gc (full of autism) and they were like psh. fake test no one could get below 100. they know now but i think about it so much
The thing is. When you take the autism test. And you see your score is in the 100 to 160 range. You think. Oh this is probably the middle? Middle autism. Tinge of autism. Your relatives calling you bright but shy autism. Just a whiff of autism. And then you see the score ranges. And you go. This test is lying to me there is absolutely no way the majority of people score under 65. The 65 number is such a low cutoff and so many of these experiences are clearly universal a score under 65 is something they made up in a lab. People who score under 65 are obviously scoring just under that mark from 59 to 64 and they’re also obviously lying or purposely misrepresenting their experiences as less severe than they are. And then you find out there are real people who get a 20 or 30 or 7 on it. And you go. Ah
Something I’ve been curious about if it wouldn’t break the bit: are you one buckaroo or several sharing a name and persona?
greetings bud thank you for asking FIRST OF ALL want to say to you or anyone reading this post that i am not upset over this question and i am not upset with you. you have kindness in your trot and i know you are just asking to prove love in your own way. buds reading this please do not harass this person in fact maybe give them a follow or a like, they are trying their best.
OKAY NOW THAT IS OUT OF THE WAY i will talk on my feelings of this with simple statement:
this is not a bit.
i understand it can be difficult to accept this for some, especially in world where absurdity and cynical humor is so popular, but i am very sincere. even though i make jokerman jokes sometimes, even in my writing, tinglers are not supposed to be funny as a concept. if you laugh at them that is TOTALLY OKAY i understand this way when confronted with something out of the box but that is not the point of them at all. the point is that LOVE IS REAL for everyone (there are other points but that is a broad one)
now on to why i trot my trot in this way. first off is to protect my privacy this is simple enough. when i talk on son jon or sweet barbara or any other way i am adding a layer of secrets by changing names or relations or towns but that is just a fancy outfit for the real truth. i am NOT creating a character, i am protecting myself.
second and more important is that when i TALK IN MY UNIQUE WAY i am expressing myself without masking, which is something old chuck does every single day out there in the world as someone on the autism spectrum. i am VERY GOOD AT MASKING you would probably not know chuck was autistic when talking to me unless you were a close bud. but unfortunately this masking way creates very real tension in my body. i have trotted with CHRONIC PAIN for most of my life heading to emergency rooms where kind and handsome t-rex doctors could not figure out what the heck was goin on. basically LIVED in the dang emergency room. eventually chuck learned i carried my body TOO TIGHT from masking all the time, but what i realized is that allowing myself a space to type freely without way of punctuation or other restrictions and LETTING MY HEART SING to just be myself without masking made this tension release. pain started going away. GRAND IRONY of course is that when im trotting as chuck i wear a pink mask to take off my OTHER MASK of a neurotypical bud.
that is why i protect my way of speaking freely as well. if someone says 'well you need to talk like this right now' i stand tall and say NO BUD THIS IS MY SPACE AND I WILL EXPRESS MYSELF IN THIS WAY AND YOU AN TROT ON IF YOU WANT. this is firm boundary for me and my health.
anyway buckaroo to sum that up again: yes i am one person and this is not a bit
if you want to know more about my way on the autism spectrum i wrote a tingler about how it feels to have others say you are 'playing a character' and not actually neurodivergent. i think tumblr buds might enjoy so i will add it down here LOVE IS REAL thank you for your question
NOT POUNDED BY THE PHYSICAL MANIFESTATION OF SOMEONE ELSE'S DOUBT IN MY PLACE ON THE AUTISM SPECTRUM BECAUSE DENYING SOMEONE'S PERSONAL JOURNEY AND IDENTITY LIKE THAT IS INCREDIBLY RUDE SO NO THANKS
Way way back I drew a comic explaining what we really mean by ‘The Autism Spectrum’ and posted it here back when Tumblr was Huge. Then the comic really blew up!! Last year I did a remake of the comic, with some updated language, and using Mia, a character from a graphic novel I made. Figured I’d share for Autism Acceptance Month!
YES! THIS!
When I was in elementary school, I tried talking to a group of kids at lunch and I’d consistently be ignored or unheard, but one time, they all turned a glared at me.
I was shocked, surprised by the reaction. I shut up and cowered, secluding myself. I thought I had done something wrong to deserve that reaction, that I had said something wrong.
