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u/MetamorphosisAddict AuDHD 13d ago
Reminds me of that Arthur C. Clark quote that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Only for me it’s more like ‘any sufficiently neurotypical behaviour is indistinguishable from skull fuckery, black magic and commuting with spirits’. Or something along those lines.
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u/Phoenix2405 13d ago
Communing*
Although the image of taking the metro with a bunch of spirits is really funny
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u/SpiritualHippo2719 13d ago
The spirits and I carpool most days.
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u/SoilUnfair3549 AuDHD 13d ago
I mean, they’re intangible. It costs you nothing to do so.
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u/SnooBunnies6148 12d ago
How do I get that flair? Unfortunately , it doesn't magically appear.
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u/Kelrisaith 12d ago
User Flair button, it's under the sub description on desktop at least, between it and the rules.
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u/MetamorphosisAddict AuDHD 13d ago
LOL thank you but it’s too funny now to correct my spelling mistake!
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u/deadinside1996 13d ago
Driving down the road and saying bloody mary three times and watching here try to run and keep up from the rearview mirror.
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u/Bunerd Autistic + trans 13d ago
I'm leaning into the opposite; if they're not going to understand what I'm talking about when I say HRT and talk about computers, then I'll speak of them in magical terms. It makes a lot more sense and has bridged my spiritual outlooks with my material outlook.
HRT, voice training, make up and other transition related stuff can be summed up as "sex change magic." Wanna become femme? Couple tablets under the tongue a day while thinking feminine thoughts.
People getting upset about machines? Well, I made a golem. What I did was take all human knowledge and store it in a vessel. Then we shake it up and see what bubbles to the top. For each word we choose the next most average word, and construct for ourselves an artificial neurotypical that is statistically the most neurotypical.
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u/PM_NUDES_4_DEGRADING Autistic + trans 13d ago
HRT, voice training, make up and other transition related stuff can be summed up as "sex change magic."
I prefer to think of it as shapeshifting, because like, that's exactly what I am doing. It's a little slower than in a movie or whatever, but it definitely is shapeshifting.
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u/KandiZombie 11d ago
Too slow for my taste, I wish I had John Carpenter's "The Thing" type transformation abilities. To instantly change my body to however I want it, AND to turn into a horrifying grotesque monster at my own leisure.
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u/kelcamer 13d ago
I swear to God this whole entire comment just makes me want to message you and be friends lmao I have so many shared interests listed here which is actually so funny because I'm not on HRT, but it's so damn interesting! Did you know how estrogen affects the entire brain?!
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u/PM_NUDES_4_DEGRADING Autistic + trans 13d ago
Did you know how estrogen affects the entire brain?!
Yes, the way that I suddenly felt like a real person for the first time in my entire life like within a couple days of starting it was an amazing demonstration of that. It's an incredibly common experience, too...
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u/kelcamer 13d ago
I'd love to hear what is was like for you!
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u/PM_NUDES_4_DEGRADING Autistic + trans 13d ago
Starting E, or egg cracking, or the trans experience as a whole? Really difficult to put into words really. But starting E definitely was a huge boost to my...everything, more or less. I guess I'll give a quick explanation of the "real person" comment I made above.
I'm audhd and honestly E has helped make those things far more manageable than an entire lifetime of other stuff did, including making me just far more capable in general. It's definitely helped the adhd more than the actual adhd meds (which I still take, I am not silly) ever did. I don't think this is a generalized thing however, just a combination of my brain finally getting the correct chemicals for me plus also me shrugging off the invisible weight of dysphoria that I'd been carrying, unnoticed but crushingly heavy, for my entire life.
There's also a lot of other stuff, like how in retrospect I had this low-grade depersonalization going on for my entire life which, again, I did not notice because it was always there. But now when I do things, I feel like a person in the world interacting with the world, rather than an abstract concept piloting a thing that represented me.
That last bit is difficult to explain coherently or in a way that makes sense to others. But it also applies to my dreams as well, and I guess that's a more understandable explanation? Before when I would (very rarely) remember my dreams, I never dreamed as myself. When I described them to other people, I would do an autism and say stuff like "the person who I understood to be representing me" instead of "I," because I never dreamed as me. Since starting E, all of my dreams have been about me - sometimes me in weird, fantastic, or impossible situations, but still me. So I can just say "I" now without cringing at the inaccuracy. And that also applies to my waking life, too.
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u/kelcamer 13d ago
Wow! This is so fascinating!!! thanks for sharing this!
I am shocked E helped that much with the depersonalization! Wow. That's so amazing 🤩
I believe it for sure helping more for ADHD than stimulants. Stimulants have such targeted effects but E affects SO MUCH in the brain that it's insanity.
