You know what's like so autistic?
My everyday life, my thoughts, my experiences.. Me?
I'm on the autism spectrum
It's currently being tested whether I have Asperger's or if I'm just.. like.. I have autistic features
But they've been prominent, noticeable and well
Causing some trouble in my life for my entire life
Most people around me can't really tell that I'm autistic, because most people tend to be prejudiced and assume that..
That autistic people are "drooling idiots"
Or that.. or that you can just you know, tell
Kind of similarly, if..
people assume that they can tell that someone is trans or that someone's super gay. In some cases you can tell and that's okay.
But when it comes to people assuming that someone is or isn't autistic, It's usually due to this very of-
It's usually due to these very offensive stereotypes, and..
Well in my case, I apparently don't fit all of the stereotypes because I'm
I'm relatively "neuropassing"
But then there are then there are also people who can tell.
People who are experienced with autistic people or who just, you know,
know enough autistic people that they don't assume that everyone's the same.
Or then even people who don't really.. like.. care about or know any autistic people
They also can eventually tell that I'm "weird".
By this, I mean that I have some intensive special interests, astrophysics for one
I'm...
a little bit nitpicky super-organized and I have also OCD but
It has developed sort of as a coping mechanism because I struggle being or- organized and...
Because things have never been the way that I want them to be so I just tend to hyper organize everything that I can.
I'm also
relatively bad with feelings. I don't see some emotional social the cues that other people drop
I don't get hints..
I can't flirt or give hints for the life of me.
I don't..
I don't understand people like almost at all. I feel like an alien all the time, because it's just
I'm just there
Sometimes not even present but like it seems like that
There's this foreign element to life that I don't see.. The social cues
which tell if people like or don't like me, if I've offended someone and I don't realize that..
I don't see that.
I also have the tendency to not control my volume. I can't hear myself.
I need constant physical stimulation in some way so I stim a lot..
My way of stimming
Especially when I'm.. well..
My way of stimming, like, the happy version of stimming.. is this.
But I also when I'm nervous I- I can never stay still I have to, like, touch myself
in some way all the time as you can tell in most of my videos I do something with my hands like this
or I talk a lot with my hands and
One reason why speaking hurts my throat is because I have to have the feedback that
I'm speaking so I strain my throat more than a "normal" person would when they're talking, and..
Just because, like, it makes me feel my throat vibrating more, for, like, it..
It makes it more obvious that my throat is vibrating, so like, I can feel it and it feels better like that.
(stutters)
I'm obsessed with numbers and I can't.. really.. like, everything has.. has to be divided by three or five
And like usually time. I meet people at half past 15 past 15 to..
Something like that or like 25 to, but if they're late
I don't get mad because they're late and they make me wait. I usually have time
but it's that I
Get mad that they didn't arrive at the correct time.
I don't control my anger.. like..
I can't really.
And I don't recognize it when I've been hurt.
I don't start yelling because I've been taught by my parents and my relatives and my teachers that I'm not allowed to
exclaim and I'm not allowed to
express myself at all, so one of the reasons why people assume that I'm not autistic is because most of my habits or
tendencies have been taught to be so sh- It's so shameful that I hold them back.
And then there's this thing that I don't always control
It's been taught that it's shameful and that I have to hold it back..
But sometimes I can't..
It's that I tend to act like a child.
Uh.. When there's, like, loud noises
I tend to exclaim, I exclaim loudly with like this weird throat noise and I go like
I go into hiding. If there's a bee or a wasp, I might- I have the tendency to crawl into a ball..
I (stammers) like... I can give an- I can give a solid example of this
My former partner.. when we were at a club
Was broke, but they were still going to be playing this slot machine.
And not that it's any of my business..
But for some reason because I was already a little bit feeling iffy and I tend to react strongly
I was trying to stop them from doing it
I don't remember why I didn't want them to do it
but they were going towards the slot machine and
My way to react to that was that I grabbed their leg like a three-year-old
throwing a tantrum and I just stayed there and they shook me off.
They want to play the slots anyway, and that triggered a panic at- a panic attack and other disorders started acting up but..
Yeah.
I can't handle (stammers) jealousy or hurt
And.. or panic. My brains panic really easily. Like in the slot machine part because I felt betrayed
for some reason, because my partner had said that they wouldn't go to the slot machine, but they shook me off and did it anyway
And they stayed there for a long time. I just flew into a direct panic attack.
Larsson! Pois mun cheat sheetin päältä! /Larsson! Get off my cheat sheet!
Larsson! Pylly pois kamerasta! /Larsson! Butt off the camera!
(cat noise)
(in bad finglish): REMOVE! Lars-
(insistent cat noise)
(sigh)
My traits started showing.. showing up as a baby. I had really.. like..
I was in some cases.. in some areas of life.. I was like a prodigy and a really talented kid
I've always had
Obsessive curiosity over menial little things I pay attention to weird little things and I have a really good memory
Like I have an eidetic memory if that's pronounced like that
I've always been really talkative and not really aware of societal bounds
But yes since my symptoms started showing as a kid, I didn't really get that many friends
Uhh.. We moved into a more conservative, backwards little shitty town when I was six..
And eventually, I ended up with me being seen as really weird..
I didn't have really many friends and I was bullied because I became- I became defensive because I could sense that people
people didn't like me, but I never knew what I was doing wrong.
But my mom started cracking down.. down on me just like trying to hold down all of my symptoms and
Telling me that I can't act like this
I can't act like that and eventually I felt like I was wearing a social straightjacket because I couldn't
play with boys. I couldn't play with girls because they hated me.
I was a transgender autistic kid and that was not a great place to be.
