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Bobby Deluxe posted:That was really engagingly written, a book full of a page or so of autistic people's special interests would be incredible. Sup Destiny buddy.  I'm not a big lore person but I've played for 6 years and logged like 2.5k hours.
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Sep 15, 2023 16:54
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So I’ve been working at school for emotionally disabled children as a one-on-one for a bit. I was wondering if anyone had advice on how to get the kid I work with to stop picking his rear end. He’s 14, level 2 on the spectrum and he’s got a lot of behavior issues, but this butt picking is driving me nuts. I let him know it’s disgusting but he does it anyway...constantly…like no shame. I’m thinking it’s some sensory processing disorder from what the internet tells me but I still have no idea what to do about it.
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Sep 20, 2023 04:57
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As a parent we fixed that one with: Better wiping skills or switching to flushable wet wipes, or wet wipes into a trash receptacle.
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Sep 20, 2023 05:27
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King Baby posted:So I’ve been working at school for emotionally disabled children as a one-on-one for a bit. I was wondering if anyone had advice on how to get the kid I work with to stop picking his rear end. He’s 14, level 2 on the spectrum and he’s got a lot of behavior issues, but this butt picking is driving me nuts. I let him know it’s disgusting but he does it anyway...constantly…like no shame. I’m thinking it’s some sensory processing disorder from what the internet tells me but I still have no idea what to do about it. Like Bar Ran Dun said there could be a reason behind it like it's difficult to get him to shower or bathe or wipe properly so he is itchy down there. If not and he just really likes to slide his hand down his pants (very frustrating) the first thing I would do is work on occupying his hands with something else. If it is the sensation of literally picking at something, maybe a stress toy or something he could pick at instead?
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Sep 20, 2023 12:23
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Yeah if it's a sensory thing, try and find out what it is he likes about it. Replace it with a heated pad he can slide his hand under, if it's the heat or pressure or texture. If it's to relieve itching see if you can work out ways to help with hygeine, as others have said.
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Sep 20, 2023 12:57
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As an autistic person who studied physics in University, I've hated BBT since episode 1. I don't know who could call that 'representation' when the whole basis of the show is "lol, look at these nerds."
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Sep 20, 2023 21:17
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Thanks for the advice guys. It gives me some good ideas on what I wanna try next with him. I’m actually leaving out a lot of details about him. My school is essentially just full of kids with terrible backstories along with their intellectual/emotional disabilities. I remember having a different kind of poop issue myself as a kid. It was caused by trauma, it took a very long time for me to realize this and get over it. The kid I work with has been molested at least by 2 different people so that may have something to do with it….I dunno I’m not a psychologist, i just want him to stop sniffing his butt fingers.
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Sep 21, 2023 05:14
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skeletronics posted:"lol, look at these nerds." And they beat that dead horse as deep into the ground as possible.
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Sep 21, 2023 13:03
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nesamdoom posted:And they beat that dead horse as deep into the ground as possible. I think it just became a rom com at some point.
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Sep 21, 2023 13:18
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Also almost all the BBT characters are incredibly sexist
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Sep 21, 2023 13:48
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Not sure that needed the "almost" qualifier, unless you count the women just being sexist caricatures instead of being actively sexist.
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Sep 21, 2023 14:04
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King Baby posted:Thanks for the advice guys. It gives me some good ideas on what I wanna try next with him. You can also try giving him a small reward for every baby step towards not putting his fingers in his butt, like starting with a gummy bear when he puts his hand in his pocket, and work from there
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Sep 21, 2023 17:17
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Yeah it took about 40 seconds of BBT for me to realize it was gonna be a pass for me. I've only been aware that I have autism for a little over a year but now I'm realizing a lot of the characters I have felt represented by are coded as autistic. Matilda comes to mind.
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Sep 21, 2023 22:24
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I recently rewatched Daria and think she's definitely coded autistic. Loved the show as a kid. It came out my senior year of high school, so I related a lot. Loved it again as an adult, now working in a high school, and seeing the teachers in the show from a totally new perspective.
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Sep 21, 2023 22:36
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skeletronics posted:I recently rewatched Daria and think she's definitely coded autistic. Loved the show as a kid. It came out my senior year of high school, so I related a lot. Loved it again as an adult, now working in a high school, and seeing the teachers in the show from a totally new perspective. The episode "Boxing Daria" all but spells it out that she's autistic, even though I'm sure that wasn't the intention. I also grew up watching the show (I was a preteen when it was running) & related to Daria so much.
