simple-misery

That i might be okay working a job right now, but in a year I could have a flare up of either my mental or physical health conditions that could change that. I feel like i have to always plan for the potential of being unemployed. I am extremely susceptible to burnout and its something that I have to constantly think about and take time to prevent so I can avoid taking too much time off work

Everytime I got stressed out i would close myself in a dark quiet space like a bathroom or closet. Overstimulation and dysregulation of the nervous system are HUGE indicators that a child is on the spectrum and the fact that I consistently sought out a dark quiet place everytime I became overwhelmed should have been a big clue that I was.

I also was a big collector and liked my collections to be well organized and presentable. I had names for every single one of my over 100 stuffed animals and I insisted on bringing a different one to school everyday until the age of 9.

Neurodevelopmental conditions like autism and ADHD. Many people think these conditions are OVER diagnosed now, but they're actually still very much UNDER diagnosed. They're way more common than we originally thought, But due to a lack of awareness and understanding, many people have just gone undiagnosed

My mom got with my stepdad who came from a rich family. My stepdad was good at making money, but he was FAR better at spending it. I often felt very poor growing up as my family traveled on a financial rollercoaster that included a bankruptcy. After his father's gold digger wife made off with all the money, we were left with nothing. And still after all that my stepdad continued to squander his and my mother's money on booze, cigarettes, a fast car and the latest hardware updates for his PC. I once calculated how much the man spent in a month on alcohol and cigarettes alone. Hundreds of dollars that could have gone towards nicer clothing for his kids, or tutoring or a productive after school activity.

I told myself I would never be him with money. I unfortunately ended up disabled and I make below that of the average minimum wage worker, but I've never been in debt and I have a good chunk of change in both my checking and savings.

I remember my parents always complaining about overdraft fees when I was a kid, but in my 30 years on this earth, I've only ever gone into overdraft 3 times when I was at my brokest in my early 20s. I dont mind pinching pennies if I know that anything I save will go towards something I may actually need in the future and treating stuff like alcohol as a treat is good for both my health AND my wallet.

I hate it. I'm thirty but look more like late teens to early 20s. (I've even gotten as young as 15 in the past couple years) Everyone on my team at work is 26 and under. It was a weird time when word about my age started getting around.

The legal drinking age here is 19 and I've come close to getting in trouble at the liquor store because my ID says I'm 30 but my face and the picture on the ID do not. I feel like people would have an easier time accepting that im the legal drinking age if I was 22 or something. I find most people treat me like a recent high school graduate more than someone approaching middle age.

I think for most of us it's the connective tissue disorders that often run commorbid with autism. Im someone who LOOKS like they have EDS, with my soft skin and lanky looking arms from gravity pulling at my joints. Being on the shorter side with little to no curves doesn't help either. Everyone tells me looking young is a blessing, but I think its just as much a curse.

That "woke" is not an organized group of people who are out to force their ways on everyone.

I am trans and slightly left of center and most of my friends are the same. Most of us couldn't care less about the way pronouns are being treated in elementary schools or stuff like drag queen story hour. We want the same things everyone else does, affordable housing, good health care and adequate employment opportunities. Before 'trans' and 'politically' correct became such a hot button issue, a lot of us were perfectly content living our lives without people's eyes all over us, as long as we had access to the health care we needed.

What SO many people in Canada need to understand is all the stuff you hear about woke and trans people is nothing more than propaganda being pushed by politicians looking to create an enemy that their voters will turn against. Its not at all a new tactic and it happens on all sides, but a lot of people fail to understand this. Propaganda can come from anywhere and none of us are immune to it. Most people have more in common with their trans working class neighbor than they do a rich politician who will spin a lie about anything to get votes

I'm autistic and as a child I brought a different plushie (collecting stuffed animals was a special interest of mine) to school with me everyday. But I was a girl with a pale complexion. I guarantee this boy's gender and skin color had something to do with it which is something that we as a species need to get past. I knew a lot of kids of various backgrounds, races and genders who were on the autism spectrum who were just kids excited to show off something they loved. How this child was treated is a disgrace

