Because I think I’ve seen some confusion regarding these two items

they are autistic and trans ok?? genderless nonbinary icon!! - shane/angel

2 of our emotional support plushies!!

they're autsitic like us!!

shane love drawing plush art

Keep ear protection on hand!

Keep stim toys on hand!

you'll never know when you might need them

rip john marston, you would've loved noise canceling headphones

love putting on my noise cancelling headphones its like

*ambient noise. traffic. humming of pipes. whirring of my laptop's fan* *puts on headphones* *dead silence*

feels like in a movie when a character is having a Bad Time and the sound disappears to represent dissociation or something

Noise cancelling headphones are a weighted blanket to me. Do you understand

Noise Canceller Poll!!

All the time, people call my Ear Defenders "headphones" and I *hate* it. I dislike it because it feels like they are calling them are want instead of the need they are and, as I need them for education and work purposes and this misnomer makes people think they have batteries (when they don't) and leads to people trying to make me remove them, however, I can also understand someone liking this term as it can help normalize your device and make you feel less "odd" or like you stick out. I wanted to see if many of the latter exist before making a post about this subject. I would love as much data as possible, so please share.

(eng/jpn/rus) Starter pack when you discovered you're autistic.

(Little disclaimer: This was made totally based on my own experience. Also, i mainly write about things related to autistic experience, but it's not exclusive to it. It possibly can help ADHD/ADDers, high sensitive people and everyone who have any relation to some autistic traits)

Hi there! If you are reading this, i can assume you recently discovered you're autistic. Well, it can explains a lot of what happened in your life, but sure you're thinking "what's next? Will it change something in my life?". For this i need to explain what is masking.

From Wikipedia: "In psychology and sociology, masking is the process in which an individual camouflages their natural personality or behavior to conform to social pressures, abuse, or harassment". So, basically, it means you're hiding some traits of you and your personality by (in neurodivergent case) mirroring others. It can start in very young age. I can assume you're older than 8, so you can consider as late-diagnosed, so you probably masked a lot. Later (or even now) you can notice that your behaviour changes: you notice how loud, bright, smelly, ect. things can be, you do more repetative movements (it's called stimming, it can be not only physical. Listening a lot of music can consider stimming too, for example), you maybe start to talking about things you like a lot, like, A LOT. It means you are unmasking, maybe some thing are not so noticable for you, that's fine, every autistic experience is individual. I mean, if you already notice those things, i can advise you some things that helped and still helping me.

Let's start with clothes. Sure you know this feeling when you're in some itchy clothes and it's so itchy you want it to pull off immediately. Well, now you know the reason why you felt it! But where you can buy clothes that will NOT give you this feeling? The only brand that never gave me this sensory hell is UNIQLO, plus their clothes are genderless. But if you can't buy their clothes or prefer other brands for reason, just make sure this piece is have a huge percent of cotton, lien, bamboo or any othere sensory safe fabrics.

So, what about other senses? Well, there's a poll in here that shows that most neurodivergent people are mostly sensitive to noises (of course it's not an offical research, it's just a Tumblr poll). You propably should get some noise-cancelling headphones. Also you can get construction headphones! I actually have ones, it's good for going outside, but isn't if you want to lay down because of how big they are. Well, i recommend get both and use them at the same time. Also you may have problems with lights, so get yourself a good glasses if your eyes will be tired. There's nothing i can recommend for smell and taste, well, you probably already have safe food even if you don't recognise it yet, so find foods that are safe for you.

And not so first need things! They can help you in the future, but some isn't nesecary if you don't have needs i have. So, in short:

weighted blanket - good for sleep or when you're feeling anxious. If you can, buy it, but you can make it by yourself.

fidget toys - good for stimming, but some of them are can be loud, so my ultimate recommendation is Tangle. But only you know what's good for you!

AAC app - good if you don't like use your voice much. Currently i use "Card talk" and it's good for communicating, but there's bugs with created cards' audios, it can become too fast or too slow. You can fix it by closing and opening the app again, but it can be a bit annoying.

I hope it can help you with living your autistic life comfortably! Reminder: it's based on my experience, so i'm sure there's somenthing that bother you less and bothers me a lot. Well, i said everything i wanted to, so have a great day!

(Damn, this post is long)

(PS: "Card Talk" is so buggy i need to make new audio for created cards. If you aren't multilingual as me, better find other apps)

(PPS: I just found one that is good for multilinguals, it's "Cboard"! So if you're talking in more than one language, this app is pretty good!)

this user loves their ear protection

don't feel shame wearing ear protection - Allison

To any autists looking for some noise canceling headphones, may I recommend Soundcore? I have a pair and they're awesome. The noise canceling works great, and the sound quality is good too. The best part is the battery life though. 48 hours on a 3 hour charge.

Sorry for what is essentially an ad, I just really like my headphones.

ear protection is a must-!!

here's Star with no tech noise canceling headphones - we wear our headphones or earbuds pretty much 24/7 and that's okay. sounds causes us a lot of anxiety and sounds can LITERALLY hurt us. earplugs, ear defenders and noise canceling earbuds and headphones are okay. sadly we cannot wear headphones 24/7 cause we get headaches and pain in our ears and head so we switch from headphones to noise canceling earbuds when we start feeling ill but we like the pressure of the headphones so we like that more.

stay safe and wear those headphones! - Allison

this user wears ear protection

I went to a restaurant

Being autistic, I always use headphones because people be loud.

Imagine my surprise when a woman shows up with her autistic son! He unfortunately did not have headphones, so he was freaking out a lot as his surprisingly understanding mom tried in vain to help out. She then noticed me with my headphones and asked if she could borrow them, since he forgot his at home.

Finally, bringing a spare pair of headphones paid off! He was so overjoyed when I pulled out a second pair and handed it to him. It was so satisfying seeing him instantly calm down. He was even polite enough to return them to me himself.

Just like that, my faith in humanity rose by a very tiny amount.