I think I know what you mean. There are some things it never occurred to me to sacrifice, and I knew others who did or had to.
07.03.2026 02:50
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I think I know what you mean. There are some things it never occurred to me to sacrifice, and I knew others who did or had to.
People who work with animals know this. People who work with children know this. I don't know why we have this mental block when it comes to understanding what autistic people need.
Maybe the whole "just push through" "you'll get used to it" thing works for other people. I think autistic people can get used to things, but it can take far longer than anyone expects, and the clock doesn't start until we're allowed to choose if/how we engage.
If I can't say no, the experience isn't safe, and I won't learn or gain anything while I'm in it.
I sit on the sidelines until my nervous system calms down and my mind gets curious. Then I look for a way to do just a little bit of the thing. Not a whole party, just a quiet coffee with one person.
There are a lot of things that I avoided as soon as I was able; a lot of socializing events, a lot of sensory things, anything I found overwhelming. Later on in life, I got many of those things back, once I learned my own ways of engaging.
When people see autistic people avoiding things we find uncomfortable, they sometimes think we just need to be pushed. But sometimes, I'm not avoiding an experience - I'm making sure I'm allowed to say no.
*me sitting stubbornly in front of the screener refusing to continue* look if I can't say "library" I'm not playing
Libraries FTW! I like the ones on university campuses best. And this is the even more stereotypically autistic answer but I'm not mad about it
Non autistic people: "You don't speak for all autistic people" "My autistic nephew isn't like that" "Autism doesn't define you"
Also non autistic people: All autistic people prefer museums to theatres 🧐
The museum question is such crap because I see what they are getting at, but theatre performances are more structured than museum exhibits, and theatre productions make just as good a special interest as history.
We studied history thinking it would stay history 😭
When they showed us a fairy tale villain surrounded by a charred landscape and told us they "hated all life" we assumed it was a metaphor
TIL!
Thank you in advance to the good folks who will watch SOTU and talk about it here so I don't have to watch the whole thing or hear that man's grating voice. I appreciate you 🙏
The mouth is giant! It's like half of its body!
I claim this curse in the name of autism 💜
cartoon drawing of someone trying to clean their glasses on their shirt. she holds it to the light. still dirty. frowning. “no” “may your enemies’ glasses be always smudged, and their shirts the wrong type of fabric ♥️”
a mundane curse #comic
This is really on them! why not censor that word??
Yikes I did not know this!
Black folks have a right to go into public spaces and not have slurs hurled at them. Two things can be true. You can be empathetic to this person and their Tourette’s, but also be empathetic to Michael B Jordan, and Delroy Lindo.
And a real apology, not anything involving an excuse or deflection. Impact, not intention.
I speak and write about neurodiversity (usually specific to autism and ADHD) and I think Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo are owed an apology.
The "that's not autism folks" do be very annoying and I support blocking but also it is very funny how invested they are in proving that things are not autism. Yell all you want, trains belong to autistic people, I don't make the rules
Not Sara's point here, but if you are someone who sees Daily Tism posts and consistently thinks, "That's nothing to do with autism, everyone is like that," then I have some news for you and your enormous Warhammer collection or elaborate train set.
Sometimes I forget I used to just know how to be joyful.
I had a lot of moments like that, enough that other people commented on them - one negative reaction and that behaviour would be gone forever. I would just change and never go back. I lost so much that way, years before I was diagnosed.
I have this core memory of being a child at school, skipping and singing down the hallway, and a teacher scolding me because I was delaying the class. It brought me crashing back to earth and I don't think I ever did anything like that at school again.
Full post here, on Instagram: www.instagram.com/p/DVD2lMPDGl...
She goes on to explain that for neurodivergent people, joy isn't necessarily something we don't have enough of but something we learned to police in ourselves.
It's a screenshot of an Instagram post. There's text against a blurry image; the text reads, "What did joy feel like before someone told you, you were doing it wrong?" There's a small caption at the bottom of the image: "Alice Bramhill / Nervous System Regulation and Joy. Reclaiming What Was Always Yours."
Well this was loud
pic of someone holding up white t-shirt with blue and black lettering - WHEN I SAID I WANTED to BE MYSTERIOUS & FASCINATING I DIDN'T MEAN MEDICALLY - etsy.com/shop/ChronicllnessTees - redbubble.com/people/ChronicillnessT