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Mitigating the worst of the 'Tism...

I Sperg

There are people here, (and ocasionally I am one of you) who hate their lives, and really wish they could take a pill and be rid of the Autism 

Let's be realistic here, having Autism is like being tall. (I had a much more amusing simile complete with video but I want this topic to get past my current personal censor, so I'll try that in a separate post, I have to, I'm still laughing at the sillness) You have to live with it. 

So what hope is there for those like me (at times) who feel utterly overwhelmed and disenfranchised?

And how do we negotiate the basket of co-morbidities that many of us report? 

For myself, recenlty I got stuck in a cycle of what seemed to me to be "other peoples" behaviour, but at some point my own propensity for bad behaviour usually quite well suppressed kicked in and I got my self "on the naughty step". Well, I've always respected the moderators decisions as regards myself before this, BUT THIS CHANGES THINGS was, my initial (Autistic?) thinking..

I'm pretty sure it's an autistic thing (why are all the books full of words and ideas and case histories, rather than a simple haynes manual with "box" diagrams and lists of manifestaions and variants etc?) The tendancy to lose ones shi (Oh go-on, "Sitelords" some basic rude worlds really fit...) when faced with sudden restrictions or variation of ones "routine".

Where our Autism I believe spills into the territory of a disabilty or an illness is when we get a strong urge to "DO SOMETHING!!" This is a BAD mental state,(and the more you dislike things or people, or your life the more I hope you test that statement in your mind) akin to Sexual Jealousy, or a psychotic break or the effects of a drug, it's BAD.

In my case it got me on 30 days of well deserved, (and frankly, educational) moderation! BUT when I got that FEELIING of "this changes things" and the strong ideation of "I must do something" I have previously used my Autistic pattern recognition ability to recognise these strong and dangerous urges and I (like many of you, who have also worked this out, you know who you are)  have an antidote. "Do nothing out of the ordinary" Seriously, this works like gangbusters, and if the issue tries to grow malignant and insinuate it into your day, then if at all possible, go sleep it off, or just do "displacement activity")

Giving myself time to process and react later (if at all) is a winning strategy that mitigates the Tism. 

May I acknowledge and thank Longspoons in particular for a P.M. he sent me about 3 years ago, and which has recenlty been very helpful in terms of getting some insight, buit which seemed to have no useful effect at all at the time I suspect.. There are many other people here, who also deserve a lt of credit for helping me out in P.M.s. For those of you who distrust P.M.'s and see them as "sneaky" there is that, but your real "friends" will use the medium of P.M.'s to warn you that you are making an ass of yourself, in a much nicer way than doing it publically would. 

Well that's about all the semi wisdom I have to offer, now how do YOU "mitigate the 'tism"

  • in reply to I Sperg

    yep. A great skill to cultivate!

  • in reply to Paper

    I'm trying to say there is a crucial moment when you can elect to "do nothing" as a valid and often extremely useful response to a perceved slight or other aggravating moment. 

  • in reply to out_of_step

    M'brain is cooked by ya wordage.  Need some unconscious time to process your pole‐flipping, epoch  creating, supernova thinking!

    [I bet your head is at Oasis now!]

  • in reply to Number
    Number said:
    spitspotslapdishwillynilly

    I can't help thinking you are the poor relation of Mary Poppins....

    Number said:
    what you is talking 'bout

    ....or a Richard Madeley!

    I mean about "going with the flow" of what comes our way. I think "going with the flow of yourself" is probably THE hardest thing. We always want less of the bad and more of the good. Going with the flow of the masses is an entirely different kettle of (cray)fish.

    I hope wires are suitably tangled further.

    Sorry Isperg,  'I done it again!'. How do I mitigate it? Come on here and talk hot air!

  • I must admit I got a bit lost half way through your post, but as I'm also someone who has wished I didn't "have the Tism" from time to.time, I'll try to explain how I mitigate it.

    I remember a few years back reading an account of a young girl, whose mother was told by a doctor " When she is in her own room, your daughter is not autistic". I cannot remember where this comes from, but it means that when the little girl was in her own room with all her favourite things around her, where she felt safe and was in control and didn't have to.interact with people, she was just herself.

    To me, autism is not a personal deficit, it's a deficit of society. A society that does not have any adaptations to facilitate us navigating it comfortably. But a physical disability, where it is obvious that people need ramps, hearing loops, etc, can be seen by people and they can imagine how difficult it would be without those adaptations, while the Tism goes unseen and non autistic people cannot imagine what it's like as they don't have our sensitivities.

