Here's To The People Who Can't Get The Words On The Page. The People Who Are Too Tired After All Life

A reminder to all the self-diagnosed neurodivergents out there: the people who tell you you're not "qualified enough" to know what you have are themselves not qualified enough to say you don't have it.

You know yourself more than anyone else ever will.

If you do your research and don't immediately jump into conclusions, your self-diagnose is valid.

You're not harming anyone with it, so don't listen to assholes saying you're taking something away from "actual neurodivergents".

You're not taking anything away from anyone.

What do verbal, hearing people have against sign language?

I'm a hearing-able and "usually" verbal person, but since I'm autistic I sometimes go into verbal shutdown.

Both because of that and because I simply find sign languages to be important languages that should be more normalized around the globe, I really wanted to have the opportunity to learn my country's sign language properly.

However, whenever I mention that to certain people, they'll tell me it's useless and pointless because I don't know any deaf, hard-of-hearing or nonverbal individuals.

Like????? Excuse me?????

I don't know about other countries, but we don't have the chance to learn sign in Portuguese schools and I personally think we should be taught to communicate easily with everyone in our own country before being taught how to communicate with foreigns.

Sign languages are languages like any other. When my friends chose to learn French and German no one told them it was useless because they don't know any French or German people, so what's the big deal with sign language?

I apologize to any and every deaf, Deaf, hard-of-hearing, non-verbal or semiverbal person reading this for how rude some jerks out there can be.

(Also, sorry if hearing-abled isn't the correct term, I can’t really find an answer anywhere)

This!!!

The thing about hyperfixations and special interests is that they are way more intense than normal interests and hobbies, which we have as well!

In some cases, they can even be disabling — many ADHDers become so hyperfocused they become self-negligent for at least a while; same goes for some autistics, though what we are more likely to face is an inability to care about/do things that are unrelated to our SIs.

Please don't appropriate these terms, especially when you don't even know what they actually mean.

i cant and wont ignore this any longer.

please dont use the words "hyperfixation", "hyperfocus" or "special interest" if you are neurotypical. just refer to it as your hobby.

allistics, do not refer to your hyperfixation/hobby as a "special interest". its a term that belongs to the autism community.

non-adhders, do not refer to your special interest/hobby as a "hyperfixation". its a term that belongs to the adhd community.

i dont know if im autistic, but as a member of the adhd community, i really need to stop hearing non-adhders call their non-hyperfixations "hyperfixations". it makes me feel like youre belittling my feelings towards my hyperfixation.

hyperfixations arent something to be taken lightly or to be used improperly or thrown around by communities who dont respect the term.

i hardly ever hear allistics refer to their hyperfixation/hobby as a "special interest", but for those who do, STOP. the autism community has spoken out about why its hurtful to them, and now you damn better respect it.

same goes for hyperfixation. same reasons, too. hyperfixations are a symptom of adhd. they mean the world to so many adhders. by using this term if you are not an adhder, you are appropriating the term.

if you have any hate to say, dni. im not in the mood.

Shoutout to the dedicated cheerleaders of wips who comment on each chapter and motivate the poor fic writer to keep going you are crucial to the ecosystem

Growing up is realizing that, as a neurodivergent or disabled person, you'll always have to assume certain actions as mistakes, even if they were caused by your condition(s).

Whether you have some control over it or not, it doesn't really matter most times. If you try to justify it, people will tell you you use your condition(s) as an excuse for everything.

They want you to adapt yourself to their world and often they don't realize they're being ableistic.

But they are.

We constantly have to change ourselves, because the world won't change for us, while they get a chance to be themselves out there.

It isn't fair, but it's the way of the world, I suppose.

It was made by neurotypicals, for neurotypicals.

By able-bodied, for able-bodied.

Back from the dead to reblog my own year-old post.

Wanted to add that if you're autistic and want to reclaim the puzzle piece, that's perfectly fine! But it's good we advise people to stay away from websites and organizations that use it since most of them are still ableist.

Since it's Autism Awareness Month, here's

Why the puzzle piece is offensive to the Autistic Community

[Large text: Why the puzzle piece is offensive to the Autistic Community]

Unfortunately, the most commonly used symbols to represent autism are all puzzle related, like the ones bellow.

These symbols and similar ones are typically used by Autism Organizations that are run by allistic people rather than autistic, Autism Speaks being the best-known example across the internet, but not the only one.

I'm not going to go deep into how bad Autism Speaks is, but just to leave you with the tip of the iceberg, know they used to put out ads that demonized autistic people (and even one in which one of the organization's leaders spoke about wanting to drive herself and her autistic daughter off a bridge).

