Autism, Life & Learning
Right I will admit that I haven't said everything about this topic, partly because I'm really bad at explaining but also because its a really confusing topic to talk about especially when you are tired. From where is I left off where I talked about different degrees of gender and when it comes to sexuality we still fit into very normal boxes, like being heterosexual, gay and lesbian, trans-gender and bisexual. Well most of us don't fix ourselves in those brackets. If you wanted to label me you could put me in non-binary or in gender fluid as I am either depending if my emotion chip is working. So some of us have no natural gender, although I know I'm male. When it comes to sexuality I think I can be safe to say quite a lot are pansexual. Pansexual is where you fall in 'love' with the person/machine not the gender so some of us may 'love' a robot rather than a person. If you wanted an example from me then although I like somebody I have a connection with my boat, although it's not completely the same to me it not far off. If anyone is wondering why 'love' is written this way its because I don't use the word and haven't since I was around 3-4 years old. To me it's a word that causes the most arguments, its also a really broad term as you can 'love' your friends, family and someone you are in a relationship with so I don't use it. Instead I show it by which means best to person or thing. A lot are also asexual so this mean they don't have sexual feelings or association with those feelings, so you could say a few are like this if we shutdown, I know some are without shutting down, as we limited to basic feelings; so happy, sad and maybe angry. This the other bit I made a bit of a boo boo on I forgot to talk more about this. I mentioned trying to ask someone out. Then a bit about them which isn't too helpful. Lets give a bit more detail a retcon a few things. 😃 Firstly asking someone out we could think years in advance and I do mean years, I liked someone I planned for four years before asking them to account for every scenario and any backup plans, if needed- so if they try attacking me, if their friends started making fun of me etc. you can see what I was planning for. So you can have a rough time scale of about year to three years being normal, just to make sure everything is in place and they know everything need. We make ourselves not wanted to look a bit.. odd at times. We aren't we just need to talk to them, if we could. In this time we would try and make them fit in our system and fit in to our friend area to fall back to (some may do this). Somewhere in this time frame, or longer, we might ask them out. Then there is two ways to go: Yes: Everything fits into plan and we update everything when get over all the shutdowns, meltdown or overjoyed feeling- not that I know that one. No : We start again with the planning either with them again or with someone else later on (because that what happens when you have very little emotional connection and a logical thinking). Saying this we may not ask them out a just leave it either because we found out something that breaks our system somewhere or our rules of what we look for- had a few of them. With that we may just change to someone else or wait for someone to be near the list then start the work all over again. Like I said in the Part 1 of this my form of relationship would be more of a close friendship as I have a very limited emotions so to handle it that would be the best way or a gradual change over some time. I hope this is easier to understand please leave any comments if you want. 😃
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So firstly out of the gate I'm not at Nottingham due to ill health which I am really not happy about but rules are there for a reason. My 'ill health' is partly to do with my autism so thats one part of my life it had ruined this weekend, usally I can just keep going but I had to take everything into account this time around. As it is rare i have lots of sensory overloads in a row, meltdowns I can deal with; just go into basic program and use echo location.
Anyway enouch of that this is something I have been trying I am to to try to use something called Google Blogger. Instead of this blog, although everything will be here it won't be when I finish the OU but I am unsure if it will be after my first year or my third either way to make sure everything I have said is read and people can see things I have put it will be copied over their. It will most likely be named something simliar. I will link it when I have completed the transistion. In this case I'm an Eevee turning into a Leafeon growing and hopfully spreading a more helpful basis to Autism Awareness. So being blue, not being down like its accosiated with, that is the actual colour for autism awareness; blue... I would like to know where this came from because if it is associated with our moods then I won't be happy. You could almost say I might be blue... . I know bad pun. There are some reason why I am trying this new program. 1) It's not customisable. I wouldn't mind this if had a coulorful background but for me it has this horrible grey and light blue. I don't know what it is like for anyone who reads this, but expect strong colours if they can be changed. 2) I can put pictures on here. If you aren't a OU student reading this the OU give you 500KB for a picture to be uploaded, so its either very poor quality or you can't get it on although due to copyright i doubt i will be doing many Pokemon picture because nintendo love sueing people who show pokemon without giving them credit. These are the main ones but I am positve this could be a step in the right way. Its a two for one today, mainly because this post should been done this week and the last post should have been done last week but the our internet company decided to forget about us.
