OK I got confirmation today that I am quiet and I do sneak up on people.
I know it was a question on our hashtag from somebody earlier in the month. I didn't think that I was that quiet or that stealthy? But guess what? I guess I am.
(I was hanging around in any friend's backyard with other neighbors this morning before the parade.) (No, it was not a ninja parade.)
#Writephant 3. Our society encourages us to chase happiness and its enshrined as a right in our Declaration of Independence. Yet pretending to be happy gives me a headache, literally! Does pretending or acting happy work for you?
I politely smile and keep my troubles to myself most of the time. But I don’t pretend to be happy either. When I am very sad or very happy I display those emotions but otherwise I have a flat affect.
Mainly I just feel cut off from people.
#actuallyautistic
Even before the internet and social media I was invisible. People ignored me. Blew me off as insignificant. I was never memorable. Even now you won’t see me.
I once chanced upon this conversation starter card thingy, you know the ones I'm talking about, the ones you're bound to find at places where peer support groups gather. It was a black and white drawing of a cat sitting on a roof, looking into the horizon, thinking "Somewhere there is my home". I might've cried a bit when I saw that.
My apartments never feel like homes. Not even the one I technically owned for a while, it still wasn't my home. They're storage boxes, holding cells, lodgings, a roof and four walls, somewhat of a safe harbor or whatnot. But they haven't been homes. I can't remember that last place that felt like my home. Some have felt like someone else's home, that I happened to exist in, but not mine.
And I mean, there's prolly lots of people who feel the same. You think those rich bastards feel like home in whatever you want to call those places they pretend to live in? But then I see someone's place and it's just... Yeah, this is their home, I can see it, I can feel it, this is them existing in this continuum from them outwards, extending to this place. Everything here says it's them.
I wonder if there's a place like that for me too, somewhere.
Here's a little executive function tip based on my Splines Theory.
If you're having trouble starting a complicated and boring task, give yourself time to "load the splines." Splines are just my silly word representing the fact that ADHD and autistic people are more detail-oriented. We have a hard time accessing an idea by its summary, and need to think about the whole system with all its parts (splines) in order to grapple it. This takes time and energy.
But the good news is, reticulating splines is mostly a passive activity. First step, the hardest, is communicating to your brain about what it needs to load.
A few hours ago when I started gathering paperwork for taxes, I felt incredibly overwhelmed and my chronic pain was activated. So I pushed myself to kinda get started (updating my list from last year, opening the email folder, creating some folders on my computer), but then I hit a wall. Under intense overwhelm, I couldn't get started turning those emails into PDFs.
But my brain knows what it needs to do. It just needed time. I entered my passive splines reticulating phase, which can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days. Since I only have a week to get this to my CPA, the sooner I started the loading process, the better. Most of that happens in the background. The hardest part was telling my brain to start, which I did by giving a glance to the body of details I will need to absorb.
Then I went did a couple of hours of paid writing work which my brain normally expects on a Monday (so that went easier). And then back to taxes to see if things were flowing better.
And they are! I still hate it! But now my mind has an understanding of the task and it doesn't seem impossible.
I will work on it until I feel sick and foggy again, then I will pick up tomorrow where I expect it to go even more smoothly.
Here's my 2013 post on Splines Theory of neurodiverse executive function.
#taxes #ADHD #ActuallyAutistic #pacing #MECFS
https://www.corbden.com/2013/10/splines-theory-spoons-metaphor-for.html
Diary of an ASD Squirrel. Day 506 , Monday 17/03/2025
Monday followed Sunday as Mondays do, I slept thru until past 7am but was downstairs by 07:30.
Breakfast & chores followed, with a little bit of time on here in between.
Every time I think I see the light at the end of the tunnel it turns out to be another train.
My hands have been very painful over the last week or so while cleaning the filter bed, I put this down to the cold exacerbated by constantly having wet hands. Now I’m getting pins & needles in both hands but predominantly my right hand. Not all the time but when I’m playing a game on the PS5 & especially when I’m in bed. I noticed it the last time I was driving too.
It has been suggested that it might be Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Reading up on this it could well be.
I’m going to rest my hands until the weather is warmer & see if this persists, if it does then I guess I’ll have to go see the quack & get their take on it.