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Sep 22, 2023 02:47
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Daria is the person I wished I was, but I was the extremely loud, socially inept, talks too much, uncoordinated kind of autistic child/teenager.
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Sep 22, 2023 02:57
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The only time I laughed at BBT was at the version where the laugh track had been replaced by extremely loud screaming.
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Sep 22, 2023 08:06
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I recently moved to a different office and they have a quiet breakroom, which is just the best thing ever. Small room with two tables next to the regular breakroom and you can just go there during your break and read a book. There's a couple regular users who want that, and everybody else uses the loud breakroom. This is really great.
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Sep 27, 2023 07:27
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Before my diagnosis a lot of people were telling me I should check out Big Bang Theory because "man you're SO MUCH like Sheldon" I only really ever gave the show one shot, but I'm loving nothing like that unfunny creep 
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Oct 21, 2023 05:56
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My parents said the BBT characters reminded them of my college friends. I can think of no burn more savage
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Oct 22, 2023 01:12
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I used to argue BBT didn't make fun of autism because I felt like I heavily related and I clearly wasn't autistic. Oops.
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Oct 22, 2023 01:56
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you know what i just realized we have in common with modern aircraft? leading edge flaps
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Oct 22, 2023 23:12
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Kesper North posted:you know what i just realized we have in common with modern aircraft? 
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Oct 23, 2023 03:16
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My son recently got a level 1 diagnosis, on the lower end - the doctor said if Asperger’s was still a thing, she’d have diagnosed him with that. He has some trouble with reciprocal conversation and reading/expressing subtle facial expressions, a bunch of sensory reactions to taste/texture/sounds, a lot of PDA, and can have meltdowns that sometimes get aggressive when he’s frustrated. He’s also scary smart, sweet, exceedingly verbal, and loves Spider-Man and scary movies. My wife (who is now realizing she herself may be on the spectrum) and I (NT) are doing our best to learn as much as we can as fast as we can. I’ve read this entire thread and really appreciate the perspective y’all have shared. A question I’d like to ask is: what did your parents do (or you wish they did) to support you that was helpful when you were kids? We’re looking into therapies that can help him advocate for himself when he needs to, and to help him and us manage the situations that can cause him to get overwhelmed, and help him navigate social situations with his peers a bit more easily. The last one is a tough nut to crack - the kids he warms up to enough for him to engage with love him, but he’s very slow to attempt those connections. I’m not sure if that’s something he’s happy with because it’s tough to get that sort of emotional information from any five-year-old, but a big fear I have for him is I don’t want him to be lonely if he doesn’t want to be. Anyway, we think we want to stay away from ABA because we want whoever is helping him to focus more on helping him understand and ask for what he needs to feel comfortable and happy instead of teaching him how to conform to NT norms, especially at his age. Outside of that I just want to know what else I can do as a dad to make him feel safe and supported at home and in places where I can’t be, like school.
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Nov 25, 2023 07:32
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One of the big problems for me as a kid was my mum springing demands or expectations on me with no warning or with no explanation why. My dad was better at pre-warning me about things with lots of time to digest and prepare and he didn’t mind explaining if I didn’t understand the whys of something. Mum would interpret a “why” as insubordination or rebellion or resistance when the reality was I was just trying to build a model of the world so I could navigate it “correctly”. My niece also has extreme emotional reactions to having “events” sprung on her. So talking about plans, updating when plans change, just keeping communication flowing even if it’s about stuff the kids have no control over can help things run more smoothly for everyone. Oh yeah and I don’t ever remember them saying it but I bet they did - I grew up knowing my parents would love me no matter what I did, what choices I made. I knew even when I was having my worst screaming match conflicts with my mum as a hormonal teenager that it wasn’t happening because she didn’t love me. Knowing my family was always there for me got me through pretty much every major stressful event in my life. Don’t just assume they know, make sure they know! Stoca Zola fucked around with this message at 08:19 on Nov 25, 2023 |
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Nov 25, 2023 08:16
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Well Played Mauer posted:A question I’d like to ask is: what did your parents do (or you wish they did) to support you that was helpful when you were kids? Chose flexible people who were not rigid.
