#adults who stim

[mixedbag-o-beans]

a doctor who episode with david tennant and catherine tate AND a new gamingmas video…. all in one night…did anyone tell my 13 year old self that they won?

#ducky rambles #doctor who #dan and phil #gamingmas #except i’m an adult and i have my own space #and it’s a safe space!!!! #where i can be giddy and stim and enjoy the times i enjoy without ridicule #ahhhhhh

[nocturnal-stims]

A lost lioness reuined with her pride.

🦁 Latest Sightings on YT

#lions #lioness #animals #wildlife #cats #big cats #africa #safari #stim #the family that slays together slays together #anyone who says adult big cats aren't cute can fight me

[cheetahsprints]

dlskfjadskj MERRY FUMKING EARLY CRITAMS TO ME LMAO

I saw like three boxes full of these squishmallow things and you know the little images of Sonic characters on those boxes caught my attention, and I hastily dug for Shadow to see him close up. And lost my mind. Luckily one of the boxes was low enough on squishies to dig through. Sonic was right on top though pfff I immediately saw the blue and I was like oh no no I'm screwed hahahaha

I was just gonna get Shadow but then I was like

I have two arms. Y'know? And I can't get one without his rival

... I love them sm 😂😂😂

I wonder if the greeter noticed my indecisive ass walk to and from the box 3 times. I picked up Sonic, practically cooed over him, put him back, walked not far away before doing a u-turn since I decided I needed to see Shadow, found him at the bottom of the box, put him down, walked away again. Ran back when I was about to get in line because I was like um no actually I can't leave the store without these.

They got to ride up front with me on the way home. Shadow judged me while I inhaled McDonald's because I didn't have enough for lunch before shopping close to dinner time. I was also hyperactive from the wacky combination of stimulation and exhaustion so I gave the Shadow squish a near constant ear massage when I was done eating lol

Also I come home to find out there was a new twitter takeover HUH?????????? The timing is so damn funny to me.

#sonic the hedgehog #shadow the hedgehog #I am a grown adult who looked at these and was overwhelmed and hypnotized by cuteness HELP #also excellent for stimming; the ears and spikes... so sof #these were made for cuteness aggression omfg #Me with serious expression while squishing Shadow: You have no arms and legs who took them?? look at you. you're just a ball #They remind me of angry birds #Feral urge to set up a bunch of empty bottles on the dining room table and YEET #gotta get the serotonin crumbs when u can yknow

[takeaguessbuddy]

why do so many people think animation is made specifically for little kids and why am i not allowed to talk about it :(

#like seriously it makes no sense #adults are the ones making animated stuff #why is it assumed animated movies are made with only kids in mind #kids watch fucking skibidi toilet and content farms on youtube for christs sake they’ll watch anything #if that were the case there would be no good animated movies or shows because little kids will watch anything that’s funny or colorful #there would be no animation without animators shut the fuck up and use your brain #buddy’s buzzing #vent #kinda #i’m mad because my mom who is not an animation obsessed creature like me said wish was allowed to be subpar bc it’s for kids supposedly #and then when i tried to talk she made me shut up because i was getting too excited and was stimming with my hands and she doesn’t like tha #i don’t even stim that much because i’ve been masking it all my fucking life #and you’re getting annoyed that i‘m shaking my hands because i’m excited #i just won’t talk to anyone about it ever again sorry to inconvenience you #add that to the list of reasons why i have an anxiety disorder #it’s bad to express any emotion ever #sorry i was under the impression that i could be myself around you but nope guess not

[acefool]

Honestly if anyone could help me understand the difference between stimming and fidgeting I would love to know

because most articles that come up on the internet are by people who don’t have both autism and ADHD and they don’t help me categorize my stims/fidgets

so I know to remind myself which ones to do when I need to focus or need to self regulate so I don’t have a meltdown

#audhd #pls help #actually autistic #adhd problems #stims #fidget stim #I hate trying to go through articles about autism #because theres so many with the exact same unhelpful info #that may or may not only apply to children #and may or may not have been written by someone who doesnt have autism #and may or may not be ablist bullshit #the only places ive found actually helpful info for adult autists is on here or reddit or select autistic made youtube videos

[aroacedaddy]

As someone who has suppressed stimming their entire life:

Stimming… actually… helps????? TF???

Like I was in a crowd this evening and overstimulated (which presents as anger in my case) and flapping an arm actually soothed it!?! Like I wasn’t a bottle of rage the entire time, just some flare ups when stuck behind people?

Fucking magic!!!!

