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Yeah I knew there was something strange with me all along but I expected to kind of "grow out of it" but I'm 30 now and I haven't grown out of it. Like I thought I'd somehow just become "normal"
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Sep 5, 2022 13:03
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Yeah I think I was kind of the same; I didn't have problems with anxiety (not that I remember), and at work there wasn't really much stuff "sprung" on me to upset any routine. It just felt like after I'd been doing the same thing for a few years, it should have gotten easier. I should have grown into it or got the hang of it, but it never got easier. At first, I kind of felt like maybe I was asking the wrong questions, or I was unlucky with the mentors I'd been assigned being too hands off. I did just fine at the coursework. I occasionally found some task or subject that clicked, and that I could shine at, and then would try to work on that as much as I could. I was there 11 years before I quit and I felt like a noob who didn't know anything and hadn't learned anything for most of the time (except when it came to my "special subjects"). I think the problem was fundamentally they wanted all the engineering trainees to become jack of all trades - not just engineeringwise, but as project managers, and personnel managers too, and if I'd known I was autistic AND had known what they actually expected us to do (vs what they told us the work would be like) I probably wouldn't have tried working there in the first place. I think a lot of people who weren't ND felt the same, and many left sooner than I did. One of the times I explicitly asked for help and tried to explain how I felt things were going, I was put in charge of a 1 million dollar upgrade project that was already underway and half done - the idea being the experience would be so horrible I'd either quit or I'd succeed and just magically be "fixed". I did get the project to 95% finished before they took it off me and gave it back to the original guy so he could get all the final commissioning done, and all it did was make me angry and disgusted at being treated like that. I lost all respect for my boss because he told me he had expected I would fail. And I would have liked to be involved in the commissioning myself and probably would have actually learned something so it hurt having that opportunity snatched away. I switched careers to IT Support (at a school) and I have a clearer memory of the kind of things that went wrong. People were making decisions based on their own ego rather than the needs of the students or the school. No one thought beyond one school year so there was no end of equipment life replacement planning. Bullying from some school leadership to other staff was rampant. Communications were ignored. Me being autistic didn't affect any of that apart from the worse it got, the harder it was to stay there. I was coming home from work and just laying on the floor and sleeping for 3-4 hours. I couldn't respect any of the leadership and it hurt me any time any of my coworkers were bullied or abused. Being autistic meant I couldn't just ignore things that weren't happening to me. It was a toxic place to work and knowing I was autistic wouldn't have changed that and maybe wouldn't have made me quit faster either - I was there 15 years before the toxicity escalated too far and I realised it had been impacting my physical and mental health. We'd gotten to the point where we had reported what was going on at the school to a higher level and still nothing changed and no one cared, even when illegal stuff was happening. I was good at that job and acutely aware that another one like it wouldn't fall into my lap, but at that point I just had to quit. Maybe in the big picture knowing I was autistic might have helped me take better care of myself but it might have also made me limit my opportunities. It cost me my mental health but I was able to work long enough to own my own house. Finding out about autism came right towards the end of all that, which was what, 2 years ago? I guess I didn't know for most of my life, it really is hard to say what would have changed because there's barely any help for autistic children here let alone adults.
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Sep 5, 2022 14:16
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I had a phase where I was pretty sure I could just train my brain to work properly. But I kept running into issues when it came to "this is what I'm supposed to be thinking about but I don't care about those things." It's just part of who I am. I also had the "there's nothing wrong with my kid" problem. I call it a problem because as I advanced through grades I got worse and worse at school, I just didn't learn a single thing. It was particularly bad in the middle years where not only was I not learning anything but I didn't think any of it was valuable or important. I was right, but, it would have at least been nice to work on myself during that time knowing that I had a disability. Because otherwise it feels like wasted years during that time. In particular I had a math teacher who assigned pages upon pages of questions from the text book every single day. I guess the point of that was to get kids to remember how to do multiplication and division or whatever. But after the first few questions I "got it" and the entire experience was an enormous waste of time, it was like torture. Just staring at it, is that riveting to normal people? Like "oh I'm getting good at this" no it's math, you get it or you don't. The school set up like an "after school timeout" for kids who were behind on their homework and I just ended up there every day. Not doing the homework just staring at the wall. God that bad. Hopefully it wasted the time of whoever had to stay at the school to make that happen. If I'm passing the math tests then bugger off. I felt like I was wasting time at school and then wasting time after school at school. I started figuring out how to basically skip all of my classes at the start of the day, I can't remember how, something to do with the way roll call is handled and how that information gets to the office shortly before lunch. So I'd be at school for the second half of the day plus the overtime part. Nolgthorn fucked around with this message at 14:48 on Sep 5, 2022 |