So I prevented myself from speaking at all unless I have planned out my exact words perfectly in my head. Perfectionism and anxiety kept me from socializing with my peers. I analyzed my words everytime I went to speak, though it often took so long that once I had perfected my sentence, the topic had already moved on. So I just stopped trying at all, resorting to daydreaming and silently listening in on other’s conversations to entertain myself.
My dad often told me: “you are doing the world a disservice [by not socializing]” I took insult to this, thinking he was blaming me for struggling(even if it was I that had to out effort in to help myself and stop self-isolating), but now as I look back, I understand what he really meant. He loved my personality and self, and he wanted the world to see me for the beautiful person I was, but I kept failing him by locking myself away.
I didn’t really notice my loneliness until the pandemic when I was truly alone, no one to call or hang with. I used discord to help make some online friends for a few months and it helped—typing slowly and rewording your messages wasn’t frowned upon and taking time to respond was normalized in chat-based media.
I didnt talk without scripting my words for a long time. It wasn’t until 9th grade(when I was 15yo) when I rambled about Amphibia for literal hours to my therapist and friends that I finally managed to break out of the habit. Since Amphibia was my hyper fixation at the time, it was one of the few things I was confident on to not get wrong or accidentally offend someone when talking about.
I’m not good at catching subtler social cies, but I am sensitive to signs of awkwardness and irritation, so I feel incredibly punished whenever I get an upset response from people after I say something or communicate something, especially when it’s unexpected because I’m confused why I got that response and fixate on it.
Even now when I have friends and can talk confidently, my social skills are still stunted and I am scared to talk to people IRL even when I know them because I’m scared to disturb them or upset them by accident.
Banner by @ alwaysribbit
People underestimate how much it fucks you up to be subtly excluded as a kid. I would try to talk to my classmates and be met with disinterest or annoyance. The one friend I had, who I clung to and nodded along to his every word, had other friends he liked just as much or more. And his other friends didn’t care for me at all.
I look back at pictures from the time and see how separated I was from them. I remember knowing I was different. I remember posing questions about the world to the girls playing next to me and realizing that they had never asked the same ones to themselves. That the ways we thought couldn’t be more different.
I kept myself amused with my own fanatical stories and musings in my head. I would wander the playground on a circular path, imagining a friend and being sorely disappointed when it didn’t feel as real as I’d hoped.
There was a bubble separating me from everyone else, thin, and nearly invisible, but with a pearly sheen you could catch under the right conditions. I knew it was there, they knew it was there, and it changed me
This is an Autism spectrum Pride Flag. I’ll keep it simple - I’m high functioning autistic. Acknowledging and learning about it has given me a lot of comfort, so I looked for a symbol that would represent it and connect me to others on the spectrum. I couldn’t find one that satisfied me, so I created my own! Symbolism: Purple is community; Blue is serenity and self-acceptance; White is potential; The white shape is not quite a square, not quite a circle - like us, it doesn’t entirely fit the neurotypical standards, but is just as valid. The flag is symmetrical, so no matter which way you fly it, it will be the right way. Use and share it if you feel it represents you, or you know somene who might feel like that! This is my gift to the community. Remember, each one of you is wonderful and unique; and you’re never alone💜
Meet The Artist [April 2024]
![Meet The Artist [April 2024]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/2bd6dd2bdfa06fab0ce0ec2b168a8cec/b63b4c3d6621506a-25/s500x750/adf34d0e7d41018f400966d25ed5ed524d1752a6.png)
Nightmare The Rabbit
My names are Andrew /William / Henry (can't choose which one I like better)
My Pronouns Are: He/Him/His,They/Them/Theirs,Xe/Xem/Xyr, Bun/Bunny/Bunnies!
My birthday is March 15th
I'm a Mexican American (I'm half Mexican:)
I have Autism and Depression (Major Depressive Disorder)
I'm an amateur Musician and Artist. Winging it through this shit 👍
Five Nights at Freddy's Fanatic! I love that stupid bear game! I like other things than what I listed but yk.
Bunnyboy. I like bunnies,I relate to bunnies. Bunnies are rad 🤘
I'm Transmasc, Demisexual,Demiromantic, and Pansexual.
In October, my autism diagnosis begins. Idk but I'm kinda scared, what if I'm wrong? I did research for 2 years but.. idk
Months later, I’m finally ready to talk about the realizations that were, at first, pretty unwelcome. I mean, no one really wants the stigma that comes along with any sort of disorder or condition, but it also really, really helps to have a name for the overflowing bag of quirks that you didn’t realize were actually all interconnected. It’s relieving in that way!
