Being An Autistic Person At School:

Being an autistic person at school:

comes with a lot of stress, mainly because it involves masking, which is a coping mechanism where I mask my autistic traits and try to behave more neurotypical. It’s very draining and requires a lot of energy, and it’s still not enough.

comes with w lot of stress because of sensory overload, e.g bright lights, increased sensitivity to certain sounds, crowded spaces, loud noise, bad smells and textures. Each of these factors make my daily life harder, I feel irritated, tired and overwhelmed/overstimulated.

comes with a lot of anxiety, because I have trouble communicating, I take things literally sometimes, I find it hard to know what someone’s tone of voice means, or their expression. It makes me overthink and overanalyze details in order to come up with an appropriate response.

comes with more increased pain, my period cramps, headaches, pain in general are stronger, which often leads me to a sensory overload and is invading my daily life and makes me unable to to concentrate on basic tasks. It also makes me unable to participate in PE classes sometimes.

comes with a lot of emotional dysregulation, since my body can’t regulate my emotions the way the neurotypical one does, it’s harder to do so. This makes it harder to write tests, complete excersises in class. It can take a toll on my mental health and grades.

I’m studying gender dysphoria and transgender identities. Please fill out this survey:

Google Docs

Investigating risk factors for gender dysphoria

Gender dysphoria risk scale (GDRS). This 80 question form asks questions about topics such as mental health, self harm and suicide, physical

It is about 80 questions long and deals with sensitive content. For individuals 13 and older who experience gender dysphoria. Answers are anonymous, but you will need to sign in with your email in order to save your responses. 1 response per person. You will be able to see summary charts. Questions are scrambled.

One thing I need to make very clear is that just because you don't have an official diagnosis for something, that doesn't mean you don't have it. Self-Diagnosis has itself a bad rep (likely due to people faking disorders nowadays), but it can be helpful to those who might not have the money to get an actual diagnosis. I'm so sick of people saying that Self-Diagnosing is bad, because often times it is super important, and can help someone understand what's going on with them. Of course, make sure to do lots of research to make sure your self-diagnosis is actually accurate, but I feel like this isn't said enough.

Self-Diagnosis is good, faking disorders is bad.

Book covers designed by Viktor Zamirailo (1920s)

Contrary to popular belief, “hating praise” is not just a PDA thing. There are many reasons it could not sit right with someone.

It’s also assumed that people like this just hate all praise, but that’s not true either. What we hate is feeling manipulated, or lied to, or monitored, etc.

I mean, do you realize how much adults are encouraged to use praise to manipulate kids and people in care?? We’re supposed to use it to get more of the behaviors we like, and to promote a “growth mindset,” and to encourage them to stick with activities we think are good for them, and so on and so on.

That’s so much trying to get people to do what we want them to do! Is it really any wonder that praise could end up feeling disingenuous and manipulative after a while? How often are we just genuinely appreciating something they’ve done or who they are as a person, and how are they to know the difference?

If you have someone in your life who reacts badly when you praise them, maybe take a look at your motivations or the way you’re doing it instead of assuming they are the one with the problem. Maybe there’s something like low self esteem or rejection sensitivity skewing their perception, or maybe their perception is just fine and they’re picking up on your ulterior motives (and they don’t appreciate it!).

And please know that you don’t have to withdraw all praise. Everyone wants to feel like they’re good at *something* and that people like what they do. Just wait until it’s wanted, and make sure it’s genuine, with no expectations attached.

as a child i suppose i was not quite normal. my happiest times were when i was left alone in the house on a saturday.

(Charles Bukowski)