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Sep 5, 2022 14:32
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Nolgthorn posted:The school set up like an "after school timeout" for kids who were behind on their homework and I just ended up there every day. Not doing the homework just staring at the wall. God that bad. And of course ditto to "my parents had me tested" but it wasn't conclusive enough for autism or ADHD. Even now I'm struggling with my therapist for autism to be recognized when, like, I've had 20 years to look back on and say "Yeah that was probably autism." Freshman year my mom compared me to my friend; "He has autism and you don't act like him, do you?" He'd talk with his hands a lot and had a peculiar way of speaking. At least he found out how to speak clearly. I had to pick up the pieces of speech class and fuse them with acting and I'd still get mocked for saying something stupid. I'd always feel like I was playing a game where the rules were always changing and the only things that made sense were those that had the clearest structure. Except math, I was never great at math past like Algebra or Geometry. My first geometry teacher caught me sleeping in class, took me to the councilor while asking me "Why have you chosen to fail my class?" Like, sir, I was asleep. That doesn't feel like a choice to me. I just wanted to go home, but I knew I couldn't because I was too weak to walk a half-mile of four lane roads to the mall, too poor to buy anything anyway, and too scared of being caught out. Thank goodness I finally found out I don't have to go to class for college and just refuse to participate in any academics. Four years of loans well spent!
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Sep 9, 2022 04:54
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I remember my school gave out "lunch detention" to people who were late to class, and I was constantly like 1-3 minutes late to my first class of the day every single morning (I would walk/bike from home since I lived close enough). The punishment was eating lunch alone in a separate area where you weren't allowed to talk to your friends. Except I just spent every lunch period reading novels and never talking to anyone anyways so I never cared. At one point I actually got an in-school suspension for being 'tardy' too many times, so my punishment for missing a small part of one class was to miss all my other classes.
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Sep 9, 2022 05:33
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Somehow I managed to scrape by in school but drat I hated it. Usually did my homework just barely before class started. I think my dads tendency to always be late and me being embarrassed about it gave me a complex about being late though, so I'm loving always early to everything unless something goes real wrong.
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Sep 9, 2022 17:22
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Anyone have good penmanship?
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Sep 12, 2022 06:46
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Never did, got worse scribbling notes to keep up with uni lectures, worse again after transitioning to typing everything. I write in block letters (partially inspired by Palm pilot graffiti text entry) if I want it to be legible. I must have been able to fake it because I did get my “pen license” at some point.
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Sep 12, 2022 08:37
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I was constantly in trouble in school for my bad penmanship and despite trying so loving hard to remedy it I just... I can't. My hand just starts cramping up after a little bit of writing. Now I'm trying to learn how to draw and it's not going great either.
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Sep 12, 2022 11:42
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Yeah my writing is sometimes so bad that I can't read it at all. generally my wife can make sense of it though lol. But I've tried and can't write any better. organburner posted:I was constantly in trouble in school for my bad penmanship and despite trying so loving hard to remedy it I just... I can't. My hand just starts cramping up after a little bit of writing. my hand cramps the gently caress up too
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Sep 12, 2022 14:59
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Part of the reason why I thought I may not be autistic is my handwriting, but it occurred to me that I was obsessed with perfecting my letterforms as a kid. I wouldn’t just mimic what I saw on the page. I “had to” copy it, line by line. I figured if the letterform wasn’t identical, it was incorrect. It wasn’t an anxious thing, but rather, I wanted my letters to be Correct. I had teachers tell me to loosen up. The same compulsion was quite useful for Hanzi in college. Of course, this standard was completely personal. I never thought “Everyone needs to have good handwriting,” so much as I knew I was capable of it with practice and therefore obligated to it. Normal!
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Sep 12, 2022 19:06
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Since about age 12 I forced myself to write in capitals because my handwriting is terrible. Used to be pretty decent at drawing though.
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Sep 12, 2022 19:18
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Klaaz posted:Since about age 12 I forced myself to write in capitals because my handwriting is terrible. Used to be pretty decent at drawing though. I write in capitals if I want anyone else to read it. My handwriting is godawful. I had a special holder thing put on a pencil after everyone else had gone over to pens because they decided my grip was the issue, not 'she is trying to write faster than her hand can keep up with'. I draw well though.
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Sep 12, 2022 19:25
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Oh yeah I also had like a weird triangular rubber thinger to slip on my pencils. It did fuckall.
