Avalokitesha

My special interests are very special to me (ugh, what a terrible pun. Defo not intended!) and I reserve sharing them for people I trust. That alone is a reason for me to mask.

It's actually harder for me not to mask than it is to mask a lot of the time, even though my mask is far from perfect. But I'm "out" at work and it's fine if people realize I'm masking.

I think for me donning the mask is like donning armor to protect things I care about from a majorly uncaring world, and if I unmask around you it's a sign of trust.

Still relatively new to Lemmy and can't figure out RN how to dm you, but I am not in the US, so most likely we are not in the same country.

I can tell you broad strokes though - I got super lucky with my therapist at that time. Sadly he's retired now :( I was super exhausted, had gotten out of hospital and then diagnosis and at the same time (since in paper I looked like an easy candidate to find work for) the unemployment agency was hounding me. I told my therapist as an off-comment "I wish I didn't have to do shit for the rest of the year."

He said that can be arranged and I thought he was joking - it was October or something. Nope, he stalled and his practice became unreachable. All I could tell the unemployment agency was that I didn't hear back and I don't know what's going on until they got frustrated and backed off. Come new year, everything went back to normal and it went fast-ish. Took maybe a year in total? I think less, maybe roughly 9 months?

I didn't realize what happened until after the fact, but he bought me the time I needed to process things at that time.

Better - but not through age.

Since I got diagnosed late, my before-diagnosis time was a mess and I had no idea why. Since my diagnosis and me subsequently understanding what's happening I have become less likely to compromise on things that will cause meltdowns.

I also have disabled status so I can request accommodations at work, and lucky enough my team and workplace are lovely about that.

I can't tell if time made a difference for me, but I feel like I've lost patience for people telling me "don't be like that", but that's probably also due to knowing what's going on now. I keep asking them if they'd tell a quadriplegic to not be like that and just real quick get them something from the high shelf. Surprisingly efficient, although there's always people claiming you're just being dramatic. Thankfully they are a minority around me.

"Hey, it's me, Amazon. I noticed you recently bought a fridge! Here's five more fridges for you to look at, on case you need to complete your fridge selection!"

Like. Why?!

Maybe start with what you like, as I found it easier to determine. A lot of time, it just meant following my impulses.

The more stressed I felt, the more I wanted to be in bed. And when I was in bed, I realized I preferred the softest blanket on my skin. So I looked for soft textures to touch when I'm stressed and found it helped me regulate a lot.

Maybe this will help you a) be less stressed and b) if soft textures soothe you, rough ones probably stress you. So it can also be a way to discover your stressors in a roundabout way.

I love it, Ty!

I'm an outsider "looking in", so to say, as in I met quite a few people attending a local Waldorf-School near where I went to school. I always felt a lot of them were a little out of touch with the real world, not quite prepared for how things are outside. Very sheltered and... For lack of a better word, dreamy? It felt like they hadn't learned some of the fundamentals of science but focused a lot on soft stuff instead.

It's hard to put into words since those are impressions of a pretty judgemental teenager x) and stored in a different language than English since my english back then was still pretty bad.

But their education seemed to lack real preparation for anything but social sciences. It's been a while, though, maybe it has changed by now.

I think Chinese and Korean culture share this concept, and I wouldn't be surprised if there were more Asian languages who did. Since a daughter joins her husband's family upon marriage, their children are considered belonging to the other family. I recently learner that apparently there's a saying in Korean that daughters always leave things at their mother's house when they get married so they have a reason to come back despite having left the family.

Just because it is here as a meme doesn't make it a symptom. People's crusade against self-diagnosis is really getting ridiculous.

I'm autistic and I do this. My SO who is not (but most likely ADHD - sadly, diagnosis is impossible) does it too. It's just a fun thing that lots of people seem to relate to. Let's have some fun here, alright?

You didn't do anything wrong, both is fine. Me and most of my autistic friends actually prefer to call ourselves autistic. Figure out what you prefer first and foremost :)

Speak for yourself only, please. It's s fine if you prefer autistic person, but I and many autistics I know don't. The bottom line is not to teach someone what' s best but to inform them that there may be preferences and to listen to the reason there talking to, not to make blanket statements about what's the right thing.

Here's the deal: even if she's missing time in "normal" education, time that would normally be spent in class, it's not the end of the world. People have flunked out of school to have fun and got their bearing later. She, however, has a good reason not to go right now.

I can tell you that me pushing myself through all the normal milestones has not helped me - you don't want to see my cv or hear about my experiences with work. It's just sad. And still, finally, last year, I found my niche.

Allow her to be on her own timeline. Don't worry about her missing out. Allow her to figure out what fhe needs to be comfortable in life. Once I was able to set boundaries and prioritize being comfortable without constant fighting I was able and willing to compromise sometimes if I consider it important. But the base is unconditional acceptance of my needs. Without that I was in constant self-defense and senf-preservation mode.

At some point I sat crying in my therapists office. The agency for benefits was pushing for results, and I was so frigging overwhelmed. I told my therapist "I wish I could just do nothing for the rest of the year." He looked me dead in the eye and said: "That can be arranged." I didn't think much of it but suddenly there were no appointments. They dragged their feet on paperwork and I could only tell the agency that I can't get the paperworks, I'm waiting too. They eventually gave up, and I had almost four months where there was nothing to do. I only realized in hindsight what my therapist had done for me, but that break helped me rest and heal a lot, so that we could actually work on things in the new year.

Give her the gift of time and acceptance. Once she feels safe and heard, she is hopefully in a position to take on the challenge of therapy and getting better.