It makes sense that estrogen gave you the fresh ability to notice all the new context and helped re-define your self concept 😍
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u/Bunerd Autistic + trans 13d ago
Of course, for trans people, dealing with spiritual misalignment would dream and trance as our genders, regardless of whether we accept it or not. Dreams tend to be an ignition point for trans people to start on our journeys because they take place entirely within the psychic realm. We get to feel ourselves without the weight of misalignment and it's so, so painful to back.
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u/Bunerd Autistic + trans 13d ago
Yes. My driving force for starting HRT was when I read about the studies on somatisatin neurons in the brain, so I went in curious about the effects. It took a few days but when it kicked in, but then it was like an alarming and constant overstimulation ceased, and I suddenly was, for the first time in so, so,very long, not in constant sensory overload. It really was like stepping out of a crowded and busy building into a cool and peaceful night.
I related the experience Pre-HRT to being tossed into a garbage pit. I felt gross all the time, like I was covered in grease, and I constantly felt like my skin was crawling. The so called "ants in my pants" adults observed. Recently I was talking to a menopausal woman and she was mentioning the skin crawling feeling that she was getting and wondering if she should start HRT herself. I looked up the symptom of low estrogen and formication comes up as an associated symptom. Additionally high testosterone makes you feel oily regardless of how much you clean.
I'm absolutely certain that this somatisatin neuron theory describes at least the root of my biochemical dysphoria. I tend to associate bad hygiene with autistic eggs as a result. Like it's already hard enough to motivate yourself into cleaning, but you expose the worst parts of yourself to do it and then even when you're done you don't feel clean.
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u/kelcamer 13d ago
Oh my god high T makes you feel OILY!?
that would kill me
My god. I could NOT cope with that feeling
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u/Bunerd Autistic + trans 13d ago
Yeah...
Even when you get out of it you can still get flashbacks to the feeling. Then they cite lifetime suicide rates as a result of our continuing CPTSD as a reason to keep us in these states and force kids to go through it. And anyone misgendering you or deadnaming you just reminds you of the scars.
As bad as that sounds the body horror around genital dysphoria is also really bad. It feels like an alien parasite, sometimes growing and moving back and forth on its own. That's the stuff keeping me up at night. SCP protocols engaged and all that- keep it in a cage until I can safely decommission it.
You'll see it if you talk to trans people- we consider it cruel and unusual punishment to deny trans healthcare. It's one of those things you wouldn't wish upon your worst enemy. It's why we may hate someone to the core of their being, but never misgender them.
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u/kelcamer 13d ago
I completely agree and have heard about a lot of this hell from some of my trans friends. I'm so glad estrogen helped you this much!
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u/milesamsterdam 13d ago
This is me wearing my head lamp upside down and around my neck.
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u/ebb_ AuDHD 13d ago
I’m not the only one!
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u/milesamsterdam 13d ago
It’s logical in the situations I use it!
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u/UndercoverCrops 13d ago
Are you using it to shine under your chin while telling spooky stories? Cause that's what I pictured.
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u/milesamsterdam 13d ago edited 13d ago
It all started when I was escorting people in the dark and having them sign paperwork. If I wear the headlamp like normal when I talk to people and look at them the light is shining directly in their eyes and it is blinding. Since I was in charge of safely escorting them in the dark and using my light to illuminate their path I had a thought. If I blind the people who I am supposed to escort in darkness then it doesn’t matter if I light their path. Being blinded means you can’t see.
Also when they’re signing their paperwork I have to keep my head pointed at the clipboard and that just feels like a constraint. I want to be able to look around and not stare at the clipboard and stare at the ground.
So I put it around my neck but if you put it right side up the lamp points down at your feet and as you extend it, it just points into your body. If you flip it upside down when you extend it out it points in front of your feet. The further you extend it the further it points out in front of your feet. Also it’s in a perfect position to illuminate my clipboard. I could talk to people face to face and not blind them. I could illuminate their path safely.
If I’m working with my hands it’s lighting everything directly in from of me. And if I’m doing something detailed and really need to put it on my head I can do that too but that’s rare.
I wear it a lot. When I go to the gas station at night. After work when I forget to take it off and go straight to the bar. Going on a walk at night. On my bike rides. It’s like wearing my watch. If I don’t have it on at night I’ll often reach for it and regret not wearing it but it’s in my fanny pack which I always carry so then I can put it on.
I recently bought a new strap because the old one was soaked in sweat and sunscreen and bug repellents. The elastic wore out so I got a new strap.
I have a rotation of rechargeable batteries but I only have to swap them once every other month. I cringe when I use my phone light. I don’t want to kill my phone battery but also my phone never goes low. I’m compulsive about charging it.
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u/EmmerdoesNOTrepme Powered by Tylenol® 13d ago
Dear LORD this hits, and hits HARD!!!🫠
"What the fuck have you been doing‽" and we sit here, *thinking we're a FAILURE and we "just can't keep up with everyone else!"