Spent the day reading mostly, watched a couple of episodes of ‘Peaky Blinders’.
Final Thoughts.
I think the resting thing is working, I have not had any pins & needles in my hands today, just a weird feeling like they are full of air or something & might burst if I’m too rough with them.
I know life would be boring without these little challenges, but I could go with like maybe a week of total & utter boredom, you know just for a change like!
Thank you to all those who are helping me on this journey, in a myriad different ways. I am thankful to each & every one of you! 
@actuallyautistic
#TimsASDjourney #ActuallyAutistic #Neurospicy #TheMammutMoves
Taxes are like a signal jammer on my brain.
Abuse Culture project is on hold, mid-transfer of notes from Mastodon, which is just insane that I decided to start that when my accountant needs my tax paperwork in like a week. Trying hard to put a pin in that in such a way I'll find my place again.
(I've decided not to tax strike because, well, Idaho is holding my health insurance hostage. I can't even file an extension under threat of unaffordable medical care. Drat and I was all ready to go back to my Taxes Are Theft libertarian roots!)
Head is full of static now and I barely even got started gathering receipts. There's no noise here baby, it's all signal. But it's 15 HAM operators, two industrial and dubstep stations, and the NOAA weather report all talking on the same channel.
Anyhow, clocking into paid writing work now where I don't even know what what
One of the upsides (there are very few) of growing up #ActuallyAutistic where I did (Singapore) is that it was legitimately just impossible for me to understand social pressure or ways in which I had to fit in. I never once had a ‘I should do X because my parents / teachers / society’ thinks I should moment.
People from back home often say ‘oh you have such a clear vision for what you want to be’ and I’m partly also like.. ‘I didn’t have a choice? Also you all made me feel like shit for it?’
I have always had a clear-eyed vision for the life I want to lead and the ways in which I will not bend to fit in. Simply because I know there’s no fitting in anyway, all paths there lead to rejection, so why try.
Last assesment day tomorrow it’s the #adhd assesment they say 3 hours hope the body holds up not nervous anymore just need it done with 
and maybe get on some meds
Do you think you have a lower threshold for "liking" others and wanting others to be well/happy than is considered normal?
As an #ActuallyAutistic person with certain skills, I can do some really complicated things but things like how to buy pants that fit me really flummox me
Sometimes asking for help will feel harder than dealing with the thing that you need help with. Ask anyway.
I feel like talking about being #ActuallyAutistic
First, I want to make it damned clear that several things can be true at once:
1) Some of me being autistic is 100% an *advantage*
2) I'm still disabled, because there's a lot of it that ... isn't
I'm actually really smart. I can see patterns that a lot of other people can't, and it's served me very well as a developer, because it means I write better code, more readable code, and I have been told on multiple occasions that I'm a dev that people like inheriting projects from. This is part of me being autistic.
I'm a decent writer, and what people compliment me the most on? It's all directly related to me being autistic (how I experience the world with different senses, how I connect things, how I treat words and how important I find the *right* word)
I picked up crochet with lightning speed. Within a month, I could do advanced patterns.
I also tire easily, especially when I need to deal with people.
I am seen as very good at talking (and I am), and I'm the one mainly doing phonecalls at home ... but if I don't know what to expect, I have a *really* hard time doing it. Especially if I've done something they might be chiding me for.
Things needs to be in a very narrow band of "not too challenging, but also can't be easy", or I *can't* do them. Not "doesn't want to". Not "I just need to work through it". Can't.
Starting things? Almost impossible without external urging, and if the urging is too much I'll shut down because it's now too stressful.
And that's why "high functioning" or "Light ASD" or whatever the latest fad for dividing autists into "put in homes" vs "doesn't need help" doesn't work: you can be extremely good in one (or more) parts of life, and still need a lot of help in others.
I tell the endocrinologist that I'll leave this world whenever I want. He laughs and asks me how I'd do it. And I... "I'll stop taking the levothyroxine and in two weeks I'll be gone."