Anything that I was I wasn't allowed to be and I have this tendency to take everything
as a fact and overreact to that like if my mom told me that..
I shouldn't be so demanding and mean because I was like always asking people to just respect me
Basically, if someone stole my shovel I would.. pick them with the shovel
But my mom told me that I'm not allowed to let.. like.. do that..
So my reaction to that was to just spend the next 10 years letting people walk over all over me.
So yeah, I didn't get many friends and I've never been so good at relationships because I'm..
While I can develop "crushes" I'm not comfortable with physical contact
And I'm not comfortable letting people close to me who don't understand me
So my relationships have always kind of suffered.
At age twenty 21, which I'm now
I'm surrounded by people who.. while they might be, like.. I've told everyone that I am autistic..
They.. most of them, since they are neurotypical and usually a little bit ableist..
They don't really consider it.
They treat me as a neurotypical person and treat me as weird if I show some symptoms of being autistic
And I feel really isolated and bad..
like
There are two kinds of friends that I have and then there's one
One friend who isn't like this
But they're either the kind who assume that I am.. I can be treated as a neurotypical because they're treating me equally..
Meaning they treat me just like everyone else so they don't really take into
consideration that I need more than that.. and I get that I need to be treated a little bit different, a little bit softer and taken into consideration
But they don't do that
so I feel like I'm.. I don't belong and I'm a strain.
And then there are those kinds of people who
really cuddle me, like... coddle?
Who really CODDLE me?
whatever (laughs)
They're like..
Treating me like I'm an actual child. Like I'm really stupid and that I
Have like really bad memory. They're like always kind of patting me on the back for doing menial functions, and I'm like
That- that's- that just makes me feel like I sh... I.. No.
but one of the most annoying.. of the most annoying things that I've actually come across is how little
acceptance and awareness there still is to autistic and Asperger folks and other neuro non-typical people..
Especially with the use of slurs and jokes
Non-neurotypical people, people like me are still a punchline to many jokes and
People seem to think that calling people retarded or retards
or well in Finnish the word for that is closer to just handicapped but it's still offensive
It's...
People think that it's okay to do that, but..
My mother does it. Like, she calls things handicapped when they're stupid or inconvenient or when someone's you know.. and..
It's just.. it always breaks my heart.
Like.. I have "friends" who used the slur on a daily almost and I have people around me
That I would have loved to be friends with but I've noticed how much they make jokes about "handicapped"people and..
like they they're assuming that everyone's laughing with them.. like.. they're just, like
"Yeah, that's so autistic Oh God, like that's such- so so retarded"
and then there's like laugh track around them like shit..
flying down confetti, and then there's me just being
Well, I can never trust this person
I will never now like this person because this person thinks that I am personally worthless.
Because while they don't really think that It might affect someone that it's just the joke. You know, it's just the slur. It's just the word
It's not. I would personally- I would directly compare it to saying "The T word" about transgender people
like one of the most
Absurd
weird
things that I've seen is
this other trans guy going
around
exclaiming that "it's so retarded that some people use the T word"
And then there's one friend who is treating me equitably like actually equitably.
(stammers) this accent is not working
E-QUIP-TABL (blows raspberry)
One friend treats me well.
Now, I don't know what they actually do differently than the ones that are pandering me or the the other ones who aren't considering me
It's somewhere in the middle of
just
when I display some feature- features of being autistic, or when I have a special interest they just..
They're just like "Cool". Like if I panic they know how to calm me down without being
like super weird about it, and if I
If I hav- if I babble on too long about a special interest
They try to make the conversation interesting for them as well because I have the h-
Because I have the habit of, like, over explaining things because I really like talking about my interests.
I..
I just hope that I had..
More understanding people around me..
So that.. and that people would realize that
This is not exactly a fixable flaw or it's not something that's causing me major distress. It's not my autistic features my
Special interests or anything akin to that
That's causing the distress
It's the world that treats me badly because of it. Like..
I like being here surrounded by my plushies with my
Meticulously organized posters on the walls. I like my lava lamps and I like getting really excited about space.
I like being a little bit childish and I'm not personally embarrassed when I react "like a child".
But it's just that I don't like people cringing around me when it happens.
I didn't really have a huge script to this video..
As you can see it's just "In conclusion, BYE!" (laughs) but..
I figured that it would be helpful to talk about this especially since I've been feeling really alone these days
About this subject because I've realized how little people in my life actually understand or accept this..
So I figured it would be helpful for someone who's 21 and
Graduated and everything to talk about this thing. Maybe there are, you know, people younger older anyone who could relate to this
So if this helped you in any way, I'm glad. If it didn't.. well, I'm glad you still watched it.
But yeah, so don't use the words retarded or autistic as insults..
They're.. no. They're not bad things.
It's not bad to be autistic.
I personally I can't really
Take back.. the bad things that I was bullied about.
I can't take back the fact that I wasn't accepted or respected as an autistic transgender child.
but I can at least re-parent myself.
I'm nowadays unashamedly eating ice-cream by the bucket
I'm.. I'm unashamedly.. I have stim toys.
I'm finally starting to learn and accept the fact that I am like this.
It took me one remarkable person to stop being ashamed of myself
And I hope everyone who's like me has someone like that in their lives
If not, that person is probably about around the corner. You're going to find them and everything is gonna be better.
In conclusion.. I don't know. (laughs)
I hope you enjoyed this video aanndd.. I'll see you..
In a while.
Byeee
Lars!
LARSON! Pylly p- Lars! /LARSON! Butt off- Lars!
(cat noise)
Larsson :(
delet :(
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