Autistic Eagle: Archive

I'm REALLY interested in beers and observing the nightlife culture, but being autistic in a bar is a pain. Do any of you guys do bars? If so, what do you do about the noise? Following any conversation is impossible because the music is usually too loud, and I just end up hearing a jumble of everyone talking. I've got understanding friends, but I still go nonverbal more often than not. Would noise-canceling headphones and a notepad help, or would that just make people want to bother me?

Trust me, it would DEFINITELY make people want to bother you. Especially drunk people. Drunk people are annoying.

Bars are hell for me. I avidly avoid them.

Maybe go with some in-ear earplugs. They might help a bit. And they’ll keep the majority of drunks away.

Good luck!

-Lindsay

I rarely go out to bars, one of the reasons is because of the noise (the bigger reason though is because I’m broke).

Perhaps trying to find a bar that has a more quiet space (like a patio during the summertime, or a separate room that doesn’t have loud music) would help. Of course, finding those spaces is trial and error in itself. Some bars have websites that have details about the kind of environment it provides. For example, restaurants with bars attached tend to be quieter than nightclubs, since more of the focus is on the food than the dancing (or the hooking up).

Have you tried texting out your message then showing your phone to your friends?

I hope this has helped at least little bit.

- Lucas

Jun 19, 2013

#Anonymous

Just to pipe in again, guinea pigs would be an amazing idea. Or Degus. I live Degus.

Agreed. One of my special interests is rodents.

— Abby

Jun 19, 20132 notes

Thanks so much for being so welcoming. This is a great a resource as an individual whos being educated in behavioral therapy but disagrees with a lot of common methods I'm really excited to be welcome here. I promise I'll do my best to not be rude and I won't ever think I'm more right than any of you.

No problems at all! Everyone here thinks that you (an autism therapist who actually listens to autistic people) are absolutely amazing. You’re a superstar, and don’t you ever change. Also, get a guinea pig for your office. Kids love guinea pigs, and I know for a fact that if my therapist let me play with a guinea pig whilst I talked to her, I’d be way more open because I’d get to snuggle with a fluffy squeaky furry animal.

— Samby

Jun 19, 20135 notes

Someone kind of famous I have on Facebook messaged me back and I couldn't stop happy flapping until my wrists ached. Happy stimming has its ups and downs I think.

Yay!

— Sam

Jun 19, 20131 note

My history teacher decided to move furniture in my history classroom. She knows I'm autistic. Result: I forced everyone to stand whilst I rearranged the room.

Abby

Jun 19, 201310 notes

My mom moved my entire room around while I was in Boston.

*cue stimming*

It’s cool, mom. I didn’t want to sleep tonight or anything.

-Lindsay

Jun 19, 20137 notes

#actuallyautistic #actually autistic

An international group of prominent scientists has signed The Cambridge Declaration of Consciousness in which they are proclaiming their support for the idea that animals are conscious and aware to the degree that humans are â a list of animals that includes all mammals, birds, and even the octopus.

Holy crap guys, this is amazing!

Oh, and by the way: in your wills, if you have them*, donate your brains to scientific research. Brains from autistics are apparently a very scarce resource, which greatly limits the research into autism and related conditions.

And YES, you can ensure that it’s not used for finding a cure, if that’s your wish. What you need to do is state outright in the donation portion of the will that you expressly and completely forbid your brain to be used in research designed to develop, test or research a cure for any Autistic Spectrum Disorder. Then, legally, they can’t touch you.

— Samby

*Edit: After re-reading this, I figured that it implied I was asking if you guys had brains. Of course you do. What I MEANT was that if you have WILLS.

Jun 18, 201311 notes

I want to tell the mods and followers something! About a month ago, I was doodling with crayons and created visual representations of various stims. I keep meaning to re-draw them and post them on my blog.

LIZZIE, IF YOU DO NOT DO THIS I WILL ACTUALLY NEVER SPEAK TO YOU AGAIN EVER.

(except I actually will. But still!)

-Lindsay

Jun 17, 20133 notes

#cupcakeinatorellie

I'd love to draw for this blog sometime :') I love all of you. I have a DeviantART too but I doubt anyone would want to see it. It's not got many drawings in it and I'm bad at drawing haha

We’d love to see it! (And I’m sure you’re brilliant)

- Lucas

Jun 16, 20131 note

Jun 16, 20139 notes

My executive dysfunction is super bad today.

Same.

*attempts to hug and fails*

-Lindsay

Jun 16, 20132 notes

#deathtasteslikechicken

Hi, I have a question. I'm not an eagle, but I work with kids who are. I've followed you to kinda help get another perspective on things. I've just realized that may be rude of me. I don't want to be out of line. If you're all comfortable with this, I'd love to continue following and popping in with the occasional question. If This is a safe space I'm invading I will gladly unfollow.

We are absolutely happy to have you here. We welcome parents and teachers of Autistic people when they’re here to learn and to get actual autistics’ perspectives on their own lives.

The only thing we don’t tolerate is allistics telling us that their opinion is superior to ours when it comes to our own well being and livelihood. However, it’s quite obvious that’s not how you are. Feel free to ask us any question you’d like. We’ll try to answer it to the best of our abilities.