And Dr...
ok maybe i should give yall a proper intro on me #introduction
i'm alex, i'm a kitty 
who moved from poland to netherlands (living in Utrecht as of now) in september 2024 kind of by force
i speak polish and english, as well as trying to learn dutch (with little to no results though)
at the time of writing this i am no longer a neet woohoo 
i got a job
i usually draw things in my free time or endlessly scroll the internet for no reason. i collect plushies and keep them on my desk, as well as collect pokemon TCG cards.
i also gamed a lot, but nowadays i am trying to find motivation to boot up something else than osu from time to time
if i get the inspiration i work on static websites, most notably my personal site, dokokashira.nl (that needs to be updated asap because of how many outdated things there are
still morphing and trying to discover myself now that i have a proper environment to do so
i'm a trans gay guy and started my HRT on february 8 2025 
i'm proudly disabled (HoH, AuDHD, C-PTSD, BPD et al) and i wish for a better world
where else to find me on fedi:
@kaaskop - art account
@alexander - private account for friends
@kaviaar - AD account, only for people i know that are 18+
also @nugget from time to time when i test something on wafrn
as always, tag spam for reach and topics:
#furry #artistsOnFedi #pokemon #ActuallyAutistic #vocaloid #AuDHD #indieWeb #disability #hardOfHearing #LGBTQ #transmasc #ftm #queer #videoGames #digitalArt #netherlands #utrecht
@actuallyautistic @joelle I agree. Apparently my doctor told my mum he suspected I had Aspergers (as it was then) when I was fifteen. She kept that to herself and maintained I had all these issues because someone had put black magic on me.
It wasn't until my late twenties when I learnt about Aspergers properly. If I had known at fifteen, I could have got my diagnosis, I could have got support (maybe) and at least not spent another 12 years hating myself and wondering why I just couldn't fix myself and be like the other women.
I have a seven-year-old with #PDA who doesn't want to go to school because "it's boring". How in the hell does one convince a kid that school is fun and they want to get ready for the day without "bossing".
The "you can watch TV as soon as you're ready" ploy has lost its novelty and no longer works.
Ello sweet and lovely Friendos 
Some moments, I love my brain, other moments, I really hate the way it treats me... 
Like, I know I want to do something. Or I know I need to do something. I make this plan of how I want to do it all. And then I agree that it's a good plan.
So, I start the plan. And it starts off well. Step one and two are a success. 
So then, onwards to step three. And that's when part of my brain goes like "nah, I've had enough now, I don't wanna do that other thing, I just dismiss it and then stress over it later, as then it really needs doing".
I just wanna do it as I planned it. Keep away the stress. Have it done ahead of time, so I can relax afterwards.
Even if it's "just" something that I want to do for me, that won't impact others in any way... Even then, I beat myself up over it.
Why does my brain think of this great plan, and then it won't want to finish all the steps? Why is it OK with the first two steps, before losing interest for the next one?
Is this the part where my ADHD part is rebelling against the autistic bits? Where the ADHD (my "focus" is apparently on the H bit, according to the diagnosis) is losing interest, as it's focused long enough and, hey, I did those two things, didn't I?!
Ah well, I pressured myself into not forgoing the third thing, and I'm doing it now. But I do hope I'll be able to focus enough on it to do a proper "job".
Yeah, my brain can be my best friend at times, but also my biggest enemy (especially when it's inviting the dark monster back into my life)...
Fankoos for your support 
on my journey through life...
#PixysJourney
#NeuroSpicy 
#ActuallyAutistic
#ActuallyADHD
#ActuallyAuDHD
I hope @altbot 
can help me with my image, then I'll edit the Toot to add the alt text.
Will increasing internal awareness make things worse?
Diary of an ASD Squirrel. Day 505 , Sunday 16/03/2025
Sunday started around 07:30 & has been a quiet & relaxed day.
I’ve read a little & we binge watched ‘The Long Shadow’.
We had lasagne for tea & finished the evening with an episode of ‘Poirot’, the TV equivalent of a warm bath.
Final Thoughts.
Some days go really slowly, some in the blink of an eye. Today was one of the latter!
Thank you to all those who are helping me on this journey, in a myriad different ways. I am thankful to each & every one of you!
@actuallyautistic
#TimsASDjourney #ActuallyAutistic #Neurospicy #TheMammutMoves
八尺様