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Sep 12, 2022 19:49
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I was in a combined 1st/2nd grade classroom and was already a good reader, so my parents persuaded the teacher to give me an extra year's worth of penmanship lessons. My handwriting still sucks, though. Also I am bad at drawing! At least I knit okay.
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Sep 12, 2022 19:58
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I’ve got okay penmanship if I actively focus on it but pretty soon either my hand cramps up or my ADHD ruins my Focus and it’s back to mess.
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Sep 12, 2022 20:14
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broken pixel posted:Part of the reason why I thought I may not be autistic is my handwriting, but it occurred to me that I was obsessed with perfecting my letterforms as a kid. I wouldn’t just mimic what I saw on the page. I “had to” copy it, line by line. I figured if the letterform wasn’t identical, it was incorrect. It wasn’t an anxious thing, but rather, I wanted my letters to be Correct. I had teachers tell me to loosen up. The same compulsion was quite useful for Hanzi in college. Like echolalia except for writing
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Sep 12, 2022 22:05
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girl dick energy posted:I’ve got okay penmanship if I actively focus on it but pretty soon either my hand cramps up or my ADHD ruins my Focus and it’s back to mess. Same, if I concentrate it’s fine but if not it’s a mess. My work is all typing and when I had to quickly fill out a physical form for something the other week I looked at my handwriting and was like what is this. I’m also left handed so liable to smudge everything. I did have a weird pedantic rear end in a top hat teacher in primary school who constantly had a go at my handwriting for being “too large” and would make me practice in one of those handwriting books to fix it (it didn’t work).
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Sep 12, 2022 23:47
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Awful penmanship through school. As an adult I decided I like cursive. So now I write in my own hosed up version of cursive that only I can possibly read.
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Sep 13, 2022 07:06
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I got my balls broken constantly over my handwriting in college. I’ve tried to learn Spencerian script in the last year but I keep getting distracted and not practicing.
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Sep 14, 2022 02:19
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Our autistic 4yo is hyperlexic and has special interests in letters, numbers, shapes, and Japanese characters so his handwriting is better than mine.  His preschool teacher last year said his pencil grip is better than hers. 
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Sep 14, 2022 09:18
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Not only is my handwriting terrible, I don't even hold a pen the normal way. My work is moving to this dreadful hotdesk system where you have to book your desk in advance. During the presentation a bunch of people were being Cool Dudes on slack bragging about how they're going to ignore the booking system and keep all the desks near them for just their team. I wasn't really planning on going back to the office but I'm sure as gently caress not now if I can't even be sure I'll get the desk I booked.
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Sep 15, 2022 19:48
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for fucks sake posted:Not only is my handwriting terrible, I don't even hold a pen the normal way. Oh Christ no. That's something you might be able to get an accommodation for if you feel like making the effort.
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Sep 15, 2022 20:09
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In high school my writing was still so poor that I'd get to type some assignments on a computer and print it when everyone else had to handwrite, just because the teacher didn't have the time to try and decipher my chickenscratch. As an adult my handwriting isn't really much better, but because I don't need to do very much handwriting I can really slow my work down and manage to make it not horrible to read. When I had to write page after page of repetitive mind numbing schoolwork there was no time for me to slow down or put in unreasonable levels of effort on it. It didn't help that I have really sweaty hands and it would smudge the poo poo out of my writing anyway, whether it was easy to read to begin with or not. Pretty irritating issue, but it's something that runs in the family so I don't think it's autism related.
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Sep 16, 2022 19:50
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Mischievous Mink posted:In high school my writing was still so poor that I'd get to type some assignments on a computer and print it when everyone else had to handwrite, just because the teacher didn't have the time to try and decipher my chickenscratch. As an adult my handwriting isn't really much better, but because I don't need to do very much handwriting I can really slow my work down and manage to make it not horrible to read. When I had to write page after page of repetitive mind numbing schoolwork there was no time for me to slow down or put in unreasonable levels of effort on it. Inventory/Parts tags are the only think I focus on making legible. everything else i just write and assume i have to read it later. Back when letters were still a real thing I'd focus to write to most ppl, my gf at the time had the ability to read my mess of writing and she didn't care so it was easier to write her. i had to teach myself cursive to write my gmum. i got a bunch of notebooks that are horrible to look in but i've been writing in them for a couple decades and it all is the same poo poo scrawly stuff. I have a diff way to write where i do everything with straight lines and it is way better to read, but looks alil like i'm insane.