#who knew?!? #obviously not me #autistic adult #autistic life #autism #adhd #neurodivergent #stim #autistic stimming #stimming

[sassmill]

My mom: I don’t think you’re autistic stop saying that

Also my mom, repeatedly: stop doing that what the fuck is wrong with you

#see her issue is that her frame of reference for autism is my sister #who was diagnosed at age like 6 because of developmental delays and behavioral issues #so her idea of autism is based on my sister’s inability to function ‘typically’ #whereas I am functional aka was drawn to acting because I could practice social situations #and did well in school because of perfectionism and anxiety #but I cannot complete care tasks for myself or interact with people my own age #and then the anxiety and sensory issues and stimming and impulse control is where it really gets bad #she yells what the fuck are you doing when I’m stimming #but my actually diagnosed autistic sister who is living in an assisted living facility with other autistic adults #says that she absolutely thinks I’m autistic

[shreksflamingknob69]

“you’re acting so awkwardly” “why are you so weird?” “you really gotta learn how to deal with social settings”

ok, i’ll listen to music and wear noise cancelling headphones and stim then. that way i can cope.

“ahahaha what are you doing with your arms?” “stop humming along to your music!” *imitates my stimming, making everyone laugh* “if you acted like that in school as well i can imagine why people picked on you ahahaha”

get fucked.

#neurodivergent #it just hurts #is it so hard to be kind? #autism #stimming #why are people so mean #also those people i’m talking about are grown ass adults in their forties and fifties #and i’m nineteen. #why does a 55 year old man think it’s appropriate or funny to mock a teenager who is visibly in distress #i wanna cry

[vanessagillings]

I’m posting the ever-so-rare photo of myself alongside one of my characters based on my childhood because today is World Autism Acceptance Day, and I wanted to show my little corner of the internet who this particular autistic person is:  

I was officially diagnosed in February, at age 38 (I’m now 39). A lot of people thought I couldn’t be autistic.  Some people who know me in real life still don’t.  And until around 10 years ago, I didn’t think I could be either, because I was nothing like the stereotype media portrays. I was told that autistics lacked empathy (untrue), and never played make-believe (also often untrue) and only enjoyed STEM.  I was — and am — an empathetic artist -- and make believe?  I can spend days sketching finely bedecked bears brewing tea or carefully choosing the right words to weave tapestries of fiction — though perhaps my hyper focus was a bit of a red flag.  Even so, how could autism describe me?  I was a good student.  I got straight A's. I didn’t act out in class.  I can make eye contact…if I must.  And lots of girls hate having their hair brushed with an unholy passion, right?  Clearly I swim in sarcasm like a fish, so autism couldn't be why I was so anxious all the time, could it?

If someone had told me when I was younger what autism ACTUALLY is — instead of the nonsense I’d seen on screens — I would have seen myself in it.  I didn’t hear that autistics have sensory issues until I was in my mid-twenties, which is when I first began to really research autism symptoms, and I had almost all of them:  sensitivity to light, smells, fabrics, temperatures, textures, and certain touches, all of which make me feel anxious, I fidget (stim), I never know what the hell to do with my hands or where to look, I talk too little or too much, I have special interests, I have entire animated movies memorized shot-by-shot and can remember the first time and place I saw every movie I've ever seen but I often forget what I'm trying to say mid-sentence, I echo movies and tv shows (my husband and I have a whole repertoire of shared echolalias, making up about 20% of our conversations), I was in speech therapy as a kid, I have issues with dysnomia and verbal fluency, I toe-walk, I can't multitask to save my life, I like things just-so, I’m deeply introverted but not shy, I need to recover from all social interaction — even social interaction I enjoy — and I find stupid, every day things like grocery shopping, driving and making appointments overwhelming and intensely stressful, sometimes to the point where I struggle to speak.  It turns out, I am definitely autistic. My results weren't borderline. Not even close. And while these aren’t all of my challenges, and not everyone with these symptoms is autistic, it’s definitely something to look into if you present with all of these things at once. 

So why did it take me so long to get diagnosed? The same bias that exists in media threads through the medical community as well, and because I'm a woman who can discuss the weather while smiling on cue, few people thought I was worth looking into. Even after I was fairly certain I was autistic, receiving an official diagnosis in the US is unnecessarily difficult and expensive, and in my case, completely uncovered by my insurance.  It cost me over $4000, and I could only afford it because my husband makes more money than I do as a freelance illustrator — a job I fell into largely because it didn’t require in-person work; like many autists, I have been chronically underemployed and underpaid, in part due to physical illness in my twenties, which is a topic for another day.  But it shouldn’t be like this.  It shouldn’t be so hard for adults to receive diagnoses and it shouldn’t be so hard for people to see themselves in this condition to begin with due to misinformation and stereotypes. Like many issues in America, these barriers are even higher for marginalized groups with multiple intersectionalities. 

It’s commonly said that if you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person.  This is why it’s called a spectrum, not because there’s a linear progression of severity (someone who appears to have low support needs like myself might need more than it seems, and vice versa), but because every autistic person has their own strengths and weaknesses, challenges and experiences, opinions and needs.  No two people on the spectrum present in the same way.  And that’s a good thing!  No way of being autistic is inherently any better than any other, and even if someone on the spectrum struggles with things I don’t — or can do things I can’t — doesn’t make them more or less deserving of respect and human dignity.

