#to everyone who has been patient with me when I’ve had a verbal shutdown

[lightblueminecraftorchid]

(Context: I am Level 1 autistic and sometimes experience verbal shutdowns)

Things I appreciate someone doing if I’m upset and cannot talk:

- only asking one question at a time

- asking yes/no or binary questions instead of vague ones (Ex: “do you need space?” instead of “what do you need?”)

- being okay with not receiving an answer at all, and moving on (or rephrasing questions if necessary)

- accepting gesture, sign language, and/or AAC without pointing it out as unusual or joking about it

- offering comfort items or distractions, and allowing me to choose whether or not to use them myself

- treating me with respect and not talking down to me; there is a difference between being gentle and treating me like a child

- not assuming that I will regain speech as soon as I feel better

- letting me joke around and participate in conversations without speaking, even when I look happy and calm

- choosing communal activities that are low-key and don’t rely on verbal speech, such as watching a show, painting, or looking at memes together

- understanding if I need space, and leaving me be if I walk away from a conversation or leave suddenly

- letting me use comfort items and stim, even if it looks weird to you

- understanding that saying words =/= having full speech again; I usually regain echolalia before being able to generate my own sentences

#this is not a vague post this is a thank you #to everyone who has been patient with me when I’ve had a verbal shutdown #because I have time and again been met with incredible kindness and understanding as an adult #from my dnd groups. from close friends. from club members. from classmates. #the vast majority of people have been kind and patient and have let me calm down and communicate in the ways I can at my own pace #like in DND last year when I shut down after a tense fight because I was scared a character was gonna die #I couldn’t talk when we split up the loot after. so the DM read off the loot one by one and had us raise hands to claim it. #no teasing. no pointing it out. just smoothly running with it. #or when I was at my friends house and wound up crying in the middle of a convo and shutting down #and they gave me space to calm down and let me sign/text to talk. gave me a plushie and showed me Pinterest boards for dnd characters #no judgement. no pressure. just hanging out and calming down until I was okay. I was eventually able to tell jokes with sign and text. #or when I was in theatre and my prof saw I wasn’t okay and asked if I needed to go home. and then told me to go home when I couldn’t respond #and the autism club members who didn’t act awkward or rude about me being quiet while they chatted about movies. and patiently waited for me #to sign or get a couple words out so I could participate in the conversation. #or my classmates in the bio lab that night who treated me like normal and compared notes with me and let me type answers to their questions #to everyone who has been patient with me: thank you. I love you. it means more than I can express.