Links

Sensory Sensitivities: Understanding Triggers

Link 2014-02-04 humanitysdarkerside Leave a comment

Again, Musings of an Aspie (Cynthia Kim) expresses my thoughts perfectly. I’m sitting her in my new sweater just feeling the tag in back becoming more and more painful. Why I bother to leave them on for so long before I cut them off, I will never figure out. Stubborn and determined not to let a tiny piece of fabric win over me. Silly old woman.

Musings of an Aspie

This is part 3 in a series about sensory sensitivities and atypical sensory processing. Read the other parts: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 4

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While atypical sensory filtering is related to sensory sensitivities, not all unfiltered sensory data will trigger sensitivities. Remember the sounds I described hearing as I’m typing this? I’m not especially sensitive to any of them. I hear them and it’s hard to tune them out, but I don’t have a biological stress reaction to them. They’re just there and over the years I’ve grown used to having a lot of irrelevant aural data constantly pinging around in my brain.

In fact, I didn’t know until a couple of years ago that other people don’t hear all of those distinct ambient sounds when they’re engaged in an activity.

I suppose what’s happening in this case is my sensory gating is failing…

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Autism / Aspergers, Reblogged

Sensory Sensitivities and Atypical Sensory Processing

Link 2014-02-01 humanitysdarkerside Leave a comment

Yup. This is exactly how it is for me as well. I used to think that every other person on the planet was like this as well. Now, I have learned otherwise.

Musings of an Aspie

This is the first in a series of posts about autistic sensory processing and sensory sensitivities. Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

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I once had a t-shirt that I really wanted to like. It was a souvenir from a trip to Hawaii. The color, the material, the fit, the design–all perfect. It would have been my favorite new shirt, except for one thing.

It had a tiny thread in the collar that scratched my neck. A thread so small that I couldn’t see it. I’d cut out the offending tag and all of the visible stitching holding the tag in place, but that one little thread refused to go.

So I decided that I was going to get used to it. I was going to pretend that evil remnant of plastic thread didn’t exist. If it was too small to see, surely I could ignore it.

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Animals

Introducing: Sidekicks

Link 2014-01-17 humanitysdarkerside Leave a comment

What a great idea. Any of you readers out there interested and able could have some fun doing this.

Help On Four Legs

Last week, I asked for your participation in a project that my friend Melanie and I are working on. As of that post, we had a broad vision of what we wanted to accomplish, no name, and the only progress we’d made was that we’d made a secret Pinterest Pinboard. That’s essential, I’m told.

Today, I’m happy to say that we have a name, a photoshoot under our belts and several more in the works, a web domain, and an elevator pitch, albeit shaky at the moment, and also subject to change. Apparently elevator pitches are also essential.

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Humour, Reblogged

English professor suddenly realises students will believe literally anything she says

Link 2014-01-11 humanitysdarkerside Leave a comment

To any and all teachers/professors out there: Do you find yourself agreeing with the experiences of Prof. Mabrey?

Craig Hill

Midway through her 9 a.m. Intro to American Literature course Thursday, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Professor Elizabeth Mabrey suddenly realised that her students would accept, without question, literally any words that came out of her mouth as absolute, incontrovertible fact, sources confirmed.

“I could say that On the Road was an overt metaphor for the Vietnam War and they would jot it down in their notebooks without any hesitation whatsoever,” said Mabrey, adding that, come midterms, her students will, as if on cue, mindlessly regurgitate whatever she tells them, whether it’s that the character of Dean Moriarty is supposed to be a figment of Sal Paradise’s imagination, or that the entire novel is meant to be read backwards.

“I could, honest to God, ask them to tear their copies of the novel in half because that’s what Kerouac ‘intended the reader to do,’ and they would do it. I mean, what…

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Autobiography

I Made Fun of Feminists… Before My Abuse

Link 2014-01-10 humanitysdarkerside 1 Comment

One of the many reasons I am a feminist – my many friends who have lived in abusive relationships.

BroadBlogs

By Anonymous

I used to make fun of feminists because I wanted boys to like me. Back before I met a boy who abused me. Before realizing that I lived in a culture that supported my abuse, and that kept me from questioning it.

TRIGGER WARNING May be triggering for some survivors of sexual violence

At seventeen I met my ex-boyfriend. It was small things at first. He’d put me down and laugh it off.

The first time he raped me I didn’t cry. I was numb. I asked if he realized what he’d done and he had said, matter-of-factly, “All girls get raped at some point.”

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Reblogged

Idioms Explained In Lecture: “Shitting Where We Eat”

Link 2013-12-14 humanitysdarkerside Leave a comment

I have never had such a clear and understandable explanation of what “shitting where we eat”. For someone as literal-minded as myself, I have just thought that it sounds reasonable not to do that. Thank goodness there are people out there who like to do stuff like this.

Autism / Aspergers, Reblogged

Raise Autism Awareness – watch & share this video

Link 2013-12-11 humanitysdarkerside Leave a comment

This video is a great introduction to autism and the person presenting the topic has a delightful voice.