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Nov 25, 2023 08:28
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Something that my parents did very right was planning stuff with us kids in advance. That's just something that came naturally to them - my dad loves routine and my mom's a teacher. After I got diagnosed, my mom mentioned that birthday parties must have been rough for me, and I was honestly surprised because I remembered our birthday parties as noisy but altogether enjoyable, and I think the planning was what made the difference. A couple weeks before our birthday party, mom would bring out the planning lists from the previous years, and we'd go over them and talk through how we wanted the party for this year - who to invite, what cake to have, what other food, what games to play - and that gave me a structure for the party that would be followed and that made it easy for me to prepare for it and enjoy it. It was a deviation from the normal routine, but a predictable one, kind of like Christmas or vacation. Vacations were very easy when I was a child, because we'd go to the same spot on the same camping place in the same village every year. We also had a list for packing, obviously. You probably don't need to go that far with your kid, unless you have found the perfect vacationing spot that you never want to leave, but stricter planning than you'd normally do, and including your child(ren) in the planning process, can go a long way. If it's a new envorinment, look at pictures, talk about what's going to happen when. My (NT) sister plans all of her vacations thoroughly with extensive word documents, which may be slight overkill, but vacation to a new place with no plan of what to do has not worked out well for my husband and I, and we're going to try more planning for our next attempt. (This year's attempt: The place we were going to park the camper was closed for the season, so we had to find a new one, the bathrooms there stank and my bicycle broke, at which point I broke and we went home.) Something that we learned after my diagnosis - apparently there had been a lot of occasions during my teenage years where my mother had hinted that she wanted me to do something and I hadn't noticed, leading her to believe that I was being a sullen teenager who didn't want to help out. Which may have been the case, but also I honestly didn't catch it. If we could do that time over again, she'd just say directly "Come help me with the meal prep." and I'd do that. She didn't want to be so direct because it felt like ordering me around and if I really didn't want to, she didn't want to force me. But a lot of the time, being direct is the best way to communicate with an autistic person, and quite honestly we as a society could do with being more direct. One thing that's currently very helpful for me, I'm learning to demand breaks during social events. It used to be that I knew I was supposed to stick around the entire time for celebrations, at some point it all got too much and I'd sneak away to my room or some quiet place (I am very good at scoping those out) and then my parents would be annoyed that I snuck off to my room. Now we've agreed that it's okay for me to do that, but I need to say something and not sneak off - I think that's more polite? Not entirely sure about that part. That works pretty well. I was involved a lot with my sister's wedding this summer, took a break while she was getting her makeup done and had earplugs in for most of the party. It got a bit taxing later in the evening when I'd run out of energy but my parents kept saying "just a bit longer" way past the point where I needed to leave, but overall it went pretty well.
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Nov 25, 2023 09:38
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My parents would automatically take the word of any adult authority figure over my own and it was incredibly frustrating because I was a very honest and rule following child but it seemed like many adults just hated me on sight. It felt like every time I got in trouble it was either over something I didn't actually do or something I didn't know I shouldn't do, and either way it really hurt me and felt completely unfair like no matter how good I tried to be I would still end up being punished. It also made me feel like if an adult was doing something bad there was no one who would believe me. Thinking back on my childhood there are lots of things I just let happen because who was gonna listen to me over an adult? Like when I was 6 and had an after school babysitter who made me watch r-rated horror movies every day. I loving hated it and it was traumatizing but I just let it go on and on without saying anything to my parents (and I'm pretty sure they would have liked to know). I think being averse to lying is a pretty common autistic trait, so I imagine this kind of frustration isn't uncommon. I tried to google about it and man do I hate almost every article that pops up about lying and autism because they're so neurotypical in their perspective, saying we don't lie because our simple minds just can't figure out how to do it. However, I did find this interview between two autistic women about lying that aligns fairly close to my feelings on the subject: https://embrace-autism.com/interview-autism-and-lying/
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Nov 25, 2023 12:20
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My parents were really good about accommodating my weird food needs. I'm still officially undiagnosed at 45. But even so when I was a kid my parents would plate my food differently so things didn't touch, would leave off sauces if I didn't want them, and would just be overall very careful to make sure I didn't feel bad or stupid or weird. It helped a lot.
