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Category: Sensory Sensitivity

What It’s Like to Want to Suicide Every Day

What It’s Like to Want to Suicide Every Day

I can’t remember the last day that passed without a thought of suicide. I’ve thought about it as long as i can remember. I have suicidal thoughts going back to the single digits (this is not uncommon for autists). Suicidal thoughts are so frequent for me that i often consider carrying a book around to track them, just to know if i ever have days without one. (I haven’t done this for fear that i don’t.) Practically anything can trigger…

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The Working Autist: Sweating and Hyperhidrosis

The Working Autist: Sweating and Hyperhidrosis

Today i’d like to discuss work. And sweat. I have hyperhidrosis. It presents (for me) as excessive sweating on my hands, feet, neck, back, and under-arms. The more i sweat, the more i worry about sweating, and the more i sweat… As you can imagine, this leads to a pretty vicious cycle. It also goes unrecognized by others and is an invisible disability in this way. Showering provides little relief. I am sweating as soon as i step out and…

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On the Spectrum of Acceptance and Improvement

On the Spectrum of Acceptance and Improvement

Discovering as an adult that i am autistic has meant re-framing the cornucopia of my life-long struggles. For example, i have shitty fine-motor skills; i suck at balancing; i sometimes look away in conversation; i bite my cheeks; i have sweaty extremities; i am pained by bright lighting; i repeat things spontaneously. Or, i’m weird; i’m awkward; i’m different; i’m flawed; i’m gifted; i’m wrong; i’m special. The best thing about this discovery? I’ve finally identified a single “cause” for…

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Stimming Freely and Me

Stimming Freely and Me

Allists tap their fingers, but autists self-stimulate (abbr., stim). Put another way, as autistic author melanie yergeau writes, being diagnosed meant that “my hand and full-body movements became self-stimulatory behaviors”. But everyone stims(!), with contemporary (but nascent) research suggesting that “autism traits” are “distributed normally” throughout the entire human population (as discussed here). Semantics aside, stimming has been “re-claimed” (read: claimed) by actual autists (e.g., #StimFreely) as a means of taking pride in our bodies. This post, then, is meant to…

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The Accountant: Autism and Pencak Silat in Contemporary Media

The Accountant: Autism and Pencak Silat in Contemporary Media

Content Warning: trauma, bullying, violence, death, micro-aggressions, spoilers I think i’ll take this week to switch things up with a film analysis. While i’ve previously discussed autism in contemporary media twice — the film Mary and Max, here, and the U.S. TV series The Office, here — i’ve not done so in a while, nor at such length. Today i want to explore The Accountant‘s portrayals of autism, disability, and pencak silat (abbr., silat) I saw it in theaters with…

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The Joys of Pinball Brain: Autism And Death Metal

The Joys of Pinball Brain: Autism And Death Metal

Pinball brain (n.) is a term roughly defined by my friend as “the state and feeling of [one’s] brain being lit up like a pinball machine“. The connotative meaning of this term is (generally) positive, being associated with feelings of cognitive stimulation, joyousness, pleasure, and life. This term enlightened me as to why i have such a particular love for death metal. And why i sometimes abhor my tendency to perseverate. To illustrate the latter, my linear sequencing tendency makes…

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A Brief Pause for Raisons D’être

A Brief Pause for Raisons D’être

My pragmatic language is not a problem for me. It becomes a problem when society values attention over (and as an assumption of) intent. In addition to my ability to make consistent eye-contact (despite finding it uncomfortable in certain contexts), i have an impeccable ability to interpret others’ levels of comfortability and attention based on their body language. For example, i was greeting dogs properly since i was a child; their fear of direct eye-contact/approach and comfortability with indirect eye-contact…

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A Movie Changed My Life

A Movie Changed My Life

Content Warning: trauma, suicide, death, drug use, abandonment, spoilers I have a vivid memory of the first time i watched the 2009 Australian claymation film Mary and Max. I had recently turned 18, and one of my great friends had died suddenly earlier that year from health complications they were unaware of. Mary and Max played on a relatively old CRT-TV in the basement of the house of a friend (whom i didn’t care too much for). I sat watching…

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