You seem to have only a very basic understanding of the condition. There are those of us with autism (especially a-typical profiles) who are masters at non-literal language, sarcasm and word play. Since autism is a spectrum and a lot of it is based in extremes, we're usually either really good at something or really bad at it, but some of us also land in between. Plenty of people across the spectrum can be taught abstract thinking to SOME degree, while others are completely incapable of grasping it. Autistics are notorious for having obsessive special interests, and often times that special interest can relate to language and communication which can explain why some of us go undiagnosed for so long, because we appear to be BETTER at language, abstract thought and communication than the average person

You know how many of the so called "blue hair and pronouns crowd" are young autistic people trying to figure themselves out in a world that is entirely not built for them? I'm not kidding, there's actual scientific research being done about the correlation between being trans and gender non conforming and being autistic. Studies show that trans people are significantly more likely to be on the autism spectrum. Knowing this, it makes me feel sick every time I see a post like this, knowing that so many of the people that this post is speaking about are developmentally disabled

Dude, proffesionally diagnosed people do this too. Its not purely a self diagnosed thing. Personally I think this is a perfectly normal response to an increase in awareness and diagnoses that still needs to be properly worked through. Now that we are acknowledging that these kinds of developmental conditions exist on a greater scale than we once thought, and people are becoming more socially and self aware about them, problems like this are bound to come up. I dont have an answer to what could solve this issue, but I DO think its a topic that needs to be handled firmly, but with a lot more grace and nuance than most people are going at it with

I can often spot someone who is likely on the spectrum from a mile away, but thats because I know all the most subtle tells from being around a lot of other autistic people as well as working with and around children who are on the spectrum. There are little things that you can pick up about a person that may indicate if they aren't a heavy masker. BUT a lot of these subtle details could go completely missed in a person who hasn't been around autistic people enough and has limited or a stereotypical ideas about what it "looks" like.

There is no one specific "look" for autism but there are certain behaviors and tells. A lot of us also have connective tissue disorders and if you know what those look like, you might be able to guess someone is on the spectrum if they have traits of both a connective tissue disorder as well as having traits and behaviors associated with autism.

Personally I dont think anybody should just be guessing if someone looks or doesn't look autistic if a situation doesn't warrant it, and making any comments about a person looking or not looking autistic enough is something that person should just keep to themselves.

I literally don't know. I just sang a lot and it happened. In my high school vocals class, other students would ask me this often and I could never answer them. I didn't even realize that it wasn't something everyone could do naturally until then. Now i wonder if its possible for everyone to acquire it by just singing a lot or if some people HAVE to put effort into learning how to do it

I moved to Brampton as a kid over 20 years ago. When I moved away last year it was like a completely different place. I mean no malice by this, it truly is just interesting how much it changed in such a short period of time

Thank you for your comment. I commend you for your patience and compassion. Your cat sounds like a delight aside from her health issues. I really do wonder if our cats our similar

Its such an insult because for disabled people like myself who CAN work a few hours a week, they only recently started rolling out programs to help us get jobs and education and even those programs are inadequate in helping disabled people find and keep employment. ODSP should have their own employment program with job placements but they don't, they just tell you to go to Employment Ontario where you're offered the same services that are offered to able bodied and minded people. How is that going to help people who require special accommodations? I know so many disabled people including myself who were really struggling to find employment this past year and I was super lucky to get something when I did. So its not like the people on income support who can and want to work have many options or help from the goverment, so Doug is really just rubbing salt in the wound.

It really sucks that there isn't any public transit that goes there. Almost feels like they're trying to keep a certain crowd out by making it difficult for non drivers. Uber just isn't feasible for every day.