Autism Speaks, and many others, attempt to "teach" people about autism, without hearing what actually autistic people have to say, and that's their biggest (but not at all only) problem.

Now, stay with me as we dive into history...

The puzzle piece was first used as a symbol for autism in 1963, by UK's National Autism Society, later on being adopted by Autism Speaks, which made it more popular.

Back then, autism awareness campaigns were viewed as being similar to, for example, cancer awareness ones, because autism was seen as an illness, a disease (which it is not).

As I've made clear before, the puzzle piece is heavily associated with organizations that spread misinformation about autism, making it, of course, already a bad symbol to represent us, but there's something I personally feel bothers us a lot more, and that is the symbolism of the puzzle piece.

The puzzle piece represents an idea of "mystery" and — you guessed it — being "puzzled".

And us, autists, don't really appreciate being called confusing.

Not only that, these words were often used to describe autism offensively in the past (and still are). And, on top of that, most times, when you find a puzzle supposed to represent autism, it is incomplete.

Isn't the message clear enough?

We're people, not puzzles that have to be worked out. We're not incomplete and we're not "puzzled".

So

Which symbols can you use for autism awareness?

[Large text: Which symbols can you use for autism awareness?]

The infinity rainbow symbol is common for all neurodivergent people, while the golden infinity is specific for ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder, in case you didn't know the acronym).

The infinity symbol represents the complexity and vastness of neurodivergence and autism.

Autism is less about "severity" and more about different struggles in different topics and areas (though not a lot of people seem to understand that, unfortunately). After all, autism is a spectrum, not a scale.

And if you're interested in why golden is the color of choice for us, that'd be because the periodic symbol for gold is Au, which I think is very clever, haha.

Some people also like to use red or plain yellow, I don't know a lot about that, but I'd recommend you research it.

And since we're on the topic of color, just a warning: in the Autistic Community we kind of avoid using blue to represent us, especially because it is heavily associated with Autism Speaks' "Light It Up Blue" movement.

Blue is seen as a representation of feelings like sadness, as well as being commonly associated with boys (this is important because women and other AFAB are often misdiagnosed and underdiagnosed because many people still think autism is only found in boys, and because many traits are viewed as "normal behavior" in AFAB people).

This isn't to say you can't use blue in the title of your PowerPoint presentation about ASD, it's just a thing we try to avoid.

Well, that should be all.

I decided to make this post because I've seen many people post about which symbols to use for Autism Awareness Month, but no one explaining why.

Thought this could help some poor lost soul understand it, lol

Happy Autism Awareness Month, my beloved Yippies, and a thank you to everyone who stopped to read <3 (heart).

Now I'm gonna go clean my search history and my gallery, just reading "Autism Speaks" gives me the ick.

You gotta write for funsies sometimes. Everything doesn’t have to be groundbreaking. Like. Who cares if it’s a little silly it is made out of love

Neurodivergence creatures

Recently I've been finding more of the neurodivergence creatures and their names (though some aren't well known, I think).

So far, I've gathered:

• Autism — tbh

• ADHD — btw

• Anxiety — idk

• Depression — wtf

• Dissociative Disorder — brb

• OCD — idc [<- doesn't feel accurate. We have the alternative "jic" ("just in case")]

• Dyscalculia — nvm

I'm wondering if anyone knows of any others or has any idea of which abbreviations we could associate with other conditions.

Cheers to all the autistics whose special interest is autism itself;

Cheers to all the autistics whose special interest is any other condition they do or do not have;

Cheers to all the autistics whose special interest is seen as stereotypical within the community;

Cheers to all the autistics whose special interest is their job, career or degree;

Cheers to all the autistics whose special interest is a person, a group or a character;

Cheers to all the autistics whose special interest is a show, a movie or a series;

Cheers to all the autistics whose special interest is town, a country or another location;

Cheers to all the autistics whose special interest is an art or a craft, even if underrated;

Cheers to all the autistics whose special interest is an activity or a sport;

Cheers to all the autistics whose special interest hasn't been mentioned above;

Cheers to all the autistics who do not have a special interest;

Cheers to all the autistics who are still figuring out theirs;

Cheers to all the autistics.

And if you want to "light it up," please do red, not blue. When we see the puzzle piece or "light it up blue," both of which are promoted by anti-autistic hate groups, that tells us you don't actually care about or respect us.

Not gonna argue about this; I'll just block.