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Sep 17, 2022 16:06
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Mu Zeta posted:Anyone have good penmanship? No. And I caught flak for it in 5th grade. Of course I also had a rare form of arthritis in my hands that gives me pretty bad writers' cramp. But the teachers didn't know that. I wasn't even fully aware of it until years later. I just thought it was normal. I never write anything longer than a note anymore.
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Sep 19, 2022 12:16
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Saw this on twitter, an interesting collection of what the online autism community tends to align with: https://twitter.com/joshsusser/status/1573433759151673349?t=LwRlQsrX-R9K4VAI4yNN3A&s=19
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Sep 24, 2022 17:03
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Bobby Deluxe posted:Saw this on twitter, an interesting collection of what the online autism community tends to align with: I basically agree with that thread, although I have seen some pushback on social media about the social vs medical model favoring low support needs over high support needs people. I don't think I necessarily buy the "If all the social norms were adjusted, then my autistic traits wouldn't be a problem" attitude that I see sometimes online because I have issues directly relating to my internal processes that would still affect me even if the external world was at its hypothetical best. I still prefer the social model, but I don't believe it's an one-size-fits-all solution either.
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Sep 24, 2022 19:04
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I agree the social model is not even close to a one-size-fits-all solution. It's almost entirely geared toward those people who would be classified as "high functioning". Some people absolutely need support that are going to come under the umbrella of the medical model, though. Social norms being adjusted wouldn't have stopped my son from slamming his face into walls or biting himself.
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Sep 24, 2022 20:33
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The biopsychosocial model is appropriate here. The relative importance of those three factors is going to vary from person to person. It's also worth noting that a lot of the autism discourse is coming from affluent and educated white Americans. Look at people in different countries or even in other cultures within our own country and you'll see some new things.
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Sep 24, 2022 20:39
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The social model isn't meant to replace the medical model, just to be a tool in the toolbox for dealing with disability. A hammer is more useful for dealing with nails than a screwdriver, but that doesn't mean you can always use it in place of a screwdriver.
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Sep 24, 2022 20:42
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Went up to a guy I work with the other day and was like "I'm autistic, are you?". Turns out he was going for his assessment that very week and got his diagnosis yesterday. It's making me re-think getting a diagnosis. It might help me advocate for my needs in future if I switch jobs and find myself somewhere less enlightened than where I am now. Anyone else on the fence about this, or thought about it for a while then come down strongly one way or the other?
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Oct 11, 2022 14:39
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I'm only hesitating because the waiting list here is two years, and the questionnaire my gp sent me when I asked was clearly geared towards very 'traditional' male-typical autism.
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Oct 11, 2022 15:14
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Advice time! My kid is in intensive in-home therapy primarily for verbal and occasional physical aggressiveness. He’s 150% not autistic, but has ADHD and PTSD. In the course of the 11-million questionnaire and behavioral plan discussions about things that are in his medical history but are not a current problem and have not been for more than a year, I ask the therapist to choose a different term than ‘exit and wait’ plan if the plan has nothing to do with exiting and waiting. I give an offhand “I’m autistic, you using this term is jarring and confusing for me, just ask about a plan.” Ten minutes later, she comes at me with “I know you identify as autistic…” which gets my back up. I’m queer too and anyone who starts a sentence with “I know you identify as lesbian” is about to say something ridiculously clueless and/or offensive. She then brings in a set of anime emotion flash cards and says that we might be able to use them when my kid is being a shithead and won’t give me space. I can’t loving read these things, I flat out fail every ‘give a picture of a person and guess what they’re feeling’ test I’ve been given. I use motion and tone of voice as cues and can mask pretty drat well, but give me a stationary picture and I’m at a loss. Is it time to cut my losses and drop this service? The last therapist was marginally helpful, but neither of them are as good as his normal outpatient therapist, he just needs more frequent CBT to retain things.