So this is the last topic in this and its about gender and sexuality, I’m going to add relationships in as well just to give a fuller picture. Word of warning this is going to get complicated really quick and its going to get odd very quickly. So you have been warned. So I'm guessing anyone you is reading this knows about LGBT+, I know I have missed most but for the sake of simplicity, anyway if not L is Lesbian, G is Gay, B is Bisexual and T is Transgender and the + is for everyone else who comes under their banner. Here where it will get confusing. A lot of people with autism are LGBT+, but for most who aren’t we don’t have definitive gender. We can be seen as male, female, slightly feminine, slightly masculine, Male but very feminine- although not gay, Female but very masculine- although not a lesbian. Right I can hear people like that saying that seems normal so far what wrong with any of this? Those who are slightly or are very feminine but are male have either learned their sexuality from the wrong sex or they don’t understand what gender they are but know what they are anatomically. The same along the female side. For most people the gender and sexuality are in their brains who and what they are, for most of us nope. Okay lets put things into confusing matters. If you are still on board then lets see if this stumps you. A lot of people with autism and mainly Asperger’s can be heterosexual but we can have moments where we still look at the same sex and think that they are attractive. I’m going to talk a bit about relationships again this one is odd. Lets go from the start. Asking someone out is hard, but most people with autism or Asperger’s thinks that they must know whom ever they maybe must be know they have autism/Asperger’s usually they flee by that point- my experiences anyway. Before any of that they have to make sure they can be trusted and that they don’t freak with any twitches or behaviours we have. So if they can be trusted, can deal with our behaviours and they know they have autism we try and make them friends or acquaintances from there we use our own scale of our friendship before asking. If no we try and keep them close if yes they we change are whole system for them. Within that we know that we may not know what we are and what we understand gender or sexuality. So we can be a bit confused. Then you have the quirks of each person, in my case I don’t like being touched or touching people, so you can see where the issues are and to top it as I keep saying I have limited emotions so if I can have any type of relationship it would be more like a close friendship then anything, which sounds a little sad but I don't really care I can mimic certain emotions so I try and make up for what I miss. This is the last post for this seires. I will plan some more things like this I think I might do a seires about how we view the world. There will be some odd post on here from then but I’m going to mainly plan this. First a quick catch up I passed my TMA 04 which is good. I have just TMA 05 to do and my assessments, an exam through course work, for this module. I'm just getting ready to go back to Nottingham and whilst training I may have caught a bit of sun stroke- but I can't stroke the sun because apparently it 'too hot’ .
This one is going to be an odd one. This post is going to be how some people on the spectrum don't feel like they are human, or should I say they don't feel like homo sapiens. There are two main ways to look at this. 1) They feel like they can do everything better then the standard homo sapiens because their 'gifts' give them an unusual amount of input to the world around them. I kinda fall in this category with my 'gifts' I can mimic and adapt to virtually any situation or environment given to me with near precision hence the nickname Gecko. From this things like adverts or sublimate messages don't work on me because they become part of the environment I’m in. Some As I have mentioned have a very high empathic skill these know and can feel peoples feeling around them or they can sense the atmosphere they are in and sense each individual persons emotions- One skill I would like. 2) They feel don’t fit in the mould where they think they are human but feel more like a computer and can relate more to something technological then biological. They can come from how fast we think- I might talk about that later on. We also have meltdowns or shutdowns which are explained and kinda look like a computer crashing. A lot of us have a high or good memory which can seem like a computer storage system. Sorry this is so short. This kind of an odd one that doesn't really get talked about so I though I would put as part of this set up. This might help with the next post I will put up. Right first of all catch up, I have finshed my 4th TMA and I decided to run yesterday, 11th, and well I tried in 27C to run 5 mile I got 3.5 miles and a tiny bit of heat stoke. Then a sensory overload because of the heatstroke- I don't like heat.