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Nov 25, 2023 14:55
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TIP posted:I think being averse to lying is a pretty common autistic trait I'm going through an internal transfer process at work, and I was really hoping no one would ask "why do you want to change?" because, as much as I try to put a diplomatic spin on it, I cannot bullshit or lie about my reasons. I guess one of the real intentions behind a question like that is to check how good you are at politics.
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Nov 26, 2023 10:00
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If your main reason for transfering isn't suitable, do you maybe have a lesser reason? For example if it's mostly that your boss sucks, but you could also say without lying that the new job sounds more interesting/challenging/suited to your interests than the previous one, you can just talk about that and elaborate on why you think so. I find that works pretty well in job interviews.
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Nov 26, 2023 10:09
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Cloacamazing! posted:If your main reason for transfering isn't suitable, do you maybe have a lesser reason? For example if it's mostly that your boss sucks, but you could also say without lying that the new job sounds more interesting/challenging/suited to your interests than the previous one, you can just talk about that and elaborate on why you think so. I find that works pretty well in job interviews. I think it actually is a good reason, and the person I was talking to seemed to confirm that it made sense, and I was able to make a bunch of positive points about why I was a good fit for the new role. I was mostly kicking myself for just hoping no one would ask instead of preparing an answer that wasn't a lie but also wasn't political. Just read that interview about lying TIP posted, it's really good.
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Nov 26, 2023 10:21
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Thanks for the suggestions, everyone. Sharing these with my wife.
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Nov 26, 2023 21:24
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During an intake psychiatric interview at a new clinic, it was brought up for the first time in my life (I'm in my 30s and struggled with various mental health issues my whole life, and have seen various doctors in regards to them in the past years) that I might be on the spectrum, which in particular is compounding my anxiety. I was shocked, but when I got home and read up on it a bit, I was more shocked that nobody had ever brought up this possibility before, considering how much I can see of myself in some of this. But also, a lot of what I'm finding by googling has an undercurrent of (or is very specifically about) "You are different but you are still valid and special! And that's okay!" which I very much do not care for and is actually just making me frustrated. That short article/interview shared earlier on this page about lying is much more interesting.
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Jan 13, 2024 12:43
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Best thing I've gotten from various book, videos and this thread would be "Yes, you work different from the majority of people, but there's a surprising amount of people who are also different in pretty similar ways, so you're not alone there." Doesn't matter if it's major stuff like eye contact and social issues or small stuff like "Anybody else sort their candy by colors and do you also have a rating system for every candy on which color is the best?". And after a lifetime of being the only one, that's really nice. "Special" has that "Everbody's special!" connotation from school. I do think that all different neurotypes or whatever are valid (provided it's not something causing actual harm to others) and everybody would be better off if we could just say "I'm a person who doesn't get much enjoyment out of social gatherings and gets stressed out by them. This doesn't mean that I don't like you, or don't enjoy spending time with you occasionally, but I can't handle that every week." and have that be acceptable instead of a personal insult.
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Jan 13, 2024 14:04
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The "You're special and valid!" and "Autism is a superpower!" lines are reactions to the "These pitiful people are a burden on all who are saddled with their care" narrative. Maybe some people need to hear it, but the pendulum may be swinging too far.
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Jan 13, 2024 19:07
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I’ve got a strange (to me at least) question. Does anyone else have issues not with eating but with the digesting side of food. I see literature and studies on it but it looks like a minefield.
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Jan 13, 2024 19:07
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Personally I have auto immune stuff which has manifested as food protein intolerances. I remember a decade or longer ago seeing a lot of stuff about “leaky gut syndrome” which is not a thing, unlike intestinal permeability which can have a few different causes. Leaky gut probably doesn’t cause autism but undetected food allergies could cause intestinal permeability, for example. It’s like they’ve got cause and effect flipped somehow.
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Jan 13, 2024 19:21
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Gastrointestinal issues are pretty common (relative) for ND folks. Indigestion, irritation, etc. Also immunological stuff too. I get both!!
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Jan 13, 2024 19:21
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Anything FODMAP causes gas issues and I’m severely lactose intolerant. Before puberty red 40 and blue 6 had nasty effects.
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Jan 13, 2024 19:33
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