Researching for days and days, reading tons of blog posts about the different ways symptoms manifested, it all made me realize the autism spectrum is a lot broader than the public’s stereotyped view allows for. I mean, I “knew” this, but I didn’t really understand it until I read about it in depth for hours and hours. When I finally talked to my husband about it, I was crying even though I wasn’t sad, and he told me that he kind of knew for a long time, but didn’t think it was worth mentioning. “How did you know?!” was all I could think, but of course… he lives with me, his two siblings are on the far end of the spectrum, and he’s pretty perceptive. I don’t really think I would have believed him if he’d told me before I was ready to hear, anyway. Which is probably why he didn’t say something.
I was really annoyed to learn about the under-diagnoses in cis women, mostly because I ended up realizing that the standards are usually set for cis men, specifically. There are a lot more things to be said about that, but I suppose it’s neither here nor there.
One of my big fears in talking about this to anyone was anyone at all thinking it an “excuse” for anything I say or do. To me, it’s kind of like… something that helps me categorize my thoughts and understand which ones aren’t what most people are thinking, and it helps me understand a lot of big communication problems I’ve faced. It offered me a lot of relief in that way! It was like… “finally, this makes sense, the way these people explain it, this is exactly how I think!” - and it made me so happy to be able to relate to someone else’s thought process!
I don’t want to sit here and list off the dozens upon dozens of tiny realizations I had, or things that I thought were “normal” actually being quirks, but I do want to say that I’m really glad I figured this out sooner rather than later.
And man, people ask me all the time how I’m able to work so much and focus on things… but you know, that’s kind of… all my brain lets me do… work and focus on the 2 things I’m interested in… and it’s what I’m happy doing!
I’m really glad I was able to shatter the limited view I had in my head of things related to ASD stuff; I just don’t really know what else to say other than I really didn’t realize the specifics, so I hope this comic might encourage people to do some research for themselves about it. (Sorry, this isn’t like an educational post or anything as much as it’s me trying to express how I felt about figuring it out!)
Please forgive me if I’ve worded anything badly, as well. I don’t really know how to talk about this very well yet, but I’m trying.
Something I think about a lot whenever people say that their children's autism just showed up out of nowhere, is that lots of autistic traits are considered normal for a while.
Picky eating, meltdowns, not picking up on social cues, and taking things literally are all typical child behaviors- up to a point. Autism is literally a developmental disorder, yet people expect it to be obvious from the get go.
Their symptoms didn't come out of nowhere, though. They were always there, they were just normal kid stuff for a while.
About Me:
Hello everyone, my name is Raley (pronounced like "raylee") and I'm a big dork, heh.
Full disclosure, I have a lot of problems, so I apologize in advance for any emotional and mental breakdowns I may have. I've been professionally diagnosed with severe and chronic depression, generalized anxiety disorder (meaning basically EVERYTHING stresses me out to the point where I can barely function, so honestly, I'm pretty worthless as a person overall. I try to make up for my lack of well, everything, by doing my best to keep you guys entertained by doing impressions and other voice stuff. But I mainly do it for myself since it's fun and cuz this world is an awful place and I need a way to cope with living :'>), and I'm on the autism spectrum. Also, I have my suspicions that I have BPD as well, but a lot of symptoms overlap so I dunno.
I identify as an asexual lesbian because I love girls, but it's been made very clear that I'm not able to maintain a relationship. I don't wanna get into the details, but just know that I've been through a lot and I'm never pursuing any crushes I may have on real people ever again as a result. Lots of trauma, blah blah.
Adding onto that, I'm extremely sex-repulsed so the idea of having any sort of act done on me makes me very uncomfortable and physically nauseous. Just writing about it makes me feel sick, heh.. In general though, like if I'm watching a movie or playing a video game, I can handle most situations fine. But when it gets to the real intense stuff like knife play, that's when I start drawing the line. So I kindly ask that you don't share things of that nature with me if you can help it
With all that out of the way, here's a list of the kind of content I enjoy most:
J-RPGs / RPGs
Visual Novels
All things Horror-related (psychological in particular is a big thing for me, heh)
Pretty much anything that has WLW / Sapphic / Lesbian connotations
If anyone's interested, here are links to my Twitch and YouTube so you can check out my past and future livestreams where I have a whole bunch of the above content and more 💚