This topic is going to be a kinda fun one because the only I can describe somethings are going to describe or explain I might have to use song lyrics. I am hopfully going to talk about friends or at least my idea of friendship. This is kinda common some people with autism have rules, as with everything we have rules. I will run through my basic rules to show how bad some of these can be. If i can i will try to explain so of them. 1) Have to be able to keep up with me mentally- so if can speak to them and don't have to dumb anything down. 2) Have to be female- its a precourtion most males are either agressive and/or posessive through evoultion so stop me mimicing or adopting any traits. 3) Have to be paitent- I tend to deither around so paitents helps also if they are calm, I should be. 4) Should be understanding- I tend either not to listen or I if i shutdown, I hope they understand. 5) Have to be accepting- I don't like bigots,racists or people who try and sway views. Right these are basic rules from there more rules spring off. I will run through the stages of friendship for me as well i think most are accepted but i will run through them anyway. Stage 1) acquaintance Stage 2) higher acquaintance- Males go no higher then here. Stage 3) Outline friend- most people who fit the rules end here (This is where the rules start to apply) Stage 4) Friend- have one or two people between here and stage 5 Stage 5) Fixed Friend- More commonly known as a best friend So its quite hard to fit on to the scale. That was the idea because i got bullied from a young age this was my way of filtering out fake friends. All of this is basic of logic, not common sense partly because i have very little but also have and keeping friends needs emotions. I don't have a big enough emotional range and the higher up the stage the more emotional envolement you are meant to have with them. Some people have to me they are just friends, but i am meant to look after friends. If I lose that connecton with someone in that stage 4-5 its more like 'Since you been gone' - Rainbow. It's relivent and a bad pun at the same time . I think that is enough because i will be cover some of this in the Gender blog later on. Well this firstly isn't an argument more bigotry or ignorants, take your pick. For anyone whos dosen't know too much about autism I will run the basics off.
Firstly because Austim is known as Autism Spectrum Disorder(ASD), or Autism Spectrum Condition(ASC). Autism is a 'developmental' disorder, this meant to happen as we develop but before birth. That is pretty much everyone knows about that bit. Autism allows that person to become sentive to sound, light, tates and touching or just all of them.Autism affects social and communition skill aswell as motor fine and gross funtion skills, thats movement skill. Fine motor are small/fine movements like threding needles and gross movements are big moments like walking. It can also affects speach, thats why some are non-verbal or have a stammer. Also most have a talent of some kind and perfect pitch or can at least sense perfect pitch. Anyway thats enough of that. Heres the cure 'argument' There are people who think that autism can be cured because it is a condition or a disorder. These come in a variety of things such as; spells, medication, being beaten or just being locked in a room by your self. I'm not going to say what type of people do this. The reason they think they can cure autism is because its a condition and we look normal on the outside so why are we odd in the inside. That is the basis they think we can be cured by any of that. The question these people haven't thought about is do we need a cure? Yes it can be hard work. Yes it can be annoying not understanding people but Autism makes us uquine people. Lastly a question for anyone who belives in this cure or for anyone who wants to ponder it. Before you answer people with autism 1/5 of elements on the peirodic table, we expanded the field of knowledge in Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, Biology, Design and Electronics- without autism you may not be reading this from your computer, tablet or phone. That what i can think off the top of my head. Without autism the world would be different because its our 'out of of the box' thinking that has found these things and more. Why would you want to cure autism? That is the cure arugement folks- it is a simple argument but also a little silly aswell. It's been a while since my last blog post so here is a little catch up. I've raced up in Nottingham and came first in my final and beat the Girls4Gold team, which is nice broke a couple records for Exeter but still no medal :/ . My fourth assingment is due soon and the tutorial for this assignment was last week and guess how many people turned up... Yep ONE, me. I know I'm special but I didn't need a whole classroom to myself. Anyway here is some, I'm not saying all but these two are quite popular, what I mean by that is people who work in the autism field and when i got tested they asked "which argument do you support". I will try and be neutral and list pros and cons of each if I miss something please say.