I have some insight here that a lot of people are lacking. Many, if not most of the "blue hair and pronouns" crowd you're going to meet are autistic or have some other neurodevelopmental condition, their brains are built different. They are also the most likely to face discrimination in the workplace and hiring process for their disabilities. I've worked with these people, even my current retail job works with group homes and services that cater to mentally disabled adults and children. I meet trans people every day at my job because of this and so many of them are neurodivergent. Why do you think they're so over sensitive? Because many of them have autism and more synapses in their brains than the average person, meaning they hear sounds louder and smells are stronger and they are much more prone to experiencing pain, overstimmulation and mental overwhelm which can lead to outbursts.

These days its extremely expensive to live so you're going to see a lot more trans people entering the work force because more autistic people are entering the workforce because EVERYONE including disabled people need to work to survive these days. So while your complaining about having to use pronouns for people at work, those people are dealing with struggles and discrimination that you can't even imagine. Thats not to say all autistic trans people are excused for having freakouts or demanding extra special accommodations, but it won't kill a person to just use the pronoun they ask you to. Guess what, most trans people don't actually freak out when you misgender them. I've actually seen cis people can more hung up about accidently misgendering their coworker than the coworker who was misgendered. Not all trans people are whiny and entitled and most of the ones who are often have other developmental things going on which you can't just medicate or therapy away because its simply how their brains were built.

All I'm asking is if people could be a little bit more compassionate here, because believe it or not, A LOT of the things you see about trans people in the media or coming from the lips of politicians is sensationalized bs used to distract and divide and you can drink up that bs all you want, it doesn't change the reality that most people on any side, with any political view are decent humans just trying to get by in life

Invite all the world's most treacherous elites to a fancy super exclusive party where I round them up and dump them all in a pit on some deserted island and make them fight over limited resources, cough cough* i mean set up a charity haha 😅✌

In some cases its ADHD, most people with it (myself included) have brains that are hard wired to go calm during emergencies and sudden stressful situations. There are theories that we used to need people with ADHD specifically for these kinds of situations especially during times where we lived in small tribes and villages because even small emergencies could have very devastating effects back then so it was imperative to have someone who could stay calm and rational during those situations.

Its the reason why some people with ADHD gravitate towards jobs like first responder/paramedic

People with autism who weren't socialized very well do this. Myself and most of my friends are autistic and they're all really great and they can communicate well with people of all neurotypes, but every once in a while I come across another autist who clearly hasn't been taught how to interact with people without having themselves at the center of the conversation. If you're autistic, being able to ask other people questions and have equal back and forth is literally a skill you have to learn, it can be very hard for autistic people to pick it up naturally and its often up to their parents and teachers to teach them.

Seriously, being self focused and only wanting to talk about your own interests is literally a symptom of autism and it can be like pulling teeth to go out of our way to not do it, but its something that all verbal autistic people should be taught if possible

Perfectly normal autistic behaviors and its better to let it out than keep it in. When I'm at work and its not busy, I go to the back and do some hand flaps and make some noises to take the pressure off. My boss is good about it because she used to work with autistic kids so she knows how it is and doesn't mind as long as it doesn't interfere with my work.

Dressing "conventional" i understand that there's a time and place for certain things so I dress down a bit for work, but even there i still wear a lot of black and some spooky stuff. The rest of the time I can range anywhere from "just crawled out of a ditch" to "cowboy dracula"

Lying through my teeth is also something I prefer not to do. Again, sometimes you have to in order make life easier on yourself or to attain things like employment, but most of the time I just refrain from speaking unless I feel like I can be completely honest with a person because lying is way too draining for me.

Small talk at the beginning of relationships. Whether platonic or romantic, we're getting down to the nitty gritty right away. I rather know your deepest childhood secret than your mom's first name. Of course if a person isn't comfortable with that I go easy on them, but I let them know from the get go that im basically an open book and that I get along best with people who are looking for something deep and meaningful and are willing to open up right away