    So I try to make my own adaptations. A few years ago when I was still working, I moved to a flat close to my workplace so I could walk to work and not have to get the bus. I didn't go to the work Christmas party. i saved for years so I could retire a bit earlier.. I stopped being a people pleaser. I do what pleases me now.

  • in reply to SpikeyMark
    SpikeyMark said:
    I don't react immediately

    That's what I hope I'm learning too. Often my first reactions are ones that I later regret. They may be perfectly valid but sometimes are better if left to mature a little. I sometimes need time (minutes, hours, days) to get "the bigger picture" which isn't always obvious to me. I usually get there in the end. And, even if my original thought is largely unchanged, I normally have gained more context, and would choose to express it differently.

  • in reply to Uhane

    I got bored on Bluesky.  Everyone agrees with each other there. It's dull.

    Alas, I'm not going to lie. I would prefer blocking and curation on this site too.  That way I can protect my own mental health and wellbeing and avoid arguments.

  • in reply to Deleted user

    some sites allow blocking and other curating editing processes, like Blue sky.

    I have come to prefer our model, though, as it stands: we know what the rules are going in.

    I find that we all gravitate to certain content and avoid other as the individual may be.

    We see pattern of thought in others and learn to avoid them or move towards them.

    There is a natural flow - like a starling ball, sometimes I don't like the shape or density and move to the edge.

    Sometimes it feels good to be in the middle, twisting and darting along with the flow of the other starlings.

  • in reply to I Sperg

    that's very nicely put and comes fro the heart, IS, thanks.

  • in reply to I Sperg

    Ultimately it's the community rules that restrict speech here  as well as the Law.  There are plenty of other websites where absolute free speech holds sway.  Words have an amazing power and sometimes that power can have a very negative effect. Words can encourage violence for example.

  • in reply to out_of_step

    Yea, but, right, listen then, don't you reckon that what you is talking 'bout is "going with the flow of yourself" rather than "going with the flow of the masses/Zeitgeist"?

    Wot I reckon is that our smond79 was talking 'bout the second of these.......so that means that we is chatting across each other in like a mad crossed wires type situation here.  Don't you reckon?  Or is I just batsheet cray-cray?

    More importantly, you get an upvote in any event because you said spitspotslapdishwillynilly.  (although because I can't help myself [autistic, don't ya know].....I did pegg in some previous pre cursoring SS.

  • in reply to Number
    Number said:
    Perhaps this will result in dead fish being JUST like sheep......ie dead ?!

    Ok, I get you.

    ....maybe I should've included the rest of my post saying - if you are able to let yourself go with the flow you can meet yourself half way.......sometimes..... This is very much context dependant. There's a lot we cannot control however much we would like to.

    As for the truncated quote, I don't know if im missing something, I usually am - but I am very well practised in the arts of "slapdashwillynilly".

  • in reply to Deleted user

    You are so right. That's one of the things that did come as a surprise when I joined this site, how very different from me some people are, I kinda expected to find a load of "people like me" and instead ran into a load of "Diversity of thought". At least we have THAT in common with the NT's...

    I've been surprised by how strongly some of us wish to restrict how others speak, I'd have thought as Autists we'd have had enough experience of being squished by the NT conformity issue, but clearly that's how things are here. 

    But this is about mitigating the worst of the 'tism.

    I guess the takeaway here is that we should learn to "filter our output" better in our comunications with others. 

  • I agree that autism is no different to being tall or something, but like being tall it comes with problems, especially when other problems get together and gang up on you.

    I'm not sure I understand all of your post either, I just seem to muddle through somehow

  • Sometimes it's our views that get us in trouble, rather than our Autism.  Someone's views and their Autism are not really connected at all. 

  • in reply to out_of_step

    Well.....I was about to get all metaphysical on yourass....until I noticed a thing!  Now, all I can see, is the thing!!

    In your quote above, starting with Number said: ......on the next line, Desmond's name has been curiously shortened to "smond79" ?  How the devil did you manage that?  I think you might actually have started a pole reversal on planet Earth!  Perhaps this will result in dead fish being JUST like sheep......ie dead ?!

  • in reply to out_of_step

    There was no blame. She was being totally friendly. I just answered literally which she just then would have thought a bit odd, but no harm done.

  • I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Are you saying basically to follow a routine, or have I misunderstood what "Do nothing out of the ordinary" refers to.

  • in reply to SpikeyMark

    Mark I've been there, done that, got the t-shirt snd cut it up into dusters.

    Communication works both ways. I can be sarcastic like the rest of them but some people are just not funny. It shouldn't always be blamed on the recipient!