to the disabled person who needs to hear this:

you don't have to earn or "deserve": resting, sleeping, taking your medications (including OTC meds, cannabis, creams, etc.), using your mobility aids, eating, declining to go to an event, choosing to stay home, having a self care/lazy day, or taking care of yourself in any other capacity. you can be good to yourself today.

happy autism acceptance month to the autistics who ARE like the stereotypes

happy autism acceptance month to the autistics who are nowhere near the stereotypes

happy autism acceptance month to the autistics who are self diagnosed

happy autism acceptance month to the autistics who are professionally diagnosed

happy autism acceptance month to the autistics who were told they "dont look autistic"

happy autism acceptance month to the autistics who were bullied for being obviously autistic

happy autism acceptance month to the autistics who cant mask

happy autism acceptance month to the autistics who have been masking for so long that people would never expect you to be autistic

happy autism acceptance month to the autistics who struggle really badly each and every day

happy autism acceptance month to the autistics who have learned how to work with their autism and struggle a lot less

happy autism acceptance month to the autistics who grew up not knowing what was "wrong" with them

happy autism acceptance month to the autistics who knew they were autistic from a young age and faced hardship because of that

happy autism acceptance month to autistic people.

This is your daily reminder to not be ashamed of making your life easy for yourself.

Cut your food into small pieces, make the font size 30 on your e book, use straws to drink, get a pen that’s comfortable to hold, take more naps, walk slowly, eat another cookie, buy velcro shoes, re-watch the part you couldn’t understand the first time, write things on your hands so you don’t forget it… whatever you want and/or need

Don’t let anyone tell you how you should be doing things. We don’t need to prove each other anything

College is wild because it really isn’t about intelligence or the ability to understand the material at all. It’s literally just a test of executive function and abled-ness. I had good attendance. I participated in class discussions…possibly to an annoying extent, I got A’s on my tests. When we did group work in classes, it was usually me knowing the answers and everyone else just writing them down from my paper.

But I watched those same people who copied my in-class work and who barely passed tests and who only understood the material enough to regurgitate it, not to expand on it, graduate while I flunked out. Why? Because I didn’t have the executive function to do homework outside of class. That’s it.

Planning out more Applesauce comics. Any other autistics out there get Anxious when teachers or employers tell you to Experiment with something while still wanting you to be doing a big task?

An example: I find it very difficult to set aside the looming deadline of my final art project to “experiment” with different art techniques or styles because to me, I can easily lose track of time, my schedule, the end goal, or the big picture all together because now all my focus goes into “side quests” essentially that may not lead to anything, and it can be hard to squeeze that into my tight schedule where everything has a purpose that contributes solidly to my finished piece. Experimenting has a high risk-high reward aspect, and I find that as an autistic person, it always tends to end up negatively affecting me and messing me up and leading me to dead-ends/misused time whereas it’s seen as a benefit to neurotypicals by comparison

a while ago i attended this lecture on autism. guy in the audience said he had many of the symptoms that were presented and asked what should he do to get treatment and possibly a diagnosis. instead of answering his question the psychologist went on a tangent about how “the clinic reigns all powerful over guesswork”, and how actually it has become a trend amongst little children on the internet to claim that they are autistic for cool points, and that this hurts real autistic people. no she didn’t tell him how to get his symptoms looked into, she just made it very clear that to her, aknowledging your own symptoms is bad and evil and hurts the poor real mentally ill people.

an ex-friend of mine, then a psychology major and by now probably a full psychologist, once lectured me on how horrible and bad it was that i told her “i probably have some sort of neurodivergency”, and that if i were her patient she would never give me a diagnosis because “you aren’t like this now, but i know that if you get a diagnosis you’ll use it as an excuse to start treating people badly. that’s just how mentally ill people are.”

same ex-friend was extremely disgusted when she found out that fans sometimes make neurodivergency headcanons for characters that have the same symptoms as they do, and that authors sometimes write books with neurodivergent protagonists in stories that don’t focus on that (ex: she seemed horrified that percy jackson has adhd?)

multiple psychologists i’ve seen on facebook agree that they should refuse to treat patients that say “i’m here because i have symptoms of a disorder and wonder if i have it”, and that a patient should arrive to a psychologist as a blank slate.

school psychologist asked me how i was feeling about my trauma situation and i told him i thought my friends would leave me. instead of addressing the issue he said that that no i didn’t, that i was lying, that i had searched “bpd symptoms” online and now i was faking symptoms because i wanted to have bpd, that he shouldn’t have told me he suspected i had a personality disorder because now look what was happening. no, i didn’t search bpd symptoms online. yes, my friends left me, it was a completely founded belief and not a symptom, let alone a faked symptom.

so the next time you hear someone saying they’re “anti self-diagnosis” i want you to understand what they’re saying. what they’re saying is:

- i don’t want people to be aware of their own symptoms

- i don’t think my patients should have access to any information that doesn’t come from me

- i don’t think neurodivergent people should learn how to cope with their symptoms and live “normal” lives

- i think neurodivergent people should be denied a diagnosis because the moment they get one they will become evil and dangerous

- i don’t think people who don’t look like a stereotype could possibly be neurodivergent, even if they have all the symptoms, so i think they are faking it for attention and should be denied treatment

I would like to clarify for people who don’t know if they’re autistic or not: Bad Sensory Moments where you react like this are very common but not exclusive to being autistic. Sensory processing difficulties are the tip of the iceberg to autism, so having them doesn’t automatically 100% indicate being autistic, as other neurotypes can also possess sensory processing difficulties.