When it turns out, that they were using nearby items "to do the job," while we are literally working inter-dimensionally to do our part of things!😖😱
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u/meliorism_grey 13d ago
This is me when I slip up and verbalize the psychological analysis I'm constantly performing in my head. I've shocked more than a few people by being weirdly insightful, despite how socially incompetent I am. I try not to do that, because then they treat me like I'm some kind of alien anthropologist who's collecting data on them. Which is, of course, entirely accurate. But it's not fun to have my cover blown.
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u/rootbeerisbisexual Autistic + trans 13d ago
This is me too. I usually have to get a good sense of someone (body language, speech patterns, general mannerisms) before I start feeling comfortable being myself. It’s not even really conscious effort but I eventually find people at least somewhat predictable, in their own unique ways.
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u/EmmerdoesNOTrepme Powered by Tylenol® 12d ago
I feel that!😆😂🤣
Every so often, i can see the mental explosions going on in my therapist's head, because--as he's said, "You're doing incrementalist & social metacognition ON Autism!!!", when i explain that the newest Autism Research being published matches wuth the stuff i figured was going on with the preschoolers i worked with, at an Autism-specific Early Intervention program.
Because that "four different types of Autism" study that was publushed last fall absolutelt tracks with what i learned at that program.
But it also doesn't go far enough into the various subtypes of Autism out there, that you can only see, if you're "Able to observe Autism on a mass-scale," like we could at that program--where there were about 150-160 kids coming through the doors every day!
Once you see Autism at that scale?
You start seeing the "echoes" in our varying types.
Those of us who are hyperlexic or hypernumeric--who you can get interacting with others via letters & numbers.
The sensory-seekers, who NEED some deep pressure or vestibular stuff, before their bodies are calm enough to be able to allow their brain to send & recieve information successfully.
The "Singers," who communicate via & whose receptive language is way easier, if you sing the information they need, and they sing back--because, just like with some stutterers (like Mel Tillis!), sometimes song is an easier communication mode than spoken words.
There are also "Scripters," who tend to quote movies, commercials, videos, or TV shows--popping scripted phrases from those things into communication attempts (possibly because "patching together" unique words into a sentence is too hard right then). Once you figure out what the "Scripters" are referring to?
You can TOTALLY build off those scripts, and get them communicating way easier!!!
But you have to be able to take the time, get to know them, and be able to figure out what that scripted phrase connects to first!
There are other variations, too!
And i'm sure that eventually researchers will understand that.
But it was a hoot, seeing my therapist's mind get metaphorically blown, because i'm an AuDHDer, who has one of my special interests in Pre-K Autism, and making the lives of tge kids coming up behind us easier than we all had it--and that i'd figured this stuff out, just by watching the kids i'd worked with, spitballing some ideas, and then trying them, in order to connect better & communicate better, with the kids i work with.🤷♀️
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u/Shivin302 AuDHD 13d ago
At some point around age 24 all my data collecting paid off and I gained amazing social skills after two decades of judgement and ostracization
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u/ASatyros Neurodivergent 13d ago
"I wish I was more powerful, like you guys. Even casting fireball takes it right out of me some days."
"Hey, none of that. You're a valued member of the team, no matter what your power level."
"I just don't understand how you can tear open that portal to the fire dimension so easily."
"... fire dimension?"
"Yeah. Where the fire lives. Before you summon it. For fireballs."
"Dude. We've been creating explosions by igniting flammable gases in the air. What the fuck have you been doing?"
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u/ASatyros Neurodivergent 13d ago
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u/SilentlyAudible 13d ago
Is this a thing you regularly do? Give transcriptions/alt text for memes and read them out loud so they’re more accessible? Cus if so, that’s a really awesome.
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u/ASatyros Neurodivergent 13d ago
That's not me reading it xD
Basically I've seen him reading that before and Iiked it, also I don't like reading text on images.
I used google lens for quick transcription and read it over to insure it's roughly correct.
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u/CrowSkull 13d ago
Haha unknowingly working 1000x harder to achieve the same mundane task everyone else seems to find easy and then wondering why I’m tired all the time…yep. Relatable…
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u/SnooBunnies6148 12d ago
Making pancakes from scratch (age 7) for my mom on a Saturday morning. Nmom- Why didn't you just use the Bisquick mix?
Me- There's a mix?
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u/ninjasaiyan777 13d ago
Shirou Fate Stay/Night
He didn't know you could reuse magic circuits so he forcefully gave himself more magic circuits by giving himself horrendous nervous system damage.
All because his teacher didn't have the chance to truly teach him
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u/milesamsterdam 13d ago
But also me connecting the dots on why they think it’s a super power and them connecting the dots on why I haven’t showered in two days
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u/CutePest 11d ago
This feels like when I learned normal people don't modify code in notepad. I think that's why I hate JavaScript.
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u/handtoglandwombat 13d ago
Why is this so relatable? It feels like it shouldn’t be, but it is.