Argument 1- Autism is a evolutionary step. I know as first glace its sounds odd. This is the arument as I understand it. As most reasonable minds see things there is a thoery of evoulution. In this we came from lizards or small mammals of the time and further back it crated eyes, ears and most of our anatomy as we know it now. Where autism comes in is a lot of us have hightened senses may this be hearing, seeing, smell, touch, taste or all of them. This is a state of evolution which hasn't completely finshed because the brain hasn't mapped these functions as being that heightened so to cope with this each function has a shut off point where it overloads. It explains why there is no uniformity in autism. Some other evidents to back it up is that evolution is in constate flux and some of us have better memory, pain toleration and reflexes. Although some of this has to be taught, its there. So depending on this scale it shows people how evolved they are. Also the number of people being diagnosed with autism is growing so it kinda shows that they are more and it is growing soon autism maybe the norm- which will be a change. This is a rough explanation for everyone, but here are the pros and cons. Pros: - It explains autism -It explains why we have better senses then 'normal' people - Explains the spectrum a little more Cons: - It doesn't explain how we have evolved - Some things have to be taught - It doesn't explain the personality quirks most people with autism have such as being obnoxious or things like twitching Argument 2- Autism is the human idea of a sacrificial lamb This runs of the same idea with the evolutionary setting. As most reasonable minds see things there is a theory of evolution. In this we came from lizards or small mammals of the time and further back it crated eyes, ears and most of our anatomy as we know it now. Where autism comes in is a lot of us have heightened senses may this be hearing, seeing, smell, touch, taste or all of them. This is a state of evolution which hasn't completely finished because the brain hasn't mapped these functions as being that heightened so to cope with this each function has a shut off point where it overloads, this is where we would get either killed or put in serous danger. Instead of being the more advance idea of people, we are sacrificial lambs who help the collective survive. Apart from those with good memory's because they would record what had happen so the rest of the 'pack' or group you are with don't make the same mistake. Hence why we don't understand danger or have emotions because they aren't needed. Also to help this argument most people with autism when have an overload of sound or emotions will freeze, instead of running or facing it. Pros: - It explains autism -It explains why we have better senses then 'normal' people - Explains the spectrum a little more - It explain some the personality quirks most people, with autism have such as being obnoxious or things like twitching Cons: - It doesn't explain how we have evolved - Some things have to be taught - Isn't explained why it is still needed thousands of years later - Doesn't completely explain atypical autism or the people with autism who can adapt or mimic I hope this was interesting and i will let you pick which one is you think is right. I know this is my fourth blog of the month. Which shows that i have a lot of free time, that wasn't planned but work has been lax so i have done my hours which meant waiting for emails mainly. So I have a lot of time to plan things. Training has been odd as I'm racing in about a week's time, more about that later, so I have done sets which meant I couldn't push it too much in case of injury.
So anyway my third assignment came back was another PASS in this case just, i just passed because I put too much detail in my work. I don't quite understand how you do that I was told to describe... so I did a lot. I had to make a plan so did, I had to follow the plan so I did and use statistics in my assignment so I did. I swear part of the marking scheme doesn't account for autistic people taking things absolutely literally. I think it's about 1 in 80 ish people are autistic and that is rising steadily. So is there a 1000 people studying that's at least 20 people who are autistic, I know we are a minority but as soon as the statistics go to 1 in 55 to 1 in 50 then something should be in place by then. It was 1 in 100 in some places across the world 5 years ago now in the same places it's anywhere between 1 in 65 to 1 in 80 so I hope places in education understand that educating someone with autism is a bit different then most methods, so guides go out the window because we know somethings but if we haven't been told to put them in then why should we. Most things we see are thought with logical reasoning behind it. Although in have somewhere I don't how reasonable it is. I am racing next week (Saturday 2 June) in Nottingham it's going to be mixed groups so it should be fun. I don't really have much to say about it I have my friend helping me not panic so I just got to breathe, not launch and hope that I really don't panic. I really have much to say there will be a piece on here about it after I am back home. Anyway I am going to start a little mini series about different things about autism so this will be: 1- Why autism is around- from an autistics point of view. 2- The cure argument- because it is just so funny. 3- Friends 4- Not human- another autistic argument and because I have the number 4 ... 