-Lindsay

Jun 16, 20135 notes

#thetobes

I had a really bad meltdown in a restaurant tonight. My friends were concerned, but one of them was really worried, and was basically trying to drag me out of there so I could regroup. I was mostly nonverbal at the time. Luckily, one of our friends is actually a teacher at a preschool for Autistic children, so she’s well familiar with meltdowns. She told Friend A to just let me work through it, because there’s nothing she can do for me. It took me about an hour to get mostly through it, and by that time, my vision was almost completely blurred from tears and overstimulation. Teacher Friend ended up lightly guiding me to a quieter area so I could stim and breathe through it and regroup. We ended up talking for a bit. About her work, the reasons her students go into meltdowns, about how she thinks a service dog would be the best thing for me, because if I had had a dog in there, I probably wouldn’t have gone past a mild shutdown. We also talked about how my stimming has changed over the years, and how my everyday overstimulation stim is tapping my fingers to my thumb. However, when things get really bad, I resort to the stim I had as a really young child, which is hitting myself with the heel of my hand on the top/side of my head. I also incorporated one of the stims I use when my brain gets overloaded from thoughts, which is to recite ‘As I Walked Out One Evening’ by Auden. I got through it 56 times tonight before I could walk again.

Just wanted to share this little snippet between me and Friend A while I was still kind of verbal:

Friend A: “Do you want to go outside? Come on, let’s go outside and let you breathe.”
Me: “I can’t walk. I’ll fall over.”
Friends A: “Then I will carry you.”

I really love this group of friends, and I wish I got to see them more than once a year. I also wish everybody had friends like these guys.

-Lindsay

Jun 16, 201322 notes

#actuallyautistic #actually autistic

Jun 15, 20135 notes

#meme #autism #autistic #actuallyautistic

I'm going to meet a friend of mine that I've only met once before and I'm panicking and freaking out. I don't know what to do or say. It's making me feel sick :(

Try thinking of things unrelated to the meetup, things that make you happy, infodump, etc., things that calm you down.

What I do sometimes if I don’t have a starting topic, is read a few news articles from the day, and start out with that. Something that might not always happen…

Like, earlier this week, a Nigerian man survived for 2 days underwater because he found an air vent in the sinking ship. He was the only person from the crew of 12 to survive. The rescuers had to put him in a decompression chamber for a few hours after he was found so then he could adjust into being above water safely. Not the best situation to be in when you’re taking a job as a cook.

- Lucas

Jun 15, 20133 notes

I am transgender (female to male) and have been on testosterone for 10 months. I was diagnosed as having aspergers about 5 years ago. Back then I didn't notice my symptoms much but since I've been on T, they've felt very obvious. Do you think my symptoms could have gotten worse because of this massive hormone change? Especially since aspergers is much more common in males?

I think it’s perfectly possible, but I doubt that Asperger’s being more common in males would have anything to do with it. It would most likely be due to the mental and physical stress that the hormone shift is placing on you, which is causing you to be more obviously autistic, since you are less able to hide your symptoms.

HRT is basically a second puberty, particularly for FtM trans* people (since female is the “default” biological gender setting and thus there is a more definite transition than for MtF trans* people), and puberty places major stress on the body. Good luck friend, and I hope you are happy with your new hormones! :)

— Abby

Jun 15, 20134 notes

Jun 15, 201347 notes

#autistic eagle #autisticeagle #autism #autistic #asperger's #aspergers #aspie #autsie #actuallyautistic #actually autistic #submission

Speaking of sensory things:

I love controlled heat. Meaning, the layers of clothing I wear contributes to the amount of heat on my body that I control. This is why I don’t like summer heat and/or humidity. The Sun is my foe. The duo team of Rain and Cloud are my allies. I always wear clothes when I sleep, though if I don’t have any plans the next day, I’ll wear sweatpants, a sweater, while wrapped in my warm blanket because of reasons.

I also love pressure. Well, more like crave it. I love having people walk on my back. Most of my friends hesitate and/or won’t do it. The crave for pressure is also something that must be controlled by me, or else it can not work.

- Lucas

Jun 14, 20138 notes

Hi. I was diagnosed as having aspergers through a 3 day psych test about 4 years ago. The diagnosis helped explain a lot about myself. Lately, in the past 6 months or so, I've noticed a definite increase in my symptoms. Loud sounds are the worst. Today I started screaming as I passed a loud truck and totally scared myself. Do you know if aspergers symptoms can worsen over time?

I’m not sure about worsen, but they can definitely change over time. Your ability to adapt to loud sounds might be more sensitive than in the past, the same can also be said with other senses (taste, hearing, touch, etc).

When I was younger, my situation with loud sounds were the same as yours. I couldn’t handle it, and I would have a verbal meltdown. Now, loud sounds are a minor annoyance if it’s temporary, but if longer, I drown out those loud sounds with my own loud sounds (music in headphones, mostly).

- Lucas

Jun 14, 20132 notes

So the downloadable book you guys just posted, my google chrome virus blocker thing gave me a warning about a phising website and now i conflicted on downloading the book </3

I’m sorry that happened! I also have google chrome and it worked fine for me. I don’t personally know what to do re: computer things, so here’s another option.

If you feel comfortable sharing your email address to the fan mail, I can send you the pdf file of what I downloaded. If you don’t feel comfortable, I can get a hold of the OP tumblr and let them know about the phising issue, and see if anything can be done that way.

- Lucas

Jun 14, 2013

Autistic Eagle

June 2013

141 posts