But speaking solely for myself, the more I learn about autism, the happier I am to be autistic.  I struggle to find words and exert fine motor control, but my deep passion and fixation has made me good at art and storytelling anyway.  I find more joy watching dogs and studying leaf shapes on my walks than most people do in an entire day.  More often than not, the barriers I’ve faced weren’t due to my autism directly, but due to society being overly rigid about what it considers a valid way of existing.  My hope in writing this today is that maybe one person will realize that autism isn’t what they thought — and that being different is not the same as being less than. My hope with my fiction is to give autistic children mirrors with which to see themselves, and everyone else windows through which to see us as we actually are.

If you’re interested in learning more about autism or think you might be autistic, too, I recommend the Autism Self Advocacy Network  autisticadvocacy.org and the following books:

What I Mean When I Say I’m Autistic by Annie Kotowicz

We're Not Broken by Eric Garcia

Knowing Why edited by Elizabeth Bartmess

Unmasking Autism by Devon Price, PhD

Loud Hands edited by Julia Bascom

Neurotribes by Steve Silberman

(trigger warning: the last two contain quite a lot of upsetting material involving institutionalized child abuse, but I think it’s important for people to know how often autistic children were — and are — abused simply for being neurodivergent).

Thanks for reading 💛

#autism acceptance day #actually autistic

[fuckedupfemmebot]

Where are all the "slow" kids, the challenged kids, the burnouts from birth, the burden to have in class? Where are the autists who can't mask, who self harm, who are loud and can't stop stimming? The NDs with processing disorders, brain damage, brain fog? The ones with down syndrome, FAS, and other conditions that people treat like curses or defects. I hardly ever see them past 18 and I know they don't just dissolve once they become adults.

#FAS #down syndrome #dislexia #dyslexia #learning disability #processing disorder #brain fog #intellectual disability #nonverbal #actually austistic

[pollyanna-nana]

Louie isn’t evil.

Or: what Pikmin 4 tells us about his character.

BIG WARNING FOR PIKMIN 4 SPOILERS! (and the rest of the series)

———

I want to preface this by saying that I am in no way trying to be the end-all, be-all of character interpretations, but Pikmin 4 to me, at least, confirms the suspicions I’ve had since playing Pikmin 2 and 3 all those years ago that Louie ISN’T secretly evil, or possessed, or whatever else. He’s just… Louie. And I think that’s interesting in and of itself.

1. Olimar himself vouches for him, and clearly doesn’t think he’s a bad person.

Say what you will, but I’m inclined to think Olimar is a decent judge of character. Clearly he’s worked with Louie for enough time to see that while he’s not very good at his job, he’s not intentionally so— at least not in a malevolent way (will get more into this later). He also wants you to forgive him for Olimar’s sake, which can be read as self-sacrificing (as Olimar is known to be) but I also think hints at the soft spot he has for Louie.

It's also worth noting that he states during a end-of-day conversation that he told Louie that, since he's a new employee, he should do everything Olimar does... including throw castaways into the onion. Interesting that Louie took this so literally, but it does provide an explanation for why he kidnapped the Koppaites beyond "he's evil and crazy".

2. He really, REALLY loves his grandma.

Like, wow. He talks about her SO MUCH both in his Piklopedia entries and also elsewhere in the game. It's interesting. Worth noting is that he never mentions any other family members- unlike Olimar, who talks about his wife and each of his children independently. I've said this before, but the content of a lot of these entries implies to me that Louie was mainly raised by his grandma, likely since birth. And given some of her emails in Pikmin 2, assuming they're also canon to Pikmin 4's timeline... Well, Louie certainly had an interesting upbringing. But he clearly loves her all the same.

3. He has a mischievous streak and tends to do things on impulse.

This was already fairly obvious from the previous games, but I think it's worth noting that this game confirms that he's... would immature be the right word? In any regard, he doesn't seem to see himself as a "grown-up"- when in all likelihood he is. Personally, as a 22-year-old, I find that pretty relatable as I often think of myself as younger when in reality I am by all definitions an adult. This, along with his grandma still being around, makes it pretty much certain that Louie is a lot younger than Olimar and the president, likely in his early to mid twenties. Being a bit of a goofball isn't really out of the ordinary, all things considered.

THAT BEING SAID, he's clearly capable of practicing self-restraint when he wants to. What he says here about the red Pikmin is pretty significant, since we know he's willing to eat just about anything- but clearly he has some reservations about creatures that are friendly and helpful. Which leads to...

