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Monday 18 November 2013

This Is Autism

I am autism.


A lot of other people are autism as well.  I., G., H., A., C., T., T., M., A., L..... (some first initials of some Autistic friends of mine) are autism.

Today is This is Autism Day, and I feel as though I should be giving some deep and meaningful description of what exactly autism is and provide some uplifting analysis of how Autistics are integral for the healthy functioning of the world.

According to the DSM-V, autism can be diagnosed whenever there is a combination of a very wide range of possible signs and symptoms that the manual lists.  That is really vague.  But that's what autism is: autism is a ton of different things in a ton of different patterns and has a ton of different presentations.

For me, autism is:
- loving words
- making lists of names
- not being able to process emotions healthily
- struggling to control my anger
- crying over things that don't need to be cried over
- not crying at sad things
- an intense fear of social situations with large crowds or unknown people
- a special interest in quiz shows and empirical knowledge
- a love of my puppy, my boyfriend, my mother, and very few other people
- extremely sensitive to the needs of animals but not the needs of people
- horrible stress at the idea of change
- needing a solid and structured plan 100% of the time
- panic attacks when little things change
- shutting down in situations that make me uncomfortable
- jumping, waving, shaking, twitching, repeating words and sounds to make me feel better

I have no meaningful conclusion for today's post.  I just want to say: Autism is different for everyone.

Autism is complicated, but it should never be scary.

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