As someone with autism catatonia, sometimes i need more help than other days. Sometimes I need help with each and every bADL, and some days I only need help with a few. My support needs themselves, on a daily basis, don’t fluctuate, but I also have to take into consideration when they do. When I do need help with each and every bADL. When I do need help with each and every little thing. When I am Catatonic. That doesn’t mean I’m high support needs one day and medium the next, and I never claim to be. But my support needs, do fluctuate in a way, and I think that annoys some people because they’ve drilled in their head “support needs don’t fluctuate”

And then they see someone like me, who one day can’t even get around without a wheelchair because they can’t walk because they’re catatonic, or get out of bed without help some days, and they get confused. Because support needs can’t possibly fluctuate. Right? And no, they’re right in 99.9% of cases. Support needs don’t fluctuate. They just don’t. You can’t be low support needs one day and high the next. That’s just not how it works. But autism catatonia is such a rare thing, that sometimes, my needs do fluctuate. Some days, I do need drastically more support than other’s.

My support needs are complex, and I never claim to be high support needs one day just because that one day I need help getting out of bed, using the bathroom, bathing, eating, etc etc. No, because on my normal day my needs aren’t like that and I don’t have the EVERYDAY experience of being high support needs. But I will continue to say my needs are complex, and I will continue to say they fluctuate in a way. But never in a way that makes me high support needs.

Support needs don’t fluctuate for 99.9.9% of people, but sometimes, with autism catatonia, my needs do. And that’s ok! But saying support needs fluctuate is wrong. And you shouldn’t use it unless you have a disorder that DOES cause rapid fluctuation like autism catatonia.

And I may be wrong on this, and I may piss some people off, but yeah. This is just my ONE experience.

“Anyone can be an artist, you just need practice!” Not if you have poor fine motor skill control like I do. This whole “you can do anything you put your mind to” thing, while encouraging on paper, is just a touch ableist.

Nobody is having a problem with autism until you don't like them enough anymore and stop masking towards them

Diagrams are helpful to me

The ‘you’re mature for your age’ to sleeping with a bed full of plushies in your mid twenties pipeline is real

sometimes i feel like people forget autism is a disability. and that’s not a bad thing! i’m all for disability acceptance, im proud of my disabilities. but i feel like we forget autism can hurt.

it hurts that i have to put more time and energy into socializing than others.

it hurts when i need to move so bad, usually cause im overwhelmed by either my surroundings or emotions, that i thrash and hurt myself.

it hurts that i cant be in places that are too loud or too bright, which on bad days can be as simple as a small, quiet noise or dim lights.

it hurts that i struggle to tell when im hungry, thirsty, tired, etc. so i can’t properly take care of myself. it doesn’t help my insomnia and i get very nauseas and get UTIs.

i 100% believe in autism acceptance. i don’t want a cure. but i also want us the acknowledge that it can hurt. it doesn’t mean my entire life will hurt, but some parts will. and i want a community where we can see both sides, see the hurt, and celebrate it anyway.

hyperverbal autistic ✅️ valid

fully verbal autistic ✅️ valid

verbal autsitic with verbal loss ✅️ valid

semiverbal autistic ✅️ valid

nonverbal autistic ✅️ valid

Idk who needs to hear this but it's okay to cry over spilt milk. You dropped your food and you were really excited to eat it? You can cry, you're not any lesser than anyone else because it's made you upset. It's not silly if it made you sad.

@nutmegan17 on tiktoks eating tray hack

By keeping a tray full of no prepare necessary food, in the fridge it can be used to aid neurodivergent or fatigued people.

By putting food like, cheese and crackers, or whatever is a safe food for you personally on the tray, it can be taken easily to the couch or bed to be eaten from whenever you are hungry.

This prevents executive dysfunction or fatigue and any reason preventing you from eating. You need to care of yourself because everyone needs food to stay alive including you.

You deserve to eat even when on a bad brain day and are unable to prepare a meal for yourself.

If not having a full meal doesn't satisfy you, a snack may even give you the energy to make a full meal afterwards!

Discomfort.

Nobody talks about the hard parts about autism.

Nobody talks about not knowing when you need to eat, drink or pee. Not knowing when you're in pain, or why you're in pain. Not being able to communicate what you need.

Or when change is so hard to deal with you have meltdowns and outbursts. When you can't control your anger and hurt yourself or others. When you can't emote unless you're breaking down.

Or when you can't understand what someone is saying, what you're reading, anything. When you can't even try because trying makes it worse. When you ask for help but not getting what they say just makes you more frustrated.

And so many more difficult experiences we have to deal with that no one likes.

hi! hope you're having a good day! i would like to ask a question. it's something you've talked about before, i'm pretty sure. but what do you think or feel when people say, "visibly autistic doesn't exist?" i saw a post on reddit talking about how you can't be visibly autistic, and it ticked me off. i myself am not quite visibly autistic (i am low support needs, probably level one but no official diagnosed level), and i would like to hear from someone who has higher support needs than i. of course, absolutely no pressure to answer! you are not obligated to talk about this at all. thanks for your time!

Hi anon! I think this is a very important topic and I’ve talked about it in the past as well.

Honestly, it pisses me off. Because it ignores a HUGE population of autistic people. A lot more autistic people are higher support needs than people think. I think it was said that 26% of autistic people have “severe” autism? Or around that number. Although that doesn’t include those with medium support needs, and the likes.

When people are saying that “autism is invisible” they’re ignoring people like my friends and me. They’re ignoring those of us who do look autistic, who do need care in everyday life, who are visibly autistic. And it pisses me off when people say it. It’s 100% ignorance. Ignorance towards those who are higher support needs and low masking. And even those who ARE lower support needs and low masking, which is a thing.

Low masking autism, visible autism, is a thing. And people love to acknowledge it until it doesn’t fit their quirky idea of autism. Until it doesn’t fit the silly hand flapping and being “quirky”. When it doesn’t fit that, when it involves violent meltdowns, needing help using the bathroom, needing help every single day with “basic” things, suddenly it doesn’t exist to them. It isn’t possibly autism, it’s something else. It’s intellectual disability, it’s this, it’s that, it just isn’t autism. It can’t possibly be autism, right? /sarcasm

It annoys me so much, and I think more people need to talk to higher support needs, low masking individuals. They need to talk to them. They need to expand their social media coverage and friend groups. They need to see these things and believe it, because autistic people are here, and they’re visibly autistic. One autistic person isn’t going to look the same, they’re going to have different needs, but that doesn’t mean that autism doesn’t have a look for some.

what matters most about your interests is that they make you happy. whether other people find them productive is irrelevant. you don't have to produce anything. you are not a machine. your interests aren't for others. your interests are for you. do what makes you happy.

We always talk about how autistic adults are adults, and that's true. but shoutout to the autistics that :

age regress

pet regress

don't feel human

are age stunted by trauma

who feel like a teen/child for whatever reason

who want to be a child again

age sliders in a system

littles in a system

middles in a system

the thing I hate about how some people ask diagnostic questions for autism is the phrasing. for example, someone once asked "do you often like to wear ear/headphones or ear plugs?" and no, I don't. I hate wearing them because i get super paranoid and start having very bad intrusive thoughts. on that superficial level, I would say no, I do not like to wear those. but that's not what the question actually means. the root of the question is really just "do loud or repeated noises irritate you?" but for some reason, people like to say it in the most sly underhanded way possible. asking those serious intentioned questions in such a obscure way completely ignores people with multiple disorders. it assumes everyone is completely the function standard human who is only experiencing one issue at a time, rather than a complex divergent person

That moment when you have no one to listen to your info dump so you just walk around your room in circles ranting to yourself