People have asked me what Bad Sensory feels like to me as an autistic person, so I’ll tell you! When I run dry hands/feet over cardboard/paper, it’s the sensation of brain freeze across my entire body, like I have paper cuts beneath my fingernails, like someone is running an ice cube down my spine yet somehow also beneath my skin, and my teeth feel like when you bite down too hard on a metal fork. I’d equate it with jumping into ice water, everything in my head and body just Stops and the entire experience is physically PAINFUL. The SOUND of it, rough and dry, is in my veins, curling around my vertebrae, in the bones of my fingers, pin pricking every cell in my body. The sound, the experience, feels as though poison is inside me and I need to get it out, I need to do SOMETHING or else I’ll cry because it’s just too much! I can’t think or do anything, my brain is filled with this stimuli. My spine arches back, my fingers lock up, my face cringes, everything freezes, as I try to process this sensory experience, but I can’t. So then all at once I have to jump or make a noise or shake out my hands or do anything physical or vocal to get this sound off of me, out of me. And for those of you who feel a jaw-clenching, physical “kettle ready to burst” sensation as a reaction, that is you holding your body back from stimming/release!

This is why stimming helps: it regulates/assists in the processing of stimuli, especially stuff that’s unpleasant! And this is also why prohibiting someone stimming only harms us. I can’t process this sensory experience without stimming. Until I stim, I’m just Stuck. And the removal of the noise/sensation isn’t enough: I have to stim or decompress or something to be able to regain my mind and body. Whether it’s cardboard or someone giving me too much information or my schedule being thrown off or smelling something I don’t like, I feel certain things very physically, painfully.

So of course you don’t have to be autistic to feel distressed hearing nails on a chalkboard or shake your head as a reaction! Everyone stims and most people have sensations they don’t like. But it’s the way you process it, the magnitude of feeling it creates in you, that makes it distinctive. And again, it could mean autism or simply a different neurotype that involves sensory processing difficulties. Don’t be afraid to explore!

That Autistic Feel When you’re just having a Good Sensory Time and then you intake that one Bad Sensory Thing and you can feel your whole body be physically gripped by indescribable pain and disgust?

Like one minute you’re:

But then you hear cardboard or something and your whole body Feels it like:

hey if u can’t drive/are a slow learner due to a disability or mental illness, just picture historical figures like pirates or the founding fathers trying to operate a car.

it’s only “easy” bc we’ve normalized it.

I quit my job! I was shoved into a position I had turned down: but work didn’t care. They assumed I must be a jack of all trades under any condition just because I “looked” capable. I get hired and admired for being one of the best employees because of my attention to detail, organisation, problem solving skills, etc and then regularly pushed over my limits and used as a doormat cos it’s easier for management to ignore my basic needs if it means accessing my strengths and getting their job done “right”. But when you IGNORE my needs, I CAN’T do your job right!!! My work performance goes downhill and they wonder why. And within a year, I’m forced to quit. All because those in charge wanted to force me to be more convenient as they increased workload and hours and got irritated when I told them that was beyond my limits. “UGH! You do so well doing X, why can’t you just do this too??” they seemed to say. Their pushing led to a sharp decline in my physical and mental health. Autistic people deserve better than this. Your “equal employment opportunity” claim is a pathetic lie if you brush the needs of autistic people under your corporate, capitalist rug.

🌻Follow Applesauce on Instagram too! @autistic_applesauce

Hey guess what! Applesauce has an Instagram now! You can follow at @autistic_applesauce

I’ll try and update comics both here and on Instagram, but I might end up being more active on insta with Applesauce

I see a lot of talk about how neurodivergence evolved and stayed in the gene pool because it was somehow ‘useful’ to our ancient ancestors. While I don’t necessarily disagree with this theory, I would like to propose an alternative. A theory that we already have physical evidence for. Humans just love each other and care for each other. Don’t you think that a species that cared for it’s people while they recovered from broken bones, or nursed their elderly well beyond their ‘usefulness’ would leave a member out because they didn’t make eye contact, or couldn’t stay focused on a particular task, or whatever other trait you associate with neurodivergence? I really don’t.

Sure, maybe it was useful to have someone around who didn’t mind making arrowheads all day, or who knew absolutely everything about all of the local flora and fauna, or who keyed in on every little distraction. At the end of the day, though, these people weren’t kept around because they were useful, they were cared for because they were loved.

The unsurprising irony of having to quit my job during their promotion of Mental Illness and Disability Awareness Month due to them not being accommodating of both my mental illness and disability

overstimulation/sensory overload really is like sorry I can’t hear you over the sound of my shirt tag being itchy and these two strands of hair touching my face and the tv and one of my shoelaces being undone and air touching me and the plane flying overhead and my own thoughts about remembering to buy hummus

Me: okay what’s next on the Adult Purchase List

The list: