Autism

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identifying triggers for overload (discuss.tchncs.de)

submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by whzfux@discuss.tchncs.de to c/autism@lemmy.world

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Hi ppl,

I am really new to the idea of being autism and since it becomes clearer to me to understand what this means to my life today and in the past, i am feeling a lot more stressed which leads to shutdown over shutdown.

Oft course I can name some triggers like public transport without ANC or some situations at work where I need to talk to customer I really dislike. Those were things I ever hated.

Thankfully I built up a collective working environment and being my own boss , which means that I can change at least everything in my working day pretty easy. BUT it is really hard for me to unterstand what is good for me and what is not good, cause this was nothing I ever learned in my life before. It was more often like "eat that frog, life is hard!". I now try to reduce stressful activity and find more time for me and try to guess my needings but struggling in figure out what is not good for me. I dont feel it in the Moment it happens but shutting down a few hours or days later.

How did you isolate triggers and how do you handle them, if they are not that easy to cancel or you dont want to lose sbd? What do you do in a shutdown situation when you cant escape easily?

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[–] princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I agreed with your entire comment up until this point:

I think that's why super smart kids with this brain don't dysregulate as often, they pull themselves out of the darkness.

Autism is a spectrum. What you are seeing are kids that have a higher capacity to learn maladaptive coping mechanisms. They're still dysregulated, they're just better at hiding it from others. As far as being "smart", this often gets used against them. The number of times my parents were told "She's not applying herself enough" when I was getting Bs & Cs with an A here and there. They all thought I was coasting, but if my sensory needs were ever addressed I probably would have been getting straight As.

[–] leverage@lemdro.id 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Based on your response I'm not clear what we didn't agree on. I'm a former smart kid that only realized he is autistic at 33. I'm hopeful that my kids will have more support in school than I did, and that the world outside of school will continue to become more accommodating for us. The world wasn't built for people in wheelchairs, but it's slowly being rebuilt with accommodations. Our curb cuts will take a lot of different shapes.

[–] princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The attribution that it has to do with intelligence, when in my eyes it comes down to luck (as far as how severe it impairs someone)? Labelling the existences of 'low-functioning' autistic people as a "darkness"? It feels like this is buying into the concept that if you just try hard enough, you won't be disabled.

The point of curb cuts is that the world was redesigned to accomodate those in wheelchairs. We need society to meet us where we're at, not the other way around.

[–] leverage@lemdro.id 2 points 4 months ago

Ah, thank you for the clarity. My view of things, intelligence comes down to luck as it's a measure of brain capability (not IQ), which I believe is fixed. Darkness was strictly meant as ignorance. Highly intelligent people will be more likely to learn, synthesize new ideas from previous experiences. When faced with the struggles of this existence, high intellect might invent a functioning coping mechanism where low intellect will fail and leave you to meltdown. Considering I believe we also become frustrated over a lack of understanding, not strictly from undesirable sensations, I think intellect plays a huge role in why people say autism is a spectrum. The compounding failure for an average intelligence autistic kid to learn to cope results in daily meltdowns and placement in special needs classes where they are seen as incapable. If society better understood their problems, helped them process and learn coping mechanisms, healthy stims, and what to avoid, they might be able to live a more normal life. That's not what happens today, and it's fucking tragic.

I don't really like any of the words that exist to talk about the issues unique to autism. Sorry if that caused any confusion.