5- gender and sexuality These are either going to be from my own views or from a general number of people who have autism so please don't get offended by anything or think any of this isn't coming from sensitive or private place. Hopefully this should give any neurotypical a view from some people who have autism. It's the last day of mental health Awareness week and it's focusing on stress... Oh boy. I know they want more people to know more about mental health in general but stress? I know everyone 'suffers' through stress, I'll explain why it's put like that later, let's put it through the eyes of someone who autistic. Stress to us is well... life. I could just sum it up like that but I'm going to explain mainly because when I talk to people they don't understand how I see things, but if i do anything general I'm going to focus from a higher functioning autism (& Asperger's) point of veiw. Every step I take I see countless dangers, it could be anything from me tripping to a meteor falling on me, most non-autistic brains will filter this. Then add on contacting people so talking or just walking past them, as I think a meteor is going to fall on me you don't have to guess much with might happen with that, still I will say, so to me the person could be harmless to they might spontaneously combust (blow up with no help needed). When it come to talking to people I don’t know what people could say so I prepare phases to things either to buy me time or to give answer. Also like most people with autism I’m sensitive to the world around me, in my case light and sound. So I have to process all the sounds around me to keep a step ahead of what’s in front of me. I have to adjust my vision so I take in enough light to see but that’s it any more and I feel like my eyes are going to burn and too little and I can’t see. It’s handy at night time but I’m not an owl. On top of things I physical twitches so I have to hide that because if I twitch people have been known to either not help me or treatment like I’m a toddler. Also I also have verbal twitches/outbursts, which make things interesting... I sometimes can’t control somethings I say like “peek-a-boo” or “I’m a turtle”. This doesn’t make life easy but you get use to it. To add some general things in its between 23-28% of all autistics are epileptic and a further 25-36% have epileptic like issues but it’s not epilepsy. In this area all of them combine so that is 48-64% of all autistics will have a epileptic attacks (for the 25-36% it is usually their last) usually it will happen whilst being asleep. Also when we have meltdowns or shutdowns all what I said times it by ten because most of us won’t even talk until we can handle what is happening. So the idea of handling stress for neurotypicals (non-autistic people) is laughable because before people usually think they have a lot going on or too much happening. For a day just try being us or look at how much you actually have going on. Most of autistics have all this and most likely more. This is partly why I (and maybe others) have special items such as bowls and forks etc. Or why I have special places I visit or have specific spot I go or sit. If it moves the slightest bit I have to recalculate everything and adapt. This is why I phrased stress the way I did to a neurotypical, stress can be a hard thing and I can do other things like affect eating and sleep. To people who are autistic we have the same things but it affects us physically we have so much mental capacity we can starve are brain of anything needed or we can stop any of our senses. In theory with the capacity we have over our brains we can do anything in theory. For neurotypicals there are signs and symptoms for us there’s some signs and some symptoms but no one knows what happens in our heads. Stress is the most certain uncertainty most autistics face and it leads to different forms of self harm and abuse. It also makes any condition/s we have a whole lot worse, take socialising it’s tough but it’s doable, with stress it’s like your mouth is sowed shut and your whole body is wrapped tight. I thought I would end of my mental health experiences. Through my autism I have anxiety disorder called selective mutism also I have anxiety on top. I have also had breakdowns, yes breakdowns-plural, no one noticed accept me. They though I also had depression- but that turned out to be autism. I’ve also had other things happen which I won’t say on here being public. So my mental health was rough and it still is but I take a day at a time because that’s all I can do. I evolve to a different thing every time, like Eevee - best excuse for use pokèmon I could find. I thought I would say some of the funny things i had said or done to me or what i have done. As I have had some weird and wonderful things said when i mention i am on the spectrum. Also some people think that its hard being autistic, its even what i got taught in my health and social care course apprently be autistic can be very challenging. I haven't seen much difference from being normal. We just tilt are heads and walk- get it as we see things from a different angle. Sorry i know its a bad joke.
Anyway lets get on with begin funny. Apologies for any bad jokes. 🌝 I was training on the water and someone decided to have a conversation with me we got talking, although it took awhile to get talking, this person i mentioned that was autistic more exactly i have Asperger's Syndrome and he response was " Oh, I'm sorry" I just smiled. You wouldn't believe how many people go to this response if you mention you have autism or Asperger's. I've even had it in an interview. I'm still trying to figure out why they are sorry- I'm special and i like soft furry things instead of being sorry just put a cat or an animal i can touch in front of me. Another thing someone has said is "never mind, you will phase out of it" what i usually say is no i can't go through walls. I can't see why people say silly things like this, if they say thins like that then i will usually say silly things back to them. Right this is some from me now. I was at a restaurant with my parents, I had a drink it was a Pepsi with ice and a lime, when i came to drink from it then lime touch me. I pulled my drink away from me. I looked at my parents and said "the lime touched me inappropriately" I paused then i said "I don't like that lime". This is one that i always do but I'm picking the best one. Me and my mum were in town we got to a blind corner she turned the music down so she could hear any queit cars or bikes and just as she turned out of the corner all you heard from me was "Peek-a-Boo" my mum pulled the car over tried to stop laughing then carried on heading home. Anybody who knows me i can mimic very well and guess what? Anyone reading this is going to have to use their imagination, poor you. The Action man moneysupermaket advert was on, so i grab my dog and made them act part of it out... then they slapped me so i carried to mimic it the only issue is I'm not plastic. I might be the odd acceptation but I try to be funny and happy because if i goof up, i look like me if i don't goof up (and I'm not with any strangers) i can do little dance. |
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September 2019
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