Shrugs, Not Hugs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gZjDxt8Zrg

What is Autism? What is Asperger’s Syndrome? Is it common? What can be done about it? – From the National Autistic Society (UK)

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Autism / Aspergers, Reblogged

Gender and Autism: A Preliminary Survey Post

Link 2013-12-05 humanitysdarkerside Leave a comment

In my search for an understanding of what it means to be a woman with Aspergers/ASD/what-not, sites like Musings of an Aspie help me put things into perspective and at the same time meet people whose brains work like my own. This is a really great article on how one’s gender might influence how one lives Asperger.

Musings of an Aspie

I’ve been planning to write about gender and autism for a while now. Months ago, I wrote a personal reflection piece. It got two emphatic thumbs down in beta, so I let it languish in my drafts folder. Then, after some feedback from commenters here, I decided I would write a more informative companion post as context for the personal reflections, but that never happened. Then I cannibalized the personal reflections piece for something I was invited to submit to an anthology, which took me weeks to write because apparently everything takes me weeks to write lately.

Which left me still wanting to write about gender and autism here. As a first attempt, I’ve surveyed some of the ideas that people have put forth about gender and autism over the years, starting with Asperger himself.

Note: I’ve linked to a bunch of articles in this post, many of which I…

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Autism / Aspergers, Reblogged

Adapting Peggy McIntosh’s paper on “Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack of privilege” to accommodate and reveal how Neuro-Typicality constructs its own unspoken system of privilege in our society.

Link 2013-12-05 humanitysdarkerside Leave a comment

Seventh Voice

“As a “neuro-typical person”, I realized I had been taught about discrimination as something which puts others at a disadvantage, yet at the same time, I had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, which are that “neuro-typical privilege” puts me at an advantage.

I think “neuro-typical people” are carefully taught not to recognize their privilege, in much the same way that males are taught not to recognize male privilege.

So I have begun in an untutored way to ask what it is like to have “neuro-typical Privilege.”

I have come to view “neuro-typical privilege” as an invisible package of unearned assets which I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was ‘meant’ to remain oblivious.

“Neuro-typical privilege” is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, code books, visas, clothes, tools…

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Autism / Aspergers, Reblogged

23 Things you can take for granted if you happen to be Neuro -Typical with Neuro-Typical children

Link 2013-12-05 humanitysdarkerside Leave a comment

While colour and great physical handicaps are the most visible indicators of minority groups, most minority groups are going to have to think about these 23 points that majority groups get to take for granted. We might preach equality to all but some people are more equal than others.

Reblogged

How Academia Resembles a Drug Gang

Link 2013-11-29 humanitysdarkerside Leave a comment

All those years sacrificed to get a degree, and you still end up borrowing money or working several jobs to get to teach at University level. The countries who are the worst in this article really should pull their act together.

Autism / Aspergers, Reblogged

This is autism

Link 2013-11-29 humanitysdarkerside Leave a comment

...autisticook

Last Monday, Autism Speaks told the world that autism is:
. . . living in despair
. . . fear of the future
. . . exhausted, broken parents
. . . lost, helpless, burdensome children
That kind of autism is not my autism. My contribution to the This is Autism Flash Blog.

I enjoy the sounds of the city around me, the strains of birdsong that I can hear even through traffic, the purring of my cat that almost but not quite manages to drown out all other sounds, the clicking of my keyboard while I’m typing. I hear the trains going past in the distance and I love getting sucked into that rhythm. When I listen to music, I become the notes, the melody, I can pick out the individual instruments and still hear how they work together to create a single sound. I sing along with…

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Autism / Aspergers, Reblogged

“I am Definitely a Mad Man with Too Many Box Sets”

Link 2013-11-28 humanitysdarkerside Leave a comment

Shrugs, Not Hugs

One common characteristic of Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) is that it gives you a type of brain that loves to obsess over particular things. Lots of people are fans of things and many are obsessed with Star Trek, handbags, cars or particular celebrities. However, with AS sometimes an obsession can be quite unorthodox, or even dangerous.

A teenager with AS who is intensely interested in hair will often find a fulfilling and happy life as a barber or hairdresser. But what if their obsession is with fire to the point of becoming pyromania? Or an intense love of their Xbox (other video game consoles are available) means that they spend more time on Halo than they do with real people? This is where an obsession is defined, it completely occupies the mind. As for myself, I have several areas of interest into which I can very easily get obsessed. At the…

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Autism / Aspergers, Reblogged

Autism/Asperger’s Awareness in Women – A Teenagers Perspective – Written by Marnie

Link 2013-11-26 humanitysdarkerside 1 Comment

Seventh Voice

“I wrote this for an all-girls group I am part of and thought that maybe I should share it and see what others have to say. Be nice ok. It took a lot for me to be able to talk about this.”

“Autism and Asperger’s displays itself very differently in woman than it does in men.

Most Autistic traits in males are very obvious, they don’t hide them and it’s very clear.

With women, we actually subconsciously try to hide it, it’s in the female nature to fit in; you may find you mimic your female friends in different ways.

For example, you might copy certain phrases they use, figures of speech, accents, physical stances and behavioural habits.

I, for one, used to copy my friends self-harming and it wasn’t to get attention, it was because I assumed this was normal behaviour for other girls.

When I was in

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