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Oct 11, 2022 15:19
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If you are asking if you should stop in home services for your kid because you don't like the speech therapist, or occupational therapist, or councilor, or whoever (I'm not sure what services you child is getting honestly), my personal answer is you don't need to like them for them to do a good job and be beneficial, I've had issue with plenty of service providers for this or that reason. Usually if you give them the chance they will grow on you though! In my experience anyway. I would ask myself if the things the therapies are for have been resolved or are they ongoing? Some things need some level of care forever, or are something we work at our whole lives. cinnamon rollout fucked around with this message at 15:55 on Oct 11, 2022 |
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Oct 11, 2022 15:51
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cinnamon rollout posted:If you are asking if you should stop in home services for your kid because you don't like the speech therapist, or occupational therapist, or councilor, or whoever (I'm not sure what services you child is getting honestly), my personal answer is you don't need to like them for them to do a good job and be beneficial, I've had issue with plenty of service providers for this or that reason. Usually if you give them the chance they will grow on you though! In my experience anyway. They aren’t focusing on the referral issue, instead rehashing a ton of stuff that’s been under good control for years. They spent two sessions in the name of ‘rapport building’ basically just talking about themself. My kid is checked out to the tune of actually falling asleep during some of this, and the intervention they’ve suggested seems like a comically bad fit for my household. Oh, they also don’t have any theoretical grounding in the methodology they’re supposed to implement and have trivialized my kids dissociative parts by repeatedly calling them imaginary. My kid’s a reasonably high risk to develop schizophrenia, he already hears voices, and if he thinks people aren’t going to believe him he shuts down and doesn’t talk about it at all. I’ve suffered through a number of lovely mental health providers when I was a kid, and have a strong sense of who’s going to be a therapeutic fit for me as an adult. My kid has a therapist who he trusts and who understands his issues, it’s just that 1x per week isn’t enough reinforcement for a kid with I/DD and memory issues. Thus far in-home has been at best an ineffectual waste of time and at worst set him back a ways in regards to the dissociative voices.
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Oct 11, 2022 16:20
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HopperUK posted:I'm only hesitating because the waiting list here is two years, and the questionnaire my gp sent me when I asked was clearly geared towards very 'traditional' male-typical autism. Also get on the waiting list - the sooner you're on it, the sooner you can start burning through that wait time!
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Oct 11, 2022 16:37
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Engineer Lenk posted:They aren’t focusing on the referral issue, instead rehashing a ton of stuff that’s been under good control for years. They spent two sessions in the name of ‘rapport building’ basically just talking about themself. My kid is checked out to the tune of actually falling asleep during some of this, and the intervention they’ve suggested seems like a comically bad fit for my household. Oh, they also don’t have any theoretical grounding in the methodology they’re supposed to implement and have trivialized my kids dissociative parts by repeatedly calling them imaginary. My kid’s a reasonably high risk to develop schizophrenia, he already hears voices, and if he thinks people aren’t going to believe him he shuts down and doesn’t talk about it at all. I agree with you, one hour a week isn't enough, in my experience with the one hour a week in home therapy sessions the first few sessions involve building a rapport and just getting used to an unfamiliar person being in your space, and the sessions going forward usually are maintaining a good relationship with the child along with demonstrating and practicing techniques to use in the home during the week, whatever that would look like in your situation. If you feel like the things they want to implement are not going to work you should bring it up, either by asking for a more in depth explanation on how it is supposed to be beneficial or by straight up saying I don't think this is going to work because of this and this reason. I've done this before saying I don't want to jump straight to nonverbal communication methods with my non speaking child, because I felt they were writing him off and we hadn't tried enough of what we were already doing. It might ruffle some feathers but if you don't come across as angry or aggressive about it it won't be too bad.
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Oct 11, 2022 18:51
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cinnamon rollout posted:I agree with you, one hour a week isn't enough, in my experience with the one hour a week in home therapy sessions the first few sessions involve building a rapport and just getting used to an unfamiliar person being in your space, and the sessions going forward usually are maintaining a good relationship with the child along with demonstrating and practicing techniques to use in the home during the week, whatever that would look like in your situation. I may not be appropriately clear. My kid has an outpatient therapist he sees at her office for one hour a week; this is longstanding and useful, we’ve worked through a lot of issues already. His aggression required an ER visit earlier this year, but we were on the fence about admitting him. If my child was not I/DD, he’d go into an outpatient program, but there is not one suitable for his intellectual functioning level. Intensive in home is 4+ hours per week spread out over two sessions. We were doubling this up while still working with his primary outpatient therapist; they’ve switched providers on me once already in the two months I’ve been working with them. The new provider has exceeded my patience limit in the ~6 hours we’ve seen her so far (+30 minutes I was on the phone to her trying to explain why her medication recommendation was inappropriate for our situation; my kid can’t comply with a requirement and would risk hyponatremia, which I have confirmed with his doctors). I’m at the angry aggressive affect now because gentler corrections haven’t worked.
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Oct 11, 2022 19:38
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Engineer Lenk posted:I may not be appropriately clear. My kid has an outpatient therapist he sees at her office for one hour a week; this is longstanding and useful, we’ve worked through a lot of issues already. His aggression required an ER visit earlier this year, but we were on the fence about admitting him. If my child was not I/DD, he’d go into an outpatient program, but there is not one suitable for his intellectual functioning level. Oh I see, I probably would drop a service that was being like that, honestly
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Oct 11, 2022 20:09
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