4. He loves dogs and fluffy things.

Same. But he doesn't even consider eating Moss, Oatchi or the Ancient Sirehound, showing that his creature-eating habits stop at things he recognizes as useful. He clearly also holds affection for things that are soft and fuzzy, and says as much.

5. He is so autism.

He plays with fidget toys. He loves certain textures and sounds. This guy is stimming all over PNF-404!!! I think this also lends some explanation for why his behavior is what it is- things like taking Olimar's suggestion to do as he does super literally even after crashing on an alien planet, his hyperfixation on cooking and tendency not to communicate and incorrectly interpret situations (thinking the Koppaites are kidnappers in 3, running away from you in 4). He could even be low or no empathy as well, explaining why it takes a hot minute to get him to understand why people are upset with him about something.

Interestingly this game also makes it clear that Louie wants to live on the planet, or at least thought he did while you were chasing him down, which makes a lot of sense when you consider that he doesn't really seem to fit in back on Hocotate. I, too, wish to run away to an alien world with all of the things that I like and no other people, so I get you, Louie.

6. He hates his boss and his job, and the golden pikpik carrot incident was likely premeditated.

This probably looks bad, but honestly? As a fellow work-hating anti-capitalist schmuck I get it. The president is for all intents and purposes a huge asshole, from sending Olimar straight back to the planet after selling his ship to not caring that Louie got left behind, just wanting to find the rest of the treasures. I doubt he is very kind to his employees, and doesn't seem very good at running the business. Definitely a funny character, but if he were my boss I would absolutely want to punt him into the sun.

From some other entries he clearly wants to sell certain things to accrue money, but it's for things like getting better kitchen tools and following his dream to have his own cooking show. Clearly being a freight driver isn't what Louie actually wants to do with his life, and he could not give less of a shit about what happens to the company. Very short-sighted on his part, but also again, yeah I get you Louie.

7. He... doesn't like the color red for some reason.

Honestly, I'm not even really sure what to make of this. Is it because it reminds him of the Hocotate ship? Or does he just not like the color? Would be very interesting considering that it's Olimar's signature color. Perhaps that's at least part of why he attacks you in Pikmin 2- though that's speculation for another day.

Also funny to me is his comments on the black-colored treasures. We know blue is his favorite color, but I guess he's also a bit of a goth at heart. Lol.

In conclusion.

I think Louie isn't written or intended to be evil, and Pikmin 4's portrayal of him was intentionally written to confirm this. He's just, as some have said, an agent of chaos, but that doesn't make him a bad person. Just an autistic 20-something working a shitty job he doesn't care about, who loves his grandma and has a mischievous streak and a hyperfixation on food. At least from what I can interpret, ymmv!

#polly speaks #pikmin #pikmin 4 spoilers #pikmin spoilers #pikmin 4 #pikmin 2 #pikmin 3 #louie pikmin #olimar pikmin #character analysis #I guess #I dunno I mostly just wanted to put all this shit together in my brain but I guess other people can see it too haha #This is a non exhaustive list btw I just had a limit to how many images I wanted to wrangle but maybe I'll add on to this in the future #for now uh. Enjoy my weird rambling about the pikmin gremlin

[genderqueerdykes]

at this point i don't care how dumb a lot of people would think this is but we need to normalize adults carrying stuffed animals and comfort objects.

i have witnessed grown adults step out of their homes clutching adult cats to their chests just like a kid clutches a teddy bear, all while scolding it for trying to get away because it is uncomfortable and feels unsafe. i have watched people carry around puppies and miniature dog breeds while shopping and get upset at them when they don't sit perfectly still.

if you want something that brings you comfort by holding it, and can be taken anywhere and everywhere with you, but don't want it to move, make sounds, interrupt you, have bodily functions or needs, can be forgotten about easily if it gets inconvenient and can be put down without it running away: you want a stuffed animal, toy, blanket, or other comfort object.

you do not want a live animal. wanting an animal means accepting that it is alive. animals are not objects to be held and then berated when they have the audacity to be sentient. animals are not objects, period. they are living, breathing beings that have needs just like you. you. they are not here specifically to comfort you, there are here to be alive.

we need to normalize that it's okay for adults to carry objects that comfort them. i'm autistic and struggle with anxiety- i do this every time i leave the house when i'm able to. i carry very large stuffed animals with me and i don't receive negative comments, in fact, i only receive compliments if people say anything at all. i've been told that seeing an adult who carries stuffed animals and has lots of visible comfort objects (keychains, stim toys, etc.) is a welcoming sight to see, and that it brings others joy.

it's okay to want something that brings you comfort. but a live animal isn't always the answer. they are comforting, but they are not objects, and it's really irresponsible to use them as such. we need to acknowledge that adults need comfort, but we also have to be responsible in where we get it from.

#autism #actually autistic #neurodivergence #neurodiversity #neurodiverse #ptsd #anxiety #mental health #our writing